The Ascension of the Imperium IC (All Tech, TG for interest)

by **Polish Prussian Commonwealth** » Sat May 01, 2021 11:05 am

Northampton - Bridge

"A response?" Henrietta looked at the communication. "Who...who the hell is this?"
"SCPC Dreadnaught IX..." Westmoreland muttered. "No clue. Think we can take them?"
"No clue. For all we know they could be leagues ahead of us."
"There should be no issue with a remote conference, somehow, aye?"
"Aye. That aside, are the scouting elements in place?"
"A company from the CavBAT's deploying as we speak. We should have some contact with local governments before the day's out...And another thing, Henrietta."
"Yes?"
"Remember the contract we took on? Hunting Amenrians?"
"Don't fucking tell me they're here."
"They are. There's also a general anamaolous presence, from what I've heard and seen."
"What the hell are you waiting for, then? Find 'em and blast them."
"Understood."

The Dreadnought IX would find it's message swiftly replied to.

This is the Heavy Cruiser Northampton of Battlegroup Anna. Identify your polity, and please provide a Zoom link for communication.

A second message was sent to all belligerents on Earth.

This is the Heavy Cruiser Northampton of Battlegroup Anna. We are deploying a single company for humanitarian purposes to the city of Grozny, as well as diplomatic personnel to all nations that choose to recieve them. We are not here to fight, but firing on any transport or on the company will be treated as an act of war.

Grozny

Members of Troop A patrolling Grozny

The silent, bombed-out city briefly roared to life again as a small column of IFVs trudged into the city, with a few young cavalry troopers accompanying them on foot.

The years had not been kind to Grozny. The Chechen Wars had ruined it once, and after their end it had been rebuilt only to be shattered again by the Octavian invasion. A few of the younger troopers stopped to stare at some ruined building or monument, and wondered at who once lived within, and their whereabouts now. The few locals they saw fled at their approach or sullenly stared at the column as it rolled past.

--

Captain Vronsky, for his part, was not happy with his orders. There was fighting elsewhere to be done, where the whole Battlegroup could deploy easily and in force, making use of already-present infrastructure and force multipliers, but instead, his little company had been dumped in a relative backwater with no enemies to speak of...yet. Who knows what lurked within Grozny's rubble.

At least he had maps aplenty. Sewer maps, maps of the streets and major buildings, and blueprints for them, all saved on his laptop. But aside from that and the promise of speedy air support and extraction if he came into contact with the enemy, he had nothing. Unfortunate, but there was little he could do.
And so the column trundled onwards, eventually establishing camp deep within the city and beginning patrols.

Grozny, of course, was not Battlegroup Anna's sole initial deployment. Transports resembling V-22s began to land on Earth, disgorging diplomatic and liason personnel, who were chiefly intrested in knowing what the whole hullaboo over Earth was and why the hell giant bots were raining hell on it.

by **Gladian Imperium** » Sat May 01, 2021 4:09 pm

Vladivostok
The EXO units broke formation and surrounded the MBR, inspecting it for damage. The aerial units and the large armored units came in close, still watching for further Octavian presence. The transport had fallen back, but it was only a matter of time before they came back in force, and there was a second leg to their mission that needed completing. As their transport up in battle snapped up the MBR through Displacement, the EXO units turned, and as one, marched down towards the assimilated fishing village.

Earth Orbit
The smoldering remnants of the mechanators had been dragged from the MBR's cabin, likely hauled off for analysis, and even in the heat of battle a drone was picking its way around the vehicle. Its controls were convoluted, and the video dreadfully slow on explanation. So, electing for a more direct approach, the drone extended a single mechanical limb, fitted on the end with an Adaptive Physical Interface System, and inserted it into a data recipticle on the vehicle, downloading the video and fast forwarding it to a speed suitable for its mentality.

IWLTWIGH's sensors had picked up the strange ship, noted its apparent attempts to conceal itself, and scanned the sensor signature to its origin point and shot the data through a subspace comms link, letting it flow amongst the vast quantities of data forming the KMWP's intelligence system in this war.

Arkeyanan Warmind Ol' Reliable, Interstellar Space
Ol' Reliable was licking his wounds from the battle with the Visoran when he recieved a directive from command. An unknown power, definitely not esoteric, and an obvious FTL trail. The coordinates were well within jump range(most of the galaxy, in fact, was), and after a few moments of concluding repair to a few structural supports, the Mark VIII warmind jumped to the Svenskan home system.

In the Svenskan System, sensor operators may have noticed a sudden anomaly in the sun's corona. A giant, obviously artificial structure had appeared there without a single trace as to how it got there. It was shaped roughly like a massive blade, seventy kilometers in length, forty kilometers in width, and twenty kilometers in height. More alarmingly, judging from the minimal power signature it was putting off and lack of any obvious shielding, it appeared to have little to no difficulty in maintaining its close-proximity sunbathing.

Meanwhile, Ol' Reliable simply began constructing a Subspace Imposition of the system, and waited.

800th Armada, The Tempest
Shipmaster Kera was looming over a communication's terminal, working out its contents through neural interface. Two broadcasts had shot into the receptors of realspace listening arrays, wormed through Subspace into the Tempest for processing, and twin responses had been crafted. One to the Vanguard, the other to the Syntropists. One to warriors of a faded belief, One to knights of life itself.

Communique to Syntropist Polity
The Kair-Milky Way Pact, a fellow combatant in the war against the Octavians, is open to a diplomatic meeting to better coordinate and exchange information pertaining to and relevant to the conduct of the war.

We would prefer to conduct the meeting in person, as per regulation 360-3-3-a of the Laniakean Diplomatic Accord, but a close-proximity digital conference is an acceptable alternative.

Kair-Tal protects, 800th Armada Command.

Communique to the Stellar Vanguard
The Kair-Milky Way Pact, a fellow combatant in the war against the Octavians, is open to a diplomatic meeting to better coordinate and exchange information pertaining to and relevant to the conduct of the war.

We would prefer to conduct the meeting in person, as per regulation 360-3-3-a of the Laniakean Diplomatic Accord, but a close-proximity digital conference is an acceptable alternative.

Kair-Tal protects, 800th Armada Command.

Somwhere Else
Ineva stretched, unfurling her form across a great many lightyears. In the physical world, her posture was nowhere near as grandiose, a facade erected by her masters, but in the Dream, in the Great Beyond her ilk entered in sleep, she could bask in her true splendor. Her mind reached outwards, mingling with her friends and family as a cosmos of stars-long-dead danced overhead. Distantly, the Mother beckoned to her, the roots of the Ascendant Nest intertwining with her own outstretched tendrils as visions played through her mind, dreams-in-dreams that displayed the purpose ahead. Acknowledging, Ineva withdrew from the connection, bidding her siblings farewell as her form diminished, returning to the vessel that held her in the physical world...

Yawning, Ineva rolled out of her cot, fitting on a trademark jet-black dress that was typical among those of the Federation's diplomatic corps, being called by a knock on her door moments later. The Gladian behind, a journeyman in rank, handed her a tablet and beckoned her to follow.

None-the-wiser, the Gladian strode down the corridor with the disguised Revenant in tow, as she parsed through her diplomatic briefings-a potential meeting with a "Stellar Vanguard".

by **Svenska-Britannia** » Sun May 02, 2021 7:14 pm

Outer Planetary Orbit, Alternate Earth
In the Operations Room of the Bastion that is the Interstellar Naval Port of the United Confederation, a few Sensor Operators were doing their task of scanning for any vessels patrolling around the Solar System.

"Regular stuff ain't it?" A voice spoke out from amongst the noise of Machinery and Electronics.

"It sure is.." Another spoke out.

"Man, to think that a ship was just sent to investigate that Energy Spike shows how cautious the Higher-Up's are.."

"Better that they know if it's a threat or not.."

"I guess so-"

Then suddenly, an Electronic Beep alerted the two from their conversation. The Tachyon Sensors have detected a Massive Object in an orbit around the Sun.

"Oh fuck..MASSIVE UNKNOWN CONTACT!" One of the Operators yelled out.

Shortly after, multiple Officers ran from their meeting tables and headed to the Sensor Operator's Post.

"Give us a bearing!"

"It's location is in orbit around our Sun!"

"How large?"

"Sensors indicate its a Massive Object Tens of Kilometers in both Length and Width!"

"Jesus Christ what the hell is that thing!?" A officer stated.

The Grand Admiral of the Interstellar Navy, who were alongside the officers then started barking out his orders.

"Action Stations!"

Alarms Bellowed throughout the entirety of the Bastion.

"Set Condition One throughout the Entire Fleet, Activate the Planetary Shield Generators!, Contact the Confederate Artillery Corp back on Earth to aim the 'Longbows' against that thing! Do not let it fire until i say so!" His orders were then acknowledged.
.

.

.

.

.

Within a matter of Hours, a Fleet Composition of Battlestars were immediately sent out as a 'Quick-Reaction Force' whilst the rest of the Fleet started mustering itself.

The Quick-Reaction Force being sent to investigate the Large Unidentified Object.

Meanwhile, on the Planet itself. Hundreds of the 'Longbow Super-Artillery Units' powered up their weapon systems and loaded up their Zero-Point Energy Warheads incase the Object is bent on hostile action against the Imperial Interstellar Fleet and the Planet itself.

And along with it, the Planetary Shield Generators were activated and was set to its Maximum Output which covered the entirety of the Earth.

The Longbow's being Activated and Ready for Firing Sequence incase the Unidentified Object is hostile.

The Planetary Shield Generators being activated and covers the entirety of the Planet.

by **Neo-Unified Nations** » Mon May 03, 2021 4:15 am

Operation Firestarter

Neo-United Nations Navy Ship Nagato

"All hands, to your battle stations, I repeat, all hands, to your battle stations." Blared the voice of Captain Mark Sheppard as the ITF Agents that made up its crew went to work, with the advanced radar systems coming online, and the cannons of the ship being readied, the Nagato was currently in the middle of a brief inter-dimensional jump together with NUNNS Gambier Bay, before going on an inter-universal jump after going to what can only be described as a "pit stop" travel.

Inside the ship were several ITF Squadrons, each one armed with heavy weaponry ranging from 5.56mm LSATs to 7.62 M64 rifles, and several operatives in said squadrons were currently passing the time by fooling around.

"So, anyone heard of the weirdo on the lower deck who just sits there, talking about planes, rambling about some weird shit and uploading kill agents into the goddamn forums?" One of them asked, with another shrugging, "Dunno, never heard of 'im." The other person answered him, "Well then, his name's Max, Maxmillian Synne to be specific, weirdo whose hair's whiter than white and looks like a stick, oh and he's got long socks for some reason, I never knew why." He said, scratching his helmet as he said that, "Well, at least we don't have to deal with sick fuckos, I guess."

"True to that, Albert." another operator responded, "Hey, Kaden, you got any interesting stories?" Albert asked him, to which Kaden answered, "Yep, I've been assigned to a peculiar universe once, where there's this weird superpower, it's essentially an ancap island nation on an ex-brit colony, it was abandoned for a while before some corporates fled there, it was a short assignment but I found it boring, so I was happy when they re-assigned me back to home."

Albert was surprised, an Ancap nation being a superpower? Who would've thought, huh, "Interesting story, you do anything major during your assignment there?" Albert asked, "Ah, well, not much, bought myself some peculiar food and drinks as keepsakes, though I did find something about a 'private jet collection' that people apparently have over there, pretty interesting, aye?" Kaden said, chugging a bottle of water down, and tossing it on the side after he finished it.

"So, anyway, what're we doing here?" Albert asked, Kaden replied "Well, we're gonna take a short stop into Nonexistence, then hop into the place where 6221 disappeared." Albert was surprised, "Are we sure that we're actually gonna go where they disappeared into? I mean, we could be entering the wrong place, for all we know!" he said, flailing his arms into the air, "I doubt that Gee-Bee would do that, she's a trustworthy ship and person." Kaden said, "And besides, we'll just fight anything that comes against us off! We're Humanity, remember, we fight the good fight for a greater cause."

"Oh fuck off with that shit, Kaden, we're hypocrites, Alpha-4 exists." Albert said, waving him off, "Fine then, I guess." Kaden said, before switching to another topic, "So, anyone want a smoke?" Kaden asked.

"I'll have one." Albert said, "Me too." another operative said, "Hey, I want one too." said yet another operative.

Kaden sighed, the ITF was fun at times, but it's also this.

"So, quick stop in Nonexistence to grab some ammo and spare vehicles, Dah?" One of the Agents on the bridge asked, "Yes, yes, I repeated that like Seven Times, Pax." Captain Sheppard said, putting his face in the palm of his hand in annoyance, "Why do we call you Pax anyway?" Sheppard asked, annoyed, "Uhhh..." Pax said, "I'll go now." he finished, walking away.

Sheppard could only rub his eyes in extreme annoyance, Pax was an annoying-as-shit crewman, and he just hoped that one day, he could choke him to death.

"No, Shep, not the time." He told himself, merely taking short breaths in an effort to alleviate his anger.

"This is One-Oh-Eight, Nagato, what's your status?" Sheppard heard the communications blare out, and responded immediately, "This is Nagato, One-Oh-Eight, we're ready to jump."

"Roger that, Nagato, setting course."

Sheppard then issued an order to the crew via PA, "All hands, all hands, prepare for jump." he said, "We're gonna find our boys."

Sheppard could only wait for the order, any minute now.

"Starting jump."

The order was issued.

"CVN-108 on the route."

"BBN-66 on the way."

The two ships had started their inter-dimensional jump, the process would be best said as a "Tank entering a Tunnel Network", seeing as the ships had entered what can only be said is a "wormhole".

They soon disappeared after they entered the "wormhole", if one were to watch, they did not enter another place in their native universe, no, they headed to a Dimension under their control, Nonexistence.

It was fun having pit-stops, dah?

CVN-108, Nonexistence

As the ship finished 'teleporting' into its beloved dimension, things began to change. For one, the sailors and ITF agents on board the ship would suddenly feel an 'emptiness' in them, which would be considered as an expected side effect of getting sent to Nonexistence. Some soldiers would jokingly say that they entered Detroit, not Nonexistence. This joke was instantly picked up upon by the American soldiers, who just laughed.

The ship, which contrary to belief, was sentient, simply stopped, it wasn't sudden, but at the same time, it was unexpected, almost like a birthday party. The ship had parked in their home dimension to get some fuel and ammunition they left behind, as well as recruiting some wandering souls left in the plane of Nonexistence. Poor bastards won't get to feel the light of day ever again, noted one Canadian soldier who simply watched as NUN soldiers talked to the wandering souls.

"You think that it's kind of hypocritical for us to be recruiting these people who we killed, like, twice?" The Canadian noted, while an Italian soldier near him nodded. "Yeah, it's going against our original ideas. But hey, you do remember that we are part of the... 'conspiracy' to keep these fuckers alive, yeah?" the Italian soldier glared daggers at him. "I know it's not our duty to keep them alive, but we kind of have to. Remember what the ITF told us?" the Canadian sighed, yeah, the conspiracy. It was to keep at least a fragment of the Supernatural alive and kicking to prevent Humanity from... losing something I guess.

As the soldiers continued their logistical efforts, two ITF agents were conversing with a wandering soul.

"Why the hell would I join you guys? You're the ones who killed me. Twice!" The 'man' replied, clearly disinterested in joining with the organization that brought the world down to hell.

"You have two choices, camarade." a French ITF agent said, "Either you join us or you remain here." The man brought up his hand and started holding up his fingers. "For the former, you have several benefits; one, you get to redeem yourself as a damned Supernatural, two, you get to finally experience the feeling of being 'alive', three, you become protected under the United Nations Special Operations Group Alpha-4, and four, you get to hold a gun."

The Frenchie then put several of his fingers down, and then started holding them up one by one again. "For the latter, several things happen; one, you stay here, forever, with no escape, two, you're stuck with only other wandering souls as your companions, they don't know what the hell happened to your former associates, but we probably do, three, as you know, our ship here-" The Frenchie motioned his thumb towards the supercarrier behind him. "-Controls this 'dimension', so if you try anything funny, you end up getting fucked over and over again." The Frenchie finished.

The wandering soul sighed, and simply complied. "Fine. Just give me a firearm." he simply stated, as much as he wanted to kill these people, they would outnumber him very badly, so instead he just had to follow what they said and hope that the UN would at least find him useful. That, or stay alive. He's spoke with fellow wandering souls about their temporary service in the UN, and they often stated that they were abandoned.

Oh well, couldn't be that bad.

As the two ships finished gathering their weapons and equipment, they prepared to finish their pit stop by jumping into the target universe. Hopefully to finally finish the damn job, and get their boys out of there.

"Start the jump." Captain Sheppard told the crew on the ship.

"Aye aye." They replied, about to take the risk.

It was time, if they managed to find the missing men and the ship, then maybe they'd start the rescue operation. Hopefully, their Extrauniversal Division was also safe. The MBR didn't matter, just the men.

The ships started the jump, tearing a hole through Nonexistence and exiting out of there.

Who knows what kind of horrors or combat awaits the NUNNS Nagato and Gambier Bay?

The Two Ships, Extrauniversal Space

As the Nagato and Gambier Bay blinked into existence in another dimension, their crew went to their stations and readied themselves for another dive into hell itself. Men grabbed their rifles, support staff put on helmets, and Propaganda Officers grabbed their flags, ready to keep inspiring their troops to fight another day.

After some exchange, Gambier Bay would be heading to find the missing patrol vessel, meanwhile Nagato would be looking for the ground forces. As they finished, Gambier Bay began moving the other way, presumably to track PV-6221's location, Nagato meanwhile activated its own Boundary Reactor, probably to blink in and out of existence to find the troops. They really needed to know where the hell they were.

"You got any ideas on where they are, bud?" A navigation crewman asked, his nametag displaying 'A. Wilson' in black and a white background. "Nope, Wilson, no idea at all." Another nagivation crewman replied, his nametag displaying 'T. Scott' in the same black lettering and white background scheme as all other UN nametags.

So, they blinked in and out of Existence, into Nonexistence, and back into this version of Existence just to find the fucking location where their boys went missing. After about 80 minutes of finicking around, they found... something. It was certainly interesting to see for the crew...

"Holy hell... is that earth?" One of the crewmen said, dumbfounded. "Remember, this is another plane of Existence. Not ours." Captain Sheppard quickly shot down any questions regarding 'wrong timelines' or them coming back years into the future due to time dilation. "Besides, I don't think earth looks that... clean. Ours is covered in smoke and fog from all the pollution." the captain said, much to the bemusement of some crewmen. "Don't even talk about China..."

They simply stared at earth for a while. Dumbfounded and not knowing what to do.

"Well, let's monitor radio traffic. Might be worth something."

So the Battleship began tapping the radio signals across this version of Earth, not knowing what to do. They did find some broadcasts of note, however, they didn't find anything else useful...

At least for a grand total of five minutes.

"...This is the UN-" the signal they tuned in broadcasted, before cutting off because one of the crew moved signals. "YOU IDIOT, GO BACK!" another crewman belittled him, and he turned the signal back earlier. What they got was both shocking and assuring.

"This is the UN's 1st Extrauniversal Division, we're... uh... we're stuck in Pyongyang, if anyone can read this message, please respond." The signal stated. They found their boys!

"This is the NUNNS Nagato! We read you loud and clear, Extraunis!" The Nagato transmitted to the poor sods. They were stuck in hell, and they needed to be fetched from there.

"Oh thank Christ, actual reinforcements!" The ED receiving the signal said. "Get us out of here! We're under attack by every single fucking side, and frankly, I'd like to ask you guys to blow up this damn city! It's unsalvageable! Get us out and fire the NBC!" The guy on the radio finished.

Nagato was satisfied. They finally found their men, and they needed to get them out of there. As well as blowing up the city.

Well, what can go wrong with such a simple task?

by **New Decius** » Tue May 11, 2021 1:14 am

SMS Goethe, IV. Aufklärungsgeschwader, XVI. Flotte
Talinin Star Zone, Grand Duchy of Alheim, Galactic Empire of Vers, Perseus Arm
Galactic South, Milky Way Galaxy, I.C. 1,209

“Anything yet Oberfähnrich Eberhardt?” Leutnant Georg Hannut stood perched over the the two young officers, a hand gripped tight to the back of each chair and eyes glued to the DRADIS display.

“Nothing yet Leutnant.” Oberfähnrich (Senior Midshipman) Heidi Eberhardt replied, fine-tuning the settings on the DRADIS array as they exited the asteroid belt.

“What about that contact an hour ago? Has it resurfaced?” Hannut leaned forward, subconsciously believing, despite knowing the opposite, that peering ever closer would change what was on the display.

“Whatever that contact was, its staying hidden inside the belt, Sir. We didn’t even get a lock on it long enough to determine if it was a ship or not.” Fähnrich (Midshipman) Anton Doorn shook his head, blinking his eyes rapidly to keep himself awake. Looking at the same display for hours on end could turn anyone’s eyes bloodshot. “For all we were able to find out it could’ve been an astrological living on one of the asteroids.”

’How a wisecrack like Doorn has lasted so long in Her Imperial Majesties service, is beyond my comprehension.’ Hannut straightened back up, taking a quick glance at the other two sensor suites on the command deck of the Goethe, a small twitch of annoyance briefly flashing on his face. One of the most frustrating aspects of being transferred from a Battleship to a Light Cruiser was losing the massive sensor suites and analysis department that the Kaiserliche Marine’s largest capital ships boasted. The Graudenz-Class HSAC (High Speed Astro Cruiser) was equipped with enough sensor capabilities for tactical usage, only so much as it would need to perform its intended function.

Turning back to the two, Hannut let out a sigh and let go of their chairs, realizing he was only making the DRADIS operators more nervous, not desirable when they needed to focus on even the slightest ping. Especially given the other components of the IV. Aufklärungsgeschwader...

Reminded once more of the leaders of their squadron Hannut looked out the bridge viewport to where a much larger vessel floated off the starboard bow. ’Why couldn’t they have assigned some of the newer Derfflinger’s to us instead of those antiquated Battle-Scouts. Leading the patrol squadron was a trio of Moltke-Class Battle-Scout’s (For they did not possess the capabilities to be proper Battlecruiser’s) in line ahead formation, the rest of the squadron arrayed around them as a screen. ’When going up against an unknown enemy I would’ve much preferred that we not have vessels from the Reserveflotte as our chief capital ships. The SMS Moltke, Goeben, and Schleifen had been laid down over seven hundred years ago as prototypes for the future of the Astroflotte’s Battlecruisers, they were in fact the very first attempt at designing a Battlecruiser for the Kaiserliche Marine. Extremely powerful vessels, armed each with fifteen 360mm Positron guns in five triple turrets, they lacked the armor and speed of the modern Battlecruisers of the Kaiserliche Marine which restricted them to ranged combat. Their three sisters, the Breitenfeld, Lutzow, and Seydlitz were with the II. Aufklärungsgeschwader on the opposite side of the Star Zone. Though carrying such powerful weaponry, their lack of anti-air defenses, and top speed of 21 SpKn would greatly hamper the squadron in combat.

“Widen your search, I know the asteroids are causing interference but see if you can tune-up the array. If you reacquire that contact from earlier let me know immediately.”

Both operators nodded their ascent without tearing their eyes from the screens. “Ja Herr Leutnant.”

’If the enemy is out here, we’ll encounter them soon. Or perhaps their not here at all and the real battle has already begun on the other side of the star zone.’

Oberleutnant Anna Stärkis walked over from where she bad been perched over the communications pit, Hannut sketching off a quick salute as she approached. Returning his salute, she settled in to stand next to him, gazing out the bridge deck’s viewport at the vast emptiness of space beyond. Even as their reconnaissance force of thirty-seven warships drifted through an asteroid belt, one still felt as if the universe was about to swallow you up in its enormity.

“Nothing on scopes then Leutnant?”

“No Oberleutant, DRADIS reports no contacts, hostile or otherwise unfriendly, in the vicinity.”

’This whole venture could be a wild goose chase because of some paranoid officer at a deep space observation station.’

It had been rather difficult for anyone to believe; extragalactic invaders? The senior rungs of the Admiralty had been reluctant to dispatch significant fleet assets to the frontier of the Kaiserreich on a vague report from one of the thousands of deep space observation stations Vers maintained. However, Her Imperial Majesty Herself, sanctioned the mission, ordered it in fact. Apparently the Admiralty had received a stern directive from the Palace to mobilize a strong force to the frontier to intercept this unknown invader. In order to both comply with Her Imperial Majesties directive and not potentially leave Vers open to attack by the Galactic Commune, the Kaiserliche Marine dispatched the XVI. Flotte, one of the larger components of the Reserveflotte, to the frontier. Talinin was the nearest Star Zone to the unknown invaders last reported position before the deep space station that spotted them went offline, likely destroyed or otherwise incapacitated. It was the Admiralty’s belief that even if there was an enemy out here, they weren’t risking anything Vers couldn’t afford to lose.

’Hell some of the bean counters in the Finance Ministry might leap for joy at not having to fund the upkeep of a host of outdated warships anymore. Those Moltke’s after all must cost a small fortune to maintain, at least the Augusta’s can use spare components from the Derfflinger’s.’

Anna pursed her lips in thought. “Nothing from the forward pickets either, and the Hellas hasn’t picked anything up on its long range DRADIS.” Both briefly looked to where the Battlecarrier sailed at the rear of the formation, flanked by a trio of Salzburg-Class Anti-Air Destroyer’s. As the most modern warship in the squadron and its sole provider for a CAP, the Braunschweig-Class Battlecarrier was easily more important than the aging Battle-Scouts. “Which means our enemy either has yet to arrive or is sitting just at the edge of the star zone.”

Anna chuckled. “Perhaps these strange intruders are observing us at this very moment.”

Georg gulped and tried not to let the image of an overly powerful enemy of unknown capabilities silently observing them overtake his mind.

“At any rate, it matters not, our task is only to carry out the initial engagement and then fallback on the Main Body. Once Vizeadmiral von Lücknow brings the Battleline forward we will annihilate this enemy.” Unlike Georg, Anna showed none of the classic signs of doubt, not even given the fact they were facing an entirely unknown enemy. “Even the Moltke’s should be able to wipe out the enemy from long range, I very much doubt we will have much to do in this battle.”

“Well at least we’ll get to see if these old Battle-Scouts are worth holding onto.” Georg tossed out to try and keep his mind off the coming battle. There was some significant debate as to whether there was any practical value maintaining the six Moltke’s in the Reserveflotte even as training ships, as more of the 2nd Generation Augusta-Class Battlecruisers were phased out of the Astroflotte. In truth the 1st Generation Battle-Scout’s were, at least in terms of the main battery, more powerful than the newer 3rd Generation Derfflinger-Class Battlecruisers though the new vessels carried better fire control and more powerful weapon reactors. “I did a brief rotation aboard Lutzow two years ago and I tell you it was like stepping into another time.”

Anna laughed, a genuine laugh not one of satire. “I can only imagine. The ships were built barely a hundred years after the end of the Great Taurian War, and if my history lessons were right, they built warships much more compactly back then.”

“You’ve no idea.” Georg shook his head. “We’ve more space in our decks here on the Goethe than they have on Lutzow, and she’s almost 7,000 tons heavier than us and 200 meters longer!”

“They also didn’t much care for luxuries in that post-War period, seeing as we thought the Alteran’s and Suzeron would jump us any day. The head and the cabins must’ve been awful.”

Georg nodded. “My cabin was little more than a closet and the head, I don’t even want to think about the head.” He peered towards where Moltke led the squadron. “But, it was quite impressive seeing her fire a broadside, all fifteen of those 360’s firing at once was rather an imposing sight. Tore the target to pieces.”

Before Anna could reply, Oberfähnrich Eberhardt’s voice cut through the calm of the bridge deck like a warm knife through butter.

“Contact!”

Both officers soon forgot their musings about their squadron leaders and we’re quickly at the DRADIS station.

“I have eleven contacts, situated just opposite us on the other side of the asteroid belt. Getting direct bearings now.”

Georg wanted to scream at someone to find out why the DRADIS hadn’t picked them up until now, but Anna was first with the questions. “Can we tell what class they are yet?”

Fähnrich Doorn checked the readout. “Nothing specific yet, but they don’t appear quite so large, estimates are between 14,000 and 20,000 astrotons. Having no basis on which to judge I wouldn’t want to make any assumptions yet.”

“What about energy readings?”

“On that end, the largest reading we’re getting is barely more powerful than a Light Cruiser by Kaiserliche Marine standards. We’re still getting more information, I imagine Hellas has a better picture than we do.”

At that moment, Kapitänleutnant (Lieutenant Commander) Ulrich Stahl came over, receiving a quick salute from all four officers before taking immediate command of the situation. “Leutnant Hannut you are to keep here and await the complete DRADIS report when it comes through, Oberleutnant Stärkis, you are to get over to communications and issue orders for the squadron to hold their fire until such a time ordered to by the flag.” Anna wasted no time getting over to the communications pit to send out those orders. Georg meanwhile perched himself once more over Heidi and Anton’s chairs like a vulture, awaiting the full DRADIS readout. Though such orders had most assuredly been issued by Konteradmiral Eliza Treggänis from the bridge of Moltke, given the state of the Battle-Scout’s communications systems it couldn’t hurt to reissue the orders from a more modern vessel.

Kapitänleutnant Stahl was at the helm directing the pilot to maintain their present course when the Kapitän arrived on the bridge deck. As per standard Kaiserliche Marine etiquette, the bridge crew remained at their posts rather than abandon their work to salute the Kapitän; the vanity of the Old Guard had gone with the end of the Great Taurian War, efficiency was more important now. Kapitän Felix Meurser wasted no time getting a run down from Stahl and got immediately on the intercom to issue the alert.

’This is the Kapitän speaking, All Hands Beat To Quarters! I repeat, All Hands Beat To Quarters!’

Heidi reached up to grab Georg’s hand quickly to attract his attention to her screen, Hellas had begun relaying her own DRADIS readouts to the rest of the fleet. “Herr Leutnant, I have additional contacts reported by Hellas, secondary confirmation coming shortly.”

“Whats the total count up to now Oberfähnrich?”

“So far we have nineteen contacts confirmed, all packed in a tight formation, still outside gunnery range.”

Anton shook his head in slight astonishment. “Still no readings exceeding Light Cruiser grade power levels, largest vessel yet seen reads at 22,000 astrotons.”

Kapitän Meurser stroked his chin as he sat in his chair and watched the bridge in action, were it not a combat scenario he would’ve been so proud of how efficiently his crew were carrying out their duties, but that could come later. Right now he had a battle to focus on, and as the enemy was a force of unknown composition and technological capabilities, it was a battle with which he instinctively lacked confidence despite his own wealth of experience. At the present moment only the Battle-Scout’s would have range on the enemy ships with their 360mm guns, though the SMS Reuss and Köln, the squadrons pair of Scharnhorst-Class Astro Assault Cruiser’s, could probably commence firing with their 330mm guns at this range, with a reduction in accuracy. Meurser’s own vessel’s main battery of 228mm guns was nowhere close to being in range of the enemy, which suited him just fine; gave him more time to gather information on the hostiles. It would be unwise to engage an enemy about which they knew nothing, even if those ships seemed far smaller and less powerful, they had after all not been picked up on DRADIS until almost the last minute.

“Kapitän! Orders from the Flag!”

“Well relay them damnit!”

The young Fähnrich, Ulrich Hessau, forwarded the dispatch to Meurser’s Captain’s Chair, brushing off the brief embarrassment of making a scene on the bridge. Meurser pulled them up on his display, ignoring the brief flash of annoyance that some moron on the Konteradmiral’s staff had sent the orders over the data-link unencrypted, and immediately his eyes widened in shock.

/From Staff of Konteradmiral Eliza Treggänis, SMS MOLTKE-All Vessel’s, IV. Aufklärungsgeschwader-If in Range, Commence Firing-If not in Range, Close to Combat/

From his Chair, Meurser could see the Moltke elevating to bring its guns firing arcs above the asteroid belt, with the Goeben and Schleifen no doubt doing the same out of his view. Other vessels of the squadron were repositioning themselves accordingly to close the range and get a firing solution on the enemy force; reluctantly Meurser signaled the pilot to do the same. Even though the Goethe was well out of range for its main battery 228’s and secondary 152’s, they could at least flood the torpedo tubes and fire them from this range. The latest generation of Mark XI-Torpedoes were designed to pierce Capital Ship Grade shields and hull armor, so Meurser had no doubt they would work on this foe. If the weapons worked on the Bayern-Class Dreadnought Battleships, the latest and most powerful Battleships in the Astroflotte, surely these enemy vessel’s, whose energy readings were barely more powerful than those of the Goethe, would be torn asunder.

’Still, surely we should gather more intelligence before engaging an enemy about whom we know nothing?’

If Meurser had further doubts, they were cut off by the trio of Battle-Scout’s unleashing a volley of positron fire on the enemy. Purple beams knifed away from forty-five 360mm naval guns towards their hapless victims on the other side of the asteroid belt....

OOC: Index

by **The Auraverse** » Thu May 13, 2021 4:46 pm

|⌂|Earth|⌂|
|≈10 kilometers above the Yellow Sea|

Complimentary Music

Neither the high-velocity winds nor the relative lack of oxygen seemed to bother Elias overmuch as he clambered back over to the plane’s fuselage from a wing-tip. His tie was torn free of a now almost unbuttoned shirt by a particularly violent gust, but he didn’t really mind at present; with a sidelong glance, he watched it dissolve mid-flight. Behind him, he trailed a length of tubing that ran right into the side of a very obviously modified turbine - with a decent chunk of external housing missing, the whole ensemble seemed to now be held together with elaborate welds, yet more haphazard tubing, and the occasional eerily-pulsing violet rune. This had been the last engine to which such “enhancements” had been applied; plunging the tube into a suitably-exposed port on the side of the airframe and securing it in place with a flash of lilac, he then proceeded to phase right back into what had up until very recently been the plane’s cargo hold.

He took a moment to verify the connection from within - alongside its five peers, the engine was now wired directly into the thing before him. The fuel truck had been quite thoroughly gutted, and the mess of piping and cables now connecting its repurposed carcass to the surrounding walls would creak ominously every once in a while. This was good. The creaking was a sign of activity. That being said, the ad-hoc handyman himself was now about as extensively splattered in petrochemicals and assorted greases as the rat’s nest of metal he had just slapped together. This would not do - he had an entrance to make. And so, leaving the still rather foreboding-looking contraption to its own devices, he retired back up the narrow stairs, and into the crew compartment just behind the cockpit. The bathroom he clambered into was rather cramped; as he shut and locked the door behind himself, he decided that it wasn’t quite suitable for his needs. And so he gave the nearest wall a heartfelt shove - with a flash of violet, it distended away from him by a good half-dozen meters. This was repeated with another, perpendicular wall, and soon he was left standing in an altogether more comfortably-sized space. He stomped down on the very suddenly out-of-place toilet, and it obliged him by flattening itself into a two-dimensional outline on the floor.

Right. Now, for the important bits. Pulling aside a section of bulkhead using a hinge that definitely hadn’t been there before, he revealed a rather luxuriously overstuffed wardrobe. Simultaneously, his current ensemble burst into lilac flame; he showed no real reaction as clothes and grime alike were vaporized off him with no apparent harm to the man beneath. Even as the last few scraps of ex-suit burned off, he was already leafing through a selection of shirts. He selected one in pale pastel-blue, adorned with a faint geometric motif; buttoning it up, he was aided by an arm of twisting purple light in picking out a suitable stark-white jacket to don over it, alongside a similarly-patterned navy-blue bow-tie. More and more spectral appendages sprung from his surroundings, drawing item after item from the non-euclidean pocket boutique he had called into being. A pair of moccasins in off-white leather, with a pattern conforming to the hide of some unthinkable alien beast; crystalline cufflinks bearing a carved design that seemed to exist in far more dimensions than merely three; a stovepipe hat hemmed with a membrane-band more delicate than any cloth, shimmering with each motion made. Pinned and pulled into position, the individual articles slid together into a wholly new, and rather fetching visual ensemble. As a final touch, Elias reached into his hat and drew forth his trademark cane; tapping its stylized head against one of the distended walls, he allowed the bathroom to snap back into the cramped, utilitarian space it had previously been.

With a customary spring in his step, he sauntered over to the cockpit - Renée kicked her feet down off the consoles, and waved lazily at his approach. She’d not been up to much during the time he’d spent elsewhere; there hadn’t been any attempts at hailing or interception as of yet, and the plane had been perfectly fine on autopilot for the time being. Now, she tilted her head quizzically.

“You’re looking awfully crisp. Want me to go change into something fancier as well?”

“If you’d like. But really, there isn’t much need; the previous outfit had just gotten a bit raggedy, is all.”

“What sort of mess have you made down there?”

“You’ll see in due time. Though I assure you, it’s nothing compared to the mess we’ll be making on arrival.”

“Then was the new suit really such a great idea?”

“Oh hush you. Let me at the controls.”

Nodding, she tapped the slender, vaguely rifle-like thing sprawled across her knees and into the adjacent seat. With a silken swish, what passed for its barrel retracted smoothly into the primary mass, allowing Elias to comfortably seat himself. At his touch, the consoles blossomed into a mass of lilac lines - his fingers dancing amidst the motes and scribbles, he bade the newly-refurbished airframe to follow his lead.

“I’m guessing you’ve messed around with the plane already beyond our cargo.”

“Yes. Would you like to see the results?”

“I’m only half-guessing here - you’re going to show me regardless of what it is I answer.”

“Correct!”

With some measure of glee, he quite literally punched a now somewhat ghostly button amidst the dials.

Around the exterior of the airframe, the ad-hoc additions made to various surfaces began to show some measure of activity. Tubing began to vibrate, exposed wires began to spark. Violet imprints, previously only maintaining a dim glow, now flared with barely-contained pseudo-energy, sending crackling bands of un-light cascading across various fuselage surfaces. Before long, the entire plane was practically enveloped in a swirling cocoon of purple. And back in the cockpit, Elias grinned from ear to ear.

“I suggest you strap yourself in.”

“You’re not strapped in.”

“My bones don’t fracture very easily.”

“Point taken.”

And it was only a few seconds later, accompanied by a very egg-timer-esque “ding”, that the plane seemed to slow. Its turbines spun no less quickly, and yet everything appeared to somehow grow subtly out of sync with the surrounding space, creeping to a near-halt amidst a cloud of shimmering air. Renée’s brow wrinkled slightly.

“Are we meant to be slow-”

Around half a second later, leaving an exhaust-trail of shimmering violet fire, the rather belaboured airframe snapped immediately forwards into a renewed beeline for Pyongyang, at something like Mach 7.

by **Starlight Citadel Privateer Corps** » Thu May 13, 2021 4:48 pm

Outward edge of Mars, Sol System
SC Centurion

A small fleet of stealth ships, having exited hyperspeed a few hours before, now lay in Mars's shadow, slowly aligning themselves and readying themselves for the coming operations.
Overall it looked much more of a "mess" than a fleet, even by Citadel standards- stealth carriers were of the Citadel's most prized naval assets- and some of its most modern vessels as part of the maritime component of the Advanced Weapons Deployment Group were out trawling the stars alongside some of the oldest stealth vessels the Citadel still ran- with the fighters and auxiliary vessels carried being multiple generations apart from one another. It bothered some, perhaps, if one had an obsessive-compulsive disorder in terms of aesthetic or logistics, but the top brass didn't seem to mind.

........

"We haven't done clandestine flights of Earth since 4 jumps ago. Hell, we didn't finish development of stealth fighters until 2 ago." Major Johnson Keane remarked, sliding a hand over his shaved, dark-skinned head. The Centurion was one of the largest of the group and one of the most advanced vessels the Citadel had on offer, one being capable of deploying stealth sub-craft, and Keane's responsibility was its air corps.
He was right; the Myqor'ia had done Citadel clandestine flights ever since they were recruited and right now they'd be in no position to perform a proper deployment.

The young man in the dark hair next to him offered his own development.
"We've done circumnavigation flights of the Citadel itself when I was still a part of Sea Sprite. At least three-quarters of us have run such sorties and everyone's done low-alt as part of training, I think we'll be alright and can pull this off. Just a few hitches like running pure inertial but we've prepped for that too."

Keane turned to him.
"I've got a lot of faith in you, Felix. We're hedging a lot and what you'll find out there plans our next move. Go get some chow before you head out there, God knows you'll need it."

A crisp salute from Felix "Joker" Lee ended the conversation there.

......

("Lost Kingdom", Keiki Kobayashi)

Four squadrons of stealth fighters- 1 from the Centurion, 1 from the Joshua, and 2 from the Carter-class flagship Subaru exited their EM drivers, slingshotting around Mars on approach to Earth.
Its spearhead, a 4-ship of CR\F-35A Firebolts, pinged the rest, its flight lead soft-spoken yet clear.

Merman 1 | Joker
<< We'll break off from fingertip at 768,000 klicks and loop around Luna. When we do that, disengage thrusters and switch entirely to inertial. We switch to full cloak upon stratosphere entrance and leveling out. >>

Merman 4 | Flint
<< We'll be flying without SWACS but it's no reason to panic; we don't plan on engaging anything anyways. >>

Nereid 2 | Bloodhound
<< How's it feel to be heading for... well, where we're all supposed to come from? First in our generation to- >>

Nereid 1 | Huntsman
<< Cut it, Nereid 2. Don't think anyone's in the mood to talk- all it is that we've waited long enough. >>

by **Pax Cybertronian** » Sun May 16, 2021 12:45 am

Post is made with some help from Imperial-Octavia.

Shockwave’s endeavours within the Librarian continued. Shockwave approximated that “11 hours, 58 minutes and 32 seconds” had passed since he first began his search. He found the books he found interesting; the Memoirs of the Librarian and The One Who Watches All’s Bible were particularly elucidating. He had also decided to retrieve the data and send it back to a mainframe back on Cybertron. He also found it prudent to on other gods and mythologies and see how, if at all, they tied to the Librarian. All of this was within the eleven or so hours of his search.

He then finally managed to move to the technologies section. He began sifting through its contents and stumbled upon a book about something called the “Tactical Codex” and he began downloading its contents. The Codex was some sort of advanced supercomputer used by the Octavians to control their armies. Judging by the disparity between the device and usual Octavian technology, it didn’t seem to be of either Octavian or Proto-Octavian origin. It appeared like they acquired some ancient device and began using it for themselves.

This device could prove to be an interesting study… Shockwave thought.

His train of thought was interrupted very suddenly by the Librarian.

“Greetings, Shockwave. I’ve seen you’ve been interested by my selection so far. Would you be interested in some brandy?”

“Very well,” Shockwave responded. Shockwave had his fuel intake moderation chip activated so he wouldn’t be able to feel the effects of alcohol intake. He only really drank as a social gesture at most. He considered the consumption of alcohol to be illogical since it usually got in the way of research (unless one were studying the effects of alcohol on individuals or something akin to that); however, he also felt that it would be more illogical to refuse a “god”’s gesture, especially one that could prove to be useful for his research. The Librarian gave him some brandy, which Shockwave consumed.

“I see you’ve enjoyed the brandy,” the Librarian said. “Now, I have some questions of my own…”

The Decepticon and the much larger divine being continued their discussion…

Bombrunner walked to his office and began to tap into a console. Sifting through a holographic interface, he began reading on the updates on the known Decepticon forces within the galaxy.

Suddenly, several Decepticon spacecraft – about five in number – left transwarp. Below them was a lush, green planet: Earth. It was currently ravaged by conflict between many factions, but the majority of them trended towards one of two factions: the pro-Octavian Covenant of Aligned States or the congregation of anti-Octavian nations. He was aware that the Autobots were coming up with Primus knows how many names for a potential alliance between the enemies of Octavia. Anywhere from the Congregation of Free States to the Anti-Octavian Defence Initiative to the Conference of Allied Nations. All five of the spaceships activated their groundbridges and linked them to Earth; from there, numerous Decepticons entered the portal and arrived in groups at random points on the planet. They were aware that there were Autobots on the planet. Some Decepticons decided to try to locate any organics or Autobots and kill them if possible; some decided to just roam the planet and see if there was anything interesting; others decided to actually try and help the Octavians.

Bombrunner then began to pick out known notable personnel. Necrom, one of the Decepticons tutored by the Guild after the (mostly) successful expedition to the Cymopolia galaxy, had begun to resurrect some of the dead on the planet Earth and performing experiments where necessary. The DNA samples acquired had long been sent back to High Command by this point and were relayed to the appropriate sources. Bombrunner recalled a short meeting he had with Shockwave where the latter said that the information on Stands was “presently elucidating”, although he admitted that he was unsure how much interest the cyclops would actually take in Stands.

It had also become obvious to him that the Autobots were quickly responding to the advanced Decepticon presence on Earth. Scouts revealed to him that some Autobots, probably some Wreckers, had met with Rodimus, Kup, Blurr and the Joestar family. One of the scouts specifically relayed some sort of remote-like device, although he couldn’t verify exactly what it did. The Decepticons had also detected the construction of Autobot installations on the planet; their response, as usual, was to destroy the Autobots and their bases without mercy. Undoubtedly, Bombrunner assumed this would escalate over time, as usual; the Ascension War didn’t seem to have an end in sight. No matter. He’d just match the Autobots and measure his response accordingly.

It was some time after Hot Rod and his group had to leave the Joestar family. They had become aware of a rapidly increasing Decepticon presence throughout the entire planet; therefore, they had been ordered to either capture or execute any and all Decepticons nearby. Thankfully, however, the Autobots had begun descending from the sky and started to fight the Decepticons across the planet, providing Hot Rod with some relief. Hell, he even managed to meet up with Wheeljack and Lifeline, even if it’d only be for a short time. He conducted a scan of his surroundings and found a group of individuals. He linked up with an Autobot drone and found out who they were: the Joestars. This time they brought some friends with them, it seemed.

“They’re not far. This way!” He pointed northwards and transformed into his alt-mode. The other four Autobots transformed and followed after him. Unbeknownst to them, a greenish Seeker and his reddish companion trailed behind them.

In the distance, the Joestars and their companions could see three cars, a truck and a motorbike rolling up to them; at least three of them were familiar enough, but they could at least presume the other two were allies. To the left of the Joestars was an old base, dark reddish in colour. It seemed like it was some sort of ship, maybe? Regardless of what it once was, much of it had been buried into the ground by now, but its entrance was still exposed. A once-automatic metallic door had been left somewhat ajar, probably either due to damage, age, a lack of maintenance, or all three. That said, for the moment, the meeting of the Autobots took precedence.

“Oi, Josuke! Is it just me or are you seeing what I’m seeing?” The Joestars and their allies turned to see the return of their Autobot allies.

“Hmph. And what took you so long?” Lisa Lisa complained. “We’ve been fighting the Octavians for weeks, and the two strongest warriors we’ve got have disappeared for half of it.”

“Sorry about that,” Hot Rod said, “the Decepticons are all over the planet. Thankfully, there’s more Autobots on Earth now so there’s a bit less pressure.”

“Do you know how many times my dear Kokichi-“ Yukako was cut off by the upcoming events.

Just as the Autobots began to arrive, however, the Joestars would see the two Decepticons rolling up behind them. The Autobots seemed to detect them as well as they would and opened fire on the Decepticons. One of the Decepticons – a Seeker – grabbed Lifeline by the neck and threw her at the base, causing the ground to shudder.

The very moment the Seeker threw Lifeline, Kakyoin jumped ahead and revealed his stand to the Decepticons. “HIEROPHANT GREEN: EMERALD SPLASH!”. Hundreds of green diamonds flew towards the greenish Seeker, injuring him. His companion dropped to the ground and began to open fire on the Joestars, the Autobots, and their allies.

Inside the base itself, a rock that had formed during the ship’s slumber had been dislodged and eventually fell. Beneath it was a human-sized stasis pod, a bluish white in colour, and in no time at all, the rock hit a reddish button on the device. A sort of maintenance liquid appeared to automatically begin to recede within the pod, revealing a tall figure within the pod. Once the liquid had subsided enough, the figure pulled himself out and, as he stepped forward, stumbled slightly thanks to the shaking base.

“What the hell is going on?” he said. He turned to a nearby mirror – the figure was the Cobra Commander, a figure from centuries past that once ruled Cobra! “An earthquake? No. it’s too inconsistent. It seems to be in a rhythm with – what? – artillery?” He chuckled to himself. “A tad inconvenient but this… if I’m guessing right… could prove useful to Cobra’s great comeback!”

He began to walk around the room, re-familiarising himself with its components. He wasn’t absolutely sure but, if all went well, the base wasn’t in immediate threat of collapsing (to his knowledge, the only real threat to him was the occasional rock falling from the ceiling. He’d evidently have to have it cleaned it out soonish, although it was for the moment functional enough). Alien technologies – from the Cybertronians to the Blackstars to the Predacons – adorned the room; they were, thankfully, built to last so he wouldn’t need to spend times fixing old technologies.

“Hm… would I be able to wake this ship up?” he said to himself. He considered trying to use a console to wake the ship up but decided it’d be better to just wait for a bit.

He walked up to the main computer to his left and began to access its contents. After passing its (overly complex, he grumbled) password system, he began to sift through each file individually. He managed to download a copy of the information and imprinted it onto a Cybertronian dataslug built for human use – thankfully, it wasn’t smaller in data size. He wasn’t sure if some idiot would end up blasting the base to smithereens, so he’d rather be safer than sorry and make sure he had the information on hand.

It had it all! Information on the Battle Android Troopers of old was the first information dump he found. It ranged from the Mark Is and Mark IIs that Cobra used during its war against G.I. Joe to the significantly more advanced Mark III system that he had implemented. It was his plan that, from Mark III onwards, each new “Mark” would be significantly more advanced than its predecessor. Hell, he even believed that this new variant would give the B.A.T.s some sentience imbued with absolute loyalty for Cobra, allowing them to conduct better tactics. Not only that, but they were significantly more durable, stronger, more agile, etc. than their predecessors. He attributed that success to the arrival of aliens on Earth: the Cybertronians and the Blackstars, both of whom he thought had some ties to greater powers themselves, were particularly helpful in this regard.

“I’d have paved the way for a technological renaissance!” he gloated to himself. “If only those damn Jojos hadn’t stopped me…!” He resisted the urge to bang the console and continued to sift through its contents.

He found more information on the Blackstars. He wasn’t absolutely sure about their origins – a secretive legion of space pilots; they were extremely competent at their jobs (he believed they were the best in the galaxy, in fact). His personal theories were somewhere between “the Quintessons engineered a race of space pilots” to “they’re agents of the Predator Empire”. Nevertheless, what he did know he kept to himself; better he had control of the information than the Jojoes. He hoped to begin cloning them soon enough.

He continued to sift around the computer’s contents. Synthoids (which he hoped would eventually supplant or otherwise enhance the human race). More experimental androids. Some superweapons. Some information on blacksmithing Cybertronians that he secretly harvested for himself. Cloning and fabrication facilities he acquired from the Cybertronians. The genetic catalogues of various races. Damn, Earth was a giant hotspot for alien activity back in the day; seemed like every alien in the galaxy wanted a piece of it for whatever reason. He was thankful that he brought all the information Cobra had with him after he left Cobra Island; with this, he could’ve begun actually rebuilding Cobra. He was pretty sure the technologies were out of date by now, although he wasn’t sure how much. On that note… he finally looked at the date.

Several centuries had passed since he entered the tank.

To say this astounded him was an understatement. Whole centuries had passed since his defeat. On one hand, he was elated – barring them suddenly discovering the secret to immortality, the Jojoes were finally dead! On the other hand, Cobra was a distant memory to these people; he’d soon remind them about Cobra, however. He’d need to find new men, though; all of his soldiers were long dead by that point. Although, he wasn’t even sure if Cobra existed on this Earth. Nonetheless, he’d remind them all about Cobra’s glory.

He was planning on getting back in touch with the Decepticons. He distinctly remembered Cobra having a partnership with them. While he was technically “in danger”, the base was itself wasn’t going to imminently collapse or, it appeared, be breached. Besides, he had a teleporter ready (which was hopefully still working) and the ship’s defences should still work (which was also hopefully still working). He scanned the area, looking for any nearby Decepticon ships. He presumed they advanced slowly technologically; they rarely actually needed to advance beyond their civil conflict, it seemed. He found one nearby, located in northern Italy. He wasn’t sure if it were to move soon, but that mattered not. He knew leaving Earth was a good idea; it was another Earth, it seemed, but this provided him with new opportunities.

He initiated contact with Necrom. If he saw the information on the screen, he’d see a hail from a Decepticon spacecraft with ties to Cobra.

Back at his base, Necrom had managed to renovate it somewhat. A few days ago, he had managed to send out scores of nanite drones. From that point onwards, they’d become robots in disguise of their own, blending in with the local animals and fauna; they may have needed to combine to achieve this, but they nonetheless managed to perform admirably enough. He had acquired the DNA, or “alternate samples” as he called them if need be, of many individuals throughout this Earth, and not all of them were human, thank Primus (this allowed him to gain a wider pool of DNA to choose from). He considered mass-resurrection at several points but ultimately decided to push it back to later on. Maybe if he needed an army to defend the ship… There were – what? – tens of billions of humans who had died throughout Earthen history? That was enough to provide a distraction while he escaped, at least.

He noticed a ship of Cybertronian origin hailing him. It appeared to have some ties to the organisation “Cobra”?

“What’s a “Cobra”? I’m presuming you’re not referring to the Earth animal. Is it…” he started to ponder the many connotations that the word “cobra” now brought in modern times. “…it’s that group that I had to work with, right? Thought they were long gone by now. This planet is damn strange.” He answered the hail. “This is Cobra Commander, correct? I thought you and your soldiers were long dead.”

“Most people believed the idea of Cobra to be long dead,” Cobra Commander responded. “But no longer! When Cobra Island was attacked and my organisation was brought down, I gathered my things and placed myself into stasis; therefore, the public presumed me to be dead. However, in reality, I outlasted G.I. Joe, and now Cobra will be back on the map!”

“Well…” Necrom said, somewhat sceptical. “It’s not the strangest thing I’ve heard recently. What do you plan now?”

Cobra Commander scoffed. “To rebuild Cobra, of course! It’ll take me some time, though. I’ll need to find out what’s actually going on first.”

“Alright, fine; I’ll fill you in.” Necrom pulled out some files to remind himself. “There’s this alien race called the Octavians that’s seeking the assimilation of organics races. This brought about a massive war that’s spread across the galaxy. On this planet alone, there are many factions of varying power and technological advancement. Most of them are keeping to the stars for the moment. That said… on Earth itself, there are these things called “Stands”. I raided the Speedwagon Foundation and got information on them alongside other races. I’ll send you files on them now.”

Necrom considered contacting Bombrunner or whoever else first but decided against it. He didn’t really want to escalate things and have to move the ship to somewhere like the Antarctic if the going got tough. He was fine fighting, but he didn’t want to place his progress in danger. The files were sent, and Cobra Commander read them over.

“Manifestations of one’s soul and fighting energy, eh? Interesting…” he said. “Judging by your name, you’ve got an interest in death, yes?”

“I’m a necromancer and a scientist.”

“Interesting… I have a request, then,” Cobra Commander responded. “I’d like the DNA of the clones. I’m an ally of the Decepticons so I have no intention of going against him.” For the moment at least, he thought to himself. I’m fine considering all options.

“Fine. But I myself want to find out more information on this Cobra.” Cobra Commander shrugged and sent Necrom files on Cobra in response to Necrom sending him files containing most of the DNA he gathered.

“Should I meet you or vice versa?” Necrom said.

“No, I’m fine. If I need anything, I will hail you.”

With that, Cobra Commander signed off and went to work. After jogging his memory by reading some manuals, he reactivated the cloning machines and found some construction drones. Taking out a copy of one of the DNA that Necrom harvested – this was only a test, so he didn’t plan on doing anything beyond a quick verification that the DNA was actually functional (and it was) – he moved over to one of the cloning facilities. Thankfully, he had experience with working these machines. He knew he was able to alter the subject’s personality – he specifically recalled one of the Decepticons that worked it comparing it to “shadowplay”, whatever that meant. Thus, he planned on altering to make them fully loyal to Cobra and, more importantly, himself to prevent someone trying to usurp him with clones later down the road.

He just needed to clarify that it actually worked.

He ordered the drones to begin constructing B.A.T.s, gathering resources for him, and preparing new Cobra uniforms. He slotted the DNA chip into the machine and watched it work. Lightning erupted and the template began to fill in, adjusting its size as needed; a maintenance liquid filled the machine during this process. Eventually, the cloning machine settled down and the liquid began to recede. The door to the machine opened and a clone of Yoshikage Kira stepped out of the machine.

Kira blinked as his newly formed body took its first steps out of the chamber. He wobbled a bit at first but, gradually, he gained stability as he moved forward. As the programming did its work, his confusion was replaced by obsequiousness, and so he knelt down before Cobra Commander. He, Yoshikage Kira, was now to become the eternally obedient servant of Cobra and its leader, Cobra Commander.

Two B.A.T.s walked up to Kira and began to dress him in the appropriate Cobra attire. “I live to serve you, my lord.” He put the helmet on and closed the visor down, covering his mouth.

It was a success. All that was necessary now were field demonstrations. Cobra would expand across the planet and, soon, it’d expand throughout the cosmos!

But more importantly: he’d need to start currying support for Cobra. He ordered the clone to wait while he set up a camera. Some B.A.T.s entered the room, evidently having been constructed by the drones – older models, sure, but they will suffice for the moment. He entered a darker room and turned on the lights before walking over to a throne.

Once the camera turned on, anyone that watched – if they did find it through a recording – would find a tall (somewhere around 1.8m and 1.85m bluish figure sitting on a bluish Cobra-throne. He wore a dark bluish metallic suit in addition to something akin to a black undershirt with matching gloves, holster (plus a golden buckle), belt, and shoes. He wore a longsword in his left pocket and a laser pistol in his right. He adorned a grey cloak that swooped around him that was kept nicely by a reddish Cobra badge. His most notable look was a dark blue helmet with a silver reflective faceplate and a silver streak on the helmet. He usually wore his ceremonial hood for these occasions, but he felt this was more appropriate; that and this look was more well-known to the masses, at least on his Earth.

Code: Select all: “Greetings. I use the name Cobra Commander, and I am the leader of Cobra. You may not have heard of me or my organisation before. I have spent my time as leader for Cobra fighting for power and for technological advancement. Unlike some, I do not believe desiring power is an inherent evil. Quite the contrary, in fact. As you can see around you, this world has been ravaged by conflict. Many of you have lost the ability to control your own destiny. No matter what your allegiance may be, I bet many of you now have to fight for food, warmth, and shelter. Well, I have the solution for you: join Cobra, and this and more will be realised.”

The message sent worldwide, he sat back. If this didn’t work, perhaps fear would? He considered the solutions to this problem. He got up and began barking orders at his subordinates. More B.A.T.s were to be constructed, coordinates were to be sent to gather new Cobra followers, more Stand clones were to be created, more resources were to be gathered. He had sent out a fleet of quickly-constructed drones to scout Earth for any allies or enemies. He had to be sure who was on this Earth and who he could use or would need to destroy... The plans Cobra Commander had in mind before Cobra’s collapse were just beginning to be enacted!

by **Imperial-Octavia** » Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Grozny

This deployment was a pain. Mechanator Ghrokz had begun to resent the constant human insurgents and their near constant harassment. Every day another baclava clad man had popped out from behind a ruined building and fired one of those stupid Kalashnikov rifles at someone in the occupation zone, their bullets bouncing off the shells of their targets before scurrying off into the rubble or meeting their end by laser to the head. Ghrokz was technically in charge of the deployment, but it certainly didn't feel like it and as his four fists stopped slamming into the dead body of the rebel he had recently caught the Seendi came to realize that perhaps he should've taken that Governor job in that cushy inner rim world 50 years back, but no! He just had to look for extra glory in his career for some dammed reason and now he laid in some shithole planet filled with a shit species topped off with a few shitty invasions all occurring not too far away from his current post. At least the situation couldn't become much worse. "Liege! We believe we have found a new contact!" yelled a Mechanator as he zoomed to the side of his 4 armed leader. Ghrokz's hands immediately went to his head as he gave it a strong squeeze producing the sound of metal crushing before he stopped, leaving 10 indentations on his head before turning to face his subordinate. "Let's go see if they're friend or foe eh?"

Captain Vronsky would find an angry Seendi walking towards his patrol as a squad of robots followed him armed with lasers and covered in dents and scratches from months of combat against the native population of Grozny. The multi-limbed leader of the group would yell across the broken city to catch the attention, his gruff synthesized voice echoing through Grozny, "YOU THERE! YES, YOU ORGANICS!" As the 6 foot machine clad in urban camouflage marched towards the group flanked by multiple mechanators with a few drones behind the procession. "Haven't you seen the message sent to your group yet?" Ghokz extended his palm producing a holographic copy of the message sent to the mercenary group known as Battlegroup Anna.

After giving Vronsky enough time to read through the short message, the head mechanator threw his hand back and glared at the mercenaries, "Did they not get the message to you? You all need to leave this city immediately or I swea-" Before Ghorkz could finish his statement a bullet collided into the Seendi's head-likely fired by one of the city's many insurgents-bouncing off of it with a clink only causing more annoyance in the already peeved leader. "-...please just vacate the planet and tell your commanders to do the same for any others you have here." Another dink against the head of Ghorkz lead bursts of laser fire in the direction of the shooter by the accompanying mechanators while their leader balled his four hands into fists hoping that these mercenaries would not add yet another complication in this occupation.

Talinin System

Why was the first response always to shoot? The scouting party sent to investigate whatever uncontacted star-states that laid in the Perseus arm of the galaxy and instead of allies or even diplomatic relations they had only received the quick answer of fire. The Tactical Codex was told all it needed to know watching this event as the unknown force in this system was checked off as a party that Octavia was at war with, an order that none would question as the list of belligerents against Octavia only grew by the day. Instead of retreating as most would normally do, the 19 ship force would instead engage the defenses of this unknown enemy to gage their capabilities. Preliminary scans had shown ships far larger than anything normally used by the Octavian fleet, but it had yet to be seen if these foes had the firepower to back up such size and as the first rounds of the drone ships flew towards the lines of the Vers Empire, the only thing that had to be seen was how they would respond.

Prongyang

The Cargo plane barreling towards the city was a bit of a problem. This was known by the Tactical Codex and every drone under its command and even with the Sky Reavers retreating, it would not do well to have an army damaged when it had goals to push straight into Korea later. SAM sites in the back of the lines quickly began to recalibrate their fire as their missiles prepared to strike down the unknown aircraft hurtling towards the "Imperial" city. As soon as a heat signature was confirmed missiles would begin to fly out of their pods towards the primitive craft as hundreds of missiles honed in upon the plane about to slam into the former North Korean capital (or at least what remained of it). Grinder tanks not actively involved in combat would look to the skyscrapers as they calculated the path of the plane and began to fire in it's next predicted position with their duel guns. Meanwhile, with most of the enemies having left the city the task force comprising of Cioccolata, Secco, Pet Shop, Ojiro, and Angelo had a transport sent back to retrieve them just in case more enemies had poured into the system as they had in orbit. Taking off from it's base in California, it would speed across the Pacific Ocean in the hopes it could get the important personnel before something had happened to the squad.

by **The Zravvisk** » Fri May 21, 2021 4:52 pm

Mining Planet 122

The fact that the enemy had decided to disengage and ftl out of the system came to no surprise to the Armada, few could stand against the full might of the Armada, especially with the unknown ship supporting them. The fact that the First chair of the Council of Ten was on their flagship as it jumped wasn’t one either, though slightly distressing. Her trademark hyperagressionness had once again caused problems, though considering the fact that she was the second best warrior in the entire Armada, they had no doubt she would be able to hold her own until they arrived to help.

Behind them the planetary shield finally reactivated, filling the Armada with relief. They could now chase down the enemy fleet without worrying so much about the Octavians sneaking behind them and trying to retake the liberated parts of the planet. Though the ground forces there would have to wait just a bit longer before being reclaimed.

The Armada reformed up in a tight formation, doing quick repairs and refilling stores as they waited on the Dragua and Lunastra to finish calculating the jump. Through their powerful sensors they could see where the enemy fleet was in the neighboring star system, and they had received some reinforcements. The chief had come up with a very risky and aggressive plan: they would drop out of FTL just kilometers in front of the enemy fleet and engage them in the naval equivalent of a knife fight. Only the precision of their precursor computers could get them that close to the enemy fleet without the risk of having both fleets ending up inside each other and annihilating both. As soon as the calculations were finished the fleet jumped as one, an act of discipline shocking anyone who knew anything about the zravvisk.

They came out of FTL exactly where they planned, no doubt shocking any stealth ships directly in front of the Octavian fleet before they were rammed to pieces accidentally by the incoming heavily armored ships. Destoriers and armed mining ships made emergency maneuvers to just barely avoid smashing into enemy battleships and dreadnoughts. Ships with primary spinal weapons fired them at any available targets, even if the target wasn’t usually worth a spinal cannon shot, then redirected their power to their secondaries and shields. In this close quarters battle, most ships weren’t agile enough to use their spinal weapons anyway. Point defense and fighters scrambled to fight off the incoming enemy fighters and prepare their own counter strikes in the chaos. Some of the ships with the more powerful sensors noticed the stealth ships at this close range, but with this target-rich environment could not afford to go after them. Information on where some of the ships were was attempted to be shared, but with the chaos not every ships could receive it.

The Hammerfall was quited enjoying itself as it had been designed for just this type of battle. They had rammed their way through a cruiser and were exchanging boardsides with two battleships. Despite being outnumbered, the chucks its graviton cannons and torpedoes were blowing out of its opponents, it seemed very likely to win.

The Lunastra flew past a dreadnought delivering a torpedo strike on it with a few disruptor shots thrown in before teleporting next to a carrier and launching more torpedoes at point blank range. The Dragua barreled through a battleship and started exchanging boardsides with enemy dreadnoughts. While its powerful titan lances and Armageddon Cannon were next to useless at this close range, it still had an impressive array of heavy lances, plasma and ion batteries, and for good measure a few disruptor batteries for poking holes in the dreadnoughts at this range. Its many teleporters fired up bringing the chief and his honor guard to the bridge of the flagship as well as many bombs and elite warriors to either take control of or disable key parts of the ship. Of special importance was the FTL drive as they would not be letting the ship pull the same trick twice. Meanwhile, the Flying Dutchman seemed to be employing very powerful EW measures as there appearented to be three of it on everyone’s sensors.

On the Voidscreamer’s bridge the battle continued to rage on with neither side giving an inch. Chyrvalth’s honor guard were some of the best warriors the zravvisk had, many with thousands of years of experience, each wroth scores of chosen and the chosen certainly had scores. Meanwhile, the battle between Chyrvalth and H’krell has been raging for the past few minutes. Both were heavily damaged with the mechanator missing an arm and had several gashes in his armor while the councilwoman was bleeding profusely and had some of her cybernetics wrecked. Regardless of the damage, Chyrvalth was throwing herself in wild attacks at H’krell paying no heed to any risk to her life. Every attack H’krell launched at her she just powered through to just get another hit in. Then came a flash of light as Valstrath and his honor guard teleported in.

Ridley’s Rest

On the Sword, the engine team’s engineers were converting the last of the Chosen cores they had into time bombs, but much more powerful than the ones they made before. With the Sword now missing its entire port side, it was no longer a worthy prize ship and all zravvisk forces on it were pulling out. The engine team would escape via the holes in the engine compartment and reboard the Dagger while the weapon and bridge teams would be teleported out. The wounded were already being guided to the safety of the void while the engineers worked on their parting gift. The cores would be hidden in the hottest parts of the engines and detonate at full power (well as full power as these damaged cores could do) some time after they got out of the blast radius.The engineers nodded in satisfaction at their work and followed the wounded into the void before the warriors fought a fighting retreat out as well. The engine room was now back in Octavian hands along with the gifts.

On the bridge the captain was annoyed. Not only was Tal’Talen nibbling at her neck, but her beautiful prize ship was absolutely destroyed. It was clear that the blast that had flown her warrior on the port side of the bridge across the room was a large one. How was the Dagger supposed to become as respected as the Lunastra if she presented this floating junk pile to the Armada? With her ship about to teleport her back, she debated on whether or not to try to have Tal’Talen teleport back to the Dagger with her. She decided against it as leaving Tal’Talen in the ruins of her beloved ship seemed better. With a burst of strength she tried to throw Tal’Talen off of her and said, “Ah it seems this wreckage is yours. I shall be off then since I have more important matters to tend to.” And with that the teleporter activated.

As the Sword flew past the blown open port side, it launched two torpedoes into the exposed internals. One at where they expected its comms array to be and the other were they expected the main reactor. Neither were expected to destroy the ship, but hopefully stop it from having any influence on the rest of the fight. It then began to sneak to the backline of the rest of the Octavain forces to begin hunting capitals with its powerful anti-capital ship weapons.

The rest of the defense fleet was amazed at how the slabs were vaporized, but more importantly the shell had fellen with them. All weapons lit up as they returned fire on the Octavians while Ridley’s Rest’s shields tried their best to weather the onslaught. But finally the incoming fire was just too much and the station’s shield generators were all broken through finally exposing the defense fleet to incoming fire. The defense fleet was expecting this and had already moved all power from weapons to a much more conventional allocation while the station doubting that they could get any shields back on to make a difference moved shield power to weapons. And with shields down the smugglers on the station launched their final trick; decoys. A variety of drone ships slipped out of the station’s hangers, each pretending to be much more important than they were. Some pretended to be warships, others more fire ships like the ones that kamikaze into the Octavian fleet earlier, some pretended to be civilian VIP ships, and ect. Anything to split fire from the real threats.

The final traps in the Octavian’s midst were detonated and the final phase of the battle began. A straight slug match between the Octavains and the defenders. While the defenders were still lacking in heavy ships, they were vastly more intact with the only damage from Octavain fighters, but more importantly Ridley’s Rest still had all of its heavy weapons fully operational and its very heavy defense platforms were still completely intact.

by **Qhevak** » Sat May 22, 2021 3:20 am

Deep Oort, Gamma Quadrant

The early phase of Qhevak’s involvement in the Octavian conflict had largely been marked by gridlock. By the old agreements, full external intervention from the real powers – the Entangled Order’s Knights Aethra, the Morian Hab Militia, the Oyuin drone fleets - would require a broad consensus of Qhevak as a networked whole, and that was almost never an easy thing to achieve.

Kokopelli, the Moria strategic planning intelligence formed from tens of millions of assorted analysts, historians and military junkies, had been a vocal early voice in favor, as had the wild Tindalos Packmind, and the military-industrial mind collectives of Gevurah, Tachne, Helion and Barai. Unfortunately for the warhawks, their collective will had always been outweighed. The physicist-monks of the Entangled Order viewed a peer conflict as destabilizing to their transcendant longterm goal, the Oyuins simply wanted to explore strange alternate simrealms in peace, the Loci Mind and most of the smaller hab collectives were simply worried of the threat it could pose to three hundred years of relative peace.

After a month with little consensus and an ever-growing galactic death toll, the network of minds finally reached a compromise. Earth orbit was currently a hotzone, with active ongoing conflict in orbit involving Octavia and an opposing galactic force known as the Mandate. The ground was possibly worse. Aside from the ongoing Octavian invasion and possible occupation, there were current reports of other ongoing forces, including, apparently, vampires.

This actually made intervening, at least at a moderate scale, easy. Qhevak’s major clade militia forces were still blocked from involvement, but mercenaries were sure to be flocking to this clusterfuck like bees to honey – simply hire a task force from Shivastra, their premiere space warfare mercenary task force, to go down to Earth and hire themselves out to the Mandate. The ensuing space engagement would helpfully assist the Mandate in gaining control of Earth space, while giving valuable information to help the networks decide on a longer-term strategy.

There was also Mission Group Roswell, Kokopelli’s personal Earth-based kill force, who’d spent the last few months sitting around without orders as their world had collapsed around them. From the tiny amount of info they’d managed to give out, they seemed to have been dicking around somewhere in the coastal United States, mostly enjoying themselves in amenities abandoned since the invasion, while occasionally pausing to save civilians from whatever local threats existed. As a force officially ran by Kokopelli, they couldn’t intervene directly – but would still be capable at engaging other threats to the worlds safely, and possible hurt Octavia a little bit thereby.

Sol System, Near Earth

The Seraph-class recon cruiser Giving Proper Context slowed into a tight orbit five million kilometers from Earth, whipping around the world at a relatively sedate warp drive pace of ten times the speed of light. The craft was a tight needle, half a kilometer in length and covered in sharply edged ridges to maximize laser dissipation, armed with a heavy spinal ultra-relativistic electron beamer and a multispectrum phased array serving as both weapon, sensor and jammer. Passive sensors and tachydar pulses played across the ongoing orbital conflagration, forming a coherent three dimensional construct of the battle in the warcraft's diamond brain. These constructs were played through countless simulated scenarios in the vessel's mind, attempting to tactically optimize for the engagement that would hopefully come.

Confident that it had a reasonable picture of the engagement’s current and near-future state, the cruiser turned to it's primary mission. The Giving Proper Context dropped warp for a fraction of a second, and a series of tightbeam laser comm pulses fired off towards the most important looking Mandate warcraft, carrying a rather brief message:

Shivastra Offensive Services offering combat task force against Imperial Octavian orbital forces, for [insert reasonable sounding fee here]. Task Group 5 is on standby to intervene within 15 minutes of contract acceptance.

A single, briefer radio pulse was fired off towards Earth more broadly. This one was strongly encrypted – it would be understood only by whatever group on Earth shared a one-time pad with the fighter. Done with it’s initial task, the fighter reentered warp and awaited a response.

Key West, Florida

Sophia Hyland ran with seeming futility, knowing her death was inevitable but wanting still to prolong every remaining moment. The figures were closing behind her, nearly as fast as a car, fanged teeth glinting under moonlight. She kept thinking of everything that lead up to this moment – holing up with others in an abandoned resort when the invasion came, conflict building as their brave leader showed himself to want more of a cult than allies and finally, the vampire pack that had crashed through the windows when the ammo ran low. The few that had survived were chased out onto the open street, to be hunted by things that used to be fellow man.

M: Superhuman senses my tail, subdead preymeat can’t even tell we’re here.

Z: Wish we’d gotten here earlier. Ten times as many Opal Key Resort holdouts were alive an hour ago.

E: Marsai, Nereum, they’re about to pass your fire position, get ready.

She turned a corner, losing energy fast. Was there anything she could do? She had a subconscious feeling there must be something, which she more consciously knew was just mere cope. Anna felt a sudden pain as her ankle twisted, and she fell to the ground hard, starting to sob. They charged, just twenty meters away now…

Z: Just do it now, seen enough human death today. Standard protocol, lase ‘em and nape ‘em.

M: On it, going for the kill.

And the vampires suddenly collapsed, their arms and legs severed from their bodies by a series of microsecond flashes that popped like gunfire. They hit ground hard, limbs slowly regrowing, before a wave of white hot gel exploded from seeming nowhere and devoured their bodies in flame. It took nearly half a minute before they stopped screaming.

E: HELL FUCKING YEAH, great shot!

Z: Gotta love the smell of burnin’ vamps in the evening.

N: Just wish they’d scream longer, better than what they deserve.

Sophia heard footsteps behind her and turned just in time to see two armored humanoid figures appear out of nowhere, like a lightswitch being turned on. Two more appeared just behind the charred ashpiles, both enormous mechanical wolves bristling in heavy firepower. Her relief disappeared in a flash. “Are… are you the...” She’d heard enough to know that the Machines were a thousand times worse than the vamps.

“Nah”, came the reply as the humanoid figures removed their helmets, revealing a pair of apparent normal humans, though not of any ethnicity she’d seen. “They wouldn’t be so friendly with us if they were, anyway. I’m Elan, she’s Zazie – the two good boys behind you are Marsai and Nereum. Can’t reveal any more than that.”

L: Tracking LGV-215-E2 Seraph near Earth. ID matches SVLF-971 Giving Proper Context.

Z: Oh shit, the bastards finally did it! Few months too late, but still.

The people from another world suddenly ignored her. Were they talking to themselves somehow? They didn’t seem to be saying anything.

L: Intercepting an encrypted radio burst, should be a decrypt match with Pad-2 per agreement. Got it, here it is:

OFFICIAL STRATMIND COMMUNIQUE

By network consensus, Mission Group Roswell activated from standby. Current task is engagement and destruction of small-scale Earth-bound threats harmful to long term objectives, other than Octavian forces.

Weapons are free against non-Octavian forces. Octavians are only free to engage while under direct attack.

Z: Oh damn. Sad there aren’t more dead Imperial fucks in our near future, but this seems good enough.

L: We got the message, I’d say we get first dibs on task allocation. Group 2 has most of our remaining Yrthaks anyway, I say they should be the ones to head off to Antarctica and deal with whatever the hell that swarm threat is.

N: Long as they agree, sure. We handling this Dio twink then?

L: You got it, soon as we can find wherever he’s staying. Put a PGM through the roof with a twenty kiloton tactical payload, take the whole thing out before he knows we’re there?

M: I was hoping for a more entertaining hunt, but that’s always a nice standby.

The man that called himself Elan turned back to her. “Sorry kid, but we gotta go now. Give you this, should help you survive.” He reached into his pack and tossed her a lightweight black box, about the size of a small briefcase. “Survival kit. You won’t need instructions, it knows what you’re thinking and will tell you what you want, least as long as you’re holding. Has a pulse pistol too, ‘case you run into vamps again. Keep safe, hide, only go out when you absolutely need to.”

Then they vanished, leaving her standing alone on an empty street.

by **Laiakia** » Sat May 22, 2021 9:09 am

United Socialist States Of Laiakia Territory, Lorus System, XIRAX Foundation Headquarters

Sipping a cup of Party-approved coffee, Supreme Citizen Iosef Djigasholov listened as the Minister of Intellegence, otherwise known simply as O5-1 in the ranks of the XIRAX Foundation, debriefed him on the latest news in the wider galaxy. The United Socialist States of Laiakia, situated in a couple of tightly-knit systems located in the eastern parts of the galaxy, had always liked to stick to its own isolated affairs mostly due to the Party's policy of developing the perfect communism before exporting it to the denizens of the galaxy. However with the rapid expansion and aggressive acts of the Octavians and their allies, many within the USSL viewed it as only a matter of time 'til Laiakia was drawn into this inter-galactic war for better or worse.

"-and as such, Comrade Djigasholov, after carefully examinig our position, we in the XIRAX Foundation and government are convinced that we must either join the war, or risk a pre-emptive attack by those imperialistic machines."

Iosef nodded and took another sip of his cup. "Joining this Great Galactic War could be infinetly risky, should we side against the Octavians and the tide turn the other way. The same can be said if we side with the Octavians.."

Silence filled the room as the Supreme Citizen racked his head.

"Are our long-range scanners still indicating that the battles in the Sol System are still ongoing?"

"Yes, Supreme Citizen. our scanners still detect the occasional energy-spikes, so we can only assume the battle is still raging, though our intel is... limited."

Iosef nodded curtly before addressing the Minister of the Space Navy. "Comrade, I want increased patrols in our border systems. I want to know the minute an unauthorized vessel enters Laiakian territory. In addition, I want all our fleets to be on high alert, lest we be taken by suprise. Dismissed.``

The Minister of the Space Navy nodded along and got up, leaving the heavily classified meeting. After that, Iosef turned his attention to the Minister of Diplomacy. "Comrade, monitor the diplomatic channels and keep me updated on any missive we may receive. Send out a general message to the war-ing parties about our intentions to finally step onto the galactic stage in full. That will be all for today, session dismissed."

Shortly after the meeting was adjourned, more and more ships began patrolling the Laiakian border systems, while on the planets, the citizens and proletariat wondered how Laiakia would become truly involved in this conflict. In the Lorus System, the Wyvern-Class Dreadnaught stood watch as the smaller ships were floating idly. Only time would tell if war came.

by **Turtalia** » Sat May 22, 2021 12:15 pm

All text is translated from multiple Turtalian languages into Universal Common.

Shrell Star System
October 12, 2035

Today was a proud moment for the people of the United Turtalian Nations. Today, the first colony ship, Forward Into The Light, would be leaving Turtalia for its closest sister planet Agaria. A harsh world with liquid oceans, lakes, and rivers but with no magnetic field leaving the planet susceptible to cosmic radiation making the surface of the world barren and sterile. Though the Turtalian people had already colonized their closest and largest moon Hepena, with more than 10 million citizens calling the barren rock their home. Watching the large colony ship, holding more than 8,000 people on board, leave Turtalia's first space elevator and orbital platform had a feeling of accomplishment. This was the moment where colonizing their entire star system had finally become a reality. A moment where even the doubters and neigh sayers watched their entertainment screens with hope and optimism.

The trip would take almost five months, as they traveled closer to their mother star Shrell using her as a slingshot to cut several months off of their travel time. Using ion thrust engines for a majority of the trip meant slow but gradual acceleration towards their destination. Though there had been small experimentation with faster than light travel, it had yet to become possible for anything larger than a few molecules to travel faster than light. The Turtalians had come a long way from their old primitive form of space travel during the early days of Agaria exploration. The Forward Into The Light was a capable ship using mining lasers to protect the ship from Intersolar debris. As well as a relatively new and expensive form of protection known as the Magnetic Repulsive Device, or its more commonly known name as the shield system. The MRD was used to protect the ship from cosmic radiation from the sun as they traveled further away from the protection of the strong magnetic field encompassing Turtalia.

However, while this day was important to the public, it was important for a lone scientist working the midnight shift on the southern hemisphere of the planet. The scientist worked at the radio relay lab that would relay all radio traffic from Agaria to communication hubs for global distribution. However, in Agaria's current position in the Turtalia-Agaria orbit, the station was silent which meant only one worker was needed to man the quiet stations to make sure they were in proper working order. And that one scientist was witness to the pivoting point of Turtalian history.

As the scientist worked to retune the audio devices at one of the many computer stations, a lone signal came through the system. This in itself was not too particularly strange, stray signals bounced off satellites and orbiting structures all of the time. However, those signals usually only lasted for a fraction of a second as the satellites would continue their fast trek orbiting the planet. This was a continuous signal and it was getting stronger. The scientist quickly made his way to the main computer situated in the center of the room. "Could it be an emergency distress signal?" He thought. No, it couldn't be. Distress signals had very distinct sounds and recognizable patterns. This had neither. This signal sounded like a slow and methodical thrum and it was quickly becoming more and more clear that this signal not coming from anywhere within Turtalian space.

by **New Decius** » Sun May 23, 2021 10:26 pm

Kaiserliches Verteidigungsministerium, Kaiserliche Parlamentswelt Minerva
Sol Star Zone, Grand Duchy of Salzbaum, Galactic Empire of Vers, Orion Arm
Galactic South, Milky Way Galaxy, I.C. 1,209

“When was contact first made?”

“Approximately two hours ago.”

“Any confirmation on exactly who they are yet?”

“None yet, Your Excellency, though Vizeadmiral Jürgen promises an update within the hour.”

“That does me no good now Konrad.”

Her Ministerial Excellency, Elizabeth von Ravensthrön, Kaiserlicher Verteidigungsminister (Imperial Minister for Defense) for Her Imperial Galactic Majesties Government, was not having the best of days, well the best of three days really.

Having been halfway across the Kaiserreich three days ago on Dortmund, enjoying her grandsons seventh birthday celebration, the Minister had been whisked away first by a classified communique from the Oberste Heeresleitung about a deployment of the Reserveflotte to the frontier. This was followed by an extremely frustrating journey back from Dortmund to Minerva, her government issued transport having experienced a mechanical malfunction which forced her to take a military transport, which were not exactly designed with comfort in mind. All the while being told next to nothing about what exactly was going on at the border and why the Reserveflotte had deployed some of its Main Battle Line elements to Talinin of all places. When she finally did arrive on Minerva and return to the Verteidigungsministerium, information was flung in her face by no less than five of her own State Secretary’s and a State Secretary for the Foreign Office, which did not exactly ferment a pleasant mood in the Senior Civilian within Vers’ defense apparatus.

Only Elizabeth’s Principal Private Secretary, Konrad Pifke, was calm and orderly as opposed to the mild chaos everywhere else. He wisely took the decision to present the Minister with a steaming fresh cup of coffee on her return and waited for her to take at least three, rather full, sips from the beverage before delivering his own information. Not that it did anything to cheer her up.

Extragalactic invaders had a habit of ruining anyones day. Though so did hothead officers who didn’t wait for the order to fire before opening fire.

“As much as I want to reach across the galaxy and strange Konteradmiral Treggänis, I’ll shelve the scolding for later.”

Konrad nodded, a wise decision perhaps. As much as Konteradmiral Treggänis may have overstepped in firing first without checking with higher command, it could be addressed later, when the situation was clearer.

“For now, I want you to get a message back to Jürgen and tell him that I need more information, not in an hour, now! Unless the data-link network somehow goes down, I want updates from Talinin every ten minutes, detailed updates.” They had finally reached Elizabeth’s office, the doors swiftly opened by the stone-faced pair of Seebataillon on guard outside. The doors were slammed shut behind the duo as Elizabeth marched right to her desk and plopped down into her chair. Any ordinary person, in calmer circumstances, might pause a moment to gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the beautiful Minerva skyline, the planet-wide cityscape truly a marvel; after all, barely a thousand years ago, what had then been called Mars was a barren red wasteland with a sparse few habitat stations. Elizabeth couldn’t have cared less, bringing up the office communicator and entering a passcode for direct access to a secure line to the Oberste Heeresleitung. “For all I know now this could be a feint by the Galactic Commune or the Suzeron to distract us, or worse...”

She let that hang off, the worse being an enemy entirely unknown to Vers and which could vastly outmatch the Kaiserreich, even destroy it. Not that a pan-galactic conflict with the Galactic Commune, which had longed to topple the system of meritocratic aristocracy in Vers and replace it with republicanism, would be a cake-walk either, but at least that was an enemy they knew.

A moment later Elizabeth had reached the OHL and, after another moment terrorizing a protocol-minded Leutnant whom denied her access for not going through the standard channels, was put through to the office of the Chief of the General’s Staff. “To think the OHL would do all this without keeping the Verteidigungsministerium appraised every step of the way.” Elizabeth muttered between ground teeth as a holographic projection of one Feldmarschall Theobald Schörner appeared from the emitter on top of her desk. Schörner was a career man, having served in the Galaktische Heer for over fifty years, ten of them as Chief of the General’s Staff; though modern technology allowed even the most common citizen of Vers to extend their natural life by as much as a century, science could not completely undo the ravages of time, and it showed on Schörner. What was once a smooth, handsome face topped with luscious raven locks was now craggy, covered in wrinkles, and hosting a dome capable of reflecting light. The Chief of the General’s Staff looked every bit of his 127 years, Elizabeth herself was still only 84, but his mind remained as sharp as ever. His wit was one of the reasons that on most days, he and Elizabeth could greet one another as friends.

Today was not one of those days.

“Feldmarschall Schörner...” It was never a good sign when Elizabeth addressed him by his title. “...precisely what is the meaning of launching an expedition to the frontier using Reserveflotte units without first clearing it with the Verteidigungsministerium?”

”Your Excellency, the matter was time sensitive and there were some here at the OHL who felt the Verteidigungsministerium would take too long to give approval and by then the situation may have spiraled.”

“That does not justify cutting the Defense Minister out of the plan entirely Feldmarschall.”

”Normally I would agree Minister, however Her Imperial Majesty took our view of the matter and granted us her approval.”

“Which really means His Imperial Highness, Prince Xavier, made an appeal to Her Imperial Majesty on your behalf Feldmarschall. It doesn’t strike you as underhanded, using the fact that a member of the Imperial Dynasty is on your staff to get around me?”

”Given the circumstances I would make the same choice again, we did not know what grave threat might be approaching our borders. We still don’t know if it is the opening to full-scale galactic war with our traditional rivals or a completely new foe of unknown origin and strength.” Schörner was standing his ground, unwilling to give an inch in this duel of wills. True it may have been a dirty trick for him to use a member of the Imperial Dynasty who just so happened to be attached to his staff to get an audience with Her Imperial Majesty and press his case. Time had been of the essence however, and it still was. Elizabeth knew, unabashedly, that if she herself had one of the Kaiserin’s children at her disposal, and a favored one at that, she wouldn’t hesitate to exploit that connection. ”If we can get to the matter at hand, we’ll tear one another to shreds at a more convenient time, I trust you’ve been brought up to speed.”

Elizabeth gritted her teeth but nodded, they could argue again later. For now they had their duties to attend to. “My latest report is almost two hours old, states merely that Konteradmiral Treggänis has encountered unknown forces and engaged same. I’m putting a order out to Jürgen now for updates every ten minutes but that doesn’t mean I’m content with what I have.”

”Unfortunately, I’m very much in the same situation at you I’m afraid. My last report is of the same nature, and before you ask, no I did not issue orders to blindly fire on the unknown contacts, that was entirely Treggänis’ own initiative.” Elizabeth smacked her palm against her forehead to try and quell the quickly storming headache. Of course the OHL had to send a hothead Reserve like Treggänis out to make contact with a potentially unknown galactic power. A proper frontline officer wouldn’t have dared open fire unless ordered to do so or attacked first by their opponent. Then again, that was why Treggänis was in the Reserveflotte to begin with; those officers whose hot-headedness had ceased to be tactically brilliant and slid down to operationally frustrating were quietly shuffled to garrison duty or command in the Reserveflotte. In theory the Reserveflotte would only ever see its Main Battle Line engaged in the event of a pan-galactic conflict, so there was normally little risk of these officers causing potentially embarrassing ‘incidents’ if they exhausted their hot air on pirates and smugglers inside the Kaiserreich.

In theory, the Reserveflotte should only be deployed in the most dire moments, should the Astroflotte suffer devastating casualties and need to temporarily withdraw its main units from a theoretical frontline. Though it seemed no one had factored in an extragalactic invader when drawing up the naval doctrines and theories of the Kaiserliche Marine. All the best units of the Astroflotte were stationed on the Milky Way borders, half a galaxy away from where the unknown contact appeared in Talinin.

“So what your telling me is for now we sit and wait for news?”

”It would seem so.”

At this moment, Konrad politely broke in with a priority message from the Kaiserthronwelt, which he immediately passed to Elizabeth. After reading its contents thoroughly, she looked back at Schörner with something between exhaustion and amusment, it was hard to tell which.

“Well Theobald, looks like we’ll be seeing each other in person soon. Her Imperial Majesty has summoned a War Council and we have both been named to it by Kaiserliche Marschall Regensburg.”

”Oh bother.”

“Concentrate your fire on those small Astrocraft on approach! We don’t have the range to reach the enemy, let the heavies bang away at them for now!”

Indeed, the three Battle-Scouts were ‘banging away’ at the distant enemy, still at least 15 Light Seconds away from the IV. Aufklärungsgeschwader, on the opposite side of the asteroid belt, having elevated their position and reorientated their vessels to achieve a firing angle on the enemy. The Moltke and Schliefen weren’t having much luck, a hit here and there but their accuracy was extremely poor due to their older fire control systems, though even then a hit by one of the 360mm guns was crippling for these enemy vessels which were barely larger than an Augsburg-Class Astro Destroyer. Even if the Battle-Scout’s were old, prototype design’s, they still packed capital-ship firepower.

The Goethe was reorienting itself to give a firing angle on the swarm of rapidly approaching Astrocraft, while some warships of the squadron, in particular the two Pillau-Class Anti-Air Cruiser’s, SMS’s Argyle and Moor, began to fire their Anti-Astrocraft weapons at the oncoming craft. A volley of missiles deployed from launchers across the squadron to chase these new contacts but they hardly made a dent in the swarm.

Stahl gritted his teeth in frustration.

“The missiles are barely making a dent in their numbers, its like a hornets nest going in for the attack.” The enemy astrocraft seemed to be ignoring all conventional military doctrine, at least those used by Vers. They seemed to forgo any genuine formation in favor of a space-born equivalent to the human wave tactic, utilizing the collective strength of the swarm to shrug off the oncoming defensive fire.

They certainly could afford to do so, there seemed to be hundreds of the bastards...

Kapitän Meurser gently stroked his chin in thought as he observed the enemy astrocraft. It was certainly an insane tactic for any military force to employ with its space superiority fighters, after all hardly any pilots would gain a net experience from the action to improve their capabilities, if they relied solely on smothering an opponent with numbers. The utilization of small, more mobile squadrons attacking from multiple vectors both increased chances of mission success and created opportunities to gain experienced veterans from the engagement. The Astroflotte’s own SSF training programs drilled operational flexibility and tactical creativity into every pilot; all pilots of the Fliegerkorps were trained to improvise on a moments notice if a plan crapped out on them.

’No military run by the sane would sacrifice so many pilots in such a crude assault.’

‘Unless...’

“Those have to be drones, or some other form of automated war craft, no organic force could hold such a formation without causing a mass collision.” Well at least knowing their enemies were robotic would make it easier to wipe them all out without a single shred of remorse. Not that merely knowing it was an assault by drones would make it any easier, practically speaking, to repel.

“Leutnant Hannut!”

“Ja Kapitän!” Georg replied without skipping a beat.

“The enemy seems to be concentrated in clusters, dense ones at that. Transmit orders to the FDO to turn our main battery on the oncoming astrocraft, I’m not looking for specific targets just mass destruction.” No doubt Kapitänleutnant Henrik Oorsk, the Goethe’s Fire Direction Officer, would be slightly baffled at receiving orders to turn main battery naval cannons on astrocraft, but that was not Meurser’s concern. Right now conventional anti-astrocraft methods weren’t working to break those swarms, and the Hellas was still prepping to launch its CAG, so they would turn to the unconventional. “FDO is to target large clusters of enemy astrocraft and fire at will.”

Hannut began to send the Kapitän’s orders to the FDO two decks below, while meanwhile Meurser was about to request updated orders from the Moltke when an outburst from one of the Fähnrich’s drew his attention, as well as most of the bridge, to the viewport.

“Look at her go, she’s shooting their lights out!”

[hr]

Though a crude expression, the SMS Goeben was indeed ‘shooting their lights out’.

Even though all three of the Moltke-Class Battle-Scout’s present were equipped with the same outdated fire control systems, Goeben had a very big leg up on her two sisters sailing with IV. Aufklärungsgeschwader, her Chief Gunnery Officer. One Kapitänleutnant Ulrika von Verden, late of the SMS Saxe-Weimar a Derfflinger-Class Battlecruiser, did not accept that just because the Goeben was an old prototype in the Reserveflotte, it should not meet the same standards for efficiency and drill as a frontline unit of the Astroflotte. Since being assigned to the aging Battle-Scout just under six months ago, the veteran of four decades had spent countless weeks drilling and preparing the Gunner Department just as if they were in the Astroflotte, a harsh taskmaster but one whom produced results. So it was that here at Talinin, the Goeben’s gunnery crews were performing with three times the efficiency of those aboard the Moltke and Schliefen, to the detriment of these unknown opponents.

Where her sisters were landing one shot in every five, the Goeben was consistently landing hit after hit after hit on the enemy vessels, having torn several of the hostile vessels apart already. The aforementioned Chief Gunnery Officer was concentrating the whole main battery on a single target at any given time, arraying all fifteen of the guns against the unfortunate recipient. In this manner, the Goeben was steadily picking off the enemy warships, one at a time, swiftly and with deadly efficiency.

by **Turtalia** » Wed May 26, 2021 7:51 pm

All text is translated from multiple Turtalian languages into Universal Common.

Shrell Star System
October 13, 2035

After nearly half an hour the scientist stared dumbfounded at his computer screen terminal; slowly realizing the implications of what he had heard, and was still hearing. He picked up the corded phone and dialed the director of the facility. After a few ringers with the call about to end, a connection was heard being made.

Dr. Robertson: Mmmmmh... what?
The women could be moaning groggily.
Andrew Steel: Hello, Dr. Robertson?
Dr. Robertson: Who else would it be Steel? What do you want at 1:30 in the morning?
Andrew Steel: My apologies Mrs. Robertson, we have an emergency here at the facility.
A ruffling of blankets could be heard.

Dr. Robertson: Whaaat? What's going on? Is everyone alright?
Andrew Steel: Do not worry ma'am, I am the only one in the facility at the moment and everything is... alright.
Dr. Robertson: Damnit Steel, spit it out. You already woke me up and have taken a few hours of sleep from me. What could possibly be so important if the building isn't burning down?
There was a long silence over the phone.
Dr. Robertson: Hello? Andrew?

A deep sigh came flowing out of Andrew’s mouth.
Andrew Steel: Ma'am, the arrays are detecting an organized signal coming from deep space that has been lasting the past half hour. The signal lasts for about a minute before it repeats again.

Stunned silence.
Andrew Steel: Here, listen.
Andrew turned up the sound on his computer where the signal can be heard loud and clear over the phone. The signal plays once more before a frantic ruffle can be heard over the line.
Dr. Robertson: Andrew, listen closely. I am going to hang up the call and be at the facility in an hour. I want you to lock all doors and windows until I arrive there. Do not let anyone inside the building until I get there. No matter who it is or what their credentials are.

Andrew was stunned
Andrew Steel: But ma'am who else...
Dr. Robertson quickly interrupts him.
Dr. Robertson: Please Andrew, trust me. I'm not sure exactly who will show up, but I highly doubt you were the only one to hear that signal.

Dr. Robertson was indeed correct. Not only did their array hear the signal, but several nearby military bases, television and internet stations, and several in orbit warships all heard the signal loud and clear.
Within hours, Dominik Fischer, President of the United Turtalian Nations had also been quickly woken up by his interns. He was dressed and brought to a large conference room within 20 minutes. When he briskly walked into the room he was stunned to see the sheer number of generals from the UTN, several nations' own independent generals, well-known and respected scientists, and members of his executive staff.

President Fischer: Damn. The interns were not kidding. What could be the cause to bring my top staff here with me today? What happened in my measly 5 hours of sleep?

While no one snapped to attention at his arrival, backs were straightened and the few physical reports there were on the large wooden table were straightened.

Gen. Greenweed: Mr. President, a few hours ago, a signal was detected all across the globe that has been detected coming from deep space. The message, according to many specialists, is deemed to be containing a level of intelligence to it. However, nothing can be discerned from the signal yet.

Fischer sat in complete shock, however, the politician quickly picked up from where he had left off.
President Fischer: So… we aren't alone in this universe after all huh?
He said while shaking his head.

Dr. Preshist: It certainly appears to be the case, sir. While there have been many signals that originate from space that may seem intelligent, like the discovery of the neutron star pulse. This is certainly more chaotically organized. Almost like a verbal transcript, but no one has been able to prove that yet. Have a listen sir.

The room sat in complete silence as the audio recording was played twice. Though there was no visual to go with the recording, eyes were still glued to the screen listening to it. After listening, Fischer took a moment to compose himself.

President Fischer: The real question is, was that signal meant for us? I might not be a scientist, but for something to be that clear and powerful being an omnidirectional pulse, the power used to boost that would have to be immense. Probably an entire star's worth of energy, maybe even more.

Fischer’s press secretary turned to the President.

Ms. Cawhs: Sir, the real question is should the public know about this. I know it's a cliche, but I’m not sure the public would be able to handle something like this.

Another scientist spoke first while the President was pondering the question.

Mr. Sechs: Mr. President, it's as you said. The signal we had received was immensely powerful, not only that but it was detected on repeat for almost a whole hour. We know civilian-grade equipment was able to detect it because several cargo vessels were traveling between Hepena. For now, we have been able to redirect concerns saying that it was a new emergency location beacon being tested in High Turtalian Orbit. It's only a matter of time until clips of the audio recording go viral, we’d be lucky if it's not front-page news on the internet.

No one spoke up as the President sat silently pondering his options. No doubt about it, this would get out. Someone had to have recorded it. And the ELB story wasn't going to fly for long with how purely alien the audio had sounded. He did not like it, but this was going to define his next 2 and a half years in office.

by **Qhevak** » Thu May 27, 2021 12:04 am

Interstellar Space, Deep Alpha Quadrant

The MLV Calming Ambience was a small craft by galactic standards – a bit more than a hundred meters in length and four hundred tons in mass, at the edge of viability for an interstellar warp vessel. It was a dirt-cheap little cargo hauler, incapable of surviving the smallest level of applied firepower from a serious star state, which made it more critical than ever that it carefully plot it’s courses.

“Octavian conflict won’t stop expanding, will it?” grumbled Akane Kawaguchi, sitting in her navigation chair as she absentmindedly swiped through various data displays. She was young – a few months from twenty, but had proven herself as reliable over the past year. “Had to abandon our old trade corridor, now we’re having to chart all these winding paths to avoid getting blasted by some warcraft a million times our size. Not sure how long anyone’s even flown through this region of the galaxy.”

“Years, gotta be” replied Dan Ayles, the current logistical manager – nearly a decade older than Akane, which was still very young by Qhevaki standards. “We’re really pushing the outer edge of Alpha, aren’t we? Nearly as far from the core as the Community itself. I almost like it, we’re really starting to get adventurous now.”

“Dunno if I’d really consider avoiding destruction at hands of genocidal murdercraft as “adventure”” Akane replied. “We’re from a post scarcity society, Dan, freetrading is just a game. It wasn’t meant to be so, I dunno. Real.” She looked back at her screen, swiping through more readouts to ensure they still weren’t at risk of obliteration, before an alert tore her attention away.
“Radio contact!” Sensor Operator Aele mentally shouted, currently a greenish blue gelatinous blob on the cockpit roof. Unlike the other, more baseline, crew, Aele didn’t care much for physical controls or readouts, and so was free to manage sensors via neural lace from wherever they wanted.

“Radio? Shit, not Octavian?” Akane turned, tightening her grip on her chair. “Better” replied Aele, sending their display readout to her HUD. “Much, much better. The signal we just passed through is what you’d expect from airport radar leakage – of the sort used by middle industrial cultures. One of the only unintentional leaks that’ll get more than a couple lightyears from such a culture – out to fifty or sixty lightyears, even. There’s no starfaring planets recorded near here, which means…” “First contact!?” Akane was beaming now. “Can you get the location?”

“It’s around fourty light years, from I can tell. Based off the incidence angle I can get a good idea of the location – yep, that should be it. Take the detour now? It’ll only be a day or two, and given the war our customers will be expecting us late anyways.” Everyone said aye, and the craft did a sharp turn to go make first contact.

Shrell Star System
Ten days after launch of Forward Unto The Light

The craft’s warp speed dropped as it moved into the system, slowing to a relative leisurely (for a warp bubble) pace of just half light’s velocity as it reached 1 AU from the parent star. Still mostly undetectable to midtech sensors, but slow enough to reliably view it’s surroundings with passive EM, it swept over the system’s orbital disc, collecting any emissions that came it’s way. It wasn’t long till it found something interesting.

“Got a ship on sensors” thought Aele. “Mostly radiator IR, some sustained radio band emissions consistent with ion propulsion. On a low energy transfer between their mainworld and another – given the size I’d hazard it’s an early attempt at manned interplanetary colonization. Looks pretty midtech, probably early 7 on the Excidian standard scale.” A wave of joy – an increasingly common event in the past few hours – swept over the crew. A civilization at this level meant they should be safe to make contact under protocol, especially considering the danger they might soon find themselves in. “I say we go for it, make our name in history.”, thought Ayles to the rest. “Poor suckers, though. I’d hate to be getting into the wider galaxy right now”.

The Ambience dropped out of warp an astronomical unit above the main world, operating in low power mode with all waste heat dumped into sinks. Phased array antennas picked up all available radio signals, taking any detectable instances of language and sending it to the analytical neural nets for processing. A few hours later, they had gained a reasonably proficient understanding – they wouldn’t be writing any poetry in the language just yet, but it was enough to understand and be understood. The warp bubble reformed and the craft, swept downward into the system, doing a few near-lightspeed loops near the larger planet partly for science and more for voyeurism, before dewarping again near the interplanetary vessel.

The fusion torch kicked in, burning for half an hour to match the craft’s vector – as a civilian trader the Ambience had no need to accelerate more than a fifth of a gee – until it finally reached a relative halt at two thousand kilometers distance. The phased array broadcasted out in the radio spectrum, sending a standardized message for now, a basic opening protocol before starting further communication:

WELCOME NEWCOMERS

Hi there, new star state, and welcome to the galaxy! First contact might be a bit of a surprise to you, but there’s a first time for anything, and we hope you’ll have lots more in your future. Attached to this standardized contact message are materials that should hope you get acquainted with the broader galaxy. We currently recommend reading the following files to start:

Quadrants of the Galaxy: A Beginner’s Guide

Encyclopedia of Major Star States

Introduction to Modern FTL Transit Methods

Lightspeed Growth: How to Enter Galactic Trade And Not Get Ripped Off

URGENT/NEW: The Ongoing Octavian Galactic War and You: How To Best Save Your Species From Interstellar Genocide

See More

Feel free to peruse the additional information or approach your contactees if you need more help! We hope you have a great future in the galaxy!

The crew sat back and waited for a reply.

by **Polish Prussian Commonwealth** » Fri May 28, 2021 8:03 pm

Grozny

"Haven't you seen the message sent to your group yet?"
Alas, it was not Captain Vronsky that Ghrokz was speaking to, but a fresh-faced young NCO, as well as her squadmates and an IFV.

“...Who the fuck are you?” she asked, seeming confused. “The hell you want? We’re on a humanitarian mission. Handing out meds and that shit, and telling Command just what the hell’s happening on this shithole planet. And it certainly isn’t your planet, clanker, else you’d wouldn’t need to invade it, eh? Now tell me what the fuck you want, or get the hell out of my way.”

If Ghorkz had the ability to, he would've scowled at the insolence of this organic as he realized the type of confrontation this would be. As he looked into the sky and contemplated the decisions he had made to lead him to this point.

"Listen, organic, Octavia owns this planet and has not asked for any 'humanitarian aid'." Ghrokz said while forming air quotes with two of his hands when mentioning humanitarian aid. "Now please take your stupid organization and get off of this planet before we have to escourt you off."

A commotion could be heard as the other vehicles of the convoy noticed the holdup.
He found a rifle shoved in his face, and an IFV’s autocannon-barrel to boot. “Make us-” The NCO began to say, before a new trooper arrived and cut her off.

“Enough, sergeant.” He quietly said, before turning to Ghrokz. “You are Octavians, yes?”

The Mechanators would raise their rifles in return, all pointing towards the heads of each of the mercenaries that had threatened their leader as Ghorkz stood deadpan, relying on his emotional regulators to keep him from punching this insolent organic across the face. As the officer(?) arrived, he took a step to the side to remove himself from the rifle's end and responded.

"Yes, we are Octavians. Are you this one's superior?" His voice was quite clearly tinged with annoyance after the events that he had just been through with the woman a few moments ago.

“Correct.” he replied. “I am Captain Vronsky.”

Still under the assumption that they hadn't seen the transmission from Octavia, Ghorkz once again created the holographic image of the message and showed it to the captain.

"If you read this, you'll see that you are to leave." Said Ghorkz entirely devoid of emotion as his internal AI kept his contempt and annoyance suppressed

“I am well aware of this transmission and believe Command has sent it’s reply.” Vronsky smoothly replied, a few seconds after reading it. He pulled out his own device, a small tablet, and showed Ghorkz.

Your request is denied. Judging from preliminary signal intelligence analysis and reconnaissance, this planet is not yours, neither do any legitimate political entities or nation-states upon it swear allegiance to the Imperial government.

Battlegroup Anna would like to reiterate that we will not conduct offensive operations against the Imperium unless any deployed units are attacked in the course of their duties.

Commodore Henrietta Augusta Lutzow
General Charles Westmoreland

As he read the message, Ghorkz would mentally repeat every curse that he could conjure into his mind before collecting himself and seeing if the lack of an Octavian response could be rectified with some choice words.

"You see, those so called nations and political groups are actually insurgents-"

Vrosnky cut him off. “My orders are to reconnoiter Grozny and provide medical and food supplies to it’s inhabitants. Insurgents do not change the equation and I would carry them out if they were cannibals.”

Seeing that this approach would be leading nowhere, Ghorkz reached into the Aether to see if he could actually get his superiors to respond to the Battlegroup before he would have to resort to less than peaceful methods of resolution.

"Head of Earth Operations H'Tae do you copy?"

"Yes, Ghrokz? What seems to be the problem?"

"Could you please send a message to the Battlegroup explaining the situation?"

"We will not negotiate with mercenaries trying to violate the Imperium's sovereignty. You are allowed to remove them Mechanator Ghorkz."

"With all due respect, I do-"

Yet again Ghorkz was interrupted, "There will be no further communication on this issue, remove them or be tried for insubordination. That will be all."

As the Octavians talked, Vrosnsky silently signalled his subordinates to call for reinforcements and support. The sergeant took the cue and went inside her IFV, and the request began to be relayed rapidly to the Faulkner.

The response was quickly processed, and a small group of strike aircraft and gunships began to make their way to the ground, with additional troops, and more importantly, heavy weapons.

As the Aether chat was terminated Ghorkz realized that the war had officially placed itself at his doorstep. With those orders in mind there was only one thing that he could do, but he could always wait until the odds were more evenly in his favor as he saw that Captain Vronsky had called reinforcements while he had spoken to his superior.

"I have my orders as well Captain, we will discuss this later as I have some matters to attend to. I will be seeing you shortly."

With that Ghorkz and his entourage walked back through the broken city as he relayed his plans to his mechanators through the Aether.

Several hours later, a pair of IFVs trundled though Grozny’s ruined streets, their operators scanning the buildings for hostiles.

Drones were set up among the rubble of the city, their camouflaged paint blending in with the dirt and rubble of Grozny. They had planned to ambush the forces of Battlegroup Anna at what used to be an intersection as the drones hid behind pieces of debris using aerial drones to signal the dawn of the attack.

Their plan seemed to be working. The pair of IFVs trundled right into the intersection, apparently not noticing the drones.

As they arrived the drones would leap into action as they popped up from behind the rubble. Quickly analyzing the mechanized force set in front of them they switched the firing mode of their Eraser lasers to anti-vehicle and fired long red rays into the sides of the IFVs as the aerial drones moved to mow down any escaping infantry.

And it was from there that the plan began to slightly derail.

One IFV was stricken; the lasers had hit an ammunition storage compartment or a fuel line, and although the turret seemed fully functional, it wasn’t going anywhere.

The other, having seen it’s compatriot go up in flames, had jinked, and the lasers went wide or hit ‘non-essential’ components. Granted, at least a few infantrymen were flash-broiled, but the IFV could move and the IFV could fight - and fight it did. While the stricken IFV focused on suppressing the drones as the infantry bailed out and took cover, the IFV that was still moving focused on shooting down the drones, while it’s own squad bailed out as well. To make matters a little more complicated, a light barrage or mortar shells began to rain down on the drones, although it was haphazard and likely would not score many hits.

The MK3 drones assorted in the attack were blown to pieces by the IFV's autocannon before they began taking cover behind the rubble they had used to hide their ambush. The suppressing fire made any attempt to pop out and fire again a suicidal move and the shelling had only complicated the matter further. Clearly the paid guns were more organized than originally thought as the infantry drones began to crawl back as to retreat. The aerial drones however had positioned themselves behind the IFV in preparation for their bailing. The moment the doors opened, turret fire would rain into the exposed infantry as they began to scatter into cover. From there the drones would pull back into the sky and would begin harassing the infantry where they were even as some began to drop from the skies after being shot down.

The NCO in charge of the patrol was not having a good time. The QRF he had called in was approaching, but nowhere near fast enough. He had several men dead and a few wounded out of his half-platoon of 16, and little in the way of proper fire support at the moment.

With few other options, the troopers could only really wait, with a pair of men from the weapons element turning their general-purpose machine guns on the drones and adding their fire to the IFV’s shells.
There was some irony in the fact that both ambusher and ambushed were, to some degree, pinned.

As the amount of fire aimed at the Authority class aerial drones increased so did their casualties and so in one last attempt to cause as much damage as they could before pulling out, flew forward and would drop the small explosive connected to its back before flying off. With the autocannon still raging behind them and the (relatively inaccurate yet still dangerous) machine guns in front of them, many drones would be downed and yet many more would pass through the screen of lead and reach their target, dropping their payloads.

And that was that. Several men died very painful, explosive deaths, but the patrol was still in the fight, and more importantly, the IFVs were still up and running...and had radioed their plight to their comrades, who had dutifully notified the Battlegroup.

Within a few hours, a declaration of war would be released, and a new player entered the field of battle.

by **Starlight Citadel Privateer Corps** » Fri May 28, 2021 10:31 pm

Flotilla 9- Dreadnought IX Bridge

"English..." Alchess took a second, sitting in the captain's seat behind the helmsman and rubbing her eyes.

`My job here is done. You people won't have a problem.` The nautiloid creature behind her twitched an eyestalk from its shell, its psionics translating its otherworldly tones into thoughts.

"Go fuck off, Dunno why the hell we keep you damn snails around anyway." She noted, her voice low and more tired than it should be. Running a hand through brunette hair, she referred to her crew as well as the respective crews of the Citadel expeditionary force.
"Zoom... Someone grab a laptop or a terminal, pull up whatever it is they might be talking about. Probably old Earth tech that we already ported to our systems."

As one of the mates began to load through the computers' memory systems, Alchess's young helmsman Ferrant spoke up.

"Proof of trust, Captain. We ask them to send their copy of the program to us, then we scan and compare with our version for any discrepancies. Anything sus on it gets reported and we take it from there, if it checks out, we'll talk."

Just a nod from Alchess is what was needed.

<<Dreadnought IX and her associate vessels hail from the Starlight Citadel. We respectfully request a downloadable copy of Zoom for appropriate communications.>>

by **Pax Cybertronian** » Fri Jun 04, 2021 1:49 pm

Back on Earth, Cobra Commander’s plans were a success, for the moment at least. He had now managed to produce several more Stand clones, one example being a clone of one of DIO’s counterparts. Some of the Stands Cobra Commander perceived as usual, others… less so. Nonetheless, he kept them moving forward for the sake of his mission to reform Cobra. Swarms of B.A.T.s, both from the old generation and the new guard of androids, had now been created and were ready for deployment. Not only that, but his propaganda worked like a charm: the masses seemed to be quickly swarming to join Cobra. He was also able to produce more Blackstar pilots as well; he hoped they’d be reigning the skies soon enough. The main problem would be actually training them; the Blackstar replicators from ages past would solve the food problem for a while so he pushed that back. He luckily discovered some training programmes that he’d be able to download directly to people’s brains. He wasn’t absolutely sure where it came from – either from the Predators, the Intruders or the Council – but it worked well enough. The training inside was gathered from a variety of sources but it’d centre around some “absolute truths” as he called it: absolute loyalty to Cobra and its Commander, handling firearms, controlling vehicles, artillery, sea ships, spaceships, aircraft, and actual combat, medical and military training.

Suddenly, a newer official walked into the room, having been ordered to gather information on potential rivals by the Commander.

“Greetings, my lord. This is what we have so far on our potential enemies. I think you’ll find this useful,” the official said.

“Go on,” he responded impatiently.

“Ah, yes… first is the EMPIRE OF DIO. It’s led by a mister “Dio Brando”. They are sequestered within a mansion in Florida that was acquisitioned by their forces. Their troops have been spotted fighting in North Korea as well, although we have yet to fully decipher their sphere of influence. Their endgame is unknown to us, but it appears to be something related to a “Heaven Plan”.”

“Who’s next?” he barked.

“Uh… in a good portion of the European mainland now lies the PILLAR EMPIRE, led by the four Pillar Men: Kars, Wammu, Esidisi, and Santana. They… seem to be some type of human. They’ve got themselves an army of vampires at their disposal. That said, considering they’re being bombarded – unsure why – I don’t know how much longer they’ve got.”

“Then we’ll just wait them out and take over Eurasia once they’re dealt with. If they live, I’ll send Cobra forces over to take them out. Who’s next?”

“Next is… someone called FUNNY VALENTINE. He was an American politician before the whole Ascension War – that’s what they’re calling it, I think – started. They say he’s died – what? – nineteen times now and he’s somehow bounced back each time. He’s certainly got something up his sleeve, I bet it.”

Cobra Commander glanced at the computer screen. He considered trying to get himself one of these new-fangled Stands, although he wasn’t sure whether to wait sooner or later. He left the thought aside for a moment.

“Who else?” he commanded.

“Uh… in Italy, there’s a criminal syndicate called PASSIONE. It’s unknown who actually leads the damn thing, but it could be interesting, nonetheless. The majority of them have Stands of their own.”

“Alright, so… I’ve found a bunch of Russian mercenaries called HOTEL MOSCOW that operate in Roanapur in Thailand. It’s led by someone called, uhh, Sofiya Pavlovna. She’s usually called Balalaika. Known fronts include some trade company and a cargo ship. They could be fine allies if I may, though I assume they’re going to be going to war with other criminal organisations at some point in the future. Just a hunch, so far.”

“There’s also all the aliens around,” he continued. “The Octavians, the Autobots, the Decepticons, humans from other Earths, you name them. These are the ones we’ve gained intel on so far.”

Other Earths? He learned not to question these things at this point.

Nevertheless, Cobra Commander was more convinced than ever that he himself needed to fight all these new enemies. These are new times! he thought. I need to boost myself. I need something interesting – something powerful! Something imposing! – to show I’m not a pushover and to make myself supreme.

The Autobots continued to scurry around their fleet. The Ascension War only continued to escalate, so everyone needed to chip in one way or another. Refuelling shipping lines, synthesising energon, blacksmithing Cybertronians, making sure the shipyards were in working order: everything and everyone was needed.

One of the tasks that had to be undertaken was creating an alliance between the anti-Octavian states. Intel gathered by informants had discovered that the Octavians had formed an unofficial alliance with their member-states. One particular Autobot, Fireiron, had the task of writing up a message and then sending it off via the proper channels. This message would commence the official formation of an alliance between those who opposed the Octavians, with luck.

Reaching, he began to have concerns about having to deal with human supremacists, but he pushed it to the side. Optimus was apparently being transferred from Cymopolia to the Milky Way as Steelsmith needed to contend with other political matters for the time being. He was good at handling relations with organics, so he figured it’d be fine enough.

Sitting down, he linked up to the computer and began to type out a message.

Code: Select all: It is known to us, the Autobot Federation, that the Octavians have successfully managed to formulate an alliance for the purposes of the Ascension War between their technoist allies. We would like to express our desire to form an alliance – a concordance of nation-states opposed to the imperialistic efforts concerted by the Octavian Imperium – with all present opponents of the Octavian State to better coordinate warfare, economics and diplomacy. If you wish to respond and begin to coordinate an alliance with our state, respond to this message, upon which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shall deal with said message accordingly.

The message was sent off throughout the galaxy - he checked to ensure all the appropriate protocols had been met (e.g., encryption) - and he lay back into his chair and debated playing some games on a dataphone – maybe Incensed Birdbots or Aerodynamic Birds or whatever they were called – once he started his break. He was distracted by a sudden notification that gave him a new revelation: the Autobots had been conducting autopsies on Octavian corpses they gathered from Earth (getting the bodies were a pain since they had to keep manoeuvring around paperwork in accordance with established Autobot Code regulations). Of particular interest was a black chip that, when Wheeljack briefly connected it to his processor, took his mind up to some information-based dimension that he theorised to be infraspace, a realm existing outside of the universe comprised of pure information…

by **Imperial-Octavia** » Mon Jun 07, 2021 4:39 pm

Ridley's Rest

Again, Ridley's Rest had proven to be a complicated affair. As the Visoran slabs went down into the black hole and were destroyed along with the millions of Visoran fighters that had accompanied them it had left the remaining Octavian fleet exposed to the very angry traders and vagabonds that protected the station (not to mention the formidable defenses of the station itself) and had begun to pound into the Octavian formations. This was a dire situation indeed. The remaining Uan cruiser's with EW capabilities would begin to drown the defenders of the station with yottabytes of junk data, spreading their tendrils of false information across all the space of the battlefield to try and keep too many shots from colliding into the ships of the Octavian fleet. A group of Corvettes, about 14 in number, would rush forward at full speed barreling towards the station firing at anything in their path with their mass drivers; with the shields down and Octavian numbers thinning, it would only make sense for the Imperium to send some of their less powerful craft to try and cause as much damage to the station as possible, in case the battle didn't go in the favor of the Imperial navy. The surviving capital ships in the fleet would begin to begin to hammer their shots into the station, sending giant shells flying through space at c-frac, all in the hopes of shattering the object of the defenders attention so that maybe the crews would be willing to leave the area alone now that their station was floating slag. Smaller craft that were still in the fleet such as frigates, cruisers, and Assimilation class corvettes would try and hold the front shooting at the remainder of the defense fleet and their decoy ships, sending gauss fire, torpedoes, and Ion beams flying through the battlefield. What few drone fighters remained (few, compared to the massive swarms that they usually came in; there was still around 1,500 left) would focus on harassing the decoys trying to avoid another suicide attack or any VIPs escaping, though the Zravisk's ruse would be discovered soon it was working for the time being. About 500 would focus on the Dagger in an attempt to protect the capital ships that this battle now relied on doing everything in their ability to impede and destroy the craft and those within it.

Inside the slag of the Sword, Talen was to put it simply, furious. Not only had her flagship been destroyed by what seemed to be some sort of superweapon that also took out the Visoran that were reinforcing her fleet, but the Zravisk captain had escaped while saying something (Talen didn't quite hear it as it was said in the void of space) and the fact that whatever that something was wasn't pleading for mercy against the mighty Tal'Talen added fuel to the fire of her anger. The surviving Chosen picked themselves up, some missing limbs and large chunks of their shells, and stood at attention while Talen immediately began ranting at them...Ranting which they couldn't hear as, again, they were in the void of space which admittedly they were thankful for since they were exempt by whatever curses the Mechanator's Arms was in the process of spewing at them for their perceived failure. The following explosions from the Dagger's torpedoes only added to her already significant anger as Talen began kicking a console to her side creating a dent in it which only increased in size every time her foot slammed into the side of the machine. In her rage, an idea formulated and even between kicks against the poor energy regulation console she realized that she may be able to achieve victory here despite the major setbacks that her operation had been afflicted with. After calming herself down, she began downloading some choice memetics to broadcast to the drone fleet. Her plan was in motion...

Mining Planet 122

H'Krell used his severed arm as a shield, using it to block a wild stab from Chyrvalth’s tail bisecting it as the Grand Mechanator responded with a laser blast to the Councilwoman's face and a shoulder push to try and push Chyrvalth off her balance which Krell looked to exploit. Across the bridge of the Voidscreamer similar fights raged as multiple Chosen fought one of the Honor Guard as blood and metal were thrown about the once pristine bridge; cleaning drones still weaved past the feet and plasma blasts that engulfed the bridge trying to clean the mess that the battle was making, weaving around in endless circles collecting more waste from the battle. The battle was ruthless as more Chosen were awakened from their boarding pods and rushed into the mosh pit that was the bridge, firing their cannons into the Zravvisk sending droves of shells at any of the honor guard who were not currently being stabbed at by their Chosen brothers. Others charged towards Chyrvalth firing their cannons towards the organic's back while the more fanatical (and less logical) of the newly summoned elites would unsheathe their electro-saber's and leaped onto the Councilwoman stabbing and cutting into the flesh even while being thrown off and swatted away. And then came the Zravvisk reinforcements lead by another one of their leaders and the hordes of Chosen began to move their way to the back to combat them using grenades and ranged fire to try and cut their foe down.

Outside the bridge, the fleet was in just as fierce of a battle as Zravvisk ships slammed into Drone ships desperately trying to pull back. It was not expected that the Zravvisk fleet would be so brash as to FTL jump only a few feet away from the Octavian position and as missiles and particle beams flew from Octavian craft being bashed, escape plans were quickly being formulated. The plan that the T'Qui class stealth corvettes were supposed to carry out were now in a precarious position as the ships appeared uncomfortably close for the small vessels as they moved backwards at full speed trying to escape the dangerous charge that the Imperials faced. Remaining cloaked, the stealth ships moved above the main area of the battle and began surveying the area for high value targets that the fleet would prefer struck down, first looking down at the Hammerhead which was slamming it's way through Imperial drone ships. As their targets were set the rest of the fleet would correspond as heavier ships moved to slam their own weight against the Hammerhead, not looking to take it down in a contest that they were not designed to win, but instead to slow it down so that the T'Qui ships could come and lay down a decisive strike. They would position themselves above the Hammerhead and carefully calculate every moment of the ships predicted movement compared to the speed and angle of their planned strikes into the inside of the craft. Once FTL was calibrated inside the rounds planned, they then fired sending 10 rounds flying towards the ship, aimed towards each section of the Hammerhead. When they were only a few moments away from the ship, it's sensors would likely detect multiple FTL signatures starting around it, right before multiple explosions would teleport right inside their ship. The stealth corvettes would scatter and begin looking for another target to try and cripple.

Interstellar Space

It was rare to see Octavian mining ships outside of their space after the war started. While a few months ago many mining fleets roamed throughout neutral space, brining the vast mineral wealth of the galaxy back to the Imperium before it soon expanded into that space, now they were few and far between. It was far too dangerous to have undefended minerals floating in the unclaimed void and it would require too many ships to protect them all when they could be sent elsewhere to fight for the Imperium. So most mining fleets had retreated into the heartland of the Imperium, taking whatever resources that remained in the borders of the realm. However, a few still roamed the cosmos taking minerals from asteroids and planets and shipping them back to the homeland to be smelted down and forged into a drone or another laser rifle or perhaps even become part of a warship that may be used to protect one of the few remaining mining fleets.

Mining fleet #A-0221 was one of these rare mining fleets protected by a few cruisers and one manned ship holding one Mechanator Unit T-323, an AI who recently joined after realizing that if Octavia were to lose that his continued existence may be at risk. If the state media was to be believed there were many outwardly genocidal factions that were fighting Octavia and if the worst case scenario were to occur and Octavia was completely destroyed, there was a chance that the pure AI would be the first to be purged. Obviously T-323 was not a fan of the idea of being eradicated and saw a opportunity to try and prevent this fate from dawning upon him. He was aware that his enlistment by itself wasn't going to cause much difference in the potential outcomes of the war statistically, but if his enlistment had encouraged anyone else on his world to join perhaps it would eventually begin to tip the scale. As T-323's ship notified him of the oncoming FTL jump of the fleet as the minerals of the system he was currently in were being loaded into the freight ships which would soon undock and jump back to Octavia, while his fleet would push onward and collect more minerals as it had done many time before. Unit-323 sat in the chair of his Uan cruiser and waited for another few weeks of mineral collection, it wasn't as if any other system had been much different.

Shrell Star System

Turtalian society would be in for a shock as they made new contact with another alien civilization shortly after they had met another. The mining fleet had warped into the edge of the system and drones began flying through the void hunting for minerals in asteroids surrounding the system ignoring the radio signals that were bouncing through space. T-323 however was very aware of these signals, taking note of every one that his ship picked up, hearing the gibberish that the senders of such a message were speaking while he realized what he had come upon. Primitives. The Imperium had stopped actively expanding some time ago and as such the offers of protectorate status had long since ceased, replaced with a laser focus on the ongoing war, but now the AI was faced with a question. What was his move in this situation? He had not been ordered to offer protectorate status, or conquer it, nor was he ordered to raid the planet for it's resources and then leave the area never to return to the planet and the traumatized civilization below. In this situation he really only had one option; his superior would soon receive a message about this situation and what T-323 was ordered to do here. It was the only option that had really made sense to the AI, anything else would have been illogical.

In the few minutes that had passed, it seemed that the Imperium would be unable to say they were the first to contact these primitives. Some ship had strolled along this route and it appeared to have made contact with the organics below, though the real question was were the ones who got to these primitives first hostile or not? Before 323 could really calculate those odds and the implications of the continuance of this operation if they were, there was a ping on the console which told 323 that his superior had responded to his query.

"Enact protectorate establishment protocols as in the beginning of the expansion. Appear friendly as to not incur fear and slowly reveal intentions to the primitives. Use intimidation to achieve results if necessary. If they refuse still, then bombard, but only if they have no support from the coalition arrayed against us. If any large enemy force is seen, abandon operation. That is all, proceed with mission Mechanator T-323"

Upon reading this 323's hands immediately began tapping across the Cruiser's console as he directed it to crack into the internet equivalent of Turtalia and directed it to any website related to language and speech, hastily downloading copies of every word the civilization had in it's digital records, before being downloaded by T-232 and the Imperium as a whole as a new language was added to the Imperial records. Now as he was actually able to communicate with the Turtles below he began drafting a small message that would comply with his superior's wishes. Outwardly friendly and helpful, only later would they be told to become a protectorate. Now to see if 323 could be convincing enough to get this civilization working with Octavia.

Hello inhabitants of the planet of Turtalia. The Octavian Imperium has noticed your civilization and we see great potential in it. As such the Imperium has taken interest in your nation and we wish to begin deepening relations between our two states. We offer trade, technological exchange, and knowledge of the outside galaxy to your young star state. We would also like to congratulate your people on the construction of a space elevator and the colonization of your system. On average it takes an average of 21.3 years for most civilizations to reach this level of advancement. The Imperium would also like to know if we have permission to land one of our envoys somewhere on your planet for further discussion of a further relationship

After writing this ego-inflating message, 323 would send it to every governmental office with the capability to receive messages while being kept far from any civilian sources. If first contact begun with mass panic it would not bode well for the plan moving into the future. Now all that was left to do was wait for a response and watch as mining drones picked at the asteroids around his ship.

Talilin System

Code: Select all: High deactivation rates detected A change in strategy is needed Spread out and focus fire on the ship removing our ships

The drone fighters scattered from their condensed formations and exploded out into all directions spreading out through space and making attempts to outmaneuver the anti-fighter missiles launched at them and while many failed, each drone that went down gave a new insight on how these missiles worked and how they could be circumvented. The main fleet wasn't doing much better, as the small fleet of 19 had been whittled down to 10 as another corvette's shields broke and was shattered by the shell of the Goben while the other Battle-scout ships kept the other assorted Octavian vessels taking evasive actions and scurrying behind the asteroid belt for cover from the bolts of destruction hurtling towards them. While defeat was all, but assured at this point, it does not mean that more data on these unknown ships could not yet be collected. A Uan class Cruiser armed with missiles would get to testing their point defense. One hundred missiles would launch from behind one of the many asteroids aimed at the Goben and accompanied with that came the missiles from the drone fighters aimed very specifically at the guns and weaponry of the ship with their dedicated anti-capital missiles. After this action, it is highly likely that the scouting fleet would retreat, assuming that the Astroflotte doesn't have any surprises for the Imperial fleet...

Diplomatic overtures

Another day, another notification from diplomatic AI mentioning new developments in the galaxy. The Paragon had seen many of these, but one stood out in particular. The United Socialist States of Laiakia had just declared itself as neutral in the conflict. Now while his role was to watch over the internals affairs of the Imperium and deal with any foreign affairs that come up while The Paramount was off on Earth fighting their enemies and his copies were doing...something that may probably be important, but there was a possibility here that shouldn't be ignored. The Laikians were a socialist nation, this much was known, but depending on how ideological they were it may be possible to make them believe that Octavia's faction would be the best to spread their beliefs or something of the like. It also helped that since the invasion of Earth that copies of the Communist Manifesto and many other texts that were complimentary to the Laiakian's ideology had been added to Imperial digital archives so it would be very easy to learn and speak to their socialist sensibilities. So The Paragon began drafting a message and ordering H'Krell to begin reading all of that socialist literature until he was a verifiable expert on Marxism. The Paragon only hoped that his father would be proud that he was hopefully securing a new ally for the Imperium.

Hello Comrades of Laiakia! The Octavian people would like to send a delegation into your territory to discuss the opening of diplomatic relations between the United Socialist States of Laiakia and Octavia. We also wish to clear up any misconceptions that may exist within the United Socialist States about the nature of our nation. We will patiently await your response.

The Falklands Island

At last the Falklands were back in the hands of their proper Argentinian owners, granted, few Argentines would have imagined this reclamation would involve a rogue group of nationalist soldiers and an alien invasion which collapsed most nations around the world, but at least the islands were reclaimed. When the Argentine marines touched down on the shores of the Falklands, the inhabitants simply allowed them to take dominion over them, with the U.K firmly in Octavian hands there really was no way that they could hope to stop it and this was known and so the Falklands became apart of "Argentina" or at least what remained of it. In truth the soldiers dispatched to this island were working for a government that hadn't existed in some time, after Octavia had invaded the South American continent most of the Argentine government had went into hiding, ran into the Chile, or swore fealty to their new robotic overlords in exchange for their lives. But on the Falklands islands things were different, there was much discussion of what would be done once Argentina officially fell into Octavian hands and the grips of anarchy. As far as the marines were concerned there was only one thing they could do.

Pedro had been in the military for quite a long time, long enough that he remembered the last time Argentina had tried to take the Falklands islands. That time, it had been a humiliating defeat, but now the islands finally lay in Argentine hands. Granted it required an alien invasion and the total annihilation of the British army by said aliens, but at least it was done. At least that's how Pedro thought of it, he knew guys who thought they would have to march into London in order for this whole thing to truly be done, in fact he was right about to talk to one.

"Hey Esteban! How's it been?" said Pedro as he tapped the young, brown haired man on the shoulder. He looked behind him with a smile and dropped his drink before rising to face his friend. Esteban and Pedro exchanged a small hug before the question was formally answered.

"Ah Pedro! Things have been good around here! Preparations for reclamation are doing pretty good too, we just have to wait for a few more remnants of the navy to show up and then it will be smooth sailing into Buenos Aires." Esteban looked contented thinking about the reclamation of Argentina, it was the only thing many people thought about Pedro included.

"Ah, that's good, that's real good Esteban. I'm sure we'll be on our way back home in no time." Pedro added, "I've just been doing some maintenance here and there, you wouldn't believe how badly some people can mess shit up." Esteban simply laughed while patting Pedro's back after his comment

"Oh you have no idea Pedro! I saw this one guy ruin his gun after he got drunk, I have never seen so much water come out of a barrel, looked like he put the entire Atlantic in there! Y'know we really ough-" Before Esteban could finish his sentence, an air horn pierced through the dock. It was time to get back to their duties, "Ah, look at that, I've got to go man. See you later though, I found a pack of cigars on the ground earlier today, we can smoke them together later yeah?" Esteban would begin peeling away from Pedro as he saw his

"Sounds good, see you later!" said Pedro as his young friend ran off to go do whatever it was he was assigned as Pedro went to do the same.

Some hours later

It was late and Esteban was no where to be found. While usually Pedro would've assumed his officer had him off doing some cleaning somewhere it didn't help that the last time anyone had seen him was after he went off to the center of the island after he claimed to have seen some strange black thing on a hill somewhere. Now hours later, it was assumed he had defected, but Pedro knew this wasn't true. Esteban was too much of a patriot to do something like that and so Pedro had journeyed out into the wilderness of the Falklands as Esteban did before him. He had searched for a bit and had found nothing but this strange black ooze that seemed to be everywhere where there used to be sheep, he decided it was best for him to stay far away from it. About an hour into his search he finally saw Esteban, or at least what seemed to be him. He was simply wandering, surrounded by a herd of blackened sheep, that same ooze covering their bodies as it almost seemed that their skin had melted off. Slowly reaching for his gun, Pedro looked towards Esteban who seemed to be suffering from the same affliction which covered the sheep, "Esteban? Are you okay?" They charged and Pedro soon learned the answer to his question. It was a no.

Canada
DIO's Empire

Dio Brando (not to be confused with DIO) was a very happy man. His future self in DIO had amassed grand power and by allying with the Octavians his goal of dominating the world filled with the weak humans that lived in it, but it was clear that his future counterpart had other goals, but that was no matter to Dio. If DIO had turned from the goals that Dio once had then Dio would just have to take over the reigns from DIO so that Dio's goals wouldn't be ruined by DIO. Even now there were still potential threats to his future domination like this new Cobra group that had recently shown up. Dio didn't know where they came from, but he did know that if the leader of this group was anything like him then he would have to be crushed, preferably quickly, and then subsumed into his new empire. While usually he was fairly sure his future self would have gone and crushed them with his stand by now, it seemed that he was currently preoccupied. The mansion hadn't said much for a bit now and while he was sure that DIO wouldn't have been slain, something would have to be done. And so there sat Dio, in the gothic palace he had made for himself in the ruins of the Canadian nation gathering his zombie army (thankfully sun resistant thanks to Necrom's earlier spell) and prepared to march his way down into the United States to find these Cobra fools and give them a simple offer. Serve or die!

Pronza

After the Octavians had taken over life had changed drastically for the villagers of Pronza. Their main export of fishing had fell off since no one could eat anymore and so most of the villagers of Pronza had chosen to spend their time in the Aether while forced to do some mining for the Imperial government every here and there. The Mechanators seemed to be on higher alert as of the last few hours, but it didn't make much difference to the villagers of Pronza who were still getting used to the idea of living in an interstellar nation. That was until the Imperials began herding them away into buildings and making cover in the fields. It was fairly obvious something was going on, but what could it be?

"The EXO units are approaching fast, we are unsure if we are going to be able to hold the village against them and we're almost certain the villagers won't aid us in protecting the village, should we terminate them?" asked Oau'Teil's AI second in command. Oau'Teil's digital face overlay grimaced as the simple line which made up his mouth turned to a frown as he looked into the small timber houses that they had herded the new Octavian citizens into. He knew he couldn't just get rid of these newly assimilated members of the Imperium not only would harming his fellow synthetic be immoral, but it wouldn't be possible to destroy them before the EXO units fell upon them. He would have to reject that motion.

"No, keep them here. We cannot destroy them fast enough to avoid being caught out by the enemy. Are they in range of our guns yet?" His digital face display became a question mark as he awaited an answer from his AI companion.

"No they are not. It is important to note that if the citizens are captured counter measures against current Octavian shells may be compromised and could possibly jeopardize the Octavian war effort." responded the AI leading to Teil placing his hand on it's arm and looked directly into it's optical sensors.

"No matter what happens here I cannot allow my fellow synthetics be at risk of actual death. We will hold th-"

The AI interrupts him, "They are in range, the order to fire has been given." In but a moment the entire Octavian line would erupt in red light as lasers flew across the field of battle towards the EXO units as Oau'Teil added his own ray to the onslaught. It was clear that the battle-or what would more accurately be called a skirmish-had begun.

by **Spiritual Republic of Caryton** » Tue Jun 08, 2021 2:23 pm

THE IDENTITY
REMOTE TERRITORY, THE FALKLANDS

Warmth. The wreck of that one cruise liner against the rocky shores of a barren and isolated beach had allowed the infectious parasite that festered inside to finally find warmth. In the cold void of space, the simple spore could survive but its functionality had been seriously limited. The same could be said for the icecaps of Antarctica. However, proper earthling temperatures had allowed the spore to live, to breed and replicate and sludge about. That horrific hybrid mold could finally dig in, killing off plant life and infecting whatever it came across.

It started with a few sheep, a few mere sheep. The mold kept the infected cruise liners alive even despite such a horrid crash. However, the parasite needed to expand its empire. More biological material to consume, more warmth to metabolize, more spores to spread. The hermit farmers found themselves terrified at the revelation of missing sheep en masse and rumors of ambiguous black apparitions directing them. By the time the Argentinian soldiers arrived, they had already been regaled by folklore-esque tales of things that go bump in the night.

It started with the sheep and cruiseliners, but eventually farmers began to go missing too. So did soldiers who wandered from their post. Farmhouses became molded-over hives of sludgy tendrils, hibernating victims and their moldy clones, so perfect on the outside, ready to lure in anybody who dared to investigate.

The Identity was smart enough to know foreign boots were entering its host lands. It knew to fester in remote and rural areas where reaction times would be slow and forces would be sparse enough to pick off. It gathered up its strength, the few intelligent Melted strategizing their next blow. It wouldn't be an attack on any FOB or town or city.

Argentinan sensors would detect something... unusual heading towards their largest port on the Falklands. Almost two thousand bogeys. They would number the following:

~1200 standard Melters and their weaker mold-clone components
~250 Molders for support
~200 Martyrs to target defenses and infrastructure
~150 Maimers for flanks, harassment, and more agile warfare
~100 Mini-Controllers for leadership and use of ranged human weapons
~200 infected animals as "tanks" of sorts

Whatever their garrison was, stronger or weaker, the most horrifying night of their lives would be on the horizon, as stumped officers wondered just what might be approaching them...

The Identity was looking to both lock the humans in- and find a way to get out.

by **Gladian Imperium** » Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:00 pm

Svenska Britannia, Sol

As the quick reaction force neared the safe limits of approach to Sol, the behemoth starship located within did not stir. It was clear even at this distance that it outsized and out-massed many of the ships in the fleet, and was having minimal trouble holding back the inferno of stellar matter around it. Yet, at the center of the fleet, the ship leading the QRF would see a strange phenomenon in its command center. Light seemed to waver, warp, and distort, shifting color and bending in unnatural ways to form an image.

When the colors and shades settled in, what was revealed was a figure that looked straight out of a Western. A hammock that seemed woven from constellations hung from invisible supports, as the figure within, garbed in the attire of the stereotypical cowboy, a wide-brimmed hat perched atop an undoubtedly humanoid head obscured by shadow. Lazily, the reclining figure lifted a cigar to their presumed mouth, took a long draw of it, and exhaled a shimmering cloud of crystal dust that disintegrated into shimmering motes of light.

"Well, the big brain can't blame me for tryin'," the figure drawled, twirling the cigar. "You lot no doubt wonder what I am. My name's Ol' Reliable, the owner of the fine vessel currently residing in your star. I can answer some questions, but not all, so do pick yer' words wisely partner." Ol' Reliable went to take another drag of his cigar, awaiting the response from the ship's commander.

IWS Walls of Iron, Communications Deck

Amidst the never-ending bustle of the Communications Deck, one officer received the message from the Autobot polity. As the characters and figures filtered across the screen, the officer recalled the appropriate protocols and forwarded the prompt to the bridge.

On the bridge, something of a gridlock occurred. Establishing strategic lines of communication would be vital, but at the same time, too much association or conflict with the "Autobot" or "Decepticon" powers was viewed as a negative thing after the Cymopolia fiasco. Eventually, however, a tentative compromise between needs and musts was struck, and a message, albeit a harshly worded one, was returned.

Communique to Autobot Federation
The Kair-Milky Way Pact tentatively accepts your invitation to strategic cooperation.
However.

Be as it may, incidents in Cymopolia have soured the general opinion of Autobot and Decepticon alike. Let it be known this is an alliance of convenience, just as much as our prior clashes with Decepticon forces were due to a conflict of interests rather than a full desire for war. If we deem this cooperation subpar, we will terminate it. If we wish to entertain your proposal, the meeting will be on our terms, in our domain. There will be no effort at cooperation beyond this conflict.

All due respect, the 800th Armada of the Gladian Imperium, year 3,500,650 of the Interregnum

Prozna, EXO Fireteam

The EXO Units hit the deck as the hail of laser fire streaked towards them. The heavier units hurled over the fireteam and raised shields, shimmering barriers deflecting the lasers away from the recuperating soldiers. Rapid-fire communications shot between the crouched units, even as the aerial drones swooped down and opened fire, pelting the field with hypervelocity flechettes.
Raising to a proper position, the EXOs opened their dorsal silos, and let forth a hail of micromissiles-all effectors, all tuned to the Blackout Field, which would cease the function of conducting materials.

Mining Planet 122

'Twas But A Jest let the dueling fleets flee into FTL, casting forward a subspace imposition to the ensuant brawl to keep an eye on the state of the battle. However, he would not be joining. Indeed, he was going to instead be leaving some presents for the Zraavisk defenses, and some horrible curses for the Octavian Forces.

As his onboard fabricators flickered to life, already mapping the system for ideal spots for the fun spots, the Blind Prophet began navigating into deep space, where it would hide itself and await the opportunity for an ambush. A communique, a warning, would be beamed to the Zraavisk fleet.

Mine own draconian comrades, I beareth news and warning.
the guardians of this system catch but a wink nev'rending. At which hour the silv'r conqu'rs seeketh to reclaim their w'rld, those gents shall awaken and aid to the most wondrous of their ability.

I shall remaineth. As shall mine own esc'rt. We shall gaze from the infinite black, and we too shalt arriveth to thy aid as did need

by **Svenska-Britannia** » Thu Jun 17, 2021 6:09 pm

HMSBS Caloris, Mercury Class Armored Battlestar, Quick-Reaction Force, Alternate Sol

In the CIC on the flagship of the Quick-Reaction force that was sent to investigate the Large Unknown Anomaly, Crewmembers walked and ran all over the place as they were doing their duties or attending to other matters. Rear-Admiral Weiss Von Schnee was busy talking with the other officers about the unknown object that had entered the Solar System and orbiting the Sun at an incredibly close proximity.

"Ladies and Gentlemen.." Weiss started, pointing her finger at the Holographic Map of the Solar System, directly at the digital representation of the Unknown Object.

"We've been sent as a Quick-Reaction force to investigate the Unknown Object that has entered our Solar System. Latest information given to us by the Valkyrie Class Battlestar hours earlier has informed us that the signal they've intercepted is that of a Major Battle occuring in orbit around a planet that similarly looks like our Earth..Intel suggest that this Unknown Object originated from that said battle..we've yet to see its intentions if it's either friendly or-....what the deuce?"

Weiss noticed the distortion of light throughout the CIC along with the rest of the Officers and crew. Eventually the distortions settled down and the entirety of the Ship's crew noticed the new unknown arrival.

"MARINES!" Weiss bellowed out, and immediately without a word being uttered, Squads of Imperial Marines took Aim with their Gamma Ray Battle Rifles at the Unknown.

The Unknown then started to speak up and introduce himself and the vessel that entered into the Solar System to the entire CIC of the Armored Battlestar.

Nobody spoke for a while as the intense silence dominated the CIC except only the electronic whirring of machines and cogitators. Eventually though somebody did speak up.

"If i may...." Weiss spoke up, walking down the CIC's upper decks to meet with the unknown up close. The Marines being anxious that their High Ranking Officer is getting close and personal with the entity.

"This collection of Planetary Bodies are protected by the United Confederation of Svenska-Britannia and its Allies back on the planet Earth.." The Holographic Map of the Solar System zoomed in and close to the Planet Earth as to where the Force originated from. She stared at the figure before uttering another word.

"What exactly brings you here in the Solar System.. Conquest? Extermination?...Do tell me right now.." She stated.

by **Bloodshade** » Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:59 pm

Ginostra, Italy
|| The Picnic ||

Ambrosia watched. She watched intently as the creature next to her experimented with his food. She watched as her spaghetti's integrity was violated by Hatlen's equivalent of physical sorcery. Her body was awash with a renewed sense of fear as she watched the man micro-manage his meal and guzzle it down in one fell swoop. A sane part of her mind urged her to excuse herself and leave. It would've been much safer to partake in bringing down the Paramount rather than sit next to this perplexing being. Still, his mimicry of human hospitability and courtesy certainly made her feel somewhat safe. After all, it was only just a few minutes ago when he had effortlessly slapped away one of the Paramount's clones, preserving both her safety, whether purposeful or not, and his clear view of the brawl. As Hatlen handed back her plate, now spotless, Ambrosia couldn't help but take a humorous jab at his seemingly accidental courtesy.

"You've just saved me a kilowatt-hour of electricity. My dishwasher in the galaxy next door owes you its gratitude. I've got some ice cream with your name on it. I'd ask if you had a particular flavor in mind but I'm only carrying vanilla and chocolate. Have you ever had a flavor for anything though?"

Ambrosia's curiosity got the better of her but she couldn't help but make inquisitiveness known. She was sure he'd catch on to her inquisitiveness and entertain it. If not, at least she'd learn one thing, this being has secrets. Closely guarded ones at that.

As she continued to ponder about the nature of her fellow picknicker, her hand disappeared into thin air once more, like as if a half of her arm had faded into nothingness. She quickly brought out a glass bowl of vanilla ice cream topped with toasted marshmallows, chocolate chips, sprinkles and hot fudge. Next, a glass bowl of chocolate ice cream topped with cherries, honey and needlessly, chocolate syrup. She laid out the two bowls in front of her, waiting to see which one would take Hatlen's fancy.

"You didn't think I'd leave a savory taste linger in your...body? Come on now, the last dish of the day. Take your pick! I wonder, when was the last time you were ever on a picnic? My poor head just can't wrap itself around you for some reason and it's only courteous for me to ask."

As Ambrosia found herself engrossed by the picnic, she couldn't help but notice that her surroundings were not like the others. Something was being violated. Her eyes couldn't possibly registered what had just went on but her guest most certainly had something to do with it. Had the Paramount or any of his opponents stepped past their boundaries? Ambrosia tried to make sense of what had just went on. She cursed under her breath. She didn't care for the power at display but she hated being left in the dark. She was nothing more but a child on a roller coaster heading to fate knows where. She held her head with both hands. Something felt odd and her body most certainly wasn't taking this well, as a sense of unease and queasiness welled up inside of her.

"Something happened. I'm not exactly sure what happened but something most certainly did happen. This is getting almost too heated for me, sir, but..."

As Ambrosia shifted her gaze to meet the being's expression, she noticed that his mood oh so subtly shifted. If something had somehow moved him, then something terrible or important must've happened.

"You alright? Something in the air felt...odd?"

Orbit of Yvresse
|| The Elephant's Arrival ||

"Understood, ICN 01, cleared for visual approach, station #327, lane 1-3, call 327 on arrival, expect traffic at 6'oclock"

Control had transmitted its instructions to the 'Elephant' bulk freighter, addressing it by its given callsign. Control had given the lumbering mass of cargo the go ahead to approach station number 327 visually and enter lane number 13. At that point, communications would pass on to the local command of station 327 of the Aegis Belt, with traffic predicted to approach the freighter from its perspective at 6 o'clock, directly behind the freighter. The freighter that had made itself known and visible to the Aegis Belt's command was a massive behemoth, truly living up to its official reporting name, 'Elephant'. The lone freighter easily contested the diameter of Yvresse's chief natural satellite. Traffic passing through a significant portion of the Aegis Belt was diverted, in order to make way for the swarm of cargo shuttles that would diffuse through the Elephant's interior, working to slowly but surely empty the ship of its contents. Transporters approach the hulking behemoth were taken aback by its sheer size and domineering aura. If it wanted to, the freighter could've swallowed the planet whole and sold its body to the highest bidder. There was no treasure or wonders stored deep within its belly. Only cold, hard alloys for the war machine of Sangueluna.

The first team of transporters that were the closest too the Elephant were in absolute awe. Within that ship, tools of death were at their homeland's disposal now. The Octavians will be in for a nasty surprise if or when they try to circumvent the front lines of space and attack Sangueluna's staunch line of defense. The first transporter team couldn't help but bicker and banter about the freighter and its contents.

"Alfie, I call dibs on the first cargo box I see. Wait till control gets a look at the bad boys I'll be hauling in."

"Good for you but I'm more interested in when we'll have a ship like THAT!"

"You know the government's allergic to spending money. Almost every weapons program we've had has been eventually cancelled because unit costs are apparently too high for those damn pacifists and. They start a new weapons program and guess what? Rinse and repeat! Yet, they have enough money to go out of their way and pay a glorified state-sponsered mercenary for a a range of upgrades to our aegis belt while the army and Weltraudahsila are left with scraps! Literal scraps! I'm telling you! Our destroyers need a desperate size and weapons overhaul, not our defense system! I'd rather the Octavians not come near our defenses anyways! We have the money but not the will to spend it. Put me in the ministry of defense and I'll make things right."

"No one wants to hear you complain! We're almost at the mouth of that fucking thing. Don't get lost in there, I'm serious! No one's going to look for you and god knows where that ship's captain is going to take you if he somehow doesn't detect you accidentally stowing away aboard."

"Look look, let me finish. All I'm saying is rather than spend money to upgrade the RPM of our station armaments. We should be putting more money in having a bigger fleet! We have the money! We have the industrial capacity! We have the know-how! Sure, the Octavians have the numbers but it's all about offset! Compensating for our disadvantages! They've got more ships. We get better ships! I'm no weapons designer but it's simple logic!"

"Armchair general's in a hissy fit! Shut up, keep up appearances. We don't want to look like idiots in front of the big bad mercs."

"Don't call them mercs!"

"They full well know they're a brand of mercs. It doesn't hurt to show that we're fully aware of who they are and what they do for a living. Y'know, Dalia's right. Why couldn't have bought one of those big ass ships off of them?"

"Shut up and drop it! How about I drop you off to the merc captain and you negotiate on behalf of Sangueluna? You'll be lucky if he doesn't blow a salvo of micromissiles up your ass."

The deafening hum of the freighter slowly drowned out the sound of their meaningless bickering as they and a swarm of cargo ships approached their grand destination. The hanger bay was wide open and welcoming to any and all patrons, regardless of their creed or origin. Its bitter steel must've lived through countless conflicts, being so generous enough to spread arms and ammunition to many other galactic civilizations. Sangueluna's martial needs were but a drop in the vast ocean of conflict that this towering elephant had immersed itself in. Soon enough however, that wouldn't matter. What mattered was the contents of the ship...as well as payment.

by **New Decius** » Fri Jun 18, 2021 12:55 am

Kaiserlicher Palast, Kaiserthronwelt Terra
Sol Star Zone, Grand Duchy of Salzbaum, Galactic Empire of Vers, Orion Arm
Galactic South, Milky Way Galaxy, I.C. 1,209

While many science fiction pundits of 19th and 20th century Terra had envisioned the world becoming an endless cityscape with starscrapers reaching into the upper atmosphere, the exact opposite fate had been fulfilled under the reign of the Goldenbaum Dynasty.

At the time of the foundation of the Vers Empire in 2056 A.D. with the dismantlement of the United Nations Solar Assembly, Terra had been severely overpopulated, facing a shortage of food and water as billions faced starvation. The corrupt republican-style government of the UNSA had ignored the problems facing humanity for decades, too fixated on their debates and their power to care for the common citizenry. When Kaiser Rudolf I der Reichsvater (Imperial Father), Founder of the Goldenbaum Dynasty, was swept into power on the wings of a popular uprising against the UNSA, and ushered in the system of aristocratic meritocracy, rapid changes were made to see the situation amended. With those of great talent and ability finally able to make their mark on humanity thanks to the Kaiser’s grace, real improvements began across Terra and the sparse solar colonies maintained by the UNSA. The early decades saw the new government embark on a campaign to encourage large portions of Terra’s population to migrate to the growing colonies in the Sol Star Zone, devoting enormous resources to expanding the said colonies, Mars in particular, to draw hundreds of millions from Terra. It took many years, as Vers began expanding outwards rapidly following IC 56 when Kaiserin Ulrika I von Goldenbaum succeeded the Reichsvater on the throne, but with so many new colonies and outposts a mass migration from Terra saw the Kaiserthronwelt’s population drop below three billion by IC 70. Her Imperial Majesty committed significant resources to reversing the centuries worth of pollution and environmental damage on Terra, having ensured the dismantlement of so-called ‘fossil fuels’ now that a steady supply of Helium-3 from Luna and other colonies was viable. Ulrika I is particularly well known for the ‘Great Forestry Act’ which aimed to revive to sprawling forests of Terra after centuries of logging operations and human expansion had near stripped the planet bare of such beautiful enclaves of nature; the Act restored the Amazonian Rainforests and the great Baltic Forests, both of which would become inviable protected areas as Fiefdom’s of the Throne.

With Mars, renamed Minerva, chosen to be the official seat of the Imperial Government, large efforts by Ulrika I, and succeeding members of the Goldenbaum Dynasty, would ensure Terra was reshaped into a far more idyllic world where humanity and nature could live in harmony. Many hundreds of plant and animal species, rendered extinct by the greed of humanity, were reborn through genetic science and the scars inflicted upon the homeworld slowly began to heal. As much of humanity had migrated away from Terra, and the remaining populations were largely congregated around the major cities of Eurasia, and over the centuries, while more than a fair few of the once great cities of Terra were wiped away to free up resources for the construction of a select group of new ‘megacities’. These megacities could comfortably, efficiently, and safely hold tens of millions within their confines, though many more of the population inhabited countless smaller towns and villages scattered across the revitalized world, particularly in the now restored wilds of the Amazonia and the vast Siberian wilderness. While there were strict quota’s in place to control the amount of food produced on Terra, much of the Kaiserthronwelt’s food was shipped in from the rest of the Kaiserreich. Where Mars had been crafted into a bustling ecumenopolis, Terra had apparently gone back in time to a lush green world once more.

The Kaiserlicher Palast, the Seat of Power of the Sovereign of the Galactic Empire of Vers, could have been a massive opulent construct given the treasury of Vers and the love its people had for their sovereign, indeed it could have been.

But that was not the wish of the Goldenbaum Dynasty, at least those who had built it.

The Reichsvater had governed from the former UNSA Presidential Palace, but his grandson, Kaiser Ottfried I von Goldenbaum, chose to build a new residence for the housing of the Imperial Dynasty. Ottfried modeled the new palace off the Stadtschloss, the former Royal Palace of the Kings of Prussia, on the Baltic Island of Bornholm. A truly beautiful construct, as if plucked right out of 19th Century Terra, yet outfitted with all the luxuries and efficiencies of modern technology, the Palast was not meant solely as a pleasure den for the Goldenbaum’s, but as a seat from which the Kaiser may run the Imperial Government. While the Palast could comfortably fit as many as two hundred permanent residents and nearly as many guests, with a staff reaching into the thousands, more than a third of the space was devoted to various government and military liaison staff to keep the Sovereign informed of the day to day business of the Kaiserreich. Just because the actual heart of governance was on an entirely separate planet, did not mean the Kaiser was separated from the act of governance.

Her Most August Imperial Galactic Majesty, Victoria-Louise von Goldenbaum, Kaiserin of the Galactic Empire of Vers, Matriarch of the Goldenbaum Dynasty, Protector of Terra, Lieutenant of Wotan, Sovereign Defender of the Kaiserreich, had sat on the throne now for almost fifty-five years. Being only 117, Her Majesty was still in the prime of her life, and was one of the more active Sovereign’s in Vers’ history; She had in fact taken a deep role in several major policy initiatives of the last decade, chiefly leading the charge against the intergalactic slave trade despite resistance from elements of the Suzeron Imperium, and also personally donating large portions of the Dynasty’s treasury to the relief of developing worlds on the Kaiserreich’s frontier. Her Imperial Majesty was part of a small collection within the Goldenbaum Dynasty, being one of less than four dozen female Sovereign’s, yet also one of less than twenty to have more than ten offspring, having sired fifty-three children of which no fewer than six cadet Branch’s had formed from the House of Goldenbaum. Still where traditional elements of old Terra may have insisted She be shuffled to the side and have one of Her Consorts rule in Her stead, She defied those naysayers and remained heavily involved in the day to day governance of the Realm. In fact, Her Majesty had unfortunately remained quite distant to most of Her children, leaving Her Consorts to act as the Parent while She governed Vers.

This meant that, besides the normal familial affection, His Imperial Highness, Prince Ludwig-Earhardt von Goldenlöwe, 22nd Son of Her Imperial Majesty and 28th-in Line for the Throne of Vers, was nigh emotionless standing across from his mother at the impromptu ‘War Council’ called in the Throne Room. The Throne Room of the Kaiserlicher Palast could easily fit a hundred persons, the War Council was composed of barely sixty; the senior members of the Imperial Government took up twenty-three, the Armed Services and OHL another seventeen, and prominent members of the aristocracy took up the remainder. Her Imperial Majesty was, naturally, seated on Her Throne with the War Council arrayed around a large holographic dais placed in the center of the room, uploading real-time information from the SMS Eisenhand, Vizeadmiral Jürgen’s flagship. The Reichskanzler, His Most Esteemed Excellency, Henrik Ruudigar was of course at the head of the table nearest Her Majesty, with the Chief of the General’s Staff to his immediate left, and His Grace, the Grand Duke Ottokar II von Saalzbaum, placed to his right.

Ludwig was but one of five members of the Goldenbaum Dynasty in attendance, not including the Kaiserin Herself. Standing across from him was his aunt, Grand Princess Juliana von Goldenbaum, whom held the rank of Feldmarschall and commanded the XXI. Armeegruppe; slightly older than her sister at 130, Juliana had abandoned any ambition for the Throne early on in her life by pursuing a career in the military and disregarding all lessons of statecraft. Directly beside him on his right was his Full-Blood brother, Prince Ottfried von Goldenlöwe, 20th Son of Her Imperial Majesty and 25th-in Line for the Throne; Ottfried held a good post on the staff of the Außenminister, he’d been preparing to join the bilateral trade talks with the Suzeron until Her Majesty called him to Her Council. Then, standing to the right of the Chief of the General’s Staff was his younger half-brother, Prince Xavier Perseus von Goldenhirsch, 26th Son of Her Imperial Majesty and 32nd-in Line for the Throne; Xavier, much like their aunt Juliana, was pursuing a military career and had showcased his abilities well enough to catch Feldmarschall Schörner’s eye and be appointed to his staff.

Though perhaps the Feldmarschall may have snapped him up just as much for his direct link to Her Majesty as he did for Xavier’s abilities...

Finally there was the most prestigious of them all, His Most August Imperial Highness, Erwin-Ludwig von Goldenbaum, Crown Prince of the Vers Empire, First Born of Her Imperial Majesty, and Heir to the Throne. Erwin was a decent enough fellow, still in the summer of his life at only 97, but he was truly uninspiring as Crown Prince’s went. Where most of his many, many, siblings were actively seeking out further accomplishments to increase their chance at succeeding their Mother, or for personal fulfillment, Erwin was content to simply act as a placeholder for the eventual successor. Even he knew their Mother would choose another to succeed Her; Erwin’s father had been Victoria-Louise’s first and perhaps true great love, stolen away shortly after Erwin was born in a tragic accident while touring an asteroid mining colony, and so Her Imperial Majesty had kept Her first born, yet bland, offspring as the Crown Prince out of respect for Her long-deceased beloved. Erwin-Ludwig was seated directly beside Her Imperial Majesty on Her left in a smaller throne used commonly by the Heir, looking slightly out of place with nothing of value to contribute.

“To conclude, it would seem that whomever this foe is, August Majesty, their technology is certainly inferior to ours in many aspects but they do seem to have developed highly advanced artificial intelligence.” Feldmarschall Schörner was just finishing up his briefing, having done as best he could with the limited information yet available. “As you are no doubt aware, these sort of swarm tactics by astrocraft are never attempted by organic pilots as no known organic species has the ability to hold such a formation without inducing a mass collision. These vessels were able to maneuver dozens of craft in tightly packed, constantly shifting swarms without colliding once.”

Grand Duke Saalzbaum stroked his chin in deep thought as the holoprojector played back footage of the drone craft in their maneuvers. “Speaking as someone who was an astrocraft pilot in their younger years, and a rather accomplished one if I am to be honest, it is no easy task to hold a standard formation much less this complex controlled chaos. August Majesty these most certainly had to be machines.” Though Grand Duke Saalzbaum was an old friend of Her Imperial Majesty, and saw a great deal of Her, his Grand Duchy being the one in which the Sol Star Zone lay, at such an official gathering he addressed Her as was only proper of a subject to their liege.

’If a braggart like Saalzbaum is saying their trouble, then these really must be advanced machines.’ Ludwig pondered as they continued to watch the live relay from the drones deployed to monitor the engagement. He would take Saalzbaum and Schörner’s word on the matter, freely admitting he knew very little about the complexities of flying an astrocraft.

“And still no confirmation as to the identity of these intruders? An inkling as to their motive for breaching Vers space?” A Duke whom Ludwig did not recognize piped up. The noble bore the planetary sigil of Verdant, one of the most fertile agricultural colonies in the Core of the Kaiserreich, which meant they were here to fish for any potential economic upsets that might result from this incident. A war on the frontier would mean increased food shipments to edge of the Kaiserreich, necessitating an increase in production.

Verteidigungsminister Ravensthrön shook her head.

“Nothing we can definitively confirm.” She’d, thankfully, been finally brought up to speed on arrival at the Palast. Not that the intelligence was much better than that an hour ago. “Both the Suzeron and the Commune are vehemently denying they’ve breached our borders, desperately denying you might say. Our Ambassador’s have so far satisfied me that it is neither of our peer superpowers, at the very least not a direct action by either of them.”

Grand Princess Juliana was somewhat unconvinced. “Only a power with near-parity strength to Vers would dare to invade our borders, the Suzeron and Commune are the only powers we yet know of with such might.”

“I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but if the Suzeron or Commune were to make such an overt and detectable violation of our borders, it would not be a singular instance.” Feldmarschall Schörner explained, still respectfully deferring to the Grand Princess even if he was her superior in military rank. “Their governments from the lowliest flunky to the head’s of state know that the intentional violation of our borders would draw an immediate military response in kind. They would only undertake such a foolish endeavor if it were accompanying a multi-front offensive against the Kaiserreich. We would not be seeing the enemy solely in Talinin, they would be battering at our gates across the frontier.”

Though grumbling in frustration, that answer succeeded in getting the aggressive elder Goldenbaum to think a bit deeper on the problem. The Feldmarschall was quite right; the Suzeron Imperium and Galactic Commune would only breach Vers space with warships as part of a coordinated offensive.

Schörner gave the nod to Elizabeth to continue the briefing on the diplomatic investigation. With a brief nod of thanks, the Verteidigungsminister moved forward with the reports. “Most of our Ambassadors and Consular Officers in the various Rim states agree that none of them have either the military force or stupidity to contemplate war with Vers. The only exception is a report from a Consular Officer on Dóbri who reports unusual rumblings among the pirates who make port at the shadow harbor on the planet.” Though Vers viciously stamped out any shadow harbor found within its own borders and those of its near neighbors, diplomatic ties unfortunately precluded the eradication of those in neutral space. Besides, those very criminal dens proved wonderful intelligence sources. “There are rumors going around everywhere about a large-scale conflict taking place somewhere in the galaxy. We can’t substantiate any of these rumors as our own intelligence sources among the underworld have yet to confirm anything definitively.”

Most in the room threw a brief glance at Feldmarschall Wilhelm Winter, Director of ARIES, Vers military intelligence service, who was brooding in the corner. He was brooding because in recent months, more than a few ARIES assets and operatives had mysteriously vanished across the galaxy. Even worse was that they were no closer to finding out why.

Until today....

Suddenly Prince-Leutnant Xavier cut off the rest of the Minister’s report with a cry of alarm.

“They’ve destroyed one of our Battle-Scouts!”

SMS Goeben, IV. Aufklärungsgeschwader, XVI. Flotte
Talinin Star Zone, Grand Duchy of Alheim, Galactic Empire of Vers, Perseus Arm
Galactic South, Milky Way Galaxy, I.C. 1,209

His Highness was partially correct.

While the missile barrage the hostile vessels had aimed for the Goeben should’ve, by all rights obliterated the elderly Battle-Scout given her weaker armor and poor point-defense, it didn’t quite achieve that mark.

Just barely.

While the Moltke-Class boasted very little in the way of point-defense weaponry, what it did have coupled with assisting PD from the screening Destroyers was enough to whittle the barrage down some. Though this still left more than enough to decimate the aged Goeben and would have done so...

If not for the brave sacrifice of the crew of the SMS Z-1098 as her pilot threw the small but nimble Augsburg-Class Astro Destroyer onto an intercept course to protect the Goeben. The final courage of Z-1098’s sailors led to a third of the missile barrage reacquiring the intercepting Destroyer as the primary target and subsequently striking home. While one of the newest classes of Destroyer’s in the Astroflotte, the Augsburg wasn’t designed to withstand such a barrage in a single blow; the shields dropped and her armor crumpled as almost thirty warheads struck the length of her portside hull. One penetrated the aft torpedo magazine and detonated among the munitions stored there, resulting in a massive explosion which quite literally tore the stern section from the rest of the ship. Another impacted in the main sick bay amidships, eviscerating the medical personnel on standby there, not that the ship would survive long enough to bother taking the wounded to the sick bay. The Destroyer quickly lost power as explosions rippled throughout the hull, sending chunks of the Z-1098 shooting away in all directions, among which included the bodies of the crew; what used to be 650 sailors of the Kaiserliche Marine was now being burnt alive, crushed beneath debris, or, even worse, suffocating in the vacuum of space.

Though the Z-1098’s sacrifice would ultimately save the Goeben from total destruction, the Battle-Scout still took quite a beating. One of the many reasons the Moltke-Class were not considered ‘True Battlecruisers’ was because their armor was barely stronger than a medium-grade cruiser, though the designers tried to compensate for this by strengthening the shield generators, they could only do so much. At least fifty warheads struck the Goeben along her port side; while her armor was able to withstand quite a few of the hits, at least two dozen warheads penetrated the hull and detonated within the ship. The ‘D’-Turret took a warhead right to its mounting chassis, the 360mm gun having been in the middle of being reloaded when the detonation ripped the gun chamber to pieces, vaporizing the sailors servicing the weapon in the blast. The explosion would have been even more powerful had there been unexpended Positron shells inside the chamber, but fortunately the ammunition had not yet arrived from the aft magazine at the time the warhead struck, else the turret might very well have been ripped from the ship. Another pair of warheads struck two adjacent machinery spaces simultaneously, killing several dozen members of the Goeben’s engineering staff and destroying a reserve of spare parts for the ship’s reactor that would be vital if the reactor took any damage. Just a few compartments from that scene of horror, a warhead very nearly destroyed the Navigational Bridge, which would have rendered the Goeben dead in space in the event the main Bridge was destroyed as neither the primary nor secondary Pilot would be able to steer the ship. Luckily, in a cruel way, the weapon detonated before reaching the Nav-Bridge, taking out almost a dozen sailors and much of the galley storehouse.

Further forward, there were yet more scenes of chaos as the ‘A’-Turret was ripped right from its chassis after a direct hit, the poor souls manning the gun at the time were flung far out into space. The ‘B’-Turret meanwhile, unlike the case of the ‘D’-Turret, received a warhead right into the gun chamber just as a new load of ammunition arrived from the forward magazine; the sailors inside never even had a chance to spare a single thought towards escape before the explosion vaporized everyone in the compartment and then tore the weapon clear from its mount. The force of the blast was sent rushing through the corridors, having shot straight through the blast doors, and very nearly proved fatal to the Goeben when it closed in on the forward magazine save that enough blast doors were sealed in time to prevent the secondary ignition of the magazine. Had the magazine also gone up, it would have triggered an unstoppable series of secondary explosions that would’ve torn the Battle-Scout apart.

With half her main battery out of action, internal systems severely damaged, and significant casualties among the crew, the Goeben was left leaning upon Death’s door. She was still alive, if barely, but in no condition to stay in the fight, and used its still functioning communications array to relay this news to Moltke. If she survived this fight, she would need a hyperlane tow just to make it back to the nearest yard for repairs. The enemy’s continued resistance was making that survival look all the more unlikely by the minute, and surely another volley would soon fall upon the wounded beast.

At least, it would have...

Though Konteradmiral Treggänis was derelict in not waiting for the order to engage, she had obeyed procedure in alerting other Kaiserliche Marine units in the area. This included the II. Aufklärungsgeschwader operating on the opposite side of the star zone, which duly performed an in-system jump to come to the aid of their embattled brethren.

There was no warning as the SMS Lutzow, Seydlitz, and Breitenfeld, the three remaining Moltke-Class Battle Scouts, dropped out practically on top of the enemy force, swiftly followed by the other thirty vessels of the II. Aufklärungsgeschwader primed and ready for battle. The first to open fire was the destroyer, SMS Z-906 which launched a salvo of torpedoes at one of the larger enemy ships, whilst its colleague the Z-1805 opened fire with its 180mm ‘A’-Turret at another enemy vessel. It would still be several minutes before the three newly arrived capital ships were correctly positioned to open fire on the hostile forces but the time would see almost the entirely of the accompanying cruisers and destroyers open up with everything they had.

The Ascension of the Imperium IC (All Tech, TG for interest)

Introduction of the United Turtalian Nations

The Signal Reaction

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