NationStates Jolt Archive

The Anthill cruiser sailed through open, clear waters. Its massive, black form, tearing silently through the water, causing wakes and ripples in the currents, approached a small island rumoured to be colonised. The submarine purred on magnetohydrodynamic drives, killing off all life behind it with jets of superheated water. Carefully, it sent off a single ping of sonar, scanning the water for enemies...

It was a bright, clear, sunny day in Freebodnik V. Through thin whisps of cloud high in the sky, the sun painted bright pastel colours on the cirrus tapestry, casting its warm glow down in friendly bright shafts onto the little green island in the Pacific ocean. A gentle, cool breeze blew over the island, rustling through the stands of black pines, causing the bright red and yellow of the maple tree leaves to flutter and wave, as if saying 'hello' to the world. It wafted through majestic poplars, and the trees seemed to sing with life and happiness. A group of robins took flight from the disturbed branches, singing and playing gaily in the autumn day.

Down on the green meadows and gently rolling fields of the island eutopia, a group of children followed a brown bearded, ruddy faced bear of a man, a teacher and his class on an outing in nature. They ran and chased one another, playing 'Catch me if you can', and excitedly followed the brown bunnies in the field who had until then been feeding calmly on the grasses. From above, they seemed like little circular forms, swimming in a gentle sea of yellow and green, with the slender forms of the poppy husks tickling their arms and legs as the plants swayed in the breeze.

At the docks the men and women sang a hearty, joyous song as they lugged in great netfuls of silvery fishes, whose scales and armoured bodies glinted like precious metals in the sun. The nets were not overly large nor small, but were the correct size to maintain the fisheries and feed the people at the same time, and the entire island seemed to breathe in colours of tolerance, gentleness, and respect for nature and the earth and fellow human beings.

Their songs carried far on the breeze, echoing off of the white walls of the small houses that dotted the landscape.

Eulalia was in the library of her commune, quietly reading a great old tome by the yellow sunlight that filtered in through the window. Outside a pair of monarch butterflies danced by in the regular patterns that had been passed down from the ages by genetics.

A small cup of tea steamed, giving off a healthy aromatic, herbal smell, besid her, and she took a sip, sat back in the wooden chair which creaked slightly, and smiled. This was the way to enjoy an autumn afternoon.

The cyberbrains that controlled the cruiser detected nothing in the waters of the harbour ahead, save for a few tiny apparitions on the surface - naught but little boats and swimmers. Electricity from the fission reactor in the heart of the giant submarine pulsed through circuits, lighting up the fluid suspension chambres in which dwelt the cyberbrains - amputated, disembodied human brains that resembled balls of wires and tubing, rather than anything remotely human - and it was fitting, for the minds that dwelt within the brains were detached, cold, dead of life or pleasure, focused upon but a single purpose, with all intelligence and spark of love or hate burnt out of them.

These brains were in a shielded sphere of spheres of spheres, fiercely protected by layers of redundancy, of countless backups and protection. Their control extended over the cruiser dwarfed any possessed by any submarine crew, for it was to them, as their own body - the MHD drives their legs, the sensors their eyes, the weapons their mighty fists. Stripped of the need to accommodate for primitive, fleshly bodies, the vast bulk of the cruiser was dominated by automatic machinery, weaponry, ammunition, and other supplies of war and destruction.

The cruiser drifted closer, recieving a stream of commands from some orbiting satellite, its sensors more active, seeming to be more confident.

The minds beind this underwater monstrosity were thinking as well...

Deliah turned to a camera and uttered a remark, free of the regular gurgling and bubbling of machinery as in the atmosphere of the Hive, she had no need for life-support mechanisms.

"What is this? Is this a nation? Where are its defences?"

"It is called 'Freebodnik Five'," came the calm, easygoing voice of the LEADER, the soothing British accent pouring forth from speakers, "They are quite similar to what the early anthill was - before we were collectivist - in the early days. I have no memories of this - but there are records. It was a utopian society."

"Utopian," spat Deliah with disgust.

"Indeed. They consider themselves to be a paramount of freedom and equality. Their cells - or, to use their term - their citizens can think for themselves."

"Why do they not implode? How can such a society ever come to conclusions to what must be done?"

"Obviously each individual works with every other in an attempt to come to some mutually agreeable compromise."

"How horrid! Why do we have our cruiser there?"

"Intial explorations. I believe it to be instructive to us to examine such an interesting social specimen."

"Ahh.."

"And I want you to go there."

Deliah nodded, understanding the LEADER. He had strange habits, strange ideas and beliefs, but he always had the Anthill foremost in his mind. She was sure of this.

"I'll get prepared, then."

"Please do."

Deliah donned her life-support gear and prepared to board a stasis-transport.

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres away, the black cruiser came closer...

"Eulalia," whispered the GovMindNet terminal near her.

"Oh! It's you, GovMindNet! What's up?" said Eulalia looking up from her novel.

"I've detected a large metal object moving towards the harbour. It seems friendly."

"Oh! Visitors! How close are they to land?"

"About two kilometres."

"Not long, I guess. I'll log onto the datanet and tell the others."

Eulalia summoned up an optic-plane crystal and began to type at the console.

TAG... this oughta be good... :twisted:

~Siri

[ oh yes, leave it up to Menelmacar to anticipate with pleasure, the thought of innocent, peace-loving Freebodniks being tortured, maimed, put up as an example, and then brutally condemned to a life of servitude and slavery under a totalitarian mind-controlling superorganism.
~ TPA, AKA Freebodnik V AKA a whole friggin' lot of other nations ]

The cruiser ground to a halt, floating, like a glowering leviathan in the placid, gentle, warm waters.

Its new orders was to hold position and observe until the transport arrived. Meanwhile it was not to engage any craft until a situation report had been ascertained.

If the disembodied, jellylike brains within the craft could think independently, they would wonder why such strange orders were being given to them. But they could not, and thus, the submarine hovered in the waters, passively gathering information, storing it, sending it off to be devoured by the Think Tanks.

OOC: Indeed, my split-personality-ed chum, it's quite typical of Menelmacar. I didn't expect much better, given our history.

A multiracial group of variously-clad people had gathered at the dock. Eulalia ran down to them, feeling the cool air whisk through her light cotton shirt, caressing her slim body, the wind and wash of the ocean waves serenading her ears with its eternal lullaby. The breeze ran through her long brown hair, the sun's light sparkling gaily in her emerald eyes, her long tresses tickling her ears and playing over her face.

What a beautiful day! she thought.

She met the people, who were gathered around a small sailing boat loaded with coolers and bottles and other picnicking supplies.

"What are you doing?"

"Preparing to go out at meet whoever that is in the thing out there."

"What's with the picnic goods?"

A man spoke up, "Well, it's a long sail out there, and considering as it's almost noontime..."

"Did you bring enough for the visitors?"

"Umm... I don't think so."

"Well at least do you have some greeting-cod?" Eulalia asked, her hands on her hips.

"No..."

Eulalia looked aghast.

"You have to have the greeting-cod! It's just rude not to have it when greeting visitors! Here, I'll get one from Miranda okay? Don't leave without me!"

She ran back up the hill to a pleasant little cottage next to the library and soon returned with a large icebag with a massive codfish frozen in it.

"Okay, now we're ready."

The people began to crowd onto their sailboats and solar catamarans and pushed off, out to look at the strange arrival. The cod lay on a grill, slowly cooking.

*grabs popcorn*
"This will be real fun" :P

Deliah's stasis pod was launched on the underbelly of a hover-transport - a helicopter with a nuclear reactor, capable of nearly infinite hovering and movement. It carried her at a near super-sonic speed to the island, a small, whirring black speck in the sky, growing larger...

*grabs popcorn*
"This will be real fun" :P

*Steals handful*

"Indeed"

*Siri reaches over and grabs some popcorn to nibble on. "Mmm, buttery."

~Siri

*nibbles on all natural 100% Vegan carrot stick*

This will be fun

[I had a nice post here, but it got eaten. Tag.]

OOC: Meh. Ever consider just why I'm reduced to Rping with myself? Hmmmmmm? No? Well, food for thought, isn't it? Now if you'd kindly stop filling this pitiful thread with OOC garbage, I shall continue.

The sea breeze made the sails of the small catamaran party fluff and flap, filling like white pillows floating like soap-bubbles over the iridescent surface of the clean, cool water. Underneath swam a multitude of fishes, like a swarm of beautiful rare gems, playing and frolicking in the coral reefs. A small pod of dolphins leapt and jumped in the wake of the Freebodnik catamarans, and the watery spray catching the sun seemed to be sparkling diamonds glittering in the air, sprinkling cooly against Eulalia's cheeks. She giggled at the tickling feel, taking a deep lungful of fresh salty air and leaned back on the railing.

They made good progress and soon were within metres of the dark, black thing underwater. It was at least three hundred metres long, and fifty metres wide.

"What is it?" said one.

"I think it's some sort of submarine," remarked another.

"Why don't they come up and say hi?" asked a little child, tugging at Eulalia's cotton shirt.

Eulalia bent down and lifted the boy up to the railing, nuzzling him as if he were her own child, "Well maybe they're waiting - or they're just timid."

"But we wouldn't hurt them!"

"Some people are different from us. They think funny things about other people. We just have to be patient."

"I'll get a radio transmitter," said the skipper of the catamaran. "Maybe they can't detect us - we need to tell them we're friends."

The Freebodniks began transmitting to the Anthill's submarine cruiser, messages of friendship and peace piercing through the water...

*Prepares giant laser*

:twisted:

(Tag)

*high above the globe, the lenses of a high-powered satellite shift, and focus on the island...*

The submarine's patience was sorely tried. All throughout the cyberbrains cried for blood, to kill, slaughter, maim and obliterate, and time and time again their desires were crushed by blocks of subneural programming and artificial intelligence. The will of the Anthill was supreme and with time, soon burned out the rudimentary stirrings of consciousness within the living core of the Anthill cruiser. They became as an instrument of the collective, another cell in the Social Body.

Meanwhile a black dot, like a dark cloud on the horizon, hovered closer...

"Look there!" cried one Freebodnik to the others, "There - up in the sky! It's a bird!"

"No way, man!" said an enthusiastic young woman, "It's a plane!"

Eulalia was in the process of replying jokingly, "No, it's superman", but she turned to the sky and recognised the shape.

"It's a helicopter!"

The hover-transport circled over the green expanse of island, over trees and unsuspecting neighbourhoods, blissfully unaware of their impending demise, and set down in a large grassy meadow. Suspension fluids cleared from the gee-pod and Deliah began to stir into consciousness. Her helmet began to fill with blue perfluorocarbon fluid and she twitched, an electric impulse soaring up her spine. Her large eyes flicked open, and she inhaled thick oxygenated liquid, laced with chemicals.

Deliah was dumped unceremoniously in a spray of wet gel and fluid on the grass from behind the transport.

People began wandering towards her...

As the machine passed low, roaring overhead, all the attention was turned to it and where it landed, and away from the inert form deep underwater, lurking like a dark shadow amongst the reefs. The Freebodniks moved in, and landed on the shore, moving up towards the hill where the machine had landed, a flurry and confusion of voices, concerned and curious, wondering what was going on and who were these strange people in black ships and planes...

They approached it after about half an hour's walk and found a woman lying face down, wearing a deep black, ribbed plastic bodysuit and a cowled pressure helmet filled with gelatinous blue fluid. She seemed to be breathing and her eyes were open.

Wet gel covered her, glistening in the sun.

Eulalia approached the woman. She had the most curious blue tinge to her skin, and her long, curled fingers clutched the soft, loamy earth. She reached out...

And Deliah was aware. Sensors in her suit took in the air, sampled the soil under her, felt the grass against her naked skin underneath. She became aware of the people around her, clad in soft, loose clothes of all colours, and especially...

Of the woman that approached her. She radiated in a strange wavelength, gave her the strange uneasy feeling that she got when in presence of any of the Anthill's queer telepath cells that they did experiments upon. And yet, fundamentally different in character.

Her head throbbed, but Deliah soon silenced it with a chemical cocktail of painkillers and opiates, morphine-analogues flooding her blood as neurochemical triggers prevented and controlled the release of dopamine and endorphins, carefully adjusting her emotional state.

She took the woman's hand in her own

The woman's hand lunged out and caught her own with a wet slapping motion. Eulalia pulled the strange woman up and stared at her, her face an expression of askance and concern.

"Are you okay? My name is Eulalia 94825, and you're in Freebodnik Five. What's your name?"

"Yes, I know of you. I am Deliah."

Her voice is a raspy groan, a low feminine voice, which would be sultry were it not for the mechanical wheezing and liquid bubbling noises that were inextricably mixed into it.

"I am the Ambassador cell for the Peoples Anthill."

There was a gasp, and excited chattering rippled through the crowd. Apparently they have heard of the Peoples Anthill before, and from the looks on their faces, they were not pleasant details. Even Eulalia, her light face usually tinged with warm shades of red and pink, seemed to pale at this.

Deliah rose to her full height and surveyed the world around her. She was standing upon a grassy promontory overlooking the beach and near a few scattered houses. Stalks of wheat and rice plants swayed in the fresh sea wind.

It was clear that this place was one of peace and quiet prosperity.

Eulalia took the Anthill's ambassador by hand and led her down the trail.

"Well, we can't leave you here. There are guest houses down by the sea - they're very nice. You can stay there while you visit."