NationStates Jolt Archive

The Sky was rolling and tumultuous. It was as if the sea and the sky had joined for an attack against the mass of the land. The sound of thunder split the sky, the sound of the destructive waves were harsh to the ear.
A lightning bolt hit one of the many towers of The Hive City. Black, towering, monstrous, metallic, ugly were among some of the words to describe the city for it was not made for beauty. It was made for function, it was made to crush the spirit, it was meant to inject fear into the smallest of foes and friends; so that they may behold that even the Universal Hive had a power, a power over emotions and over the mind itself.

James Alpha-924 sat upon the balcony. He had taken a tremendous risk. Not only was the storm dangerous, he was defying the will of the Hive. He was taking a break from his work. He would be severely punished if caught or worse; he would be and asset to be 'liquidated', literally!
He had been told since birth that it was every citizen's final duty to enter the Great Machine, the place where all 'human waste' was 'processed'. He had been told it was the way in which everyone eventually became one with all society, once again literally!
He was singing lightly to himself, yet another offence.

"Mary has a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb, who's fleece was white as snow."

A rather quaint song, would you expect sheep and nursery rhymes in a place as terrifying as the Hive City?

The loudspeaker switched on. The Master was about to speak.

"Greetings, my sheep!"

The Voice was loud, either to pierce the soul or overcome the loudness of the storm.

"This is the Master, The Shephard, The Hive Incarnate."

He always did like the sound of his grandiose statements. He listened intently, the announcement was essential, even for those who hated the leader. Resistance was always futile. It always ended in the Great Machine.

"1st announcement my dear sheep; due to the fine directions of your shephard and the toil of yourselves, the sheep, production of food has increased by 3%. As a reward, 50 milligrams of bread have been allocated in addition to your normal ration program."

'Yay! One milligram of bread' thought the sarky James Alpha-924. That will surely make a difference.

"My second and final announcement my dear sheep; their have been reports of individualist and liberty outbrakes amongst the Hive. This must end, an example must be set. The aforementioned ration boost is thus canceled. That is all!"

His heart sunk. In truth, those 50 milligrams had been his best piece of news all day. He got up, he had to rejoin the work detail without anyone realising he had gone....

Not one comment about my RP. How very dissapointing.

V.Good start TUH.

I be watching.... :wink:

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Trix Redski
Lord Imperial of Trixia
Commander and Founder of the Cold Alliance
Member of the BDI
Member of the Galactic Defence Alliance

James Alpha-924 picked up his sack and resumed work. Luckily for him, no one had noticed his departure. No visit for him to the Great Machine with extra whipping from the guards.
A loudspeaker activated again.
A feminine voice spoke this time.

"And now to invigerate our workers with that wonderful Christmas charm and cheer. Everyone join in.

'Jingling sacks! Jingling Sacks!
Hauling all the way!
Break that Back!
Work the most and an extra ration today!'

Sure enough, everyone was singing, more like moaning the words. They had not the strength to sing in truth and many collapsed, their lungs bleeding. However, none dared refuse the order, not even James. Everyone, as always, new the futility and irrelevance of resistance the powers that be. What were you going to do, sacks against guns and whips surely is not fair?

OOC: Is this an on-your-own RP? Or can i take part?

OOC: If this is a Join-In RP...

IC:

"What's that?" James whispered as he saw a shiny metal trinket start to come out of another Worker's pocket.

The other worker gasped, and jammed it back down into his pocket. "It's a cross..."

"A what?" James looked at him strangely.

"A Cross... It's a religious symbol... From my homeland... This place outlaws Religion from the outside, because it conflicts with the Hive's teachings..." The other worker whispered.

"Your homeland?" James asked

"Yeah... I'm not from this horrid cursed place... My family was immigrating when I was a child, and this dreadful place enslaved us when we asked if we could travel through..." The other worker sighed. "My family is all gone now..." He sniffled.

James just stood there, not knowing what to say. "Well, I'm James..."

"Jonathan... Nice to meet you..."

"Hey, you two! What are you whispering about!" A Guard yelled over at them.

OOC: Yes, you can take part, just dont destroy my nation. Call it a character RP.

The Guard looked at Jonathan and James. He was large, his clothing all black with a mean looking whip to his hands.

"No talking! Get back to work! I will have my eye on you for this offence. Now meet your quotas unless you want to feel the crack of my mistress!"

He cracked the whip at the heels of the conversationists.

(OOC: in the future, please add after a first name, a greek letter then a number between 1 and 5000 e.g James Alpha-924
I will let you determine Jonathan if you want)

Such a hellish place...

Outside the tallest tower, the sky was tormentuous inserting fear into even the biggest and brightest of the sheep. The other spires, where all the other industrial work was done and where the habitation complexes were located failed to even reach to half the height of the tallest spire. In that spire was a different story.

An office there was. Modern, bright, colourful, luxurious. A place that a head of state would be proud to call their workplace.
Sat their at his marble desk upon his expensive chair was the Master. The driving force behind the entire Universal Hive, the personification of the Collective state.

He was composing a letter on his computer, his hands darting to and fro across the keyboard.



To be delivered forthwith to the international community.

Greetings
We are the Universal Hive and I am the Master, the Hive Incarnate and Personified, a God unto the Citizens. We offer our friendship to the world and a pact of non-aggression, we are predominantly a peaceful nation prefering to mind our own affairs and we dislike interaction with foriegn powers. However, in this fastly enclosing world where technology brings us closer together, the Hive has come to the decision that we need to open diplomatic contact with the rest of the world. We encourage however that civilian and military warships, planes and satellites come not to our land without permission, we dislike spying.

The Master
The Hive Incarnate
God unto the Citizens

Kris Omega-3 was a young slave. She'd been enslaved when her parents were killed by this master of theirs. But her flair to mechanics had secured her a interesting, if not degrading job in the manufacturing part of this 'Hive' she now called home.

As she fixed the last part of a mech-digger, she thought to herself.

I have to get out of here... But how?

The Master looked over the reports of internal individualistic activities within the internal society of the Hive. Reports of conversations developing between the workers were more common but thankfully for the Master, it had not been of serious harm as yet.

"Everyone in the Hive should feel the affects of my moods, they have not seen my emotions in quite some side. I can be very emotional."

He frowned, his left eyebrow lifted with intrigue. The secretary was waiting with a clipboard, ready to take down notes, orders and memos.

"Order the factories to double their quotas, I believe it is time that I show them my 'hard working' side."

The secretary bowed low and departed.

The comm-system came alive once again.

Greetings My Sheep! I have a test for all you in the factories! I have doubled your quotas! Please me and I will at least add 2% to your food rations!

Greeeeaaaaat. Thought Kris Omega-3, just what i always wanted....

She knuckled down to try and get a head start on the next 3 mechs she had to make, no, now it was the next 6....

James Alpha 923, hauling his sack through the great labyrinthine tunnels was now ordered to run in order to double production. One after the other, sheep after sheep, slave after slave with a bag of wheat loaded on their backs, they were like pack mules. The guards were ordered to whip doubly often as well.

"Put your backs into it scum! The Master has ordered so you pitiful sheep must obey!"

They cracked their whips again, the sound of thunder outside escalated.

---------------------------------

Alfred Gamma-1238 was a guard, a guard with a whip, a guard with a gun, a guard with an annoying pain in his wrist. The double quotas set for the workers, impossible as they may be, meant that it was double whipping time. The constant hand, wrist and arm movements required to whip at an almost industrial level were going to cause him arthritis, then he would be either given the choice; suffer and toil or be recycled. Most chose recycle, nothing better to do. It could have been supposed that this was the only choice the poor beggars of the Hive would ever really get, recycling meant an end to the monotonous daily routine.

Alfred stopped whipping a moment to rest his wrists, they were sore and were turning red as were the backs of the whipped. Immediately he was noticed, it was the Efficiency Officer. A whip cracked over his head.

"I hope you are going to resume immediately. No, don'f feel like it? Well, looks like someone will be doing overtime won't they."

Alfred was terrified, the Efficiency Officers were ones to be feared, picked from the most miserable and suddenly given a gleam of comfort. This was their incentive to be cruel and ruthless to the others, fail and they would be stripped of the little comfort.

"The Master does not tolerate slack, his eyes are everywhere, his ears are always listening, resume work or report to the Great Machine!"

The Efficiency Officer, rabid in ferocity eventually cowed Alfred into submission.

"I am sorry, I will resume."

The Efficiency Officer snapped once again at Alfred.

"It is not a matter of sorry! It is a matter of quotas! Of statistics! Of efficiency! Get back to work! The Master says, we do! The Master has a mood, we show you his mind!"

Alfred began whipping again, his pain returned, the skin of his wrists scraping against his gloves. What is this madness?

"Hey... Psst" Someone elbowed Jonathan Delta-1914. "Psst!" The person said again.

"What is it?" Jonathan whispered.

"A meeting..." The person whispered

"A what?"

"A meeting of the Individual Movement... It will be held in a secret passage of the Guards have never found, that we dug, in the Ulthium Hallway. Tell everyone you can trust..." The person then walked off quickly, hauling a huge sack on his back.

"Get back to work you!" A whip cracked behind Jonathan. Jonathan quickly got back to work, but his mind started wondering about that meeting...

Should I go? It's illegal to go... It's wrong to go... What am I saying? It's wrong for them to treat us like this! I think I will go... But I don't know anyone I can trust... I don't know anyone... No one is allowed to Socialize... Well, I do know that James person... Oh, and that Mechanic Girl, who I met that one day, Kris... Jonathan's thoughts were interrupted as a whip cracked on a Worker's back.

"Get back to work!" The worker had fallen to the ground from exhaustion. "GET BACK TO WORK!" The Guard whipped him twice more, then kicked his body. "Take him to the Machine, he's useless now..." The Guard said kicking him again.

I'm definitely going... It's my only chance to change this hell. I'll sneak away and try to find Kris and James, and tell them about the meeting as soon as I can... Jonathan thought to himself.

"What are you looking at!" The guard yelled at Jonathan. "Get back to WORK!"

The whip fell repeatedly on the row of workers. The guard once felt a sadistic satisfaction that HE wasn't on the recieving end of it, now it was simply a job and he did the beating without any emotions.
This time something happened that caused some emotion in him.
One of the"sheep" collapsed in front of him, for a moment the whipping. The guard stepped forward and checked the womans pulse, their was none.
Sighing he got up, he found himself wondering about the womans age, if she had a family. As swiftly as they came the thoughts were gone.
Cracking the whip in the air to get the growing crowd back to work he shouted for his NCO,

"Sir, it looks like this ones dead."

OOC:Just interested whats the procedur for such a matter.

The Efficiency Officer snapped at the guard.

"Carry the body! We shall take her to the great machine. I am sure you could do with a little education in the Great Machine."

The Guard slapped the woman over his back as if to carry a bag of meal, it felt about the same weight, must be malnutrition from the rather meagre rations allocated to the workers.

Following the Efficiency Officer, they walked to the end of the hall. The great machine was actually a giant recycling mechanism with various chutes that transported the dead (or alive) from the various outlets dotted around the Hive City all the way to the mechanism itself. The mechanism would heat your bodies atoms to the point that they would melt and the atoms would be seperated and harvested and then reconstituted to form new materials like protein supplements for the workers.

"Put her in!"

Ordered the Efficiency Officer, the body of the woman moved she was not dead after all.

"Sir, she is still alive!"

The Guard did not want to kill the woman

"DO AS I SAY!"

Ordered the efficiency officer.
The guard complied; it was madness, it was murder and it was certainly going to melt her.
Screams could be heard echoing and were only blocked out as the chutes hatch closed shut.