The Nth Crusade (IC)

[The Great Devourer of All]

The Nth Crusade

A Second Omniversal War RP

Unknown Universe

Three spacecraft hung in orbit above a majestic gas giant, mere megameters away from the brilliant rings arcing over its rosy cloudtop. The first was a light freighter about a hundred meters in length. It was poorly armed, but its shields were stronger than that of most of the Ravagery's non-military craft of its size. Inside of its massive storage hold sat a hundred thousand combat metric tons of temporally-suspended Membracel-1402, a new, experimental superheavy element. The second vessel was a Fortress-Class Super Fighter, fully armed and ready for any combat situation that could arise. The final and most important ship was a Messenger-Class Experimental Ship. It had been built less than a Cycle earlier, and all of its short-range tests had shown excellent results, just like the other ships of its class that had been created. The Messenger-Class ship's job was to test its long-range towing capabilities. It would tow the two ships to the Omniversal Background Haze and back, and then report on its sensor readings during the flight.

The three ships began to move to higher and higher orbits at sublight speeds once they were signaled to do so by a communications array in the gas giant's upper atmosphere. Once they were in the outer bands of the planet's mighty rings, they jumped to transwarp. After about ten minutes of transwarp, a tractor beam shot out from a beam projector on the hull of the Messenger-Class ship. It connected to the other two ships, and, after the crew and AI on board all three ships checked to make sure the connection was stable, the experimental craft shifted to maximum transwarp. Within seconds, all three ships had gone incomprehensibly far, and mere moments later, they dropped out of transwarp entirely and found themselves decillions of universe-lengths away from where they had started.

But something was horribly wrong with this universe.

It was filled to the brim with galaxy-sized, cell-like objects. They moved around at FTL speeds using warp-capable cilia, sending cascades of Tachyons and various other FTL particles across the cosmos. On the bridge of the Messenger-Class ship, the captain was shocked for a moment before realizing something much more unsettling. These cell-like objects- similar to amoebas or paramecia in nature- were exactly like Them, a race of enormous protists that fought during the Aeon War.

By the Devourer, thought Captain Y'riach, they're back.

The three ships immediately jumped to transwarp, but it was too late- they had been noticed. A wave of energy travelling nearly as fast as the Messenger tore through the transwarp funnel, knocking the ships back into the STL world before the small ship in the lead could execute a burst of full speed. Thankfully, the crews of the ships now found themselves in a new universe without any of the intimidating protists to speak of, but they soon realized that this one was almost as bad as the other. A burst of FTL particles showered down on the ships, signalling the arrival of an enemy fleet. Indeed, enemies had arrived- forty Uthari interceptors and a Raptor-Class Assault Ship had appeared mere kilometers away.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Multiverse Cluster R0-5
Dedicated Observation Microverse 004

Somewhere in the void, watching over the bubbles of universes and the VCMR forces within, sat a tiny "microverse" only about forty thousand kilometers across. Filling most of this pocket world was a roughly spherical space station packed with computers, antennae, and hangars. It projected a sort of force field around itself that displayed a false-color rendition of the multiversal void around it, despite the universes and objects outside not being visible normally.

At the bridge of this station sat a group of mostly Venn, clearly important political figures or military commanders - the line was tricky to draw. Their seats were arranged in a semicircle facing a central chair in the middle with its back to the force field; this chair held VCMR Secondary Command's Interuniversal Space Officer Diviclo-UA104. He spoke first.

"Have we received any update from the Ravagery regarding the prisoners of war? I seem to remember the rest of Secondary Command agreeing for them to at least send the biomass back."

One of the few Copard seated in the semicircle replied.

"No. We have had no contact with any Ravagery craft or communications at all, except for a transwarp jump detected... a few minutes ago. At least a few decillion gigaparsecs, we think, which would still put them firmly in R0 but outside any VCMR-occupied multiverse cluster."

"Hmph. Perhaps they plan something more dangerous. We've left holes in the treaty for certain kinds of attack, in actuality..."

"Like those universe eaters? What would we do if they threw one of those into R0-5? Or ten? Or a hundred?"

Diviclo's reply was cut off by the rapidly moving shape of an Injection Craft gliding past the force field at its own perspective of a leisurely pace, though in reality it had entered and left the station's field of view in less than ten seconds.

Instead of speaking, he pointed his finger backwards over his shoulder.

[The Great Devourer of All]

The moment the Uthari ships dropped out of warp, the relatively small Messenger-Class ship sped at lightspeed towards the largest enemy ship- the assault ship. Weapons fire rained down upon it, but it was never hit- whenever the seven hundred meter-long craft's weapons systems locked onto it and fired, it moved out of the way at an imperceptible fraction of a percent below lightspeed. After playing this game for a while, the ship made a loop around the starboard 'wing' of the larger ship from behind, coming up over it and facing a row of point-defense laser turrets. It fired its ion gun thrice, causing the ship's shields to falter slightly. Using these lapses in protection to its advantage, it fired the ion gun again and immediately followed the shot with a hail of antiship weapons. The weapons fire slipped through the shields and impacted the hull of the ship, easily uprooting the turrets like trees and tearing them apart.

As it arced over the bow of the ship, twenty-eight shining cannons slid out of gunports on the surface of the Uthari ship's hull, unveiling the forward gun battery in all its glory. Gigatons of antiship munitions saturated the space around the Messenger-Class ship, but nothing hit it. It did a 180-degree flip over itself and slowed to only a few meters per second until it was staring down the Raptor-Class ship like a male lion challenging the leader of the pack. At that point, the Fortress-Class ship and the small freighter joined the fight. The super fighter fired its antiship lanced at some of the interceptors, while the freighter launched primitive positron-triggered pure fusion warheads mounted on FTL missiles. After a few minutes, one of the interceptors was torn apart by the combined firepower of the two ships, its half-vaproized debris scattering across the void.

At this moment, the fight seemed to be going well for the three Ravagery ships. That did not last more than a moment. As soon as another interceptor was blasted apart, three dozen more suddenly dropped into the system. The game was over for the crews of the Ravagery ships. They could not win this skirmish, but there was still a chance that they could save the Messenger-class ship. As a new round of lasers and bore missiles impacted the Fortress-Class ship, it sped towards the assault ship at a respectable fraction of lightspeed, its guns blazing. The large spikes jutting out from its bow rammed through the relatively flimsy hull plating of the Uthari ship, tearing apart bulkheads and rupturing plasma conduits with ease. In revenge, several point-defense laser turrets fired at it while two badly damaged interceptors came at it from either side. The two ships collided at high speed with the super fighter and each other, causing its hull to buckle and most of its interior corridors and rooms to depressurize. Its power core snapped in two, sending a flash of radiation into the other three ships before exploding with enough force to tear the assault ship in half and completely obliterate the two interceptors. A cloud of plasma expanded outwards from the remains of the destroyed super fighter, illuminating the space around it like a miniature star. The freighter immediately did an about-face and launched a fresh volley of missiles at the nearest interceptor, only to be met with a wall of fire that depleted its shields in seconds. Its hull was then torn apart like tissue paper, causing its extremely volatile cargo to ignite and explode. The flash alone, like an expanding ball of billions of lasers, drained the shields of the nearby ships and completely destroyed one. A spacetime wave rippled outwards next, tearing apart nearly a dozen interceptors and knocking another ten into uncontrollable spirals away from the area. At the epicenter of the blast, a hole began to form in the quantum foam until it was several kilometers across. The plan had worked- a quantum sinkhole had formed. Before it could be destroyed, the Messenger-Class ship flew through the temporary anomaly and detonated its auxiliary power core behind it, causing another spacetime disturbance and quickly closing the sinkhole behind it. It turned its warp drives back on, now that it was free from the dampening field placed on it earlier, and shot off towards the Ravagery again at maximum speed.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-415
Continuum A
unknown elliptical galaxy

This universe was exceedingly far away from the rest of the VCMR. The only presence that the multiversal nation had here, in fact, was a small scout probe that had been recently used to scan down over four hundred of this multiverse cluster's previous universes. It was powered by a tiny internal antimatter reactor; since it was too impractical to drop zero-point generators along the way, it needed a simpler power supply. It had now reached the final location for its mission: a routine scientific attempt to determine the R0 metaverse's boundaries and measure multiversal ripples caused by quantum anomalies.

The thirteen-centimeter-long vessel abruptly stopped in the interstellar void, aimed and locked onto the roughly two hundred other probes around the R0 metaverse, and linked its sensor arrays to theirs, creating a petaparsec-wide net like a gargantuan radio dish. Vast quantities of data flooded into the net and was relayed through the probes towards data processing stations back in the R0-0 cluster. Of course, even after processing none of the data made any sense. It was like a log of the waves on the beach - it was hard to tell each one apart, and the cause of each wave remained completely unknown.

However, there were signals that remained interesting: quantum jumps to and from a distant point tenatera-parsecs away. Perhaps the Yunat, with their knowledge of quantum anomalies, might be able to piece these together into coherent information.

A diplomatic team was called up far away in R0-0-0. They would need to have a meeting.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Unspecified Ravagery Universe

After exiting the unstable quantum sinkhole and dropping into a sufficiently fortified Ravagery-controlled universe, the small Messenger-Class ship briefly allowed repair drones to swarm its hull, spraying on membracel and graphene. The cloud of drones then dispersed, and the ship sent a message directly to the main science station supervising the Messenger project, which was located in a universe bordering the Homeverse. A few moments passed, and then it received a reply. Without further ado, it shot off at multiversal velocities in the direction of the Core Universes.

Ravagery Core Universe 3

As soon as it dropped into the large universe, the Messenger-Class ship was greeted by a much more massive Chancellor-Class battleship. The two vastly different craft moved closer to each other, one of the latter's docking bays lowering its shields. The smaller craft rotated 180 degrees while moving towards the docking bay and set itself down on the deck. The captain exited the runabout-sized vessel, where he was met by the captain of the battleship. Silently, the two proceeded to the nearest teleportation alcove and teleported to the alcove located inside the captain's cabin, where they discussed the situation as their two ships moved at transwarp into the nearby Homeverse. Within half an hour, the captain of the Messenger-Class ship had spoken directly with the Consumer, who had then conferred with the Devourer.


???

"My master." The Consumer's words impossibly echoed in the planet-sized chasm. Invisible ethereal forces penetrated into the physical realm, manifesting as clouds of some gaslike substance.

"Yes, my child?" Replied the Devourer.

"I fear that we now face the most dangerous threat the Ravagery has seen in the past ten eons, my lord." After waiting for a response and receiving none, the Consumer continued.

"The Domination still exists."

"I know." In response to his minion's poorly-veiled shock, the Devourer spoke again.

"There is little that I have not foreseen, child. To address this awaited yet alarming threat, we must awaken the sleeping giant that is our mighty war machine. Contact my other children and dispense orders to the Grand Admirals. Today marks the day the Ravagery unleashes its true power."

"Yes, my lord." Said the Consumer as his master returned to his ethereal form and his guards followed him back to his Cosmos-Class ship.

By the end of the hour, orders had been dished out to every member of the Ravagery's military. War Forges increased their output a millionfold, entire armadas of ships were moved to the near-vacant frontier universes on the border of the Ravagery, and blooms of Universe Eaters and TDVs were massed around strategic locations. Deep inside the most secret corners of the Ravagery, slumbering behemoths began to stir. Tentacles moved, armadas gathered, and multiversal gates opened.

For the only time in the history of their existence, the Armageddon-Class TDVs were being released from their empty prisons.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Yunat Territory
Universe R0-0-[REDACTED]

Two VCMR Leviathans silently flew through intergalactic space, maintaining a relatively low superluminal velocity as mandated by their rivals. The pair of small-moon-sized spacecraft were in a very close formation with their complements, only about a thousand kilometers apart. In between them was a clearly marked diplomatic transport, a boxy vehicle significantly smaller than its two guardians.

Aboard the internal twin-decked bridge of Leviathan V0, a group of communications officers talked with the captain about the signals the scout probes had measured, and the data the fleet was transporting to the Yunat.

"Ma'am, we have reason to believe that the Ravagery is attempting to mobilize and fight an enemy much further away, several tenateraparsecs out from R0-0 at least. We detected a signal heading to and from a universe out in that direction, followed by a practical storm of quantum shockwaves generated in what we believe are Ravagery-held universes."

The captain responded, though she was clearly skeptical. "Why do you know it's a mobilization against this far-off enemy? Couldn't they just be gearing up to capture universes on their borders, or increase their military presence in their existing ones? We send out scout probes all the time, and don't set up our military that fast."

"The signal went in and out within minutes."

"So? Maybe it was an unarmed scout against a very weak craft. Look, I know I'm being critical on your argument, voidsman, but you're going to need evidence if we want to keep the Yunat happy. And you know what the alternative is."

She was implying multiversal war.

"I think we've arrived. All crew to your stations!"

The Leviathans dropped out of their FTL jump in front of what appeared to be a solid dark-grey wall, with lines and squares of yellow light carefully spaced on its surface. In fact, it was the surface of one of a Yunat battlecruiser's armor plates - the entire vessel measured a hundred AUs long, and only this frontal segment was visible. The battlecruiser practically shouted a message onto VCMR comms; as typical, the Yunat were being loud.

"Proceed to docking bay F.00.01 for diplomatic rendezvous!"

All three VCMR craft, plus the countless battleships, cruisers, and other ships swirling around them, floated into the thankfully-clearly-labelled docking bay and connected with the floor of the planet-sized metal gap.

[Thinking Machines]

Jane
Ah, the benefits of being the leader of a faction of Thinking Machines; so far the hardest task yet found.

Anyways, all that meant was Jane was the one who wrangled the job of observing and collecting some info on the civilization known as the Ravagery's new "Messenger" class, whatever that meant.
She was quite enjoying herself watching some duel with light swords, at least until whatever the heck was in the universe the Ravagery had sent their ship to got bumped up in the attention levels.

Well this was weird; none of the Explorer's had ever found something like this.
Massive Protists.
Observing the battle from her vantage points around the ship, Jane was somewhat glad that the Ravagery managed to escape; even if they were still "evil".
Within nanoplancks of time, she had already composed, edited, and sent a message to the rest of Community, with them reading it in a similar amount of time.

Trillian
He was no fighter, and understood military affairs less than many parts of the Community, even if was more than most beings outside the Community, but Jane's message was still quite unsettling for him.
He was, as his custom doing a little exploring on the side. At the moment, a tiny part of him was looking through a Ravagery universe for new ideas for creations, when he witnessed possibly the most awe inspiring any of the Community had ever seen, save that of The One Who Is wielding its full power.

A massive Jellyfish like thing, but seeming to be a little over three times as large as any previously seen Ravagery jellyfish, not to mention it seeming to have appeared from nowhere.

Last part not necessarily canon for this rp.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Unnamed War Forge
Command Center

From his enhanced virtual reality viewscreen, Forgemaster M'pall could see each segment of his grand, universe-sized factory at work. The outermost layer consisted of docking bays, ports, and teleportation arrays, with massive fleets of freighters moving in and out of the forge through it. The next layer consisted of clouds of mass fabricators floating around through the vacuum of space along preplanned routes, occasionally having their course corrected by passing drones. In this section, huge quantities of beamed-in energy were converted into personal weapons, sub-Brimstone siege engines, and small ships at a furious pace. The next layer in was by far the largest. Within it, a tangled mass of advanced mechanical systems and construction areas many Hubble Volumes in size pumped out -illions of every conventional Ravagery ship in use, from raiding ships to 'hyper star dreadnoughts'. Between that layer and the center of the Forge was a comparably thin layer, only a few light-years thick, within which rows and rows of biological 3D printers made specialized armies and ship crews from scratch, with each individual soldier memetically preprogrammed with sufficient combat knowledge. And in the very center of the Forge- well, no one really knew what was in the center of the Forge. No War Forge had ever been ordered to activate its Central Zone before, though M'pall had heard rumors that massive string manipulation nodes were on the inner surface of the observable universe-sized spheres.

After he had received orders to increase the output of his Forge, M'pall had been in awe over the insanely fast pace that it began to work at. Entire fleets and the crews to operate them were made in the blink of an eye, and massive hordes of troops were produced and teleported away every second. He could only guess what terrifying threat the Ravagery has encountered. Had it entered the Lovecraftian Civil War? Had the VCMR revealed itself to be much more powerful than initially believed? Had the stories about hordes of Eldritch horrors lurking outside the Omniversal Haze come true?

Interuniversal Space

A single Eternity-Class Total Destruction Vessel drifted towards a matter-rich universe, ready to consume as much mass-energy as possible so as to fuel the Ravagery's War Forges. As it wrapped itself around the poor universe, it expelled its ship complements to form a cloud around it and began to expand slowly. A few teraparsecs away, several Divinity-Class Universe Eaters were beginning to consume universes of their own. If massive amounts of energy could not be acquired, the Forges would be forced to decrease their output before long. Hopefully, nothing would interfere with the TDV's consumption.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Yunat Battlecruiser

After being guided to an enormous hemispherical meeting room, the VCMR diplomatic team was face to face with a group of large avians: the Yunat ambassadors. A squad of tiny, floating drones followed them in, and they connected to the Yunat's holoprojectors to display quantum data feeds from across the R0 metaverse. The rapid sequence of flashing lights from quantum signatures in Ravagery space lit the entire room a dim purple.

"So, about this data you had for us?"

A Copard on the VCMR team rose up to full height and moved one of his short theropod arms, directing the drones to form the dish pattern used to scan down multiversal signatures earlier. "Yes, just about one hundred tenabytes of it. Of particular note are these two dimensional jumps only a few minutes apart, out to universes extremely far away, followed by the massive storm of quantum ruptures that's still going on in Ravagery space."

The Yunat gave knowing looks. They were well aware of the VCMR's unfortunate encounters with the Ravagery. "I suppose you'd just like us to analyze them, hmm?"

"Well, yes, ac- "

"Did you think that we'd just let you have our processing centers and the Ancestor databases? That's fifty billion years of their recording of every single quantum event in the metaverse. And you just come in and request access to what is perhaps the most important information storage system in history?

No. We're going to need more from you. More specifically, we need you to try to scan down specific spacecraft out from those distant universes you mentioned. We might be able to piece something together, especially if it has something to do with that unimaginably vast war the Ancestors recorded shortly before they went extinct."

Multiverse Cluster R0-5
Dedicated Observation Microverse 004

The central space station's Meta-Fractal Target Acquisition System calmly announced a warning.

"Multiple extradimensional anomalies detected; class Alpha-2. Primary anomaly is deploying space vessels into interuniversal space and attempting a destruction maneuver not unlike the one detected at X0-*beep*-8064. Current location, R0-*beep*-0."

"I think these are Ravagery ships. We've detected similar signatures from their space recently. Perhaps they're trying to get these universes out of the way... could have to do with whatever they found out in the uncharted region."

"We've got no time to lose," spoke the Secondary Command officer from his chair. "Send in Injection Craft, cloak them up, and see if anything happens. If we need to destroy the anomalies, they should do just fine."

Multiverse Cluster R0-[unintelligible]

This multiverse cluster, while somewhat close to VCMR space, had been left completely untouched, even by scout probes - thus, the enormous extrauniversal creature's target universe was labelled with a 0 as it was the first "discovered".

About two teraparsecs away from the behemoth, a squad of eighty full-grown Injection Craft exited their multiversal jump and immediately cloaked, hiding their galaxy-sized bodies away in the void and appearing as simple, natural extrauniversal disturbances to most scanning systems. Their computing systems scanned and added the Eternity-class vessel and its Divinity-class escorts to the VCMR database, though naturally they were still unaware of enemy capabilities.

They approached their victim exceptionally slowly, sizing up the uncountable swarms of surrounding ships and computing the best method of bypassing or destroying them if they needed to.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Unnamed War Forge
Command Center

As fleets of ships and hordes of troops began to flood out of the War Forge on board transports and through teleportation lines, yet another round of mass-production was prepared. Tools of war on every conceivable scale- from personal arms and nanites to mighty Cosmos-Class ships- were built, stocked, and crewed at a lightning-fast pace.

Apparently the Ravagery meant business.

M'pall would soon learn that its enemy did, too, for mere moments after yet another batch of ships and troops exited the forge, the external sensor arrays started to pick up a massive quantum disturbance nearby. Within moments, -illions of Domination protists and other vessels were streaming through the quantum sinkhole that was taking shape.

Interuniversal Space

As the massive Eternity-Class vessel began to devour the universe before it and its complement fleets formed a defensive cloud around it, another group of Universe Eaters appeared nearby. With three dozen Creation-Class and a dozen Divinity-Class eaters among them, they formed a formidable escort for the Eternity.

Interhyperbranal Void

In the infinite emptiness between hyperbranes, the vast void between realities, a cloud of Mobile Universes and Universe Eaters swarmed over a massive, incomplete form, expelling entire universes of matter onto it as arrays of string manipulators in the background shaped them like wet sand into individual universes. This mighty vessel, which was larger than any other Ravagery vessel, with the exception of one, was only about one percent complete, but it would vastly increase the power of the Ravagery's military.

For the first time in several billion years, an Infinity-Class flagship was being constructed.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-0
Continuum A

Four planet-sized trapezoidal structures exited a multiversal jump, escorting a small cluster of tiny VCMR Fortresses specialized for tracking and detecting quantum signatures, and scanning the entire universe to catalogue all of its galaxies and stars. Around the Macroweapons swarmed many dozens of Leviathan Fleets, with undoubtedly hundreds more within the planetary-scale hangars. If needed, the VCMR could call in similar groups for backup, but direct combat at the galactic scale was to be avoided here.

They had arrived near the center of a tiny dwarf elliptical galaxy, in an extremely old cluster of metal-rich stars that by all measures would be a terrible position to claim for mass-energy or similar purposes, not necessarily for avoiding detection but rather for discouraging enemies from deploying too many resources inside.

After setting up zero-point generators, the Fortresses got to work tracing the countless quantum events detected inside this and nearby universes; presumably from the ultra-far-off civilization trying to attack the Ravagery. This was their chance to verify said claim. If this civilization arrived, they would be able to get a lock and figure out how their signals overlapped with the Yunat's Ancestor databases.

Extrauniversal Space

The Injection Craft floated through the void effortlessly, apparently still unseen. The additional swarm of creatures pouring in was a reason for concern, but their objective was simple. To adequately identify what was inside R0-[]-0, and the enemy craft that would hopefully arrive soon, they would need to keep this universe intact as long as possible.

Ideally, this method would involve driving the Eternity away so that its "blast radius" of physics-breaking concepts wouldn't impede operations, and then detonating it from inside with Grand Finale heavy gravitational warheads.

They were at one point three teraparsecs and closing slowly.

[12 Galaxies]

Federation Home Universe - GFS Kaisuto

The new inter-universal engine, or U-Drive was warming up. The crew of the ship stood ready, not knowing what they'd find. The Drive started, and a portal colored different shades of green opened up. The 14 Kilometer long Battleship began to move towards the portal, and entered it. The ship then passed into the chaotic mess of everything that separated universes, bending and burrowing through it.


Universe RO-[unintelligible]-0 Continuum A

A portal opened, and spit out a 15 Kilometer ship, before closing abruptly. The ship, the GFS Kaisuto, proceeded to scan the surrounding area, unknowingly alerting someone else it was there. The ship began to move through space, just coming out from behind a planet, and into the view of another planet sized object, this time a star ship.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-0
Continuum A

"We've got a confirmed quantum signature from just behind the local planet. Prepare to scan it down!"

All four of the fifteen-thousand-kilometer-wide trapezoidal Macroweapons rotated in the direction of the incoming spacecraft, pointing their smaller square sides towards it. On each of their bows stood a huge helical structure with a laser of some sort in the middle - in actuality, this was their Radiant-class "cluster beam" superweapon. The group of Fortresses in between them immediately started scanning the new arrival for any trace of information on where it came from, as well as the type of multiversal quantum "radiation" it might have been leaking.

Unfortunately this did not seem to match the universes that the VCMR suspected the Ravagery's enemies would be coming from. Therefore this had to merely be another arrival, possibly intentional - and that was the assumption they were going to operate under.

The message that the commanding Macroweapon sent was encoded within a set of basic FTL positioning equations, to make sure that they could communicate at an advanced level with what might have been "primitives" of galactic scale or lower.

Senior Commander Dhaarta-M5
Macroweapon W0, Quantum Mapping Fleet 75-107-881
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

Greetings, unknown spacecraft. This universe is currently under surveillance by the VCMR in an attempt to track and gather information on a rather elusive multiversal civilization. Unfortunately, it is also currently under attack by an extra-universal vehicle, likely of Ravagery origin. Destruction is expected within sixty hours at maximum; retreat would be the best option right now for any civilization of class-11 or lower.

However, since your type of craft has never been encountered by the VCMR, it stands to reason you might not be aware of the events occurring now. If you need clarification, we would be willing to provide some in exchange for information on your origin and civilization.

What they didn't tell the strangers was that they were dangerously close to crossing the line set by a tentative treaty between the two multiversal powers. A line that was getting ever more tenuous as the Injection Craft outside continued creeping towards their "prey".

[12 Galaxies]

Captain of the GFS Kaisuto, Koro [unpronounceable], Fleet 727
Federation of 12 Galaxies
We are unfamiliar with your species, nation, or any other, as you say, multiversal civilization. We have come on a mission of Science, and hopefully peace. We would like information on your nation, and other civilizations similar to yours, so I will summarize the foundation of our Nation.

10,000 Years ago - Federation founded
8,000 Years Ago - All civilizations in home galaxy conquered or absorbed
4,000 Years Ago - First four colonial galaxies under complete control
3,000 Years Ago - The Federation branches out to more Galaxies
500 Years Ago - Current 8 Galaxies settled
100 Years Ago- Matter Fabricator invented, can fabricate star ships from dirt.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Eternity-Class Complement Command Cluster
Awe-Class Ship
Captain's Quarters

From the gel-like center of his regeneration sphere, High Captain Xem could neither see nor hear anything happening in the nearby bridge. However, as his porcelain-white flesh slowly healed from the naturally rapid decay process that every member of his species experienced while still alive, he began to pick up reports through a microscopic implant in his second brain. Apparently, an unidentified ship had exited a quantum anomaly within the universe being devoured by the massive Eternity-Class ship, despite the fact that the entire surrounding polyverse seemed to harbor no civilizations advanced enough to manipulate such an anomaly. Of perhaps more importance was the fact that a group of easily-identifiable VCMR ships had entered the universe as well- an act that came dangerously close to violating the Treaty of R0-0-8. After thinking about how to respond to this for several microseconds, Xem sent a series of commands directly to the microscopic AR projectors on the bridge, which then made said commands visible to the acting Captain and the two next-highest commanding officers present.

Unnamed Universe

A mere AU from the point in space where the VCMR vessels were meeting with the newly-detected ships, a tiny part of one of the Eternity-Class' tentacles pushed into the universe, growing in size from an infinitely small point to an expanse of 'flesh' nearly a million kilometers long. From inside the tentacle emerged three Hound-Class raiding ships and a Harbor of Bleakness-Class battleship, which then shot off at low warp in the direction of the small gathering. Roughly a parsec and a half away, a larger piece of the same tentacle entered as well, this time dropping off two Leviathan-Class dreadnoughts before leaving.

Harbor of Bleakness-Class Raiding Ship
Bridge

As the four Ravagery ships dropped down to sublight speeds and assumed an offensive position near the unidentified 15-kilometer ship, the captain of the Harbor of Bleakness-Class ship had the scene before them out on the viewscreen. Four VCMR Macroweapons were confronting the tiny ship, and the ship's sensors showed that they were communicating with it. Reassured that the small ship was not of VCMR origin, the captain ordered the three Hound-Class ships to attack. They complied, speeding towards the unidentified ship and powering up their weapons.

[12 Galaxies]

GFS Kaisuto

The AI suddenly spoke

"Warning: Unidentified Objects detected - High Energy detected"

The crew acted.

The ship began to turn around, and go at high warp in the opposite direction, now powering up its Trans-Dimensional Wormhole drive.
The Unidentified ships were gaining, and the portal was opening in front of them, moving at the same speed.

The Drive fully activated, and the portal stopped, letting the battleship fly through it at top warp. The portal was kept open as the Captain hailed Federation High Command to report.

"We congratulate you on your-"

"No time to explain, send everything here. There were others."

"[unintelligible alien swears]"

"Fleet Dispatched From Deep Space Gamma, ETA 59 Minutes."

A fleet consisting of over One Million ships of various classes, headed by almost 500 Dreadnoughts was coming to the exit site.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Macroweapon W0

Senior Commander Dhaarta-M5 was already shouting out orders to her fleet as the Ravagery approached and the 'primitive' contact from Twelve Galaxies rapidly fled. She, unlike some fleet commanders, actually took her job seriously and minimized the standard VCMR levels of snark and humor when taking decisive action.

"Set tracking and locking systems to RED. I repeat, set tracking and locking systems to RED. We will not lock; we will not fire. All Leviathan Fleets return to Macroweapon hangars. Macroweapons, divert power to unified shields. Disable all laser and Radiant energy links."

Essentially, with the exception of the quantum-scanning Fortresses, the entire fleet was entering a defensive position while simultaneously disengaging all of their weapon controls to indicate that they had no intention of attacking. Within moments the only craft they actually had in space were the four Macroweapons and the few dozen relatively unarmed Fortresses. In addition, a short message was beamed towards the direction of the incoming Ravagery craft; hopefully they would understand its significance.

Senior Commander Dhaarta-M5
Macroweapon W0, Quantum Mapping Fleet 75-107-881
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

Apologies for the disturbance, unidentified Ravagery spacecraft. We were initially investigating a pair of quantum signatures sent in and out of a very far-away universe, and our search led us here to try to predict where they would show up next. Our heavy-weapons systems are disabled; we have no intention of harming Ravagery military or civilians and are not violating the Treaty of R0-0-8.

The civilization we were communicating with appears to possess only twelve galaxies, and likely arrived here on accident. We're detecting portal feedback from their escape vector, but it's likely insignificant.

Any complaint messages about the quantum scanning mission can be sent to -

This message was followed by a string of coordinates mapping to the universe where the VCMR and Yunat had met earlier. It wasn't expected that the Ravagery would actually try to talk to them.

Outside the universe, all eighty Injection Craft received a "no-go" message and slowed their approach before finally stopping in interuniversal space, still cloaked and emitting even less energy with their propulsion disabled.

"Indeed, we're picking up portal feedback; presumably by this Twelve Galaxies nation. We are not opening fire on them either, no matter what they pull through. If they attack the Ravagery, back off. If the Fortresses or Macroweapons are in danger, relocate.

No need to start -another- multiversal war."

She couldn't help but say that last line. Maintaining comms discipline was too difficult.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Leviathan-Class Dreadnought

After receiving the message from the VCMR macroweapons, which assured the captains of the small group of Ravagery ships that they need not fear a hostile interaction, the bridge crew of the leading Leviathan-Class ship quickly formulated a short reply and sent it.

From Captain Ghal-err
To VCMR Macroweapons

Although we would absolutely enjoy watching your ships and their crews be annihilated and compressed beyond comprehension, we must strongly suggest that you leave this universe immediately due to the Eternity-Class Total Destruction Vessel devouring it. We now officially claim the universe on the other side of the nearby quantum anomaly to be our own, and as such we retain the right to destroy any foreign vessels attempting to enter it, VCMR or otherwise. You have been warned.

With that, another massive span of tentacle 'flesh' emerged and released twelve Mayhem Fleets into the universe, the massive number of ships taking up multiple cubic light-years of space. After a brief pause for dramatic effect, the large group of ships moved towards the wormhole and entered it, dispersing into the universe beyond upon their arrival there. Each fleet shot off at transwarp velocities in a different direction, scanning the space around it for energy signatures that would suggest an advanced civilization. What they saw was quite startling- a fleet of more than a million enemy ships.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

The VCMR crews aboard the Macroweapons and Fortresses briefly debated with regional commanders in a nearby multiverse cluster about the optimal response. The Injection Craft would undeniably be detected soon, but staying and identifying the quantum signatures was critical for collaboration with the Yunat and preventing a war within R0-0.

"Local Command, we've just sent you logs of our recent encounters. What do you make of them? What are your orders?"

"Remember that the only reason your fleet is here is to get the data for the Yunat. Escaping as the Ravagery suggested would be counterproductive."

"I can see two possible event chains here. Either the Ravagery's enemies arrive and we can scan them down, or they don't and we get eaten by this 'Eternity-class' ship."

"So why not try to maximize the odds of the first, while securing your survival in the event of the second? Dhaarta-M5, we're going to drop a Galactic Siege Platform directly below your fleet. We think we can modulate its pocket-dimension displacement field to emulate some sort of extrauniversal anomaly. In other words, make it seem like something big's appeared so we can attract somebody. If spacecraft show up, scan them as necessary. Then we send in the things to buy us some time.

Otherwise, if this 'Eternity-class' ship's digestive cycle begins, you'll be displaced back to a safe universe within R0-0 where you can regroup. Do you understand?"

"Affirmative. Stand by for coordinate transmission."

Simultaneously, the crew of W0 replied to the Ravagery's comms signal.

Senior Commander Dhaarta-M5
Macroweapon W0, Quantum Mapping Fleet 75-107-881
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

We have deemed scanning down these anomalies to be important enough to escalate. Your cooperation is neither necessary nor expected.

It appears this next action was agreed upon to be the best possible.

At this moment a Galactic Siege Platform warped in from its pocket universe, encasing the entire VCMR fleet in an FTL interdiction bubble in addition to its primary shielding. The former would stop projectiles or spacecraft from getting too close, in case hostile action began.

The Injection Craft were on standby to strike at the instant something new jumped in.

[Thinking Machines]

Temüjin, grand supreme overlord and many other titles of military domination, simply waited. This detection of some multiversal enemy of the Ravagery was quite wonderful actually. This might distract the Ravagery just enough to allow the infiltration of one of their jellyfish. Yes, he thought, yes. This is a good thing.

Somewhere near the Jellyfish

Near the Jellyfish, relatively speaking, several trillion different things teleported near. Or, more accurately, several trillion kilometer long spikes of Thinking Machines bots. This was bound to display as the equivalent as screaming into a microphone on whatever screens were used to track quantum anomalies and such, but this was part of the fun. Slowly, slowly, they began to speed up to quite fast, with a majority aimed towards the largest of the jellyfish.. Soon, they would reach the jellyfish, either to capture a jellyfish or two, or at least to figure out how to make his own. This would be a fun time.

Near VCMR Group

The VCMR's tactic with their platform didn't go unnoticed by Temüjin, even if he thought it actually was a new civilization to discover, maybe the one that had got the Ravagery so riled up. However, he did know that some VCMR vessels had been nearby (quantum signatures or something?), and after accessing his personal database dropped in something similar to an Annihilation disk (but a decent amount less powerful, he hadn't been able to really get past the outer armor very well to see what surprises it might hold.) nearby the weird quantum signature.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Ravagery Fleet

As soon as the Galactic Siege Platform began to emerge, the Ravagery fleet went into a panicked frenzy. A Malice-Class ship was called in from the nearest tentacle, and it positioned itself about half a light-year away. Immediately, a brief message was sent to the VCMR ships.

Allow us to make our warning more clear. If you do not immediately stop what you are doing, we will place a dampening field over your ships and simply add their mass to that which we will gain by devouring this universe. Suffice it to say that it would be within your best interests to do as we say.

???

A series of low clicks escaped the mandibles of a Cha'ree science officer as he explained the situation at hand to the admiral before him. The warm, wet atmosphere inside the ship made the silence that followed seem even longer. After a moment, though, the admiral responded, and the science officer scuttled away to contact a Kaliss admiral. Within moments, a fleet of Kaliss and Cha'ree vessels had been organized and was on its way to a massive array of quantum manipulators. The array sent a huge pulse of energy towards a predetermined point in space, causing the quantum foam in that area to implode into a yoctosingularity, which then expanded exponentially until a quantum sinkhole had formed. The fleet rushed through the sinkhole like excrement-laden water through a sewage line, bursting through to the other side in an instant. As soon as the bow of the first ship appeared, antiship weapons began raking the surrounding space. Little did the Ravagery ships know, something considerably more massive was not far behind- a galaxy-sized amoeba with more than enough power to wipe out entire galactic superclusters.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

VCMR Fleet

A panicked crewman looked over at the captain of Leviathan V6551. "Dampening field? Like the one they used against our WMPs back in R0-0-8?"

"I would think so. That Malice-class ship might be about to produce one, which would probably knock a lot of our systems offline."

After all, the various zero-point generators the VCMR ships needed to operate were interspersed among their fleet; if disabled, there would only be a few minutes of reserve power. The captain opened up his comms system and linked to Macroweapon W0.

"Senior Commander, we have reason to believe that this Malice-class ship is preparing a dampening field likely capable of wiping out our power supply. I would recommend dispersing and setting up additional generators. What is your command?"

"By the treaty, we are not to attack Ravagery ships within a universe they occupy, or are at least unopposed in - ah, wait, that clause just went out the window. Check your scanners, you'll see why."

Indeed, most of the Leviathans and Macroweapons picked it up; a series of multiversal jumps through some sort of static anomaly like a wormhole or portal. Perhaps these were the signals from far away that the Yunat desired to know about; even if they weren't, this was a perfect opportunity to scan something down and see if the Ancestor databases could reveal any information.

"Attention all free-floating Leviathan Fleets. We are commencing a setup and data collection operation. Divide your complements in two, and put half of them all across the universe. Drop generators at whatever globular clusters and elliptical galaxies you can find. I'd also like volunteer Titan Fleets to scan down that portal; the first one hundred of them will be going as a group. All others, open fire on all Ravagery craft within this dwarf-elliptical. We're going to be displacing ourselves out as soon as there's nothing nearby.

We've also picked up a structure that appears to be derived from an Annihilator Disc positioned very close to the GSP. Someone open up a communication line with it."

By an interpretation of the Treaty of R0-0-8, if a multiversal civilization (which most likely describes the one that just opened up a portal into this universe) entered a universe controlled by the Ravagery, the VCMR could legally fire upon Ravagery craft because it would no longer be a Ravagery-occupied universe. This is exactly what they did. The ships that stayed behind (several hundred Leviathans, the four Macroweapons, and the GSP, plus some Titan Fleets) immediately armed lasers, railcannons, and missiles, and spewed out many FOE of weapons-fire within the span of a few seconds. Building-sized and city-sized metal cylinders phased in and out of faster-than-light travel, impacting shields and armor directly at relativistic speeds, as usual. Erasure-, Skitter-, and Finale-class missiles were held in reserve, but countless neutronium warheads joined the barrage. The main target was the Malice-class ship half a lightyear away, but everything within the dwarf elliptical galaxy that the VCMR fleet was in was also subject to rapid bombardment. At the same time, the GSP opened up its hangars and prepared to launch reinforcements, while spinning up the Annihilator Discs attached to its surface just in case.

Meanwhile, thousands of Titan Fleets broke formation from their Leviathans and Macroweapons, shooting off all across the universe to set up spare generators in the event that the current ones were destroyed. A group of one hundred of these fleets suddenly merged together into a larger formation that aimed for the newly-opened wormhole and closed in at FTL speed.

Captain Lyghub-GA90
Leviathan V358, Quantum Mapping Fleet 75-107-881
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

Attention, unidentified disc craft. This universe is currently under surveillance, and trespassing is exceedingly dangerous due to the crossfire between VCMR and Ravagery forces. Please state your reasoning for entering this universe.

This message was rather hurried because of the immense space battle beginning at the same time.

Extrauniversal Space

Have they seen us yet?
No. Those needlecraft seem to be disrupting that, though; no doubt the Eternity will be looking for other things too.
Of course. Orders?
Decloak. Full speed. Open fire on every Ravagery vessel in our way. Avoid the needlecraft.
Order confirmed, Commander. All units, assume attack formation. Prepare to attach and lyse the target.

And eighty extrauniversal signals were added to the Eternity's scanners as the Injection Craft decloaked and dove towards the surface of the blue sea-creature-like vessel at top speed, firing off FTL lasers and missiles with quadrillions of supernovas of destructive power to clear a path through the swarming complement ships.

[Thinking Machines]

Needlecraft

Upon further approach to the "jellyfish", Temüjin was able to determine that one of them was quite a bit larger than the others. At this point those that were not already moving towards the largest began moving towards the largest. By this point, the very first few were nearly to the thing. However, the appearance of the objects appearing similar to bacteriophages did not go unnoticed by him. Backtracking their paths indicated that they had actually been there for quite some time. Given the massive size of the object, more mass would be needed to get ahold of one of them. Roughly a third of the spikes simply stopped in space, before popping together into one giant sphere. For anything watching this new sphere, they should see it growing rapidly as it warped reality again and again to create new bots to grow the sphere; and this would only accelerate as the sphere grew ever larger. Of course the objects for which this sphere was intended to catch were not neglected in this activity, a few of the spikes were sent to track and observe the objects in question.

Fake Disk Ship

Captain Lyghub-GA90
Leviathan V358, Quantum Mapping Fleet 75-107-881
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

Attention, unidentified disc craft. This universe is currently under surveillance, and trespassing is exceedingly dangerous due to the crossfire between VCMR and Ravagery forces. Please state your reasoning for entering this universe.

Temüjin
The Community of Thinking Machines

Do not worry about me I will be perfectly fine. As to my reasons for being here, I was investigating an anomaly detected to be here. Since there appears to be no such anomaly, I ask you, as a presumed representative of the VCMR, if you have any information regarding the Ravagery's "jellyfish" such as the one one currently eating this universe.

Given the speed at which members of the Community thought, to the VCMR it would likely appear as if the return message was instantaneous. Following this, the fake disk collapsed into a sphere, which first spewed out a blob, which quickly popped away. to to investigate the new signatures detected elsewhere. The remaining sphere began to grow as well, as numerous portals opened with new streams of bots coming in to grow the sphere. All to eventually attempt to capture the unknown VCMR vessel before him.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Ravagery and Domination Fleets

As soon as the incoming Domination forces were detected, the Ravagery fleet realized that it was both hopelessly outgunned and surrounded by hostile ships. Before a surge of support ships could enter the universe via the Eternity's tentacles, a strange form of dampening field set up by the Domination fleet blocked the tentacles from penetrating into the universe. The disparity in numbers would soon be rectified by a fleet of reinforcements, but for now all the group of ships could do was try to inflict as many Domination casualties as possible before being utterly destroyed. Clouds of plasma and antimatter began to bloom across the void, the light of thousands of momentary fireballs shining a blinding light upon the combatants. The Ravagery ships fought hard, even resorting to suicide attacks in some cases, but they had been obliterated within minutes. Meanwhile, a massive reinforcement fleet was on its way from some extrauniversal location to bolster the Ravagery's numbers.

Kaliss Ship

Following the swift conclusion of the battle, the massive Kaliss ship leading the Domination forces crafted a message to send to the VCMR vessels, which had not been targeted during the brief exchange. The message was short, but definitely got the message across.

Attention, unidentified ships. Surrender yourselves to the benevolent control of the Domination, or face annihilation.

Extrauniversal Space

Having finally tired of merely observing the antics of the Injection Craft and Needlecraft, the Eternity-Class ship pumped eighty Demigod-Class ships from one of its tentacles that was not attempting to penetrate the universe before it through the dampening field. The galaxy-sized giants drifted toward the huge bacteriophages, arming their weapons and raising their shields. Given the nature of their design, they deemed sending a message unnecessary. Their goal was simple: destroy the Craft and return to the safety of the Eternity.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Main VCMR Fleet, near Galactic Siege Platform

Humorously, it appeared as though the newly-arrived alien force had managed to wipe out the entire Ravagery fleet nearby before the VCMR could. This left four groups of spacecraft in the vicinity: the GSP plus its complements, the group of Titan Fleets, an unknown rapidly-growing collection of robots, and the new alien fleet.

During the short battle, the nearby Fortresses brought along by both VCMR fleets had been scanning down each of these "Domination" spacecraft and logging their quantum signatures; as they passed through the portal-like structure identified before, they trailed a small quantity of energy that could be used to identify them, at least well enough to distinguish ships of different sizes and classes. The first scanned target was the capital ship that had led the Domination into this universe. One of the Fortresses recorded the exact frequency and magnitude of its leaked energy, and soon transmitted it to the Yunat for analysis. The procedure then continued with the other new arrivals.

"Alright, here's the first batch of data. Does it match anything in the Ancestor database?"

The reply took a few seconds as the Yunat ran through the entire fifty-billion-year history of the database, trying to find matches that were at least similar in form; obviously, most civilizations change their spacecraft over the eons, but a lot of basic equipment often seemed to remain the same.

"First match dates to about ten billion years ago. It's from a coordinate set for a universe that no longer exists, but it's a start."

---

Communications with Thinking Machines

Temüjin
The Community of Thinking Machines

Do not worry about me I will be perfectly fine. As to my reasons for being here, I was investigating an anomaly detected to be here. Since there appears to be no such anomaly, I ask you, as a presumed representative of the VCMR, if you have any information regarding the Ravagery's "jellyfish" such as the one one currently eating this universe.

Captain Lyghub-GA90

"Jellyfish" is not a term we are familiar with. However, the extrauniversal spacecraft in question appears to be called an Eternity-Class Total Destruction Vessel. It functions by enveloping a universe and absorbing mass-energy from it, and presumably, like the smaller Creation- and Divinity-Class Universe Eaters surrounding it, firing this energy into another universe as a weapon. This is not a class of spacecraft that the VCMR is familiar with, however, and research into its function is ongoing.

The bacteriophage-like creatures outside this universe are called Injection Craft. They are of our own design and are attempting to drive away or destroy the Eternity-Class. All vehicles marked with the VCMR military insignia within this universe are conducting a research operation on a newly-arrived alien force.

Any attempt to disrupt or attack any of our intrauniversal or extrauniversal spacecraft will result in disproportionate firepower returned upon your fleets in question. We can only assume that the large clouds of robots next to the GSP (the ringworld-like spacecraft) and the needlecraft approaching the Injection Craft are yours. Do not fire on us, and we will avoid disturbing your own fleets.

It is hoped we can cooperate instead of having to resort to a three- or four-way war against the Ravagery and this new, unknown "Domination" faction.

---

Communications with the Domination

Attention, unidentified ships. Surrender yourselves to the benevolent control of the Domination, or face annihilation.

Subcommander Arka-Z10
Titan T14, Quantum Mapping Fleet 75-107-881
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

We thank you for not firing upon our forces, and for your unintentional cooperation in our newly-forming Quantum Anomaly Research Initiative.

Unfortunately, the VCMR has no intentions of surrendering to another militaristic multiverse-traversing faction. Our previous combat against the Ravagery taught us too much about attempting these types of negotiations. Regrettably, no agreement can be made in regards to surrender.

However, should you wish to aid us in combat against the Ravagery, which is very likely to pick up again considering we've just ended a ceasefire, this would be appreciated.

---

Interuniversal Space

Giant ball of needlecraft nearby. Eighty Demigod-class targets in front. Orders?
Focus all firepower forwards. Avoid firing on the needlecraft.
Distance to target: 375 gigaparsecs and closing.
Warning! Heavy incom---

A total of fifteen Injection Craft were picked off in rapid succession by the torrent of weaponsfire headed their way from the Demigod-class warships. The remaining ones did not delay in returning the favor; laser arrays focus-fired hundreds upon hundreds of Meta-Elimination Beams, each one powerful enough to reduce a galactic supercluster down to raw quantum foam, upon the Demigods one at a time.