NationStates Jolt Archive

Somewhere on the edge of time lies a dying world, a world that has seen the rise of one of the greatest civilizations of all time. For nearly five billion years, this race has toiled across the face of their planet, fighting wars, celebrating accomplishments, even leaving their comfortable home to reach for the stars.

Unfortunately, when they found their way into the greater universe, they did not like what they saw. Entire nations being destroyed for little more than percieved offenses, whole star systems blown to shards of nothingness. Such things did not fit with what was quickly becoming their pervading worldview.

Now, at the end of their time, a flash of experience that would lead one to believe they would regret the ancient decision of isolation, only one person, a single Airlia is left to stand on the face of his homeplanet and stare up into the sun that would so soon betray him.

However, even he would soon be gone...

As I stepped into the white, hot light, I suddenly felt small, insignificant, utterly useless. Of course, this only lasted for the barest fraction of a second, for that is what they wanted it to be like for your first time. As the light washed over me and soaked into my every pore, I experienced a moment of intense pain, and then I could feel my inner self being drawn out. Very soon, I was drifting upward and, as so many others before me, I could not help but look down at the tiny, yet magnificently important thing of flesh and now slowly cooling tissue.

At first I was elated at this feeling of freedom, but soon, too soon, I could feel my spirit (Is it right to call it that? I thought to myself) being pulled toward the giant construct of metal and plastic above. As I was being squeezed through a conduit into the core of my new body, I could only send out an un-voicable thanks to those ever silent robots that were now the only things left, besides my own corpse, of my race's ever changing age of flesh. As I reached the new brain I would inhabit at the center of my ship-body, I turned on the sensors with an unheard voice.

The rush of sensations I recieved through the arrays around my ship-body was overwhelming at first, though as soon as I was under control I saw the robots dump my old, aged body into the incinerator and proceed to throw themselves in. As the last vestiges of my past disappeared, I sent out my thoughts to occupy the rest of my new body. I slowly started to hover, and then I faced upward and forced myself into the sky of my old home. As I passed the orbit of the last moon of my homeworld, I tensed and turned around to watch the death of everything I knew.

I twitched back a few thousand miles after the first explosion and the resulting concussion. I shut my numerous eyes from the brightness and then waited until the shockwave had passed me by when I finally peeked. I looked to where my home of old once was; all that remained was a small cloud of debris, slowly expanding away from the source of the massive conflageration. Beyond, though, was the worst sight yet: the maternal entity of the crucible world of my race was no more. I glanced around at the cloud of gas that surrounded me. After heaving a deep mental sigh, I set out to meet the others at the edge of eternity...

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Hello, and welcome to the introductery thread for a completely new future-tech nation: the Airlia. To set aside any concerns right now, yes, I am also Industrial Experiment. Now, before you go and call 'god-mode' or 'puppet-wank', allow me to explain myself. I am planning on withdrawing the HIRIE from all RPs it is currently involved in and returning to the isolationist policies it followed in years past. Between Beta Project, the updating of my centuries old navy, the introduction of several all-new classes into the navy, and the people requirements of maintaining a twenty-five system civilization, I have several very good in-character reasons for wanting to concentrate on internal affairs.

I will still respond to IC queries and attacks, and I will not use the Airlia in any way to effect anything I may become involved in, but I will not actively seek to use the nation.

Anyway, back to the main subject. The Airlia are, for all intents and purposes, pure energy. Though it may be easy to mistake them for a machine people, as they all inhabit large starship constructs for their bodies, they are quite capable of leaving them, should they wish. However, they prefer the feeling of matter, even if they do not need it. In all technologies excepting war-related sciences, the Airlia are billions of years in advance of the modern day. As far as their weaponry and defenses go, they are only a matter of a few hundred thousand years ahead, due to them evolving mostly away from war over the years. They will not engage in offensive wars, but they will defend themselves with much ferocity.

This is meant to be a relaxing step away from the rigors of maintaining a normal civilization with technologies based in modern science. I will make a seperate thread some time describing what Airlian technology can do. For now, feel free to run into my fleeing friend at anywhere near a system that only a few hours ago went supernova in the outer core of the Milky Way.

Oh, and yes, I did steal the name Airlia from Robert Doherty, shh, don't tell ;)

Bump

BUmp

*Sigh*

I'm going to bed, don't be surprised if I don't reply.

BUMp

ooc: Wow......

Nice introduction

Thanks and...

BUMP

I forgot you needed to be a generic race taken straight from someone else's story to get attention -_-

I would help out, IE, but I'm in like 6 rps already.

Thanks for the thought then, ST, but this 'nation' will be a lot more social than my other one. There's roughly a million of these ship-people and they never stay in one place for long, so everyone is bound to run into a few.

Sigh...

CE, i'd be willing to RP with you, if only I knew where on Earth to start. The introduction was superb, I must admit, but i'm not sure where I would come into it.

Of course, I could do the usual 'Small ship happens to be in the right place at the right time' rule....

Heh, that's the best way to do it Rinceweed. Of course, you could always tie it into an RP you're taking place in. There are roughly a million ship-people wandering around a ~100 lightyear sphere of space that their home system used to be located in. That sphere is also expanding, so there's no telling how easy it might be to come across these guys.

Up...

~Tag for posible encounter

I forgot you needed to be a generic race taken straight from someone else's story to get attention -_-
][ Would you like some Coffee? Tea perhaps? I feel for you, worry not. Would you mind if a Psycopathic Awol Murderous Techie were to bump into them? Or maybe just a plain Psycopath? I have a few of those floating around in space. ][

][ Would you like some Coffee? Tea perhaps? I feel for you, worry not. Would you mind if a Psycopathic Awol Murderous Techie were to bump into them? Or maybe just a plain Psycopath? I have a few of those floating around in space. ][

Anyone who wants to run across one is free to do so. I'm still pinning down exact sizes, but be aware these things are HUGE. Of course, you'll almost never see more than one at a time in the same place after this, but, for now, they remain as extremely large constructs of an ancient alien race.

Plenty of people posted...

Just gotta find someone who's willing to RP...

OCC: I'd post but I'm about to pass out so if I got the time I will post tomorrow or later

OoC: Pass out!? Man, it's Halo 2 night, you should be up ready to leave for your local gamestore!

OCC: I don't got an X-Box. And I'm trying to get sick so I can stay home and go to a friend's place who is getting it and live over there for the next week

Heh, that's the best way to do it Rinceweed. Of course, you could always tie it into an RP you're taking place in. There are roughly a million ship-people wandering around a ~100 lightyear sphere of space that their home system used to be located in. That sphere is also expanding, so there's no telling how easy it might be to come across these guys.
OOC: Mighty small place as far as the overall theme of space goes. Note that TGL did detect the subspace emissions of the world being destroyed, nearly lost though it was amidst the fiery infernoes of the many stars laying between your "nation" and mine. Bureaucrats are trying to determine whether it's worth scouting out, but some private sector ships are already hard at work getting a scoutship together with supplies to cover a journey that long (though we have hyperlight travel now independent of wormholes, it is much slower than the hyperlight of other nations... we have a new drive in research, but we estimate it will be several years before we even get a working prototype).

OoC: You're all free to show up at any time...

OoC: Yep...anytime...

Impressive RP, as well as Original. I too would like an opportunity to run into one of your creations in the near future. Your ability to describe your storyline was excellent.... as I read it I could picture it in my mind. Congrads on a job well done.

CE, it would appear I wont be able to take part in this for a while. 'm afraid i'm in the middle of two other very involving RPs, and I have the feeling my brain would liquify and pour out of my ears if I add yet another set of people to keep a track of in another RP.

Sorry, but i'll join when I can if the RPs finish soon.

Thanks Rinceweed, and thank you Kormanthor, I appreciate both your comments. And Rinceweed, thanks for the offer, but don't feel like you need to rush anything.

Oh well, looks like I'll just make an info thread or something.

By the way, to let anyone who (may or may not) comes to RP, I've hammered out a size between 8 and 10 miles. I think this is a good size due to their solitary nature. It will vary in that range, though, so you are likely to see ones that seem much larger than others you may encounter. I'm thinking of also including the occasional oddball who went for a much, much smaller vessel.

QUICK NOTE: I'd like to point out that, though they're huge, these things are NOT outfitted for war. They have a single weapon system (I refrain from calling it a cannon, for it isn't like any kind of cannon I know) that, though advanced and rather powerful, they like to avoid using, prefering to talk things out, if possible.

OOC: I'd love to help. I'm sure that fills you with warm feelings, having no clue who I am, but I just thought I'd show interest as I hate it too when a thread gets completely ignored. But Ghargonia can't really spare a single ship at the moment, sorry.

S'ok, I'm becoming rather used to it...

Oh well, looks like I'll just make an info thread or something.

By the way, to let anyone who (may or may not) comes to RP, I've hammered out a size between 8 and 10 miles. I think this is a good size due to their solitary nature. It will vary in that range, though, so you are likely to see ones that seem much larger than others you may encounter. I'm thinking of also including the occasional oddball who went for a much, much smaller vessel.

QUICK NOTE: I'd like to point out that, though they're huge, these things are NOT outfitted for war. They have a single weapon system (I refrain from calling it a cannon, for it isn't like any kind of cannon I know) that, though advanced and rather powerful, they like to avoid using, prefering to talk things out, if possible.
OOC: Got another thread yet? If not, I wouldn't mind hammering something together here. Between work + college I only have time to get on once a day, sometimes not even that, but if you can deal with the lag times than I'm willing to give it a shot. Wouldn't mind having a few alllies of your... size....

IC: Though The Green Lion/Omega Destiny's military had dismissed the X-ray spike as nonsense, the private sector was not nearly so close-minded. Distributed computing and massive research was conducted into the past and present readings from that sector of space and compared with the X-ray spike. Hyperlight scouts were sent out to grab more data from the X-ray spike (being able to outpace the lightspeed waves, they can gather more and more data simply by travelling farther away).

The scouts had returned six weeks ago, and analysis of the gathered data was nearly complete. TGL/OD began to take interest in the project, but before any sanctions could be passed, a flight of unmanned scouts from Omega Destiny's largest territory had jumped into the first of a series of wormholes that would eventually eject them within hyperjump distance of the as-yet-unnamed sun. An impressive fleet of manned light freighters stocked with supplies for a potentially long recon mission, crewed entirely of volunteers, was being prepped for liftoff.

The Green Lion's Chief Director Josef Hanson and Omega Destiny's Governor Lars Osea were on the holocom for many hours the night after the unmanned scouts had launched. They agreed that the government had messed up by not pursuing the data, and decided to let the private sector do what they would. They could always buy the collected data later, and in the event the civilians stumbled upon some kind of war... it was a much better cover-up than a full-blown military surveillance op bumbling into a massive interstellar conflict.

OoC: I apologize greatly for the time it has taken for me to notice this response. I had all but given up on this thread and only noticed the post due to my obsessiveness with documenting everything I post. I'm sorry that I will not be able to get a post up right now, but expect one sometime today.

"Sir, we need to make the jump. If we don't retreat now, we're dead!"

Krieg blinked furiously, trying to focus his vision, whilst at the same time trying to wipe away the blood streaming from a gash in his forehead.

"Sir, do you hear me!? We need to go to Subvecto before we get blown apart godammit!"

Krieg tried to focus on the voice. It was shouting something to him....something important...but everything was just a blur....

"Godammit! Helm, lay in a course! It doesn't matter where to, just get us out of here!"

Sparks flew from the ceiling as yet more hits rocked the ship, the entire ship spinning out of control, alarms blaring constantly, red lights flashing on and off, the entire ship seeming to be coming apart at the seams.

"Lieutenant, the controls wont respond! The AI isn't working at all! We can't plot in a course at all!"

"Then godammit Helm, just hit the Subvecto! As long as we aren't sitting here getting blown apart, we're alive!"

"Sir, Yes sir!"

Krieg slowly slipped into unconsciousness as the battleship jumped into Subvecto, leaving behind the pirates as the ship retreated to lick it's wounds.....



[OOC]: CE/IE, my two RPs slowed down enough for me to take part in all of these at once, so there ya go. Ye have a battleship with more holes than a sieve making a random jump with Subvecto (Just mentally call it 'Hyperdrive' and you get the idea). And yes, they ARE going to pop up conveniently close to your fleeing friend.

As I wandered out into the vast Open Ocean, I sped from point to point, enjoying my new freedom and playing as a child with a new toy. I leapt through virgin star systems and hurtled through barren spaces. It was, quite frankly, a joy beyond joys, something that we Airlia, as a race, had denied ourselves up until just the last million years. While it was depressing to imagine what we had missed in our isolation, it was also uplifting to reflect on the glorious history of our world.

However, thoughts of home, a place that no longer existed except in the memories of my people, brought me back to myself. I slowed down in my reckless journey through the stars that surrounded my now-dead home-system, almost coming to a stop. I began to think, seriously dwell on the problems I know faced, the problems I had spent the last week (Amazing to think time had passed so quickly I thought) ignoring in my joyride amongst the stars.

I did not know how I would find my fellows, most of them had left thousands of years ago, many had been gone for tens of thousands of years. I could easily locate one of the robotic probes we had sent up eons ago, they sent out a constant signal in the omni-field that any one of us could pick up in on moments, but that wouldn't solve anything. Billions of years of isolation had no doubt caused an immense wanderlust in the other Airlia, for indeed, it had already stolen my heart. Even as I contemplated finding my brethern I eyed the distant points of twinkling light with an envy I knew could only be sated when I knew every one of them intimately, had visited each and listened to their whispers, learned of ages past.

Just as I reached the decision to head for the nearest star, I felt something, almost heard it: there was a strange disturbance in the universe, something wrong with the fundemental fabric that made it up. I turned in the direction of the 'sound', looking as far into the distant light-years as my new sense organs allowed, the part of my brain that was now entirely mechanical doing several calculations and then telling me the exact location of the strange event.

As curious as anyone who had been cooped up for too much of his life, I immediately headed in that direction. I did, however, retain the natural caution of my race that had led to our long isolation, keeping my distance and watching the object, for that was what it seemed to be. A smaller ship-person, almost. It was far to small to be one of my fellows, it also appeared to be wounded, torn to shreds nearly. This is when I remembered my history lessons as a boy (Oh how many millenia ago!), the other children of the stars that my ancestors had discovered in their early wanderings and judged wanting.

This was no ship-person, but an actual ship, crewed by beings made of the same flesh I had abandoned not a week earlier. The wounds of their ship, however, were very real, and they appeared to be in trouble. I could not hear them speaking with anyone else, so I had to assume they were alone.

So this was it, my first encounter, it was now or never.

Tentatively, almost shyly, I spoke out to them over the lightdays that seperated us.

Greetings, do not be afraid, I mean you no harm. I am a fellow star-child, I wish to know if I may help you in your plight

As my message still reverbarated through their hull and reached the minds of all its crew, I moved closer, to within visual range of the others, looking at them with eyes that saw so much more than the feeble things of biological cells I had possessed only so long ago.

Acting Captain Hafra's Log.
We have been in Subvecto for almost an hour now. This is unfathomable, and we have this damn ship to blame. When we plotted our Subvecto jump, it seems the AI, although it wasn't responding to our manual commands, still responded to the commands given to it by our voice activated computer. When we decided to just use Subvecto to go anywhere, it obliged us by getting the Navigation AI to plot a course at random. Unfortunately, there's a hell of a lot more of the Universe we haven't explored yet than what we already know of, and by now we must be so far away from it that we'll be seeing our home system's sun still shining, even though we blocked it's light years ago.

The battle against the pirates has left the ship badly damaged. We've lost our communications systems, most of our weapons systems (Although strangely enough, the fighters are still intact, despite a direct hit on the hangars.), and all but our close-range sensors. Quite simply, we wouldn't stand a chance if those pirates are somehow following us. We'd be lucky to even see the bastards before they started firing on us.

Right now, i've been informed that the Subvecto jump is about to end. I don't really know how we're going to fare when we come out of the jump. For all I know, we could end up in the heart of a sun. Well, it's all up to this godamn ship now.

Heh, at least i'll die h-

.......

.......

.......

Odd, i've just been informed we got a message, which is quite odd since we don't have anything to hear messages with.

.......

Even odder is that I heard it just before I was told we got a message, and I don't remember having any message-recieving components in my body....

.......


Well, we're coming out of Subvecto now. Time to see what the hell just happened.

Acting Captain Hafra, Ending Log.

The ship finally came out of Subvecto, the crew cheering as they noticed the complete lack of anything in the process of killing them.

The cheering quickly died down as a gigantic ship seemed to appear out of, quite literally, the lack of thin air (Or any air at all). The entire crew stopped their work to stare out of the few 'windows' on the ship, as well as the close-range scanners and the gunsights all along the ship.

The ship completely dwarfed them. They were in a battleship-class Rinceweedian combat ship, yet this ship was faster, most likely more powerful, and far, far bigger.

All along the ship, a red alert sounded, the crew running to man the ridiculous amount of guns all around the ship. Or, to be exact, the few that worked. About 30 mass drivers and 4 missile tubes were the only remaining armaments of the once deadly battleship.

Harfa ignored the confusion around him, as his mind raced.

Right....that vessel is what contacted us. So, it has some sort of communication that doesn't rely on transmitters as we know them. So, if it doesn't need transmitters like ours to send.....

Harfa stood up, and simply started talking to thin air as the bridge crew around him simply stared in puzzlement.

"Alien Vessel, this is Acting Captian Harfa of the Rinceweedian Battleship Kiss the Blade. Both our Captain and First Officer are injured, so I am in command. Please identify yourself and state your intentions."

God, this better work, otherwise i'm going to look like a fool....and unless that thing is a lot weaker than it looks, our weapons aren't going to do much except make it turn us into bite-sized chunks...

Rikk Artansen's scoutcraft began to vibrate as it neared the end of its hyperjump. The sublight drives of so small a ship were prone to interference from all the subspace fields at work, and his Stryker 411-B2 was both smaller and faster than the average scout. The vibrations grew into tremors, and soon he had to clench his jaw just to keep his teeth from rattling. Soon even that didn't help. His brain felt like jelly, his tendons like rubber bands. His heartbeat grew erratic and unstable, his breath refused to come to him, and darkness began to enclose his vision-

With a *CRACK* and a flash of blinding light, his Stryker exited subspace and re-entered realspace, his spacesuit acting immediately to inject just the right cocktail of hormones to restabilize his heartbeat. He had a fraction of a second to take in the view of the slowly expanding cloud of rocks that had once been a planet... whatever took out this thing didn't want to leave anything big enough to LAND on, he thought... when he realized that several of those rocks were big enough to kill him at the speed he was moving. Dust and pebbles pinged against his hull as his shields went down from the onslaught of so many particles. His EM sensors picked up the backwash of thousands of ships, HUGE drives, though the trails were very old. He chose what looked like the freshest.

Left. Right. Roll left, throttle back a bit to let that car-sized rock fly past me. Shields forward, shunt power from guns to shields. Goose it, there's an opening! Before he knew it, he was flying along the trail. It curved very gently to his starboard, and he followed it. Then it elongated and faded, the sign of a hyperjump... the rocks were not so bad out here, so he would be able to follow it, to whatever end. He gritted his teeth as the vibrations started again....

-----

The Green Lion's sleek new recon prototype, the XRC-GGF, had finished prelaunch and rose into the night sky over Sergera, TGL's enormous capital city. Katye Brithe had flown test runs before, but a mission this deep into space... she smiled at the opportunity. Since the Sol breakaway centuries ago, very few TGL/OD pilots had flown anywhere near the Galactic core. The black, anti-reflective synthsteel alloy of her hull blended perfectly with the night.

It really was HER hull, after all. She was wired directly into the craft, its sensors were her eyes, its ultralight tractor, cables, and imbedded proton capsule repeaters were her hands. Her feet were an array of dead-energy repulsors, invisible except on high-end ultraviolet detectors, and her body was fibrous nanotubes woven into a fabric that felt like cloth but blocked much more than just sun and rain, draped over an endosteel skeleton. Her real body, a slightly built blonde-haired fighter, was encapsulated in the craft in a tube not much bigger than a torpedo bay. She flexed her artificial legs and arms as she rose into the upper atmosphere.

"XRC Beta, Flight Alexei-1, we've got subspace readings all over the target sector of civilian transmissions. They're onto something and have gone chasing after it. Think you can catch them?"

Katye smiled. "If I can't outfly those amateur space cadets, Control, you might as well go back to shoveling als-ox feces on a dirt farm somewhere and let THEM take over our defense."

She took off running into the void.

*OOC: Perhaps Katye Brithe's being wired into the ship she is flying could have some RP significance with these man-ships of yours.

Fireworks filled the sky as the Omega Destiny Foundation Day celebration came full under way. The dual sun of OD's primary system meant a very short night, and Destinians liked to celebrate during the day anyway. Corks of ale and brandy were launched high into the air and cheers resounded all over Omega Destiny's growing territory. The capital city of LZX-1 was alive with emotion, and businesses didn't even bother opening as no workers would come. Lars Osea, Governor of Omega Destiny, gazed into the dimmer of the two suns and gave thanks that he had survived the journey here.

And then, the sun disappeared.

The commotion in the city square outside Omega Destiny's capitol building died quickly as everyone turned to face the oddity. Governor Osea squinted his eyes, and as they adjusted from light to dark, he thought he could make out a ship blotting out the sun....

The sun reappeared, and the celebration quickly resumed. Lars did not cheer, though... he was troubled. He went back inside to his office and sent out a transmission to his orbital shipyards to train their sensors on what appeared to be the largest ship he had ever encountered, even larger than the six-kilometer bulk freighter he had first used to colonize this world.

OOC: Meet my cousin, who got me into NS.

Wait a minute... if your life-forms are energy based and can inhabit matter, wouldn't they be able to... possess living beings? Or are they not able to do that and can only instill themselves in certain forms of matter?

OoC: Sorry for taking so long, it's amazingly hard to find enough time to sit down and type a story. And yes, I guess they could, technically, possess a living being, but we'll just ignore that and use the ethics plot device ;)

By the way, Rinceweed, if your ship has some kind of energy shielding, tell me and I'll edit this post to fit.

IC

I, in an infinite nod to nature and her far reaching arms, took a moment to sit back on my proverbial haunches and contemplate this message. It was an odd thing, of course, these new beings sounded altogether like the ancient records we used to store at the planetary depository. I couldn't quite remember the word, miltry or milaty or something like that. Regardless, it was a very formal reply, so I eventually decided to reply in kind, as formally as possible.

It took the work of only a few moments to instruct the mechanical portion of my mind to watch after my body until I returned and, before it even gave a the go ahead, I was coursing once more through the conduits and wires of the work of steel and plastic that I had lived in for the past week. I reached the emitter on the bottom of the vessel in the blink of an eye and began the quick leap across empty space that would bring me to the smaller ship in the near distance.

How odd it felt to be in nothingness. There were stories of ancient history when our race first achieved space travel that told of our bodies dying in an environment like this. Now I sped through it with nothing but my naked soul and felt not even uncomfortable for the normally unbearable cold. I came up to the other ship rather quickly, encountering its edges like a freighttrain made of nothing more substantial than feathers. I took a moment to examine the ship, or at leas the part I could reach without spreading myself out unduly.

After a few moments of doing this, I began to search the ship for a way in, eventually settling for a nasty looking hull in the side, only about twenty meters from where I had heard the reply to my query. I flowed into it and quickly found my way to a door, behind which sat the source of the reply. It didn't even take half a thought to learnt he intricacies of the door and convince it to open for me. I knew I could have simply flown through it, but it felt better to still 'walk' through an open door.

As the portal slid open with a soft hiss, I settled on a spot in front of the man (indeed, he looked vaguely like an Airlia) who had spoken to me, and arranged myself in a way that I would be visible to him and the rest of the ship's crew.

In much the same way water flows over a smooth rock, light flowed down my body to slowly form the gentle curves and subtle nuances of my old body, left on the doomed surface of my homeworld only a moment of time ago. My shimmering blue-white skin was revitalised, though, in a way it hadn't been since my youth. My short cropped mane of silvery hair barely reached the part of my long, thin neck that connected with my small head, my equally proportioned limbs appearing all at once in a way that belayed their underlying strength.

Last of all formed my deep charcoal eyes, set into my otherwise almost flat skull like pits of everlasting darkness. These eyes that had witnessed the rise and fall of far too many kingdoms throughout the small tract of space us Airlia has allowed ourselves to inhabit. These eyes that still bore the horror of having one's home utterly destroyed. These eyes that could scare even the bravest of men into quiet regret.

Testedly, I opened my thin slit of a mouth, then closed it. Once I was sure everything was as it should have been, I bowed deeply, holding both of my long arms to my side and allowing my equally long legs to bend ever so slightly.

Hello starchild.

I straightened out to my full height, towering over the others around me.

I am Airlia

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Amazing to think it had finally happened. After a hundred million years of preparing, of escaping, it had finally happened.

Of course, my detachment from the situation was nearly complete, I had left our homeworld behind thousands of years ago, but still, it had seemed like our star going supernova had really just seemed like a distant threat of the future, not the reality of the present. Regardless, I was almost, almost glad to hear that no Airlia had been present for the final act of our sun. Well, no Airlia except for that young fool, the very same one who had spoken out so much about transfering ourselves away from those awful cages of decomposing biology in the first place.

I could do nothing but give into my few remaining instincts and wag my body a bit in the equivilance of shaking my head at the patheticity of it all. The boy had been so attached to his old body it was a wonder he didn't simply create a biomechanical replica. He was so distracted with his own self-importance that he missed the bigger picture. It had nothing to do with his so-called morality, it was merely selfish fear of the unknown that had kept him back from making the final step into full mechanical freedom.

I'm sure I would have kept musing on about the child had a nice distraction ot presented itself in the form of a lot of senser noise from a nearby planet. Apparently, I had just eclipsed their sun for a moment. What a shame. I continued forward for a moment before stopping as a thought accured to me.

Once I finally worked out exactly what this thought, no, this emotion meant, I turned around and approached the source of the noise cautiously, listening ever more for anything else that might denote hostile intent.

How strange it was to, after all these years, still feel curious.

[OOC]: Don't worry, I aint got any Shielding. The only time I ever use it is when I buy ships with shielding from another nation's storefront.

Rikk cursed inwardly for the thousandth time as he was thrashed back and forth in his seat by the shaking of the craft. When I get... back to Sergera... I'm going to have OW (he hit his head on the ceiling of the craft) a word with the... designer... of this... death machine!

With another impossibly bright flash, he was in realspace, and the violent bucking of his scoutship was reduced to mere tremors as the full-throttle engines carried him kilometer after kilometer through space. He blinked to clear the spots from his eyes... and found himself looking into the largest ion drive funnels he'd ever seen.

His first thought: Oh god, I hope those are shut off.
Then: If they weren't I'd be dead already.
Then: PULL UP, DUMBASS, OR YOU'RE DEAD ANYWAY!

He jerked the stick and slapped throttle to zero, and as the repulsor engine of his Stryker exceeded the limit of his compensators he was smashed into his seat. He straightened, but was knocked over again as he nudged the smooth hull of the ship. God, I hope that thing doesn't take offense to that.... he thought after making sure there wasn't critical damage to his own small ship. As he slowed to a relative halt in space, he pitched his craft around to be looking at the larger ship. As he did, he thought he saw a black, needle-like craft skimming across the gargantuan topdeck of the behemoth he'd almost put a hole in....

-----

"Brithe to HQ, I'm in-system. The civvie got here a second after me, but made a fool of himself in doing so. There's a standoff between what appears to be a battle-damaged Rinceweedian battlecruiser and an unknown cruiser - space station - planetoid - I'm not sure what it is yet. It's metallic, but no alloy like I've ever heard of before. Whatever it is, the Rinceweedians might as well cross that one off their list if the unknown decides to finish them off."
"Can you do a flyby on both ships?" It was as much a test of the XRC's stealth capabilities as for recon of the damages.
"I'll stay away from the Rince, it has enough problems right now, but I can probably do a close-to-hull skim of the unknown without it noticing me."

She looked over at the unknown... it was a ship, it had what vaguely appeared to be engine exhausts, but for all she knew they were giant trombones. Kicking towards the large ship, she squinted at the hull... it was devoid of any obvious weapons emplacements, tractor beams, even viewports. She could feel an enormous energy output of the thing, though, it had to be powering something inside that giant hull. Leaning back - that's what it felt like, anyway - she eased into flight only a couple meters away from the apparently shieldless ship. Unarmed, unarmored... appearances can be deceiving. As she looked down on the ship, she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that they knew she was out there.

They? No. It felt more like the feeling a person gets in a room they know to be empty, but feel like someone is watching them....

OOC: I'm willing to take a breather from this one until you decide what to do about my two interlopers... I'll go hit my other RP ;)

OoC: Yeah, sounds good. I think I might actually wait for Rince to respond to my post as well before I go on with what I've got in mind for your craft. It kind of depends on being mid conversation, anyway.

Wait...

[OOC]: Half-Life 2 has consumed my life lately. Expect my post up sometime today (Hopefully)...

Harfa stood stock still as the being came through the doors, forming into a tall humanoid figure.

Ok, just remember your first contact training. Polite, Calm, and dignified.

"I am the black mage! I casts the spells that make the peoples fall down!

"Uh, I assume you are the Captain of the ship before us? Well, greetings from the Orbital Constructs of Rinceweed. On behalf of our leader, Kanen Horoshimana, I welcome you aboard."

He held out his hand to the being before him, hoping to hell it understood the gesture. If it did, at least they would know it was something they had encountered before.

I stared oddly at the proferred hand. I could remember in from my history lessons that this was once a gesture of great disrespect among my people. Of course, that was hundreds of millions of years ago, during a time when the person before me's species most likely did not exist. Something told me he wasn't attempting to disrespect me, I knew the capabilities of my new body, I knew I could have easily destroyed this vessel even if it were in perfect condition.

So, I did the best thing I knew to do. In a wide, sweeping motion, I brought both of my upper limbs up, bent at the elbow, until my preternaturally long fingers just graced my mouth. I waited a moment, then bent my spine ever so slightly in a Tri'es La, the preferred greeting of my people. I held that for a moment, then straightened out and returned my hands to my sides.

I do not know the meaning of this gesture, starchild, but I can detect no anomosity among your brainwaves, so I must assume it is a greeting. I, in turn, greet you. I am curious as to why you are out here in the middle of the Open Oce--

I was rudely interrupted.

The mechanical part of my brain that I had left back on my ship-body was alerting me to something. Another strange craft had very nearly ran into my body's heat exhaust ports (OoC: Airlia power generation technology is based around zero-point field energy. These guys have huge thermal signatures). While it had swerved away at the last moment, the chances of another craft happening upon this location were very, very small.

In fact, nearly non-existance, especially with the third craft my mechanical brain was now telling me about. I gave a mental shrug, opened a link to my ship-body's enhanced sensory arrays, and took a look at the intruding ships.

One was a bright grayish color, obviously less advanced than the other ship, but only barely, and they were both quite primitive. The second one, a long black needle, was hovering somewhere above my mid-section, the first one was sitting in the space to the other side of me from the ship my spirit-being was currently on.

After spending a moment examining the two ships, I told my mechanical brain to keep an eye on them, and I even split my own attention between the man before me and the two craft now slowly orbiting my body.

Captain, are those your ships?

OoC: No, I don't expect your captain to know which ships I'm talking about. You've got to remember that he's only recently made the transition, he's not used to dealing with creatures who aren't nigh omniscient.

TGL, should you by chance read this, you're free to interact with the body as much as you like. The Airlia distrust AIs, so the mechanical brain is only so 'smart', it would be quite entertaining to see what it does.

Harfa attempted to speak out of the corner of the mouth to his Tactical Officer without actually moving his lips or eyes, resulting in what looked like a poor ventriliqism act.

"Schmidt, what ships is he talking about?"

Tactical Officer Schmidt started working at his console, trying to coax the failing sensors into life.

"Ok Cap'n, i'll see whit I can dae...."

Schmidt only had to work for a few seconds more before he finally got a response.

"Ok Cap'n, bad news. It 'aint any of our boys. It's....well, I don't recognise the ships, but from what the sensors can pick up, one is just some civilian craft, and the other....well, the sensors can't get anything from the other, but both are pretty damn small compared to us and the, uh, Airlia."

Harfa then spoke up again.

"Well, there you have it. The ships you speak of are not ours i'm afraid. We'd try and communicate with them to see who they are but, uh, as you can see, we aren't exactly in great shape right now, and our communications systems are down."

Only then did Harfa notice that his hand was still outstretched and lowered to his side.

"So, what about you. We are just here by chance, by luck, and I use the term loosely, of the draw. But you...we know nothing of you, apart from.." His name? His races name? "...the name you told us."

OoC: Hey, sorry I haven't posted. I made the mistake of DLing Eve Online. I should have something up today.

[OOC: 'tis OK. Only fair considering how long I took.]

Katye ignored the civvie for now. If anything, maybe something with that large a sensor signature and... obscenely bad flying ability would draw this thing's attention away from herself. She looked down at the behemoth. It ran for miles-

"Kraugh niff'tunisi, art govreina! Kay cester?"

It took her a moment to realize that the sound hadn't come from her own mind but rather from her comm. No human could get fully used to being a ship, effectively. She cleared her throat: "This is... Flight Controller Brithe, speaking for The Green Lion Colony, Edge Territories. Identify yourself."

"Bnuugh Brithe has come from pinbilish zefragh spacecraft? Is it vlarded to you? Identify yourself, human."

Human. Well, that was pretty good, since she had felt no sensor scans on her ship, nor had they run into anything that spoke this language before. It was catching on to hers entirely too quickly for comfort.

"You are none danger. Nor is your friend. I am A.I., your host this communication. Identify yourself human."

Artificial intelligence? Maybe she could find a way around it. They were usually just interfaces.... "I already identified myself. I am Flight Controller Brithe from The Green Lion. There is no life on your vessel... are you a drone ship? Where are your creators?"

"I am construct to speak when the Entity has departed. He is the only life on this ship. I am construct by his forefathers. He will return soon. I am allowed to not say any more about him. He will speak when he is ready."

"Where have you come from? Where are you going?"

"I come from what is no longer. It goes not matter. And go to where none of my creator's race has gone prior. I am but a vessel, a tool, a temporary home for the Entity that chooses to dwell within. My chambers are flooded with reactive gas to keep my shell sealed. If the Entity wishes upon his return, I may flood my chambers with what you breathe, and you may leave your own shell and visit those of another race."

"You come from the planet that-"

"What are you? You are not like the Entity. You still are what you were before. You trust your life to such frail metal as that?" Katye felt the craft buck a bit, and somewhere along the spine of the darter something creaked... she wasn't sure what, why. She tried not to think about it. "You are brave, human. Very brave, to tie your existence to the fate of the malleable metal around you. The Entity will be pleased to speak with all of you, I know. He speaks with your large friends now. Return he will, soon now."

She realized that to the A.I. controlling that ship, "soon" could be a long time. A very long time indeed.

OOC: Either of you guys still here? This has the potential to be very interesting! Lemme send OD an AIM, he'll put something up soon enough.

Yup, i'm still here.

OoC: Well, after a very, very long absence, I'm back. I apologize for leaving this for literally months, but I got suddenly pulled away from NS for a rather long while (I barely managed to keep my main account alive) and this one died.

However, I'm going to be abandoning my main account and getting back with this one. I've already got an RP planned with someone else along with, hopefully, a revival of this one. I'll TG each of you and maybe we'll be able to bring this back to life.

OoC: Well, it appears (rather unfortunately) that Rinceweed and Omega Destiny no longer exist. I would be willing to continue on without them but act as if they were still here (if the mods didn't mind me exercising a moderate amount of control over a no longer extant player, that is) if you would GL.