Transhuman Empire (TWI ONLY | IC)

[Atnaia]

OOC

SRAS Heliocept
Jovian Orbit
October 5th, 2231

Skald stepped off the elevator uncomfortably. In front of him, the Admiral was standing behind his desk, facing the holographic projection of a tall individual so heavily kitted out with brain-enhancing cybernetics it was hard to tell that he was human and not a computer stapled to a mobile platform.

"...I do not care about your reservations, General Poirot," said the cyborg manifestation. "This is your duty to the Saturn Ring Alliance. You will perform it."

The General seemed about to formulate a response when he noticed Skald standing near the door. "We'll talk about this later, Adjudicator."

The hologram glanced at Skald. "Of course. See that it is not much later."

The hologram disappeared. The General breathed deeply then sighed. He turned to Skald. "Cadet," he said, "just the person I wanted to see. I have a job for you."

Skald glanced around the general's office, down at his plain red jumpsuit, then shrugged. "Do I have to go kill a few rats or something?"

"Something like that," said the General. "How long have you been with the SRA?"

Skald didn't really know the answer to that. "Awhile," he said simply.

"In the navy that whole time?"

"No."

"Do you intend to remain with us?"

Skald considered his options. "Yeah, I guess. Not many other options out there."

The General nodded. "Just the man we need then. This task is very...sensitive. You'll be rewarded highly for completing it."

Skald shrugged. "Okay. What is it?"

"I need you to place a bomb on a civilian cruiser..."

---

Rembrandt Apartments, Apt 1201
Port Gray, Atna Prefecture, Atnaia
October 5th, 2016

"Jesus," Todd said, pulling his hands back from his mouse and keyboard. The dialogue options popped up on the bottom of the screen.

1. Anything for the SRA!
2. Wait...what?
3. Anything for a reward!
4. [More Info]

"Well, that's not your standard starter quest," Todd mumbled. He hit tab real quick, and pulled up his friend's list in the chat panel. He clicked the name Yimir, one of his guildmates from WarriorEpic, before that game's servers had gone tits up. As quick as possible, he typed a message.

Skald.1010: Hey, what did you choose for the first big decision thing?

Todd waited a few seconds, munching a carrot stick (he had put on some weight he didn't like, and was trying to replace shitty snack foods with healthier alternatives). Finally, a response popped up.

Yimir.0046: Anything for the reward, bro. I' going full-on Dark Side with this toon. My back-up will be the goody goody.

Todd held the carrot stick in his mouth like a cigar.

Skald.1010: Thought your back-up was going to be on the Earther side.

Yimir.0046: I'll do an Earther and a Martian and a Oorter too, but Saturnians just seem cooler.

Skald.1010: I'll go goody goody and let you know how it plays out.

Yimir.0046: You do you.

---

"Anything for the Saturn Ring Alliance, sir," Skald said. "It's my duty, after all."

"Yes it is," said the General. He moved around the desk. "Head down to Mariah in the armoury. She'll get you kitted out. Then we'll land you down on Karling Station, with all the information you'll need."

"Sir," Skald saluted.

Transhuman Empire
Genre: MMORPG (Sci-Fi)
Release Day 1

[Atnaia]

Todd leaned back. He was out of snacks and had been playing for hours. A few bombings, a mission or two in the belly of an Earth cruiser to get him used to capital ship deck layouts, and he had earned his first ship and was ready to explore the galaxy. His level counter said 5, which put him at a tenth of the way to max level. He felt frustrated. In any other game, five levels in three hours would have been abysmal progress, but as he skimmed message boards and wikis, he came to realize that the grind to max in TE was slow going if you stuck to solo-queuing and ground missions. The real XP was in the massive PvP zones and in group missions and raids. Now that he had his starter fighter under his belt, he had the whole sky open to him, and that meant all the XP and loot he could hope for. He popped open his whisper messages with Yimir.

Skald.1010: hey, out of tutorials and starter zone missions and everything, want to group up?

Yimir didn't take long responding.

Yimir.0046: damn, took you long enough, there's already people pushing into the high teens

Todd frowned.

Skald.1010: For realz? the games been out for like 4 hours, and you needed an hour to install the day 1 patches and updates an everything

Yimir.0046: hate the player, not the game. some guy named BigBear is streaming online right now and is about to hit 20, I have him on my second monitor. looks like he was part of the datamining community, had some idea for a build out of the gate and skipped the starting zone.

Skald.1010: Baln's balls! How?!!!?!

Yimir.0046: Turns out if you start a toon, finish the first mission and go back to character creation and make a new toon, the game lets you skip the tutorial missions and just gives you a ship at 0. You start underlevelled, but you have a ship and aren't locked into a zone, so you can start shooting womprats in your T-15 and blow through the first 5 in like half an hour.

Skald.1010: Cheap ****ing move.

Skald.1010: forgot to turn off profanity filter, one sec

Skald.1010: what lvl you at?

Yimir.0046: 7. let's group and run the first group instance. apparently there's a surprisingly decent four person ship at the end as a possible rare drop, we could probs use that if we are going to jam together for awhile.

Skald.1010: What's your schedule like for the next few days?

Yimir.0046: took the days off, u?

Skald.1010: I'm a hakikomori.

Yimir.0046: ah, so kawaii. seriously, you stupid weeb.

Skald.1010: Shut up. Anyways, free schedule.

Yimir.0046: cool. we'll need a couple of pugs though, if we want to run it and fly the ship around, let me see if I can find anyone willing to play. What role yoou going for?

Todd had been skimming a few build sites as they chatted on his second monitor, and had pulled up BigBear's stream. The guy had a relaxing Ambress drawl which wouldactually be nice to play to.

Skald.1010: Think I'll go scout/marine. Run and gun, baby. You?

Yimir.0046: Marine/psikik. Tank and off-heal. We'll need a good main heal and a second damage or buffer or something. I'll find some peeps. Give me a few...

[Ostehaar]

Dora waited in excitement for the black-and-blue screen to finish loading the start menu. She couldn't remember when was the last time she was so anxious to keep playing a computer game - perhaps when she discovered her older brother's copy of Half Life 2 in his drawers? It doesn't matter. She finally had a thing of her own to expect to every day when she was back home from school. School, lunch, homework, and TE - that was how she described her schedule.

She has been playing the game for a few days already. Her aim was to be in the Oort Republic, simply because they had the best sounding name. She couldn't decide if she wanted to go for pilot or psikik tree more... And maybe a bit of scout? So many possibilities! So little time! Oh, well. For now, her goal was to find and purchase the best starship available.

Prost.0030: Heyyyyy

Konor.0109: Oh, look who's here! Finished the book?

Prost.0030: I'm not reading it anymore, it's boring. I don't have time to read 35 pages of environmental descriptions...

Konor.0109: Yep, that's Tolkien.

Prost.0030: So did you see anything special? Did you find anyone with a DH-3??

Konor.0109: Sorry Dor, I haven't been looking. I tried to finish some stuff for the alliance so I haven't had the time to go through all those trade centers or something.

Prost.0030: Awww I really want that ship. Damn... I'd settle even for a DH-1 right now. I've been looking for them for a while now but nobody seems to offer those for sale at a reasonable price.

Konor.0109: You should start doing more missions. It's an easy way to get credits.

Prost.0030: Meh. We'll see. Anyway I'm going to check another outpost. Found an online TE blog with tips and stuff. He says that if you get to outposts that have been recently raided, you can collect valuable stuff for free.

Konor.0109: Oh.

Prost.0030: Yep. So see you later! :)

Konor.0109: Will do!

---

CH-4 Doracraft
Above the Jupiter trojan asteroid Hermes
October 8th, 2231

Prost's CH-4 single-person starship hovered quietly in a low orbit - the only orbit possible above an asteroid - its engine in silent mode. He ignited the auxiliary thrust device, installed in the ship only a day ago, and slowly cruised into the shaded part of the asteroid. Gradually, with the help of the asteroid's slight gravitational pull, the ship lowered until it gently touched down.

Prost turned the engines off but kept the RADAR operating. A few ships just left the SRA outpost nearby. Prost waited until they were gone, and turned the engines back on. He maneuvered his small ship and landed in front of the outpost. Before he exited the ship, and checked his gun again, to make sure he had enough ammunition to face any unexpected enemy. He left anything else in the ship behind him.

The entrance door to the outpost was destroyed, and everything inside was either scattered all over the floor or slightly floating upwards due to the low gravity. Prost quickly spotted a Type 2 Advanced Combat Pistol, which he obviously collected - you don't skip an opportunity like that - and an SRA access card.

---

Dora opened her eyes wide in awe and blocked her open mouth with her hand.

Prost.0030: I found an SRA access card!!!

Konor.0109: Cool! So this post-raiding thing of yours really works... :)

Prost.0030: Hehe. You're funny. :P

Suddenly Dora noticed a box with two options at the bottom of the screen.

Prost.0030: Wait. Maybe I can't just take it. Updates soon.

Konor.0109: What?

Dora read the options carefully.

1. Steal the card - and risk being chased by the SRA.
2. Ignore the card.

Prost.0030: Shit. If I take it I might be in trouble.

Konor.0109: I say take it.

Prost.0030: Oh, well. You only live once, ah?

---

Prost leaned forward and picked the card up. He glanced at both sides of it, and shoved it in his backpack.

[Atnaia]

The prison ship Alpinius loomed before them, a dire black silhouette against the stars. As they came around in their fighters, the rag-tag group of SRA personnel could see the chunks of debris and frozen bodies that ringed the ship like a halo. A huge hole was blown out of one side, melted metal and icy debris floating away from it with the appearance of a seeping wound.

"Damn," Skald said.

"Have any of you guys got experience in boarding actions?" asked Yimir.

A string of negatives came along. "I honestly thought exo training would be useless," said Timbur.

"Do you think we can pilot into the hole?" asked their fourth, Checkers.

Electricity flashed between metal components in arcs. Skald frowned. "Not unless we want to tear our ships apart and leave our bodies floating in space."

"You're a scout," Yimir said. "Think you can do a little spacewalk and get the power turned off?"

"The mission dossier from command said that that thing is filled with a bunch of pissed off criminals who have commandeered power armour," Skald replied. "I've got an MKP1 pistol and a standard issue exo-suit. We shouldn't have taken this mission yet."

"Stop being a coward," Timbur said. "I'm a pilot. I can peg a fly fro a klick away with the guns o this thing."

"That doesn't help against guys wearing armour meant to tank a nuclear strike," Skald grumbled, but he leveraged his ship forward and let it drift across the open space between towards the Alpinius. "Just cover my ass, and if I get fried gather my gear."

He leaned back against his crash seat and pressed a few buttons. There was a hiss and the cockpit opened, and he was ejected from the one-man fighter. He pushed off with his feet and was sent drifting away, his fighter pinwheeling back towards the group. He skimmed forward with a slight spiral, like a bullet from a rifled barrel, pushing himself from chunk of debris to chunk of debris with his hands. A spinning chunk of ice skimmed above his head, and he twisted and climbed across it like an insect before kicking off again. Gracefully, beautifully, he turned in the air. Like a bird in flight, he was born to this. A spark of blue lightning flashed near him and shattered a ball of ice twice his size, but he ignored it, drawing his pistol from its thigh holster as he landed against the bulk of the black-and-gray prison ship. He activated his magnetic boots and clung to the surface like a spider.

"Nice," Yimir said over comms. "Can you see a power relay or something?"

The ships in the system weren't built to be beautiful; this one was even less so. Bulbous protrusions off of its angular surface spoke to non-necessary subsystems and sensors just below the armoured surface. Skald looked around.

"Not sure what I am looking for," he said.

"Just a sec," came Checker's voice. "Pulling up the Hacker's Guide. Let me ping it on your HUD."

A moment later, an anonymous gray bulk above the gaping wound in the hull glowed a holographic yellow. "Thanks," Skald said, and began picking his way across the hull.

He felt a thump under his boots, but didn't hear anything. This was space, after all. He turned, and saw a trio of huge figures pulling themselves from the hole in the ship. Clad in black armour run through with mechanics, they looked like robots, but Skald knew that inside were men. Men more than capable of ripping through steel with those suits they were wearing.

"Oh shit," Skald said. "They saw me."

On the far side of the debris field, he suddenly saw blue lights, and moments later a pair of fighters swooped overhead. Or he passed over them. No up or down in space, but from his point of view they were above him. A series of flashes announced the fire of their weapons, and the space around the power-armoured prisoners was suddenly a wall of shrapnel. The prisoners covered their heads, and the shots rang of their armor. One suddenly jerked and floated away from the bulkhead as whitish mist emitted from a tube on his armour. His air supply had been severed. Skald decided to ignore them and keep picking his way towards the power unit.

[Atnaia]

"Fuuuuuuuck," Todd moaned as the yellow letters popped up on his display.

Hacking Skill Required

Skald.1010: we are so incredibly screwed

Checker.0916: y?

Skald.1010: damn thing needs hacking to break

Todd's screen flashed as combat continued. He flicked his mouse and began firing at the mobs. He hoped he wouldn't pull aggro. For now they were focused on the strafing fighters.

Timbur.8511: shit. guess we have to waste our ships then to get inside?

Checker.0916: Hell no. Literally one of the first things I dropped creds on was a remote port t-h enhancement back at station. basic one. no stat upgrades, but so long as Skald is there I can jack the port. just need a minute. hacking is a goddamn puzzle minigame.

Yimir.0046: of course it is, designers love minigames

Checker.0916: Skald, you need to stay within a few meters of the box, that cool?

Skald.1010: Can't go anywhere else, don't have a radio control installed on my fighter

Skald.1010: not that I will install one anyways, not worth the money,short range beam is better

A few moments later, a bar appeared above the power box and progress began ticking away. One of the mobs managed to lad a good hit on Timbur's left engine.

Timbur.8511: christ, their nades do like three quarters of a ship part's health in a single hit. Skald, be careful down there, they hit you and you'll be waking up in a vat back in the station and we'll have to reload the whole instance

Skald.1010: because I am a noob and needed the advice to avoid the big red circles on the ground, thanks sherlock

The progress bar pinged and the electrical field suddenly disappeared as lights near the hole turned off. Everyone's experience bars ticked up.

Yimir.0046: XP share in the instances, nice

Skald.1010: annoyance avoidance. can you guys blow away those grunts while I get back to my ship?

Yimir.0046: will do

[Ostehaar]

Konor.0109: So how's life as a fugitive?

Dora paused the game when the message popped and smiled.

Prost.0030: You're back! How was France?! :D

Konor.0109: It was... French.

Prost.0030: Heh. Anyway, I gave the card up. An SRA guy tried to hunt me down so I decided to try and just give it to someone else.

Konor.0109: And no one chases you now?

Prost.0030: I think so. It's probably like a Black Spot, so when you get rid of it you're fine.

Prost.0030: I'm back to some lawless raiding for the time being.

Konor.0109: Until you get the credits for a DH-3...

Prost.0030: Haha yessss. Took the pilot tree, btw.

Konor.0109: Hmm. How about we team up, get a ship for two pilots and do stuff?

Prost.0030: What stuff?

Konor.0109: I don't know... I'm tired of alliance missions.

Konor.0109: I wanna go dark side and raid. I want lots of money and valuable stuff to sell and exchange for upgrades.

Prost.0030: Okay, let's do that. :)

Konor.0109: Yay! So we need to find a ship first.

Konor.0109: Meet at the J2 trade station?

Prost.0030: On my way!

---

CH-4 Doracraft
Above Saturn's moon Enceladus
October 18th, 2231

Prost finished installing the new plasma cannon onto his ship and jumped in it. He turned a few knobs and the spacecraft jumped up and began cruising forward and up, gradually disengaging the moon in increasing velocity. He set course to Jupiter, where trade station J2 was located.

Suddenly the ship's critical alarm started beeping and a short message appeared on the front pilot display - Enemy vessel nearby. Prost quickly turned off the auto-pilot and turned around towards the threat. Out there, far away near the edge of the craft's sensor range, a red dot appeared. There you are, Prost thought, a perfect opportunity to try the new cannon.

His CH-4 closed the distance fast and the red fot grew in size and gradually took the shape of a square. As the ships flew towards each-other, the square began flickering in bright green, signaling that the position is right for the plasma cannon to fire at the target. I have you now!

Prost armed the weapon and squeezed the two triggers with both hands. The ship released a controlled burst of high-energy particles in a straight line forwards... missing the enemy ship. Damn, Prost thought, he turned in time. Prost could see how his little foe - a CF-10 fighter craft - turned sideways, rotating along the pitch axis and attempting to closing the distance coming from his flank. A barrel roll, you say! Having identified the attacker's future course, Prost copied the enemy's movement on a different maneuvering plane, practically doing the same displacement trick. As a result he could end up right behind the attacker in a lag pursuit.

The attacker - now under attack himself - tried to shake Prost off, but with every turn he only slowed himself further. Prost squeezed the triggers briefly again, hitting the enemy's engines directly. He then switched to regular laser beam and finished his opponent off. No one messes with the Prost.

[Atnaia]

The inside of the ship may as well have a been a tomb. Frozen bodies hung in the zero-grav, mummified by sudden decompression into brittle bags of icy bones. Skald pushed one aside and floated through the hallway. The others tugged themselves along the walls, hand over hand. As they emerged from the hallway into what appeared to be a large prisoner galley, Skald flicked his eyes around his HUD and with a series of blinks and twitches his mag-boots came on and he locked to the wall. No up or down in space. It took some getting used to.

"Do we have eyes on anymore escapees?" he asked over comms.

"Nothing," said Yimir.

"I don't like this," Timbur replied.

"No shit," Skald nodded, the action invisible in his helmet. "Wish I could have peeled one of those mooks back on the shell out of his power armour. We could have used it."

The others agreed. There was a series of thuds as they magged onto the floor and walls. Skald quickly scanned his information stores.

"We got options here," said Checkers. "Quick and dirty way is to overload the reactors. Flip the whole thing from fusion to fission and the ship will rip itself apart. No more prisoners. 'Course, that leaves nothing for the good blokes at the SRA to salvage."

"What's worth salvaging?" Yimir mumbled.

"Aside from several million creds worth of steel and ceramics, the ship has a perfectly good reactor which could be field stripped, plus a point defense system which could be installed on an SRA warship with almost no effort."

"PDS didn't shoot down our fighters," Timbur said.

Skald watched as Checkers made his way to a bulkhead door. He plugged into a terminal and a moment later spoke. "That's because the whole computer network is down."

"What's the other option?" Yimir asked.

"We could shoot the leader of this little rebellion in the head and let the SRA field strip the ship," Skald said. "But that carries us directly through a bunch of pissed off, power-armour wearing thugs. A whole hell of a lot more difficult than flicking a few switches on a reactor."

They were silent for a moment. "I say we blow the damn thing to hell," Timbur said. "SRA can eat my ass. I'd rather not get my body shot full of holes."

"They won't waste the ammo," Skald replied. "MkII power armour has actuators that would give them the strength to rip you in half, if they wanted. Wouldn't even break a sweat."

"Yeah, I'm behind the 'nuke the ship' option," Checkers said. "If the marine says the suits can tear us in half, I'm ready to believe it."

They all agreed. "Which way to the reactor, then?" Skald asked.

Timbur pointed down under their feet. Well, down in relation to him, Skald thought. No up and down in space.