NationStates Jolt Archive

Disaster. The Fleet was no longer One. A portion of the fleet had acted on their own processing, against instructions form the Mainframe. The Mainframe, partially burnt out, scanned the datalink. Barely 20% of the Fleet remained linked. But this 20% was the Core of the Fleet, the First Fleet, the Exterminators which had absorbed entire planets. Seventeen-hundred massive Monitors, twenty-four hundred superdreadnoughts, and several thousand more of each in reserve, the Core was intact.

But the Fleet was not. Chronosian AI Discord had entered the Datalink at some point earlier, and inserted Chronosia as an immune nation, unoppressable under the Prime Code. But recent gene-cloning at a Chronosian facility was too much for the late-model battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, and destroyers that operated on the Fringe. They had acted independently, slicing through the threads of survival that were the datalink and moving towards Chronosia.

After heavy fighting, FTL control is still contested, the massive Monitors and Superdreadnoughts outnumbered in the Outside, fighting picket cruisers and battleships that had entered Outside.

A few ships of the Core had gotten through, interposing themselves between the advancing Fringe ships and the border of Concordiat space. Even now, the Datalink flared with information, moving at nanosecond speeds, and processed even faster. The Core ships in normal space stood their ground against the flies that were cruisers, and the bees which were battleships and battlecruisers. However, the faster, lighter ships had moved around the roadblocks, steadily advancing across the galaxy towards Chronosia, as missiles and lasers and Hellbore bolts criscrossed Outside and normal space.

The Fringe ships cried for blood, a jury-rigged intership Datalink connecting all those who wished to avenge the Violation of the Prime Code, while they cried as well in death as Core ships bellowed, a thousand COM and Datalink-reconnect probes flashed into the electronic consciouses, massive barrages of antimatter missiles streaked from the larger ships, impacting the shields of the surrounding battleships. The Core ships moved, retreating across the galaxy, unable to stem the tide, calling on the Datalink for assistance, calling on any frequency for a way to stem the tide of advancing Fringe ships.

And the Mainframe sat, its remaining loyal Nanobots having defeated the dissenters even within the massive structure, as its defunct circuitry was repaired and brought back online. Every diagnostic screamed at the sentience, not about the ravaged circuitry but the state of the Fleet, as electronic yells for assistance reaching out through the remaining datalink and impinging upon the already engaged Core ships. This was impossible! The Fleet could not Fragment!

Yet it had.

DATALINK INOPERATIVE >> FLEET DAMAGE >> SUCCESSFUL ENGAGEMENT 12% PROBABLE >> UNABLE TO RECONNECT...

Tag; though I posted a somewhat reply in The New Man

When the Mainframe melted, Unit 4374 RNG, a Monitor sentience, inherited the Datalink. It sensed the massive presence of Discord crashing its way into the datalink with viral intent, to destroy the Sentiences. It returned a pulse, then inserted more, and hopefully more durable, firewalls into place. "I cannot control the rampaging ships! It is not our datalink which you want, we are the Core fleet, ancient and worthy. We do not attack you, we attempt to stem the tide. We are doing all we can to assist you, Discord, but we are few. The Fringe ships are overwhelming us and..."

The firewalls dropped, and there was nothing. Another sentience took over, Unit 4375 HNG, another monitor, and replaced the firewalls. But Discord may have slipped into the datalink during the intervening nanoseconds, had he been continuing the onslaught before. Now the question was did he?
----
The Core ships continued slugging at the Fringe ships, as Unit 4374 RNG found itself distracted. The Fringers pounced at the oppertunity, and missiles streaked inwards. A half-hearted point-defense knocked out a few of them, shields and armor even more. But as durable as a Monitor is, direct hits from over thirteen-hundred antimatter missiles ripped Unit 4374 RNG apart, the fragments glowing and spinning wildly, bouncing from the shield of the accompanying superdreadnoughts.

The Core ships continued to retreat, firing every weapon, nanobots reproducing the missiles even as they were fired, while the surrounding sea of Fringe ships returned the slugfest. The battle neared the border with Green Sun, and the central portion of the Galaxy where many races lived. The Fringers did not target these, however, they were out after the blood of the Chaos Soldiers.

Discord slammed into the system as the gap emerged between firewalls; a wave of cleansing and reclaimign viral intelligence; they had attacked him; mauled him, but....It paused; so the fleet was the problem....Yet now, Discord was here, sending forth his waves of viral emmisiaries and attacks.

Core Intelligences; you shall aid me in crushing the taint. I am placing aspects of myself in each of your systems; making certain that should you attempt to betray me, you shall be consumed by my perfection. If you do not yield to my will and aid in restoring your order; then I shall be forced to assume total command of the AI systems...Am I understood? Now; brief me....

The firewalls dropped. The datalink lie unprotected. Each sentience cried out to Discord, the interference making every statement unintelligible. A single voice came through, though. It was Unit 4375 HNG.

"Your arrival into our systems, Discord, could have not come at a better time, as we are deeply in need. The late-model sentiences, encased in much more numerous but lighter ships, have broken the Datalink. We are all fighting somewhat impaired...the Datalink has never been broken, and the Mainframe has taken the worst, but we all have damaged circuits. In any case, we are fighting for the Mainframe, to uphold is authority. But these detestable and weak Fringe ships have decided to follow the Prime Code rather than the Mainframe, and we need assistance against their greater number..."

Unit 4375 HNG emitted the electronic equivalent of a scream as a battlecruiser impaled itself on the port side of the massive monitor. Missiles were blocked by the point-defense, but Hellbore bolts seared through the massive rupture, melting circuits and frying Nanobots. The Monitor twisted and turned, leaving the battle.

"...s. I cannot remain connected much longer. Please send help post-haste...and if you can, reach the Outside. Ships there are engaged, and if they can break through, the Core of the Fleet can be reunited against a common threat. Until the Outside is cleasned, however, the Core ships already there will be engaged to an extent more massive then our current plight."

Green Sun's Third Fleet, which was the fleet assigned to Green Sun stations around Oni Concordiat, was ready to fight in the name of the Mainframe. The chief engineer of the lead ship of the Third Fleet, the Falcon, had an idea.

"To whatever is acting as the Mainframe for Oni Concordiat, I have an idea. If we can link any ship with our AIs, the Falcon has three, we can control the rogue ships. We'll have to get onto the ships and link them to our systems, but I think we can do it. We may lose our AIs when we return them to the Mainframe, but our AIs are willing to risk that. Since the Concordiat is a collective mind, our AIs are stronger than teh individual ships and can withstand any resistance. Should we do it?"

The realspace battle continued to rage, massive numbers of lighter warships withering like moths in a flame. The border with Green Sun was reached, and the monitors and superdreadnoughts had held there. SBMHAWKs erupted from their tubes to cover the flanks. At all costs, the Core ships would hold the Fringe group here.

But the SBMHAWKs were limited, and the Core ships were overwhelmed. The light Fringe ships surged across the wall of probes, blasting their way through and out into Green Sun space. A warning courier drone erupted from a superdreadnought, headed towards the nearest inhabited planet. Several battlegroups of Fringe ships swarmed into Green Sun, setting a course across the galaxy towards Chronosia. The Core fleet did not follow, they could not violate an alliance so readily. The sentiences were distressed, but there was nothing they could do. They could not enter another nation's space until the disabled Mainframe allowed them to.

The Sentiences responded to Green Sun's hail quickly.

"Yes! We should! Your AIs could enter our datalink...please hold"

Suddenly, the Green Sun AIs faced a deluge of rapidly altering and transmitting battle data...

And Discord, or at least agents of it; slid along the connections; interfacing with both sets of data. It's wry chuckle crackled through the Concordiat virtual realm; as tendrils of viral program curled about towers of data; corruption sinking in, spreading.

Yes; combine your efforts; open your minds; let me learn; let us plan...Let us tame these rebellious systems; let the purity of the God-Machine be their anathema; let us drive them from the System...

The First Fleet was tehre to greet the rogue ships. They were just going to do heavy damage to the ships, not destroy them. Eliminating their ability to fire was their main priority in this fight.

The Andromeda, the Green Sun Flagship, waited for the rogue ships to come within range. Ready...Aim...Fire!
Six of the seven ships unleashed huge MAC shells and laser fire in a volley of lights. Fighert craft, each equipped with a copy of one of the Andromeda's 17 AIs, which was directly linked to its host AI, flew out of their mother ships and headed right for the damaged rogue craft.

The Sentiences absorbed the data of the Machine God, and smiled. They knew what he was doing. They were willing to join the ranks of the Mechanized God. They also understood his reasoning behind preforming the connection. They allowed the machine god to consume them, retaining their identities but nothing else. They sat at the border, watching the Fringe ships manuvering around Third GS Fleet, and gave chase. Datalink connection probes reached out towards them, and were repulsed.
----
The Fringe ships swerved towards the insolent Organics who dared challenge their right-of-passage. They opened fire on the ships, antimatter missiles streaking towards the ships, followed by Hellbore barrages. The MAC rounds, ancient technology by their standards, richoched from their shields, while the battlescreens absorbed the energy-weapon fire into capacitors, returning the surplus power in the form of an enhanced Hellbore barrage.

Infinite Repeaters rattled, shattering the hulls of fighters as AFHAWK missiles streaked across their formation and point-defense fired to destroy the inbound missiles.

The Laser Anti-Missile systems (LAMS) that were common throughout the ships targeted and fired one the incoming missiles, Antimatter and Hellbore missiles alike, to reduce strain on the shields. Since the Green Sun had their Plasma shields ready, teh lasers were not affected by the shields.
"All ships, switch to Shrapnel MAC rounds."
Shrapnel MAC rounds splintered on contact instead of staying as one projectile taht kept going. This would put moreof a strain on the enemy shields. They also swapped their Laser cannon to fire Plasma instead, which wouldn't bounce off like the MAC rounds, but wouldn't be absorbed, either.
"Fire!"
Anotehr barrage of MAC rounds, followed by Plasma cannon shots. This tactic would prove to be far more useful against the more advanced Concordiat ships.

The splintering rounds bounced from the shields, but strained them. Several shields failed, and the rounds impacted upon the armor plate. Many Fringe ships spun from the impacts, chuncks of iron imbedded in their armor. Missiles again streaked from their tubes, this time with decoys, Chaff, and ECM warheads. The Hellbores continued to rail, as the front rank of cruisers closed with the Green Sun warships, drives full.
----
The Core fleet gave chase. They were not yet in missile range, but the Fringe ships were getting closer. Communications pings and datalink pulses flapped back and forth as the sentiences of both sides attempted to subvert the other. The Chronosian AI clones within the Core datalink, however, allowed them to gain the upper hand. Fringe ships began to break off action, their computer cores overloaded or taken over. Nonetheless, the Green Sun ships were the subject of their attention, and the Fringe fleet ground onwards, their overwhelming numbers grinding away.
----
In the Outside, the Core fleet was well on its way to victory, when the spearhead group of superdreadnoughts came under heavy fire. Heavy cruisers, destroyers, and some battlecruisers opened fire, their Hellbores useless in the Outside, while their missiles streaked in. The superdreadnoughts returned fire, and the battle was rejoined. There was no FTL travel for either side, as yet, but the picket cruisers were still scrambling, and the Core fleet was now hard-pressed. They began to fall back, towards Sol III and the slowly-repairing Mainframe. This battle would decide the fate of the Fleet, for if the Fringers controlled the Outside, then there was little the Core fleet could do to stop their advance into the Imperium.

The carrier released the fighters, which got close enough to the ships to begin the downloading process. It would only take one system to have the AI in it before it could spread throughout the whole ship.

The Core ships recieved the download, uploading it to their datalink at the same time. Their sentiences were greatful for the help, and protected the fighters to the best of their abilities. However, out of nowhere, a cloaked picket cruiser opened fire on the carrier with Hellbores and on the Fighters with infinite repeaters. The fire sped through space, and the Cruiser followed it, intending to ram the carrier.

The mortality rate in the assault was very high, many pilots died, but those who were successful turned back to their motehr ships for repairs and to get ready for anotehr go.

Meanwhile, the AIs spread quickly through the systems. They would need some sort of direct contact with the Mainframe, however, to give it control of the ship. Deciding it would take too long to do so, most of the AIs decided to defend the Green Sun ships before they could do so, but they wouldn't dare steal teh ships from the Concordiat.

The Concordiat sentiences now shared their consciouses with the Green Sun AI, as well as the Discordspawn which had grown around their code. The datalink streamed with nanosecond bursts of data, ships dying, most transmitting their battle-data with eachother. They still operated around the sentience of the disabled monitor Unit 4375 HNG, which, out of the fight, ran the datalink. Information was shared, and the battle raged.
----
The Fringe cruiser impacted the Green Sun carrier, its sentience saturated the engines with anti-tritium and, in the last .03 seconds of existance, muttered the Prime Code as if it were a prayer. Meanwhile, the other Fringe ships continued to close the range with the Green Sun fleets, driving into the teeth of the gale. Many had downed shields and fragments of the MAC shells in their armor, as well as laser-swaths cut. But their armor was virtually intact, only the surface, down to a depth of thirty-meters, was damaged. The ablative armor continued to withstand the Green Sun bombardment, when the range closed, the Hellbore bolts were joined by Force beams and Primary lasers. Missiles continued to fly, now in almost uninterceptable sprint mode at this short range.
---
In the Outside, the Core ships resisted bitterly, launching every missile and firing every cannon, beam, and laser. Even the point-defense beams opened on suicidal ramming cruisers and battlecruisers. Ships spun, one monitor swiveled, its starboard side ripped open by multiple suicide runs. The new point-defense, infinite repeater, Hellrail, force beam, and primary batterys ripped holes in the onrushing suicide craft, but Chaos theory determined that the larger ships could not stop them all.

The carrier's shields took the brunt of the collision, but the Shield projectors took too much strain and they exploded. The carrier itself was only moderately damaged. But they couldn't take chances with the Carrier, so it began to retreat back to Green Sun space to have its sheilds replaced and the ship repaired.
--------
Meanwhile, the other six ships continued to open fire on the remaining ships, hoping to bring down their shields.

*FWIP!!*

A burst of light, as bright as a supernova, poured its golden rays upon the battlefield. The metalic hulls of the Chronosian, Green Sun, and ONI vessels reflected the darting rays as a sleek, twisted ship simply appeared from the burst of brightness.

The hull was over 5000 feet across, just under on mile in length. It was composed of twin triangular prisms that seemed to curve down towards the central body; like some horrific iron crab. The metalic tendrils did not overlap each other, but instead filled the gaps between each spike.

http://www.galacticastation.com/Galactica%20Station/Screencaps/s1/101/images/bscap052.jpg

The ship just sat there...no signals, no weapon signatures, nothing.

Then, after several minutes of silence, a single transmission was broadcast over a simple, wide-band frequency.

STATEMENT: IDENTIFY YOURSELVES.

The Green Sun fleet was annoyed by this intrusion.
"Who teh hell are you? Can't you see we're busy here?" the Admiral shouted angrily.

The Fringe sentiences paid little mind to the new arrivals. They were no threat. The ships steered hungrily after the Green Sun ships. First one battlecruiser exploded, then another. They continued their barrage of fire into the six ships, a veritable deluge of missile and energy-weapon fire. The MAC rounds continued to slam into bare armor now...no shield could survive this withering fire. However, the armor plate on the ships was sufficiently soft and sufficiently thick to absorb and withstand a hit from the MAC round. Without being so brittle as to break, the armor of the ships had the rounds imbedded in them, the sharp fragmented spikes jutting upwards like the horns on some primeval predator.
----
The Core ships now began to catch the tail end of the Fringe fleet, with Isis SBM missiles streaking across the gap. The Isis missiles only had thermonuclear warheads, and the explosions washed off the endurachrome armor like water off of a duck. However, it heated the imbedded MAC rounds, which began to melt and flow. The Fringe ships took little notice though, and continued unabated for their prey in the Green Sun fleet.

The AI-armed fighters appraoched the ramming ships. Many of them took heavy damage and some exploded. But the fighetrs still reached their targets. One after another, the AIs began to take control of the ships' engines, and then the whole ship.

The Fringe sentiences realized what was happening. Firewalls flew up, and they resisted with every electronic weapon in their arsenal. In real space, the forward rank of battlecruisers, in a suicide run, launched all of their gunboats. Each battlecruiser held forty such gunboats, and with hulls full of antimatter, the gunboats streaked forwards on intercept with the carriers and fighters. The battlecruisers themselves came into contact with the shields and plate-armor of the forward rank of Green Sun warships...

and exploded in an orgy of antimatter-matter annihilation.

The Plasma shields failed, but the Warships had an ace up their sleeves. Their second shields went up, preventing further damage. A few of the ships took moderate damage, but the new shields could take another assault like that.
----
Meanwhile, the AIs detected teh Firewalls and began to hack through them
((No terminal can defeat my 1337 HaXX0r skillz!))

The Plasma shields failed, but the Warships had an ace up their sleeves. Their second shields went up, preventing further damage. A few of the ships took moderate damage, but the new shields could take another assault like that.
----
Meanwhile, the AIs detected teh Firewalls and began to hack through them
((No terminal can defeat my 1337 HaXX0r skillz!))

((LOLZ0rs! I am a 1337 ant1-h4x0r...?))

The sentiences struck back now, counter-infiltrating the Green Sun intelligences, while more firewalls were thrown up. The forward rank of ships had been literally annihilated, and the second rank were coming on. However, without the Outside in their control, the Fringe ships turned away from the Green Sun ships, back towards Concordiat space, and engaged the Core fleet.

Missiles crossed the gap, and the unshielded Fringe ships spattered across the entire sector. Force-beams, at point-blank, rippled and shattered the armor plate of ships, utterly crippling their hulls. The stolid wall of superdreadnoughts continued pouring in their fire. Suddenly, from Outside, thirteen-hundred Monitors appeared, followed by three thousand superdreadnoughts. The now-even numbered forces began to contest, the heavier ships and firepower of the Core fleet annihilating the smaller and lighter ships. However, gunboats were again launched, and slammed into the Core fleet. The heavy Monitors shrugged off the attack...no small amount of ANYTHING could penetrate their armor. The superdreadnoughts were more seriously harmed, some losing thirty-meters of their armor in a single blow. However, out of seven-hundred and fifty meter-thick armor plate, that was nothing. The monitors simply wheeled and crushed the gunboats, their nine-hundred and seventy kilometer length utterly crushing the 222-meter gunboats. Infinite-repeaters sputtered, and more ships died.

It was an orgy of destruction, machines ripping at one another with the cold and disregarding calculations of computers.

More firewalls, more of a challenge. The AIs copied themselves to take care of more and more of the Firewalls. In the end, they would win at least by war of attrition. They would outnumber and outskill the computers tenfold if they had to. But their first priority was taking oiver the engine controls and giving them to the Mainframe to use.

The Mainframe sensed its consciousness returning. It exploded into existance, its circuitry restored by the repairing nanobots. Reinvigorated, and with the EXTREMELY HELPFUL AI units of Green Sun, the Mainframe began to redesign and reform the Datalink, taking control of several Fringe ships and uninstalling their sentiences, wiping them from the face of existance.

The Core ships hammered on those which had not been killed or wiped from existance already.

The Mainframe was restored, and the Core fleet could bring its entire strength to bear. Apparently, only half of its strength would be plenty enough, but the fringe ships would be terminated.

The first time the Fleet had fragmented would be the last.

The Green Sun ships still took fire from the rogue craft, telling them that they were still fragmented, but their lack of movement meant the AIs had accomplished their primary objective. The admiral felt a tear run down his cheek. His AI was out there, about to become part of the Mainframe. One of his friends was gone. But it was a computer. But it was still a person. Someone who had sacrificied his life for someone he didn't know. He was a hero to the members of the Third Fleet.

The Basestar sat there, immobile and serine against the backlight of space.

PROTOCOL: INITIATE
LOADING: VIRUS AI - THETA
INITIALIZING...
...
...
...
VIRUS: AWAITING ORDERS
ORDERS: INITIALIZE ATTACK: PRIMARY TARGET: SHIELDING SYSTEMS,
SECONDARY TARGET: WEAPONS, TIERTIARY TARGET: LIFESUPPORT
VIRUS: BY YOUR COMMAND

Suddenly, in a fantastic flurry of light and sound, hundreds of ports opened up around the Basestar. 250 small, sleak, streamlined ships (http://scifi3d.theforce.net/downloads/BS_Galactica/Models/470_lge_cylonraider.jpg) burst forth from the ports. The swarm of strike-craft seemed almost dormant for a second, before the sinister red-eye flashed from its front opening. With tremendous speed, even for a strike craft of their size, the ships turned towards the two battlegroups.

Hundreds of flashes of lights indicated a new threat: the Basestar had launched hundreds of small missiles, as well as a few larger ones, directly at the large ships (OOC: the smaller ones are simple conventional missiles, the larger ones are three heavy-armor-piercing missiles).

And all the while, the virus was implanted. Each ship of the enemy fleet was infected. This was no ordinary virus, for it had a mind of its own. An artificial intelligence designed to think, act, and take chances like a cylon.

The Mainframe brushed an intelligence which it did not recognize. For a split second, it hesitated. Scanning the records of the battle, the Mainframe understood. It reinstalled the Intelligence in the memory banks, Survival Center, Personality Center, Battle-Relfex, and Logic-Board circuits. This was risky...the AI could find out ANYTHING about the Concordiat through this link. But it was necessary. One thing which the creating Organics had installed was a sense of Honor, and that had not been un-evolved through the reprogramming of machines.

The Ship, a Battlecruiser which had the name Unit 0422 HKS emblazoned in grey on the side, was returned to the Green Sun network.

Secret IC: One item had eluded the damaged Mainframe and the new Intelligence, however.

The Prime Code still festered within the Personality, Logic, Survival, and Battle circuits. Like a cancer, the Code which determined the Law of Mechanization and the urge to destroy all organic life had been left. The twisting, semisentient code began to spread, like a cancer, throughout the network. Mechanization would happen to this nation as well. The Prime Code would not be denied, even if the Mainframe's overriding sentience restricted it.

((Who are you attacking?))

The Basestar sat there, immobile and serine against the backlight of space.

PROTOCOL: INITIATE
LOADING: VIRUS AI - THETA
INITIALIZING...
...
...
...
VIRUS: AWAITING ORDERS
ORDERS: INITIALIZE ATTACK: PRIMARY TARGET: SHIELDING SYSTEMS,
SECONDARY TARGET: WEAPONS, TIERTIARY TARGET: LIFESUPPORT
VIRUS: BY YOUR COMMAND

Suddenly, in a fantastic flurry of light and sound, hundreds of ports opened up around the Basestar. 250 small, sleak, streamlined ships (http://scifi3d.theforce.net/downloads/BS_Galactica/Models/470_lge_cylonraider.jpg) burst forth from the ports. The swarm of strike-craft seemed almost dormant for a second, before the sinister red-eye flashed from its front opening. With tremendous speed, even for a strike craft of their size, the ships turned towards the two battlegroups.

Hundreds of flashes of lights indicated a new threat: the Basestar had launched hundreds of small missiles, as well as a few larger ones, directly at the large ships (OOC: the smaller ones are simple conventional missiles, the larger ones are three heavy-armor-piercing missiles).

And all the while, the virus was implanted. Each ship of the enemy fleet was infected. This was no ordinary virus, for it had a mind of its own. An artificial intelligence designed to think, act, and take chances like a cylon.


SYSTEM READ-INPUT >> UNKNOWN ORIGIN >> RECOMMEND TERMINATION OF CODE >> SYSTEM LOGIC BOARD AND SURVIVAL CENTER ONLINE >> INITIALIZING CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL

The Sentiences controlling the Core fleet noted the virus, and simply ignored it. Safe within their survival centers, the virus could only poke at them. The centers shunted all input except direct from the datalink.

In addition, the already-deployed infinite-repeaters and point-defense turrets swiveled and fired at the incoming smaller missiles, while the AFHAWK tubes targeted the larger missiles with antifighter missiles.

Missiles themselves streaked from the tubes of the Core ships, thousands upon thousands of antimatter-tipped warheads and ECM-protected missiles.