NationStates Jolt Archive

The massive chamber pulsed with foul intent. Bulbous veins followed the steep, fleshy walls upwards and collected at the centre of a cavernous roof. Rippling with life, the walls themselves quivered, held in check by chitnious supports of the strongest bone, and material one could only hazard a guess at. Sinew and lubricant dripped from the walls, forming oozing puddles that were drank from by multi limbed, spider like creatures almost as fast as they were produced.

Tiny. buzzing insects flew through the air, discharing streams of noxious green gas that settled an inch or so above the floor, hanging like an unpleasant and uncaring mist. The cloud parted in sections as great hoofs crunched downards, lean and muscled they stamped idly, a low hiss as they clambered between themselves for room.

Dozens of short, six-limbed creatures congregated in groups. They chittered and scratched, cocking their heads and emitting shrill cries not unlike the long extinct dinosaurs of Terran Earth. Aside them creatures boasting the same number of limbs hunched over silently. But where the smaller creatures were deft and agile, if slight, these boasted fearsome indications. Their arms ending in cruel, tipped claws that seemed designed only for the purpose of rending, and tearing flesh. Powerful, chitinious plates moulded to their lean bodies, leaving little in the way of exposed flesh. Their wrenching colour schemes of blue and purple merely doubled their abnormality. Black, pittiless orbs stared vacantly. They did not utter a sound.

The noise filling the cavern abruptly ended as the chamber shook slightly. The hulking form of a creature too terrifying to gaze at whilst retaining some semblence of sanity stepped through from darkness. It stood fully fifteen feet tall, four powerful, massive limbs extended with ease. Two seemed to be fused to an organic structure, A hardened weapon that seemed solid yet vibrated slightly with the tell tale signs of life. The other two were free to exploit and inflict agony as it saw fit. Its face was a deathmask, two large orbs stared from submerged sockets, swivelling, taking in the filled chamber.

Powering itself forward, it climbed upon a rough platform. Sorrounding the raised section, cut into the ground like a moat adorned an ancient castle, bubbled putrid blue liquid. Visible disappearing and then bobbing on the surface, fleshy remains and calcified bone were visible. The full horror of what might very well unfold a pressing issue had any been able to withstand insanity long enough to observe.

Opening its massive jaw, it emitted a banshee-like howl. A reverating scream that seemed to cause the supporting bone throughout the cavern to vibrate painfully. Some of the smaller creatures hissed, struggling under the psionic wave that overcame their natural resistance. The larger, silent creatures remained so, watching, and observing for what followed next.

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/Terrorfex%20Uk/orbit_scene.JPG


The grotesque form of the hulking Bioships slipped into orbit, having passed the unsavioury populance of Mars, and Jupiter in favour of the third planet. Where the Hive had mapped red deserts, and gas giants, they found a world teeming with life. Billions upon billions upon billions crammed into a picture of refreshing green and blue. The polar icecaps radiated a brilliant white, as observed from space.

Like a virus might hover around a prospective blood cell, before seizing it and attacking, the Biofleet slowly circled Terra. Without doubt they had attracted attention. Such bizarre structure and design did not incur ignorance. Yet to the she-who-is-many it was irrelevent. Terra would fall, her defences unable to withstand the great devourer. Now remained only to pick a point at which the fall of this globe would begin. From deep within pumping arteries, and nourishing cell lining, beyond acidic defence sacks and Lictor defence guards, She-who-was-many stirred. With a miniscule effort, a meaningless expenditure, she sent word.

Consume.






The Mountains watched intently above the dense forest canopy. Trees of great age and size competed with their younger bretheren as they fought to outsize each other. A black, starry sky provided the cold backdrop, as the white, peircing lunar light shone down from above, many millions of miles away. A small, dark lake sat idly by a clearing. Her lazy waters lapping against the soft sand with the a gentle hiss. Around, only the occasional squeak of a small animal, or swaying branch provided any noise against a curiosly quiet night.

From above, a star streaked across the sky, a white trail which quickly degraded, leaving most likely none to recall its passing. Again, mother nature resumed its order. A collection of squirrels breaking cover long enough to hop the distance from branch to bank and drink from the lake edge.

Suddenly, without a warning, a high pitched whine filled the air. As though an object battled against incredible stresses and incredible pressure. Above a point of red appeared many miles upward. A gentle flickering that was barely recognisable. The squirrels ignored however, drinking their fill from the cold water.

The whine intensified until the trees around the clearing began to vibrate. Heaving, they struck each other as a powerful gale took hold of the land. The refreshed animals suddenly found time to leave, taking off at speed from the sand and diving into cover amongst the dark pine needles and soil. Above, the red flicker was joined by more, until fully a dozen danced like suspended flame.

With a tremendous bang the lake exploded. Great plumes of water erupting as a massive object threw itself suicidally down. Around the edges, sand was pulled upwards and thrown twenty feet away. Great plumes of steam rose up quickly as the expelled water boiled or fell to the soil uselessly. Boulders came to rest as the gale slowly calmed. As the dust, and steam settled. The ground regained its steady, secure footing, and silence resumed.

The object was a curious, bulbous affair. Covered in cruel, sharpened hooks that dug into the sorrounding bedrock and anchored the very alien affair to Earth. Steam continued to rise off from the impact zone, until eventually even it cooled. As quickly as it had quietened, more activity broke. The body began to bulge, as though a powerful force form inside pushed against a prison.

And now, even as an apparent struggle continued, the ground shook a second time. In a repeat of the first landing, dozens of similiarly-shaped pods descended, their purpose unknown, their presence unwelcomed, but for now, uninspiring.

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/Terrorfex%20Uk/drop_pod_landings.JPG


As these pods impacted, Earth shook, and Trees were felled. Great Oak that had stood for two hundred years, untouched and untarnished by human hands uprooted and left to die by some unknown, yet dangerously unpleasent force. As a century of natural evolution was disrupted and despoiled, a second, equally unpleasent suprise was afoot. At the site of the first landing, within the boiled lake that no longer lapped with serene peace at the sandy shore, the pod began to shake.

It's muscled walls extruding painfully as it began to throb. With an audible tear, a section burst open. Immediately a stream of purple liquid began to flow forth, quickly filling the bottom of the lakebed. It gurgled quietly, an occasional bubble escaping. The hole was increased quickly, as unseen limbs pulled and teared at the opening. The liquid spilled outwards at an increasing rate, until it was very nearly a torrent. With a swift shred, the hole widened to a breach, and stepped out something that the writings of a deranged madman, coupled with the nightmares of our darkest places could not collaborate on.

Raising its multi-bladed head, it shrieked, a challenging call, a bestious roar that filled the mountainous valley. Raising its four limbs, each snapping a murderous set of claws open and closed, it pushed through the alien liquid, stepping on to the smooth, blistering sand.

From around, other alien cries radiated. The original call answered.


They would consume, and She-Who-Was-Many was pleased.

OOC: Nice post. And damnit! Not more tyranids....

Those forests and verdant spaces are what come closest to 'untouched lands' in The Armed Republic of MoAG. Even there, in the soil, in the trees, are embedded reminders of the ludicrously warlike society that surround it, literally millions of unexploded dud rounds, shells impacted into the earth and bent by their force of impact, carrying munitions and payloads of death so wildly varied that managed to either completely fail to operate or simply fizzled, volatile contents expended to time and simple dissipation and dilution. Outside that small land is the craterized expanse that is MoAG, settlements of industrial nightmares separated by no man's lands of gravelly pits, trenches and holes carved by shells, glass fields melted by atomic fire, the very bedrock turned over by tunneling weapons.

The last war finally brought the Ten Colors together, and now they worked as one in a mildly unified coalition of city-states, each of the Ten Colors centered around a production facility and all overseen by the Strategic Corps for Offensive Research and Corporate Hegemony. The will of the people, living underground with their hydroponic farms, was hardly a concern--they existed only as faithful servants of the Work Ethic, for as long as the Ten Colors and MoAG prospered, selling out their heavy industry to whomever wanted it, SCORCH remained powerful and the people were fed. Bread, miracle, and empire, Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor had said; give the people bread, miracle, and empire and they shall want no more. SCORCH controlled the bread, with it the people lacked hunger; SCORCH controlled the miracle through the faith of the Work Ethic and the mysterious protection against the Earth's wrath at the Ten Colors' long abuse of their lands; SCORCH gave the Ten Colors empire and unity, and the fact that there were human lands outside the borders of MoAG was left unsaid and unknown.

In the SubOffice of Mild Affairs Concerning Earth/NonEarth Transition, Local Reporting, Commissar Jervis arches a brow at a speechless astronomer, letting the heady, rich smoke blow from his nostrils like a bull. That's what they called him, The Bull. Not because he was big--oh no, the Commissar was a reedy man, looking ready to waft away on the wind like the smoke from his ever-present cigars. No, he was The Bull from the steel in his eye, the iron of his jaw, his unbending will.

And those with unbending wills often found themselves in unimportant clerk positions, SubOffices of Offices of Greater Offices of SubDivisions of Divisions of Corporate Subsidiaries of Corporations of SCORCH. This is neither good for them nor for those who have to deal with them. "Say it again, minion, and say it quickly. It will be docked from your pay for having to repeat." Jervis takes up a stopwatch and clicks it with his thumb. "Go."

"My pardon, Lord Commissar, but the objects previously detected by the SubOffice of Mild Affairs Concerning Orbital Objects entered the Earth's atmosphere, thus coming under our department's jurisdiction. Our telescopes and cameras have detected these objects crashing into The Verdant Wastes."

The Bull takes a long drag off of his Victory Cigar. Not so much tobacco as sawdust and cabbage rolled in cardboard, Victory Cigars were the stable of wannabe nicotine addicts for the decades of the Color Wars. Now, with the Wars over, they were the only form of inhalant poison that anyone remembered how to make. Despite SCORCH's exhortations on the vileness of the habit and how it was detrimental to The Work Ethic from lost work due to emphyzema, it is the slow poison of choice for those wanting to cut a quarter-hour from their life with each one. National per capita consumption generally averages around four a day--an hour's sooner death each day. The people swear by them for that. Jervis clicks the stopwatch again. "Then, minion, it is no longer our department but an issue for the SubOffice of Terrestrial Affairs, Internal. Inform them immediately."

"At once, Lord Commissar!"

The wheels of SCORCH turned, and the Lord Commissar of the SOTA(I) dispatches a platoon of scout armor to investigate the scene. The wastes between the industrial centers of the Ten Colors could engender windstorms of terrible magnitude, debris ripping through the air capable of flaying a man's flesh from his bones. The only certainly safe way to traverse the Wastes, which had existed and were maintained by men's folly since time immemorial, was with armor. Their treads crested the dunes and forded the pools of filth that collected in the bottom of craters; they crossed the trenches and navigated the broken, scorched earth; their brightly-painted armor easily repelled the chunks of gravel and sand that would tear apart anything softer. Thus three scout tanks sporting the bright armor of Magenta, their baby missile racks gleaming, trundle up almost to the edge of the Verdant Wastes. The commander's hatch of the lead tank pops open and the commander emerges, watching the smoke rise from the point of impact hidden deep within the jungle.

"Hoogollygeez, looks lahk it wuz a big 'un wot landed in thar," he says intelligently. "Hey, Bort, you thank we can drahve this har boat in thar?"

"Nosirree," replies the tank driver, "'taint gonna happen, I thank."

The long grass, swaying gently in the providing winds, obscured the myriad creatures that stalked through its undergrowth with near silence, only the odd, seemingly natural rustle betrayed their presence at all, and none were around to exploit on this chance happening. As they reached the abruptly ending rim of the forest canopy, they paused, multi-horned heads poking out of the clearing towards gray ash, mountains of gravel, and otherwise bleakness.

Small, six limbed creatures, Termagaunts, the very ones who had congregated in such large groups on the Bioships, hugged the ground closely. Four powerful if slight limbs allowing them to sprint impressively when demanded of them, though now was the calling of silence, and stealth. Their front two arms were small, but agile. Instead of digits they ended in compact, muscled sacs, of which a sheathed firing tube emerged. Their stumped forearms merging directly into the body of this unique, if unpleasent biological weapon. Occasionally a puff of near colourless gas would pass form the object, as it pulsed.

These Termagaunts numbered in their hundreds, each keeping their brightly orange carapaces still, the occasional splash of purple kept out of sight amongst the long grass, and for now, undetectable. Behind, yet more bizarre forms lurked. Like the Termagaunts, they boasted six limbs, yet used them in very different ways. hunched on two, powerful hind legs, where they sported cruel scythes of chinitinious bone, one to each of its four arms. It snarled quietly, its large head made of bony plates and ridges that leant a feirce, warrioresque look.

These Hormagaunts, as they had long been termed, though only by those felled, collected in equally massive numbers. Their larger frames would not allow for the same sort of terrain merging their smaller cousins were afforded, yet at his distance from the wastes, they were as invisible as they could reasonably expect.

Around the forest itself seemed to heave with unease. Plants sorrounding the Tyranids wilted and fell, as though unable to cope with the insidious alien presence any longer. In their place, grew new flowers. Yet they were madly skewed. Sporting bright colours and cruel hooks, they were a deeply unpleaseant representation of what had passed before.

Birds, Squirrels and animals alike were completely silent, the few visible huddling up amongst the highest branches of the trees, motionless for fear their activity would attract attention from the new inhabitants of this previously serene, now war-like forest.

And from deep within the canopy, sorrounded by monstrious creatures many times the size of a man, sporting crushing blades and sweeping claws the size of large boulders, stood the Hive Tyrant. Thrashing its multi-jointed tail idly, it scanned the amassed alien legion ahead. Its sunken eyes identifying each section in turn, and effortlessly willing them onwards, infusing the will of the hive above all else. Resting on two, jointed limbs stood the primary weapon of this fell beast. At more than six feet in length, it was an impressively organic construction, whose main purpose was death and agony.

Shaped much like an elongated semi-automatic weapon, it was composed of near solid bone. Between segments, living flesh vibrated, embued with the energy of its user. Its tremendous size making it more like a cannon than rifle. Along its top, razor sharp spines erupted, each one tipped with weeping, insidious liquids. Arteries and veins coiled about its radius, inflating and deflated as thick slow moving slime travelled lazily through.

Raising its massive skull, the soft morning light glinting against sharpened, chitinious blades and skewered plates of bone, it cast a glance left. The massive, hulking form of the Carnifex snapped its compliance, like an obscenely increased cousin of the Hormagaunt, it literally shook the sorrounding earth as it heaved forwards, its carapace as heavy as an equivilant tank, yet impossibly shaped so.

With a tremendous wrenching cry, a drowning and despairing wail, the forest shook. Trees sorrounding the clearing were torn downwards without warning, boulders began to tumble, and find themselves thrown skyward. Long grass was sheared and spat upwards, creating a tremendous green cloud that obscured visibility. However it was clear as patterns of orange, purple and red began to appear on the gray wastelands. Howling and screeching, thousands cleared the verdant green wastes. As they announced with all fury their arrival and objective, three glinting, brightly painted machines rolled over the horizon. Sporting the causes of the multiple craters that covered the gravel laden desert, they slowed to a halt.

From the rear of the living, pulsing, heaving throng, the Hive Tyrant watched with dispassion. Its senses had become aware of the indiginious humans before its sight had confirmed it. Raising one of its titanic arms, it thrashed a claw towards the hill. It was a unique gesture considering the might of the Hive mind had but already disseminated the information. As one the galloping horde changed their direction, coming up for the hill.

They began to spread outwards, nimble Termagaunts continuing forward in their massive groupings. Hormoagaunts took advantage of the steeped craters and pockmarked trenches that carved the land so, leaping amongst the barriers with uncanny agility. Limbering Carnifexes simply moved onwards, their faith, if the word was applicable, in chitinious bone, and thickened carapce.



She-who-was-many watched, her psionic link as strong as the hardest steel and ten times fired more so. She felt the warming heat of the sun down against her brood. She felt the Termagaunts unwaiveringly charge through the middle of the wastes, clutching their symbiote weaponry gleefully. Further back, she felt the steeled determination of the Hive Tyrant, constantly overseeing and willing on the hive.

She saw, and was pleased.

The lead tank commander, the elbows of his magenta fatigues resting on the similarly hued dull armor of his tank, lowered his field glasses with a slow, dry swallow of empty air. Those... things, whatever they were, defied the imagination, the nightmares of madmen in their pseudoinsectoid forms...

He slammed his field glasses down on the turret's armor and kicked the gunner in the head. "Contact barhing tirty-fahve, inclination twentah-tree, power two-ott-seven, fiah fo' effect!" The gunner settled his combat helmet back onto his head as the commander ducked down into the armored recesses of the light tank, slamming his hatch down behind him and barring it shut with a twist of the lever. "Fiah at anythin' you see through dat scope, y'hear?"

The autoloader slammed a baby missile--just a standard eighty millimeter rocket-assisted shell scaled to fit in the scout tank's 122 millimeter bore--drawn from its internal racks home into the breech of the main gun as the turret swiveled and the barrel rose, the vaguely phallic gesture repeated by the other tanks of the platoon. Looking through his ballistic sights, the gunner blinked, hands twisting nervously on the direction and firing columns of the main gun. "Wot in tha name of tha Work Ethic are dey, suh?"

"Slagged if ah know, gunnah," the commander replied with a smack to the side of the gunner's helmet, "jus' kill 'em already!" With a grimace, the gunner complied; the tank's 122mm L/24 gun roared, the baby missile discharging from the barrel in a long plume of automatic tracer-smoke, a wisp of magenta through the blue sky that trailed the munition's curved flight path up, up, then down, exploding with a few-meter gout of red and yellow flame on impact, then another and another from the other two tanks, yet more craters ripped from the ground.

Another baby missile thunked into its tranistion home inside the breech; the gunner prepared to fire for effect--lowering the barrel, reducing designated burn power--and fired again as the commander kicked the driver in the back. The tank begun to roll forward, its platoon following, heading towards the mass at an oblique angle, intending to curve away as the enemy drew near, guns roaring again and again every few seconds, relatively tiny warheads exploding in the mass. While sufficient against light tanks, it had been many years since MoAG ever had to deal with light infantry...

-Bugs, suh... lahke big gian' bugs!- Several kilometers away in Magenta, the OverDirector of the Magenta Forces nodded to no one in particular. If they were going to invade the territory of SCORCH, they would reap the whirlwind. The Verdant Wastes were a primary resource, and that precluded heavy weapons...

He slammed his finger down on a transmit key. "Prepare our forces--we need Missile and more Baby Missile tanks out there. Designate our Riot tanks to begin constructing defenses around Magenta. Standing orders are to engage the enemy forces--retreat, surrender are not options." He removed the finger from his key and returned his hands to behind his back, rough fingers working over his hairy knuckles. Looking out the window, he saw companies of tanks button up and roll out towards the smouldering clouds of vile smoke on the horizon. If they are just bugs, then we will run them over well enough.

The impacts jarred the gravel into the air, great plumes of silvery-gray slowly drifting back into cratered earth and splintered rock. Dozens of Termagaunts were thrown upwards, either being torn apart as the shell detonated, spreading their purple ichor out over the wastelands in great numbers, or falling to the ground with their limbs broken, still hissing defiance thought they were totally unable to move.

As the tanks fired once more, a Hormagaunt exploded, followed by another, and another. The crater they occupied expanded to another twice its original size as its contents was atomised by the offensive fire. Yet even as these creatures were felled, there was no immediate response. The Termagaunts continued to swam forwards, now almost to the base of the steepened hill and showing no signs of tiring.

Behind, the sickle-limbed Hormagaunts leapt forward, screaming and snarling as yet more of their numbers were cut down by the smoking explosions of the artillery. They now begged for combat, even going to the lengths of crushing the nimbe Termagaunts beneath their hooves, breaking skull and limb as they overran their own to bring death to those that sat atop the hill.

From further behind, the Hive Tyrant hissed defiance. Studying the tanks, it made a decision. Instantly its will was obeyed, and carried out. To the far left, lumbering creatures stirred. Their body squat and muscled, their back covered in fused, iron-hard chitin. Their small heads shielded beneath bony ridges and portruding blades. Their arms were massive affairs, more akin to support stands than actual limbs. Their hands were massively sized, enormous claws digging into the wasted earth and providing great anchorage.

As they leaned forwards, a great detonation occured, sending a group of Homagaunts and their remains backwards over the poised creatures. Ignoring the deaths of their fellow creatures, each focused on the hill ahead, and as they did so, a great orifice opened on their back armour.

With a loud pop, they fired. Bulging, rough spheres shooting high into the air. As they travelled bristling tentacles unravelled, until they hung below these floating, living shells. As the wind changed, they began to drift downards, heading for the midsection of the hill, at least until the winds carried them elsewhere. Again the creatures fired, and again, until many dozens of these "spores" were drifting through the air. Some floated off target, carried by gales and moving away from the scenes of carnage. Others were more fortunate, and began to find their mark.

The ground vibrated now as a hundred sets of limbs pounded against it. Gravel was kicked upwards once more, creating an eerie gray mist that hugged the uneven surface, hiding the smaller Termagaunts to a degree. Along their flanks, lumbering Carnifexes now came sufficiently close to unleash their ranged weaponry. Coming to a halt, they opened their jaws. Rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth pulling back until the dark recesses of their cavernous throats were visible.

A bolt of energy sparked without warning between their four jointed limbs. Seconds later a second jolt, until within a moment a veritable lightning storm was in progress between the swinging Scythes. Green in colour, and sickly in design, the crackling sound of heating flesh began to drift through the air. With an ear-peircing screech, a ball of energetic plasma hurled itself from their open maw. Engulfed in the lightening, it was accelerated to speed, and released, heading towards those that would stand against them.

The Tyranids moved now as one, the Hive mind integrating and smoothing their will as one. They would fight, regroup, differentiate and destroy as one, glorious whole.

The platoon commander twisted his periscope around--"Wot tha--"--and his left leg reached out automatically to hit his driver in the left armored shoulder; that crewman thrust his right arm out and his left back, naugahyde-wrapped metal handles grinding in protest as the differential steering gears switched, treads receiving differing power from the roaring engine and the tank swerved to its left, down the hill towards the swarm. One of the putrid spores tore up the scorched earth where the lead tank dodged away, spitting chunks of gravel and glass, then bounced up into the side of the number three tank.

Unearthly acids of horrible strength quickly burn through the scout tank's armor, peeling back the low-reflectivity magenta paint into a vile-smelling blackened tar, armorplate bubbling away with terrible heat and greenish-yellow gases, almost burning away with a rusty iron-brown smoke before splattering inside the tank, melting away cloth and flesh and bone with grim ease.

The blue-green arc of electricity and superheated air lancing out from the Carnifex gouged a remarkably clean line in the top of one ashen dune before lancing up across the port tread and underside of number two tank cresting it; the tread blew off in a scattering of plates and pins, bogies and road wheels fanning out with shards of axle as the tank slammed against its lacerated front hull and flipped into the air. The driver, his carbonized body ravaged by the beam and his hatch torn open by the same, flew out as another smattering of twisted, broken debris, the fore of the tank separating into three large shards before the rest of the vehicle landed on top of its turret with a crunch and rolled onto a top side, treads still spinning like the legs of a wounded animal.

The lead tank, still active, curved into the mass of alien bodies, slamming into them with the full force of a fourty ton armored vehicle going eighty kilometers an hour. Inside, the crew bounced about in their harnesses, the commander thrown about most, banging his armored helm against his metal periscope block as the gunner swivels the turret and fires almost at random at the enemy surrounding them.