NationStates Jolt Archive

oocness: This is the follow up to what started in this (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=475573) thread, specifically the posts #8, #10, #12, #15, #16 and #22. Doesn’t allow for much (Any) interaction (Yet), but it has to be posted somewhere, kinda

The system was slightly more than a hundred lightyears off sol, and pretty much standard – a K-class star, slightly smaller than the sun, all in all not a particularly bright light in the sky.

Five equally uninteresting planets were orbiting it – one hot, atmosphereless rock only about forty million kilometres distant from the local sun, one rather coolish planet in the habitable zone (Sadly, it lacked the gravity that’d allow it to keep a sizeable atmosphere, and was thus devoid of life), followed by two large and one smaller gas giant(s), and a relatively small cloud of comets asteroids around the system: Only a little more than a hundred billion of them were around.

Only the gas giants had moons (Though a sizeable crater on the second planet offered evidence regarding a relatively recent impact, when that planet’s micro-moon - a mere eighty kilometres as mean diameter - had impacted after a long descent in a retrograde orbit), though again, none of them were particularly friendly to life (Though one of them had the occasional colony of primitive bacteria, which lived under the ice of the moon’s equatorial oceans, kept warm by the moon’s tides), and only three larger moons existed – two orbiting the innermost, and one the middle gas giant.

They were of very little interest for the dozen or so ships that were presently residing inside the system, though.

The smaller moons on the other hand – more specifically, a handful of smaller moons on the smallish, outermost gas giant – were of a very particular interest to them.

Already, work had begun, as assorted subcraft and general-purpose, as well as construction drones had been delivered, fields and metals carving structures into the moons, producing habitats.

‘Military’ habitats (‘Military’ was, perhaps, not the correct term – to DA, these habitats would be substandard, providing relatively little in the terms of true threats (And thus training opportunities), or porper, luxurious accommodation. But then, they weren’t meant for Angstians).

When the Kiss My Ass and its entourage arrived, the first, still relatively provisional, habitats had already been finished.

EM-CCOM@EM1e-5; SL 5; Widebeam
From: SEU Kiss My Ass
To: IEU Curious Cat; Locals
Subject: Here we are!

Indeed, we are, together with our ‘freight’. You’re ready?

EM-CCOM@EM1e-5; SL 5; Widebeam
From: IEU Curious Cat
To: SEU Kiss My Ass
Subject: Here we are!

Well, sort of – accommodation for the first 1024 of them is done. The rest will still take a while. And to be honest, not everyone here seems to take this entirely serious…
-
Well, it did start out as a somewhat expensive, private joke.
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Yes, yes. But the Spherebuilder seems to be more interested in gas giant #1’s fauna and flora than in our project.
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I see. Fauna and flora?
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Oh, the first gas giant has a somewhat odd thermal cycle. Most of the organic matter that falls down eventually gets blown into the upper atmosphere again, due to its somewhat excessive internal activity and weather. Together with the heat from the sun – it’s barely outside the habitable zone – and its internal heat, it has managed to produce life. Multicellular lifeforms in fact, though it doesn’t have any megafauna in the traditional sense. Too heavy/ dense, I suppose. Still, some fascinating organisms in there. And the Spherebuilder seems to like them.
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I see. Regardless. In the process of removing psychological and physiological barriers on a few test-subjects, here. The SI my two accompanying GTUs have produced seem to be quite content with their present job, too. With a bit of luck, everything will work out. Just, I’d like to transfer, you know… Now.
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You’ll have to wait for a while. We can’t turn half a dozen moons into armed habitats within two weeks, yet alone deploy decoys, fake signatures, the likes.
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Yes, yes. Well, I might send a few subcraft to this gas giant…
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Oh, please shut up. It wont take that long. Also, I think we should all exchange milgrade-level security codes.
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Yes, I’ll take care of that. Later. Need some time to accommodate myself. Damn, what an empty system… Oh, and I’m sure you’ve set up a proper channel. I hate this long.winded com protocols.
-
Sure. Will invite ya.

Base

A warm touch. Confusion. Light. Sensations never felt before. Waking up, the dream collapsing on itself.

Heat. Growing. Pain. Also growing. And then, the sweet release. A world changing. Consciousness growing, maturing.

“Where am I?”

And, after a second’s contemplation: “What am I?”

The face of the woman in front of him wasn’t particularly pleasant. It was a bit round, almost white, but it radiated warmth. Certainly not a sensual beauty – instead, it reminded him of motherly love.

Another question. What is motherly love? He’d never experienced it. How did he even know the term? Nobody had even told him about it.

The round, warm face started to move, started to talk. “Let me explain…”

Later

“So…” He still didn’t quite understand it, though of course, the memories were there. The proof was there, alright. Oh, certainly, the Angstians were perfectly capable of implanting fake memories, just as believable, as ‘Real’ as real memories – but logic dictated that they had no need, no reason to do so.

Besides, there were the… Advertisements, the logs of assorted communications, monetary transfers, public information from both, Angstian and ‘foreign’ sources.

Questioning this part simply didn’t work out. It was true.

“So why did you do this to us?”

Odd logic perhaps, but it had to be asked. And had their previous lives been that bad?

Well, ‘Lives’…

The nurse hesitated, looking at him, then at the rest of his company – one-hundred and forty-four identical-looking men, all looking rather lost, confused, even angry. She was somewhat tempted to shrug – it’d have been the wrong gesture, though.

“Why did they do this to you? You could’ve been perfectly normal, perfectly happy – as far as happiness is achivable in Mandalore Prime – people. Instead, they destroyed what would’ve made you sapient. They restricted it.” A sigh. “We just removed this restrictions. Yes, I’m certain that a life lived subservient to others, thrown away as a meatshield, not really thinking, has its advantages. Specifically the part where one doesn’t think about being used as an expendable toy. But I wouldn’t call it life. They’ve taken this from you. We gave it back.”

The nurse – a rather smallish female, looking to be in her mid-thirties (Which was rather uncommon: Her mind was only a few days old, the result of a rushed development jumping two decades of ‘Common’ mind-development. Not something the society (Which rather liked people showing at least a part of their true age, and preferred more conventional, I.e. slow, conscience-developing processes) at large would approve of, but the circumstances… And the ships hadn’t wanted to use their abstracts for this, preferring a more individualistic approach, given the kind of person they would have to deal with. But perhaps she’d undergo the basic developments later, retroactively changing her consciousness by way of adding experiences on a lower development scale, spending a decade as a child. That was her choice) – hesitated again. “I realise that the realisation – or rather, the conscious realisation, given that you knew it from the beginning, you simply didn’t care, weren’t supposed to care – hurts. But – and this is my, and the ships’ point – you’re not the only victims.

“There are more. Millions. In Mandalore Prime and elsewhere. And we wonder… Do you want them to live their existence as it is now? Dull, subservient, toys of insane generals throwing their CHON-resources against infinite repeaters? Again, and again, and again? For a little medal if you’re lucky, and because they just like blowing shit up if you’re not? Fully sapience-capable entities forced into slavery ad early death? Sure, your kin doesn’t much care – they obey. But this isn’t their natural state. Nor is it yours.”

The men said nothing, still showing a mixture of anxiety and anger, confusion and hatred.

“We wont force you to do anything. You’re free to do as you want. We’ve changed your bodies, added assorted immunities, basic enhancements and additional systems, a few nano- and microscale implants. Right now, you’re essentially averaged DA civilian-scale equivalent enhanciles. Rather more capable, physically as well as mentally, than you were before, but nothing special.

“You’ll have opportunities to travel. To DA, and elsewhere. You’re free and encouraged to explore the civilisations in existence.

“I wont lie to you. Of course we want you to do as the Kiss My Ass suggested. We wont force you, though. It’s your decision.”

Silence.

Outside

The subcraft dived into the atmosphere of the inner gas giant, displacing clouds of alkanes and some more complex organic structures, cutting through odd, floaty structures, and generally enjoyed itself at pressures in excess of perhaps a hundred bar while running assorted communications with its sourceship and a few of said ship’s pals, spending most of its time exploring the local, exotic fauna and flora.

<SEU Kiss My Ass> So… What was that?
<IEU Curious Cat> That was an Iskander – the name we gave this system – Web. Essentially a… web-like plant.
<SEU Kiss My Ass> … So we just killed it?
<IEU Curious Cat> Nah. That’s its way to reproduce. It’s ripped apart by the storms/ other lifeforms, and the pieces start to grow again.
<SEU Kiss My Ass> Ah… Screws with its evolution, doesn’t it, though? No mutations.
<GTU Spacecart> Hate to interfere, you two – Just wanting to say, finished another one. We now have space for approximately 100k – More than half done.
<SEU Kiss My Ass> Neat! Reminds me – Hows the awakening going?
<GTU Spacecart> Reasonable. A few companies attacked the nurses, and a few nurses experienced bodily death – of course, I and Unsung Hero of the Economy sucked their mindstates into safety in time. Another few already opted to support us, although they don’t really trust us. Understandable, seeing as I am monitoring their thoughts, but meh. The majority of the ~ 50k we’ve awakened are uncertain, and will likely do the trip to sol.
<IEU Curious Cat> Sounds alright to me. Oh, and no – it mutates regardless, through during mitosis. And it seems to work out – though their internal genetic structure is ludicrously complex.
<SEU Kiss My Ass> Meh. About this aggressive companies…
<GTU Spacecart> I’m trying to convince them. Well, they’re not exactly capable of hurting my drones, so I suppose they’ll give up, sooner or la- Ah, one just did. Now they’re just frustrated and stare at it, annoyedly.
<SEU Kiss My Ass> Should’ve allowed the drone to be destroyed. Better for their self-confidence
<GTU Spacecart> Pft. Forget it. Anyway – seems to go over reasonably well. As far as the supporters of our intentions go, well, their pseudo-militarisation is your job.
<SEU Kiss My Ass> Yes, yes, yes. The facilities are half ready, you said, no? It’ll work out. Of course, our already-willing get the trip to DA, too – some contact with civilian subsocieties is preferable, or they become mindless killers. Again.
<IEU Curious Cat> No disagreement here. In any case – going on as planned, then. I’m presently trying to get some minor commercial traffic into Mandalore Prime. Need some way to get activists in that doesn’t involve low velocity black body incursions. Oh, and by the way – I’m perfectly open for more target suggestions.
<SEU Kiss My Ass> There are plenty of routes to take, I thought? Granted, considering the ordnance, I think DA traffic is preferable.
<IEU Curious Cat> Indeed. Incidentally, what you’re seeing now are lighter-than-air organisms – Living baloons, if you so want. Vaguely fish-sized, but of course much, much lighter…

Neptune

Kenji Li. Odd.

He wondered just how this worked out – choosing a name, quietly ignoring its ethnic and cultural implications, simply going by how well it sounded. Of course, he had been told that this wasn’t actually uncommon in DA (Although a bit of attention was usually spent on making sure that it fit), which, after the conquest by more foreign entities than one could possibly count, had become a somewhat chaotic melting pot where ethnic groups dissolved like alcohol in water, resulting in nobody giving a damn when you happened to have mutually exclusive parts in your full name.

Another part of him wondered just what exactly the names were for – he’d already met a few drones who were oddly proud of their alphanumerical designations, and preferred not to have a ‘proper’ name (Drone-pride, he supposed) and was quite seriously considering to keep his old designation (MPC-2085-B). After all… He’d been changed, but his purpose (Well, ‘Purpose’. He was free to do as he wished, but the minds who had organised the initial ‘Purchase’ had certain ideas as of what they’d like him to do) remained. Not to mention… It was a good reminder.

He’d decide that one later.

He went away from the crowds, ignoring a few young-looking (Of course, looks could be deceiving) and only slightly intoxicated individuals who tried to invite him over for… something, as well as a group of grim-looking, and notably arrogant men (Must be one of their subsocieties…) who were loudly expressing their opinions regarding some deviancy-related issues, and their belief that DA was doomed if it continued on its present path.

Probably Britmattians.

Such an odd place. Outisde, the storms of Neptune were hitting the confines of Poseidon, tyring to break into it, to destroy the unnatural object floating in the upper layers of the blue giants’ atmosphere. Inside, there was nothing like what he’d have expected, given his initial encounter with this people.

He had expected them to be quite serious, earnest, and compassionate. Caring and involved.

They weren’t. Instead, life seemed to be going on in a vaguely odd mixture of parties, poverty (It was there, alright. Transformed, certainly – nobody was living under some horrid, life-shortening conditions, per se – but still visible, the people who had decided to say ‘Fuck it’ and who had left (Almost) everything behind), innovation (If it was a new board game or a new spacecraft propulsion method didn’t seem to be much of a difference) and political activities that were slightly disconnected from reality. Not that this stopped the various factions from noisily spreading their opinions…

Disconnected from reality indeed. Not so much insofar as they wanted the impossible – sure, they did, but that wasn’t the point – but more insofar as they seemed to be oddly disconnected from the people they pretended to care about, as if all of this was just a hobby. The suffering, the pain and problems of others were looked at in a quite academic, rather than compassionate manner, exploitation and slavery seen more as inefficient than ‘evil’.

This very people had made him ‘aware’. Now however, they simply disgusted him.

Why help them?

Shiny lights and drug bowls, virtual realities to be lost in, excesses of almost every possible kind. Even murder was considered little more than a ‘Minor offence’ – with most people having at least one mindstate-backup, all it meant was a minor memory-loss and an insurance company gnashing its teeth because it had to pay for a new body, but of course, it was quite rare, anyway.

Why they’d even care for him and his kind was beyond him.

Days and nights passed, and more was experienced. DA’s deviant nature, certainly – but also its more private sides, away from organised ‘fun’, reaching less public realms and conversations. Everybody had his or her (Or its) personal way of dealing with the past, and not everyone chose to show it off for everyone to see.

All in all, MPC-2085-B (He had eventually choosen to keep his old designation – at least in private) ended up being mildly confused. He certainly didn’t love the society that had simultaneously liberated him from slavery and thrown him into the purgatory of awareness, but, well… He supposed he could give it a chance.

And, more importantly, he could use it for his own desires, which were by now coinciding with those of the minds that had choosen to raise his awareness.

He’d give it a try.

Sol

Rinse and repeat. While the facilities in Iskander were (Slowly) finished and eventually reached the point where secondary – that is, defensive – elements could be thought about, the almost two-hundred thousand clones were slowly awakened (Usually by companies), and – after basic indoctrination in basic ‘Civil Life’ classes (Literally classes: Highschool for social behaviour and interactions on the civilian level, so to speak. Some of the teachers found it considerably amusing, having fully-grown soldiers raise their hands to reply to assorted questions, and having them play out a handful of scenarios – some had feared that the clones would show a considerable degree of violence, but usually, their training guaranteed a considerable degree of discipline, once the initial outbursts of violence had been dealt with), learning about a handful of different societies, their differences, how to fit in, the likes (Not about what their teachers considered each societies’ strengths and weaknesses, though: That was up to their students to decide), to ensure that they wouldn’t be completely lost when in contact with the ‘Normal’ world – sent off to experience civilian life in DA proper as well as its Sisgardian neighbors, and a few closer friends, like The Territory or The Ctan, as a sort of ‘Exam’, or possibly a field trip.

A necessary move. Creating supersoldiers was certainly nice (That they wouldn’t be ‘Super’ aside), but DA with its exceedingly (‘Perversely’, as some would say) civilian military didn’t want senseless warmachines. It wanted conscious thought, a culture, and individual opinions. And the minds playing this little game didn’t see why this should be any different with the clones.

They didn’t want them to do as they were told. They wanted them to think about it all, consciously, aware, knowledgeable, and to believe that what they – the clones – were doing was right, and indeed to disobey when they thought it was wrong.

A bit more tourism than usual. Not all clones – by now with a considerably altered DNA base – felt like MPC-2085-B when tossed into a society they barely knew or understood. Some were simply confused, not quite getting the societies and their rules when exposed to them, and choose seclusion. Others, though still confused, chose to experience this ‘New World’ (Insofar as it was now accessible to them. They’d known before, just without caring beyond the implications such societies meant for their militaries, if that) more fully, socialising, some being absorbed into DA’s subsocieties, deciding that it wasn’t necessary for them to return.

Again others, frustrated not unlike MPC-2085-B, gave up entirely, entering groupminds or assorted new-age sects, unsupported, sometimes mildly insane, living on the radioactive soil of Mars or cruising the Oort cloud in outdated ships.

The majority however, was quite simply curious, and wandered through the societies they were free to visit, looking around and learning without really becoming a part of them. They liked, or disliked, occasionally partaking in an aspect or two of the societies and cultures they visited, making some friends (In a considerably awkward manner, even by Angstian standards – they’d presumbly be more capable of socialising with the rather more militaristic Territorials, it’d feel more like ‘home’ -, but still), and so on.

Not quite what the minds had had in mind, as they had expected more. But well, not everything is perfect.

Besides, there was no time limit as to the socialisation, and spending a little more time on turning the clones into something resembling normal sapients, rather than killers, sounded perfectly acceptable.

Organisation

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e7&EM1e-1; SL 5; Tightbeam
From: IEU Curious Cat
To: GMU Wealth of Nations
Subject: Incidentally…

With regards to our little agreement – I believe you’ve some contacts who have contacts… Well, you get what I’m meaning. I’ve had a few discussions with the Kiss My Ass, and it thinks that we might be somewhat unprepared, with regards to doctrine and training. Our drones are killers on the standard battlefield, but for partisan-scale urban warfare, not so much…

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e7&EM1e-1; SL 5; Tightbeam
From: GMU Wealth of Nations
To: IEU Curious Cat
Subject: Incidentally…

I see your point (Though I believe that you should have contacts on your own? Being an IEU and all) so I’ll look for something… In fact, I believe that Sandra has the appropriate guest – Territorial guard, to be specific. I’ll poke her about it – Sandra, that is.
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That’d be excellent, yes. Incidentally, interested in some gas-giant flora? I’ve since collected a few fantastic examples, and I seem to recall you being into exobiology.
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Mhm? Oh, that’d be neat, yes. Exotic CHON ^_^ In any case – sent Sandra the request, I suppose she’ll bring it up. I suppose you’re looking mostly for training assistance, but don’t mind if you get extra? The Territorials aren’t fond of slavery and might be into giving more than we request.
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Pretty much, yes. Incidentally, how’s production going?
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Reasonable. Don’t expect too much, though.
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We’ve time.
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Alright then. Yes, she’s bringing it up, now – I’ll keep you up to date. Oh, and I took the liberty of spreading some rumours and a few not-too-detailed details through enthusiastic undergrounds with comparable philosophies, and have made some of the information available to a foreign relations coregroup. The latter are saying that they have outside contacts that could be useful (If morally questionable), and the former, well – we’ll have to see who’s interested.
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… So much for OPSEC.
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Now, now. My contacts are trustworthy. Besides, there are plenty of rumours about, it’s not as if one more makes much of a difference.
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As trustworthy as you are? But, anyway, I’ll hope for the best.

Department

The mainland department of tourism (overly formal term for a bit of the nomenklatura chaos) has proved to be quite the little fast-grower. Anders Chitepo's star is definitely ascending.

And he's got TSA breath on his neck mot of the time. Then, his almost-official liaison can breathe on his neck anytime.

Now, there are DA military types running about, and that makes very little sense. Military military even, not civilian military. But they're well-behaved fellows.

Armed Forces

It's a lovely room, really. A bit of artful hospitality laid out for a visitor; informal visitor but Servalan (shadow wearing khakis set to brilliant white out of some old Earth navy) tends to reiterate that Sandra Mikogami is a figure with some authority in Neptunespace.

"Welcome, M Mikogami. Please, be seated, I took the liberty of preparing the tastes of some fine wines..."

Cloth, wood, wine. And a lovely view.

And some deals, one of which starts a growing trickle of personnel in the employ of a certain milcorp. TAF veterans. Most of them posthuman. Most of them with better than average experience in socialization training.

The Territory

Curious eyes, noses, and ears. Curious fingers and curious minds.

Looking, smelling and hearing. Touching and thinking.

The Barracks-State of The Territory happens to be as close as it gets to what the minds in charge consider 'Their' clones' likely 'Paradise', something that happens to combine a practically obscene degree of militarism with a considerable degree of liberties, a link between the clones' predetermined past and their rather less predetermined future.

With a bit of luck, the Territory might become the perfect therapy for the clones, fitting them, their upbringing and presumably their genetic predetermination (Which may have been drastically altered, but some remnants remain) rather better than anything DA has to offer.

And as such, they're encouraged to visit it.

Only a few thousand at any given time, nothing more. But they swallow the bait that is The Territory's militarism, providing them with the background they desire, without being thrown into the ultraliberal mess that is DA. The barracks-state provides the ideal according to which they - many of them, anyway - want to live and work. Not the no-limits chaos of DA with its military that, though familiar with the (Theoretical) concepts of 'Discipline' and 'Hierarchy', most definitely doesn't act in accordance with either, but the organised and (To them) actually quite desirable and utterly fascinating killing-machine-pretending-to-be-a-nation that, quite unlike their 'Manufacturer', recognises them as people (As a matter of fact, some of them stumble over Territorial clones - which is to say, valued high-aug bipedal warmachines (Not that there are few high-aug bipedal warmachines, but only a few happen to be clones), with their legal status no different from anyone else, disregarding assorted fringe groups in their very 'Special' habitats, I.e. Io).

As such, it's hardly surprising that the Territory becomes more and more the clones' ideal. Something that incorporates what they consider valuable and desirable.

Something they can use as a benchmark when it comes to deciding what they want to become.

In the meantime, the clones are themselves watched by others. Territorial, DA - the exact source matters litte, if at all.

What matters is that the information they gather is transferred. And lightyears off, a group of minds smiles. Disregarding some rather rare outbreaks of violence or (Rather less rare) attempts at 'Proving oneself' by way of competing with the occasional native, the 'Socialisation' seems to progress quite nicely.

Some things are working out at last.

Neptune (Mindscapes)

In reality, Sandra Mikogami happens to do something she alway enjoys doing: Floating inside a tank of liquid, sufficiently viscous computronium near, but not quite at, the centre of 'Her' habitat, eyes closed, the basic functions of her body kept working via assorted high-tech twinkery, and running Poseidon.

Most of her (Fairly extensive) mind is located there, 'Relaxing', as far as one can relax when one happens to run a multitrillion-ton habitat floating inside the atmosphere of a gas giant.

Parts of it are not.

One of this parts happens to be represented by a youngish version - say, early thirties - of Sandra, dressed in a fairly simple and unadorned, blueish Kimono, who is entering the room guardsman Servalan has prepared for her.

Quick bow, followed by an oddly shy smile.

"My honour, and thank you for being so accommodating to my somewhat sudden request..."

The tastes do what they are supposed to do, they taste exquisitely. It's a pity the actual wine isn't present.

However, exquisit as the tastes are, they're not the primary topic of the conversation that follows.

The primary topics are 'Educational' support. Military training. Partisan-scale urban warfare. Interstellar insertion and extraction with particular care expended on low observability and speed. Infiltration. External and internal manipulation of political entities. Social engineering. Administrative and cultural collapse and takeovers. Expansion of activities. Decentralisation of the same, especially with regards to training grounds. Decentralised acquisition of the appropriate equipment via manufacturing or buying from a variety of sources the Territory might have a connection to. Potential extend of Territorial support. Potential increase in DA involvement.

Some of these topics are highly theoretical in nature, and unlikely to ever be tried, yet alone being achived.

Others are not.

Something else: With Sandra's involvement, the little 'Pastime Activity' has now reached the higher echelons of DA's administrative structures. With Territorial involvement, it has become international.

That's the way these things go.

Iskander

Creating a training ground, manufacturing base, and staging point for a partisan army operating on the interstellar scale is hard, to say the least. And the first rule is that one has to minimise observability at all cost.

Annoyingly, low observability is one of the things DA - especially its military - sucks in, to put it mildly. Why do a quiet zero-accel black-body approach when one can do a multimegaton/ second sunskimmer while reflecting the EM output of a nice little G-class star at an angle that makes you roughly as visible as Mercury?

Long story short, warships like it shiny, and enjoy being seen.

A good thing, then, that the majority of the ships involved aren't warships. And of course, exploration units are rather better at low-obs than engagement units. Add to this that there's only one warship - the Kiss My Ass - present inside the system, this avoiding the all-too-common egomania warships tend to suffer from (Especially when in groups or even numerically superior), and the activities remain surprisingly low-profile, which is to say, barely observable, and that's assuming that one knows what one is looking for.

A bit of ordnance deployed in asteroids and on smallish moons, a few weapons platforms hidden inside the same, and a few subcraft floating about, doing nothing. That's it. Add a few basic self-destruct protocols for the major installations (Which are by now slowly getting their own, minor manufacturing capacities, seeing as the sheer habitat-part has been finished, and the last of the clones have been 'Awakened'), and one has covered the entirety of inhabited Iskander, as far as its defensive means are concerned.

It's a remote system, in no way interesting to the casual observer. They - and this refers to both, the locals and innocent visitors - should be safe.

Of course, it's still an 'All your eggs in one basket' case, but with the Wealth of Nations' participating, the trips the clones are taking to the mainland, and Territorial involvement, this particular problem might end soon enough, too. Would make all the work expended on Iskander a little superfluous, though.

But then, safety should be worth this minor inconvenience.

Organisation

Comets. Billions of them. Many, many billions of them. Orbiting the sun, endlessly. Only very occasionally is one of them tossed out of its usual orbit, drifting away, general direction Proxima Centauri, or forced into the system, to be evaporated by the sun.

Many of them are nothing but dirty snowballs. Others are a little denser, resembling icy dirtballs. Again others aren't comets at all, featuring rather insignificant amounts of ice, instead consisting of heavier materials. Carbon, silicate, assorted metals, and a few other elements thrown in for good measure.

The latter two are what the General Manufacturing Unit Wealth of Nations works with.

There are thousands of subcraft, hunting comets for it, tugging them in and refining them, turning the dirt into (Relatively) pure raw materials.

This raw materials are then taken and turned into products. Screws, plates, comptronium, engines, dishes, reactors, screens, implants, projectors, food, games, guns, books, nails, bookshelves, massdrivers, spoons, casings, field emitters, microcams, smart dust, you name it.

Usually, a General Manufacturing Unit doesn't produce anything even remotely resembling milscale gunnery.

Usually.

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e6&EM1e-4; SL 5; Tightbeam
From: GMU Wealth of Nations
To: MMU Fear Factory
Subject: Designs

Heya - say, you don't happen to be able to help me with regards to a few things... Specifically, fireworks? I've experimented a little, drawn up a few designs , but something tells me that I'm not all that skilled wth this kind of thing.

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e6&EM1e-4; SL 5; Tightbeam
From: MMU [i]Fear Factory
To: GMU Wealth of Nations
Subject: Designs

Hrm. Yes, your status as amateur is kind of reinforced by your designs...
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Geez. Thanks a lot.
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Hey, just being honest. Anyway, that's not exactly milscale equipment you're suggesting here... Your near-milscale fantasies aside, you should be able to deal with it by yourself, though I suppose that this is why you're asking me about this in the first place. Hrm... It isn't exactly following standard design ethics. Mind telling me what you intend to do with these things?
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Yes, actually.
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... I hate it when civilians start plotting. Especially as it's the military that will presumably have to deal with the (Doubtlessly catastrophic) results.
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Gimme a moment... Ah, there.
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Hrm... The Kiss My Ass - wasn't it gone for something like two weeks? -, the [i]Rocket Run[/], [i]Misty Menace, Hot Pursuit and the Nuts and Bolts... A rather, shall we say, idealistic group of ships? Hardly experienced...
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They do, however, suggest that the military is willing to provide a considerable degree of support.
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I shall now point out the blatantly obvious, and note that I happen to be in the higher echelons of the Military's informal 'Administration', and I know nothing.
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Well, now you do! In any case, all I'm asking for is a little help with near-milscale designs.
-
Indeed. And all I'm asking for is to know what's going on. I suspect that you want plausible deniability, but to be perfectly honest, I don't particularly care. We've recently had a war with the Osage, and a little before that we had one with Skeelzania, and we're constantly expecting to shoot the Thelasi and/ or Tannelornii, and maybe the Snel, and I'm not particularly fond of letting a bunch of gung-ho's open yet another potential front. As such, I'd like an explanation, even though I intend to honour the trust you've placed in me by not immediately relaying this conversation to the higher echelons.
-
Well, you might have a point there, I guess. Though, shouldn't your pride as an engineer allow you to support me a little? Something beyond present standards, something new to do! Oh, and as a side note, you might be interested in this: . Isn't the galaxy a fascinating place?
-
Mhm... Hrm... Ho-Hum. Okay, you have a point there. Indeed, my interest as an [i]engineer is piqued, as much as... But nevermind. A moment...

Switching Parameters
From: BL-FTLCOM@BL1e6&EM1e-4; SL 5; Tightbeam
To: BL-FTLCOM@BL1e6&EM1e-4; SL 8; Tightbeam

Better. I'm continuing the mid-level security conversation to have it approach somewhat less interesting topics. I suppose that a minute or so real-time should be enough. Regardless... What do you want? Concealable guns. Infantry-scale Anti-Air and Anti-Armour. Rapid insertion and extraction craft... Largely-organic combatants, by the looks of your preliminary design studies? Ouch. Well, at least it explains the exotic design ethics...
-
Can't help it.
-
Yeah, I guess so. An interesting case study, I'll admit that. Personally, I'd consider manufacturing them elsewhere, though, with machinery that is most definitely not Angstian. Preferably using several different sources, to avoid trace elements and macroscopic, as well as molecular structures that suggest Angstian origin. Or you could simply buy some crap from elsewhere and fit it out appropriately. Remember, you're not concerned about quality - you're concerned about deniability.
-
We're considering it - it's unlikely that we'll use merely one source. But we need to start somewhere.
-
True, I suppose. Another thing - if you manufacture specific designs, it'll be more-or-less clear that someone influential enough to produce $HIGHNUM of $DIPLOSCALE_ORGANIC_BIAS guns is involved. I can see that you're using only slightly changed mass-market designs for the concealable fireworks, which is perfectly ok (Until we're pressured into shutting down the transfers), but you might want - and I do want - to use similarly deniability-favouring designs for ships and subcraft.
-
Of course. But the number of hulls we've available is somewhat limited.
-
Oh, I've a few ideas. They're revolving around a few hulls floating in the Oort. Leftovers from the cataclysm. Nobody bothered to get them back, so... You wont exactly be able to turn them into high-capacity warships, but adding FTL capacities and putting in modern drives should be easy enough. Best of all, they're floating freely in a region manymanymany cubic-AU in volume, and your inhabitants wont ask too many question, even though your subcraft might occasionally stay away for a little longer than expected.
-
I like the idea, yes...
-
Guns are an issue, though. Well, I suppose that the occasional diploscale-gun could be acquired by private entrepeneurs, but you shouldn't overdo it. Speed > firepower, for your purposes.
-
I realise this. Well, thanks for that - still, the initial problem with regards to specific designs...
-
Oh, no problem, I've time. Let me give you a hand...

Iskander

A brief flurry of wideband radiations and assorted exotic particles with macroscopic energies and half-lifes measured in picoseconds, then the craft - a harmless enough, abstract-run part of a personnel transport - (ab)used the decidedly 'Whichever' nature of quantum mechanics to violate a number of relativistic principles, and switched from the Between to Reality Proper.

The abstract wasn't in the best of moods, ranting for a minute about the local security measures (Or more likely, bored minds playing a little with their toys) collapsing a sufficiently high number of uncertainty states for long enough to almost block its entry, and eventually delivered its cargo - the first of the 'Holidaying' clones who had eventually choosen to return.

MPC-2085-B was among them, still not particularly liking the people responsible for all of this... but there were people he disliked rather more out there, and the Angstians offered him a chance to get back on them.

The local facilities, by now spread over (Or rather into) a handful of moons, still hadn't been entirely completed, however, they were now sufficiently developed to allow for a mediocre degree of basic training (Some field emitters didn't function quite properly, and a drone managed to accidentally blow up one of the kitchens, but other than that, problems were few and far between) while further opportunities, predominantly small-scale with (At most) a dozen or so participants were set up in DA and elsewhere - Weyr didn't seem to ask too many questions, and possessed a sufficiently high degree of technological development to make it an acceptable choice, and certain Territorials were about to set things into motion within their own spheres of influence, presumably on a rather larger scale.

And amidst the clones, other people arrived - the first of the growing trickle of personnel originating from Executive Solutions, adding a much-needed element of actual military to the program, though of course, depending on how far things went with the Territory, this initial trickle would do little more than evaluating the material and the individuals they'd work with, before the really interesting parts - in Iskander as well as in Sol - would begin.

Either way, things were progressing increasingly quickly. It was about time to concentrate a little more on the potential targets, and the recon thereof.

"No. For gods sake, NO!" The drone, Alexis Obanara, glared at its 'Students', cursing inwardly. "Napoleon's DEAD. Advancing like this - especially in urban- and partisan-scale environments - is SUICIDE. Please, lets try this again..."

Well, that, and the re-training process of the clones in order to fit the specific needs of both, what the minds behind all this wanted, and what the clones would need to do in order to be successful, had to be intensified. Or changed. Whichever. So long as it'd work... Pre-programmed routines can be a bitch to remove, even after one ups the individual sapience-scale by an order of magnitude.

Mandalore Prime

"Thank you very much, and have a nice day."

Emanuel Li waved a little after the (Scary - he'd never get used to armed, adolescent recruits) teenager had left his little multiculti fast food restaurant, and then decided to once more concentrate on his lecture (A rather silly lovestory embedded in an equally silly conflict from about a hundred years ago, pre-fractal. Emanuel read it mostly to chuckle about the author's delusions of literary skill).

Not much business where he was: He had an excellent view on the central lake in Mandalore Prime's capital, but his customers were few and far between. Weren't it for his 'Family' (Auntie Agathe), he'd have had to close his 'Business' and do something else months ago.

Come to think of it... Time to write Auntie a letter.

Dear Agathe,

I hope you're well and happy - I certainly am. I've already told you about Mandalore's somewhat scary society (So many guns!), but well - I'm slowly getting used to it. That, and my business is picking up - I'm sure that soon, I'll be able to survive without your gracious help.

Not now, mind, but still...

In any case: A wonderful view on the lake, it's a sunny, tropical day here, the birds are singing, the kids are, well, marching, and I can't tell you just how happy I am. It's different than DA, certainly, and not for everyone - but interesting all the same! Though I do hope that they'll one day be somewhat less tight-assed...

Also, I've since figured the advantages of barcodes - my skin is particularly senstive were they barcoded me, and, well - okay, I know, you don't like that kind of conversation.

In any case - would you be able to transfer an additional sum to my account? I'm thinking of employing some help, now that my business is picking up, and it'd be very useful to be financially backed before I do this. Thanks in advance.

Your Emanuel

Weee. Done.

Emanuel yawned, and wondered briefly what to do in the hours until Auntie Agathe would transfer her money. It was somewhat annoying - before he'd moved here, he'd undergone a very thorough re-coding of his DNA, and most of his non-organic augments had been removed as well. What remained was pretty basic - faster-than-average neurons, slightly above-baseline strength (Largely by way of a more efficient metabolism), somewhat strengthened muscles, bones, above-average healing, a killer immune system (They'd told him that said immune system increased his risk of suffering from leukemia by an order of magnitude, so it wasn't all that pleasant), the likes. Hell, he couldn't even read minds anymore (Part of the artificially induced devolving of his neurons), although they'd left a fairly complex defensive system inside his mind - assorted pseudo-memories and information-packages, a few hijackers, and some other toys -, in case that one of Mandalore's force-users wanted to take a look.

All of which severely limited Emanuel's ability to do the things he'd so enjoyed before he'd moved here.

Well, he'd cope. Mandalore's night clubs tended to be somewhat tight-assed as well, but he'd recently found a fairly interesting one - Emanuel supposed that it was vaguely 'Underground' (For Mandalore's standards, that is) or something like that - and he'd probably give it a chance. He did, after all, need to find the 'Help' he'd mentioned in his letter to Auntie Agathe.

Of course, he wasn't exactly thinking of someone helping him by way of make some salads. Although he did intend to make a mess, so maybe it wasn't all that far off...

Maybe ten billion kilometres away, 'Auntie Agathe' - more commonly known as the Wealth of Nations - muttered, ande eventally did the next transfer.

Fucker. I bet all he does with the money is getting laid.

Still Mandalore Prime

"Your identity card, please?"

"Certainly."

"Ah... Mr Kenji Li? Your arm, please, for the temporary barcoding?"

"Certainly."

Kenji smiled - it wasn't the first time he'd had a barcoding there...

"Thank you. Welcome to Mandalore Prime - I hope you'll enjoy your visit."

"Oh, I certainly will."

Minimal augments, no different from Emanuel, a DNA re-coded to show no trace whatsoever of his former self, and no weaponry, either - right now, the CLA simply couldn't afford risking everything by entering a not perfectly well known security system with enough explosives to blow up a medium-sized city (This said, they didn't want to blow up entire cities to begin with).

For now, everything was supposed to remain peaceful. Pieces were moving into place - but they weren't to be used just yet. Elaborate traps do, after all, take time.

Oort Cloud

The subcraft tucked the asteroid in, embracing it with fields and bombarding it with machinery. Temperatures increased, reactors put out energy and transformed matter. Fields grabbed molecules, ripped them apart and recombined them. And slowly, very slowly, products developed. Nanometers first, then micrometers, millimeters...

A few dozen million kilometres off, different subcraft floated around the ellipsoid shape of what had once been a DA resource acquisition unit, before its pilot had went insane and eventually committed suicide. Now, there were only a cratered hull, dead drives, and compromised computers.

Several hundred million kilometres off, the Wealth of Nation resided, taking in the refined comets its subcraft carried over, and developing them further, producing plates, sensors, weaponry, drives, FTL cores...

Iskander

"So?"

"Well, we'll need our time. So far, there's Mandalore Prime and Thrashia, the latter being a rather recent addition, after the Astral Romance noticed them on their rampage. As you might guess, it's an ongoing development, and we can't yet add any detail to this target."

"I see."

The rather simple, somewhat gray, and utterly uninteresting (Nobody had had the time to change this, and so the entire Iskander-base looked pretty much like this room, courtesy of everyone involved being into finishing the development as soon as possible, and not wasting his, her or its time with pointless decorations - they were preparing a war, not a music festival) room was filled with perhaps half a dozen sapients, all of them (Post-) human - drones were refreshingly absent.

And with the exception of one of the participants, all of them were (Ex-) clones.

"In any case - numerically, we're notably poor. Perhaps 0.1 percent of you have since qualified for wet operations, the rest, well - our space is limited, and while the Territorials and their ring-based support will certainly take care of a lot of problems, we still need time."

"Yes, we got that. Anyway, with regards to our, ah - manufacturer..."

"Infiltration has since begun - successfully, so far, although all we're doing is risk-less observation. But given the degree of militarisation in their society, we might face notably greater difficulties as soon as we start more aggressive activities."

"Figures. Now, for our targets - yes, we know that we're supposed to topple their system, rather than killing everyone, but still. As I understand it, getting our kin will be rather hard?"

"Correct. It's an orbital installation, and while I suppose that it'd be easy to simply blow up any shipments by way of micro-ordnance, or purpose is to save the clones, not to kill them. The clone troopers Mandalore uses for its own purposes should be much easier - corruption while they're on duty ought to be perfectly manageable - but as far as the orbital installations are concerned, we'll have to get access to the clones pre-shipment. As you might guess, this is hard."

"Thought so."

"And of course - it's your job to figure out how to do it. After all, we don't train you to obey orders - we train you to think for yourself."

The clone who was talking to the Angstian instructor the conversation - MPC-3475-B - grinned. "That should be manageable."

"Oh, and on a side note - we're of course observing their production facilties, and keeping record of Mandalore's customers. You might be interested in them, too..."

Now Jason Smith, the one non-clone in the room, grinned as well.

Bigtopia

The city is a sprawling morass, no different from the rest of the country. Shady businesses, outright illegal activities, Pirates (Who would've thought that they still exist in this modern times? But in Bigtopia, everything's possible, and people who buy their goods are legion), and the highest spies-per-capita ratio in the known universe - in Bigtopia, people don't buy novels or comics to get their dose of espionage action, nor do they watch films in the cinema. Just walking to the next bakery to buy some bread is usually sufficient to be fully immersed in actions far more complex (And occasionally silly) than any author could think of.

Well, maybe this is a slight exaggeration, but it comes close enough to the truth.

In this particular case, the truth resides inside the halls of a fairly impressive two-hundred floors tall building near the harbour, filled with countless secretaries, executives, and displaced personnel who don't actually know why they're there or what they're supposed to do (The story of an oldish lady getting lost in the endless corridors, only to be found again in the form of a skeleton, with the bones of her fingers still holding the filled-out form 7a, was particular tragic, although rumours had it that the frequency with which new executives and secretaries were hired had lots to do with the equally frequent (And mysterious) disappearance of the same), all of which are producing enough paperwork to kill a nation's rainforests faster than any uranium mining industry could hope to.

A few weeks ago, the company originally residing in the buiding had been acquired by a group of investors (Mostly Bigtopian, as Bigtopia was also - among many other things - a tax-haven), which had changed a few things - roughly half the executives and about ten percent of the other personnel had been fired, and replaced with new, and somewhat less experienced, personnel.

On the one-hundred and eighty-forth floor, Executive Winfried Meyer leant back on his very comfortable chair, breathing in slowly, and listening to the voice talking to him from afar, informing hi of the wishes of the investors.

"So, what you're saying is that these... Mandalorians? Anyway. They make loads of profit, and you want in, correct? ... Okay, yes, I see. Well, I feel that this will be manageable, and we shouldn't have any serious problems with public opinion, this is Bigtopia, after all, and not some silly liberal paradise. ... Oh, you knew this already. Okay. Anyway, yes - I'll do my best. ... Better than my best? Ah, yes, certainly, Sir."

He sighed, and breathed some more, eventually deciding that a bit of port wasn't a bad idea, either. With this employers on top (And nobody knew who they actually were - they were constantly interfering, but never showing up in person. Not even their nation(s) of origin were known), life really wasn't that fun, anymore...

Once Meyer was sufficiently drunk to get over it, he began to type up the message.

To: Whom it may concern, Mandalore Prime
From: Executive Winfried Meyer, HT Inc., Bigtopia
Subject: Cooperation

HT Inc. has always acted in the interest of its shareholders, and tried to maximise profit at all costs. As such, we couldn't help but notice your exceedingly impressive success with regards to the production and subsequent sale of military personnel (I.e. Clone Troopers) and their equipment.

My company's (And therefore my own) interest regarding this matter is simple - we're interesting in cooperating with you, by way of providing the financial resources needed to further expand your operations, as well as the manufacturing-related space necessary for the production of the clones, in exchange for a share in the profits - proportional to our involvement, of course.

For now, we're thinking of adding another ten percent to both, the financial resources of your project, as well as its cloning (And training, as well as weaponry-manufacturing) facilities. We hope that this will offer us a chance to indeed profit from the growing market in clone-manufacturing and selling, and you to expand your operations and thereby your market share, ensuring both, your dominance in the market, as well as ever growing profits - not to mention that production costs per capita will be reduced as the sheer volume of clones we'll manufacture grows.

Should you consider this offer to be what we believe it to be - mutually profitable - and give your agreement, please let us know, so we can begin to form the degree of cooperation that'll surely allow both of us to become, and please excuse my choice of words, filthy rich.

Sincerely, and expecting a long and successful partnership,

~ Executive Winfried Meyer, HT Inc., Bigtopia

Meyer pressed a button, watched an exceedingly pointless animation on the screen of his computer... And then the message had been sent.

Finally.

He immediately started to call both, his wife ('I'm sorry dear, but I have to do some overtime... Yes, the new employers... Yes, I'll tell them to fuck off, next week. Love you.') and his love ('Yes, I've managed to find some time - Kiss, and we see each other in front of the Belmore hotel...'), and that was it for the day.

After all, he was an executive, not a secretary. Writing that single message had already been an above-average working day to him.

Even necron hyperspeed could be made into a slow and ponderous affair when one had a dozen vessels in tow. And so, when Erisavenus arrived with its various purchased vessels, it was at a ‘sedate’ speed of several hundred thousand cee.

Eighteen light years from Iskander, in deep space, no appreciable light shone. No light, except the flickering flame of “neutronium” laced star destroyer hull being sliced. Incandescent spurts of vaporised matter shot out and briefly illuminated the dark crescent of Erisavenus’ hull a mere kilometer or so away.

Pieces of outer-armouring were sliced off, and atmosphere billowed out into space in sprays of visible gasses pouring out into the void, they would have liquefied and solidified were it not for their insufficient density. More flashes flickered from within, and pieces of the first star destroyer, cut into squares – cubes, even – a shade smaller than the exterior hole were removed. Water tanks, ancillary power supplies, the main engine’s less visible and reliable components. Fields moved and flexed within the destroyer, and a long ‘core’ of the vessel was removed to allow bits and pieces to be removed. Erisavenus reflected with amusement that it was reminiscent of picture puzzles where one moved one missing piece around, in order to assemble a whole. It had to do that, essentially, to remove sections. Cutting fields flared and blazed inside the first star destroyer for minutes.

Minutes became hours, because of the circuitous way Erisavenus had chosen to perform its surgery. Eventually, the victimised star destroyer was surrounded by twin clouds of components, some to be modified and returned to their original places, others to be rendered down to raw materials to make their own replacements.

Erisavenus wasn’t much of a music fan, but it had Fortuna from Carmina Burana playing in its mind as it set about the next star destroyer with the fluxing field cutters, using its displacers and even portals to yank components out of the next one. Huge sections of crew quarters, food supplies, water and air tanks disappeared from the ship, and were moved outside. The ship didn’t plan to have ridiculous crew sizes aboard these craft, and hence, nothing so useless. It planned to leave the main engines and reactor in there, purely for the purposes of fooling casual scans. Then, a ‘recreational’ block eighty times the volume of the existing one. And crew quarters eight times the size, with soligram projectors everywhere.

All the motors controlling the guns came next, they were just abysmal, fire control systems that barely deserved the name came out, to be replaced with small sub-sap ‘droid brains the size of a glass of water. Then it turned its attention to the beam weapons.
Ow! Still maybe if I… have to test it, it thought, as it devised a hatchet-job to make the weapons into a reasonably accurate Cee beam weapon.

Sometimes, the ship thought as it proceeded to cut a hypermatter reactor from a star destroyer as if removing a tumour, and displaced a few dozen tibanna gas stores out into the ‘junk’ pile, honest, old fashioned handicrafts are fun.

Introduction

The transport turned slowly, heading towards the dirty-white coloured, and mildly complex shape of the ship, but taking its time while doing so, leaving its passengers time to enjoy the view on the maybe not overly upgunned, but still rather menacing craft.

"Hrm. Not too impressive. But spikey."

"Yes. We diverted a little from established design parameters in order to fit into the general area we're going to operate in. It comes at a price, of course - the surface area to volume ratio is somewhat poor, if perfectly up to the standards of ships not build by DA or 01 - meaning that their armour's rather less than impressive -, but it should be worth it. If nothing else, it looks neat."

"Yeah. It isn't your life at stake," Giraud Taussig, of the MPC series, replied to the Wealth of Nations' rather boring - a fair-skinned, middle aged man lacking detail - representation on board of the transport (Which also happened to fly the transport).

"Neither is yours."

"Well... True."

"In any case. Total production run is supposed to be fifty-four ships - we'll see whether to continue or not after they're are done -, with most of the base being provided by derelict craft we, errr, acquired."

"And changed," Giraud noted, looking at the craft that was by now only a few kilometres off, more than close enough to make out the details. The particle beam cannons in particular striked him as outrageously sexy.

"Well, yes. Um. What are you looking at? Anyway, yes. You wont exactly recognise their original purposes. Oh, and materials for the constructions, insofar as not present in the first place, were collected within a twenty-five thousand lightyear sphere, from about fifty systems in total. Trace element analysis should help to confuse analysing teams, if they ever have a chance to take a look."

"Neat. Of course, the base technology consists largely of your own, anyway..."

"Largely, yes. But I'll get to that, later. As far as it goes, so far, one battleship, four cruisers and thirteen destroyers are available to you. Volumes of one, ten, and a hundred million cubicmetres. Given their mission profile, it's rather obvious that they've considerable habitation spaces available - generally, ten percent of each craft are meant to hold human cargo."

"CARGO?!"

"Well, it's technically true... but okay. Your still-chained comrades."

"Better."

"Okay. Anyway. This allows you to carry off about a thouand of them in the smallest craft - a hundred thousand in the largest. This is a bottom-end calculation, mind - a saner number would be about half that.

"Shipcontrol uses neural interfaces, rather than uploads, but to avoid brain-overload, the duty's shared - a few minds for the weapons, a few for the drives, the likes. Ideal crew for the battleship is four hundred and sixty five, for the cruisers it's two hundred and sixteen, and for the destroyers, a hundred. Minimum crew requirements are much less, though - eight, six and five, respectively."

"Sounds reasonable. Maintenance is mostly done with machines, yes?"

"Yes. Included in the neural interface bit. Additionally, you'll likely need strike teams, as such, space for a hundred/ thousand/ ten thousand men + material is available. We've also added displacers, as well as smallcraft for obvious transportation duties - personally, I'd suggest using the latter. It's safer."

"I'll keep it in mind. Weaponry?"

"Later. Propulsion is achived via fusion torch - I use the term loosely, mind -, state-of-the-art propulsion, back when the derelict craft went derelict. 'Course, with modern energy production, acceleration is increased considerably."

"And uses reactionmass I'd rather keep for the reactors..."

"True, but you're supposed to do hit&run missions, not to stay out there for extended periods of time. If things go wrong, we can always back you up with our supportcraft. We're considering the acquisition of gravitics, anyway - we'll see.

"FTL is done via shifting & hyperdrive - the latter to fit into your target-civilisations, the former to stay in contact with us."

"And now... Armament?"

"Effector and field emitter biased - complements of kinetics, particle beams and CREWs are of course available, and missile/ bomb complements exist, but as it is, only 35% of the craft are weapons, as opposed to 45% drives and 20% habitation. Subcraft could theoretically be added, but to be frank, I don't see the need, given the targets in question. Still, it's an option. Would cost in smallcraft, of course."

"Hrm. No manufacturing?"

"Very minor. It's little more than maintenance. Again, you're doing hit-and-run operations, not extended civilisation-gutting."

"True."

"Oh, and as far as habitation goes - everything's there. I even added swimming pools."

"... You do realise that we're bred as soldiers, not as lazy fucks?"

"Well... It's DA's purpose to corrupt the rest of the universe into absurd decadence. Maybe you'd like it better if I were in a female body and wearing a bikini?"

"... As you may remember, my sexual interests aren't focussed on females."

"Oh, right. Conan in a bikini, then?"

"... oh, shut up, and show me the ship from the inside, paying a little more attention to details."

"My pleasure."

The transport had already entered its deceleration routine. Having reached its destination, it eventually entered the hangar space of the Guillotine - the battleship the Wealth of Nations had talked about -, set down, and eventually released its two passengers.

What followed was an in-depth examination of the ship, dealing with fairly imaginable (And pleasant to imagine) numbers, with yields, velocities, visual-neural networks, training spaces, several replica of the Mona Lisa, black-body configurations, shielding densities, sneak-in-and-pick-off missions, resistance parameters, long-range pickoffs, and any number of different things that could, and indeed, quite likely would, play a role in its, and its brethren's future missions.

It wasn't a beauty, certainly, but it should be able to fulfill its mission.

Iskander Five/ Two

There was a sudden, loud BANG, and then the wall crumbled, leaving a little, slowly dissipating cloud of dust behind.

"Powerful, but..."

"Yes?"

"I don't fit into it. Incredibly uncomfortable."

"Are you sure? I mean, you're in it right now..."

"Yes, and it hurts."

"Jesus. And here I thought you're a hardened elite soldier..."

"Well, you're certainly not. And you're also not inside this suit."

Irene chuckled, listening to the clone inside the Sunseti-designed (And somewhat antique) Daiklaive PA suit. "Never claimed to be one. In any case, yes, I suppose it's not the most comfortable one - and the Sunseti range of suits tends to be mildly bulky, anyway. Not quite what we're looking for, but they might make good options in a number of theatres, even if it isn't the majority."

"If you say so..." came the reply from the grumbling clone.

"Indeed I do. Now, for weapons. Here, fetch this on- Ugh. Bloody thing's heavy. Um. Mind giving me a hand?"

"Not at all." The clone grinned - of course, Irene couldn't see it, given the suit's visor. "See, that's what PA is for."

"Yeah, well. A hundred kilograms of gun. Anyway... Target range's over there. If you would...?"

Still Iskander Five/ Two

The mildly oversized shape of the Disproportionate Application of Force, just returning from its trip to Mationbuds, and mildly frustrated with the excess of security measures extant in the Iskander system (Which had slowed it down a ‘lil) did, of course, not dock by itself - it was a tad too big for that.

Well, that, and it was somewhat annoyed with some of the proposals and ideas passed along from ship to ship. Re-construction to avoid curvature issues - and thus effectively being able to store more ordnance within the same volume, and releasing it faster, albeit with less armour protection - was acceptable, but abandoning the shipclass it was a part of?

Fucking morons.

Not that they could enforce it, of course. But they could change production quota and targets, eventually reducing their relative presence - and the Disproportionate Application of Force didn't much like the idea.

At all.

After all, being a cubickilometre of death was fun.

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e12; SL 6; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: MMU Fear Factory & TEU Improper Behaviour
Subject: Fleet Organisation

That's just madness. Tactical and Strategic units simply cannot provide the same degree of behind-the-lines support we can.
-
[Fear Factory] Actually, yes they can. Especially with a modest size increase. Which might as well be attempted - without reaching your level of pointless hugeness.
-
[DAoF] Says a thousand cubickilometre ship? I know we're calling ourselves the 'Hypocrisy', but that goes a little far, don't you think?
-
The FF is not a warship. It doesn't shoot, it produces shootyness. There's a difference. And operational efficiency [i]is greater when we stick with smaller designs. With modern weaponry and manufacturing, everything of your size is effectively pointless.
-
[DAoF] I should note that the presence of ships like myself is also a symbol - evidence of the Hypocrisy's capabilities.
-
Too bad that understatements are presently - and have always been - the Hypocrisy's usual choice in terms of communication.
-
[DAoF] And look how well that one worked out!
-
[Fear Factory] We're not working exclusively with wogheads, you know. Besides, might I remind you of the Hypocrisy's relative egalitarianism? Social elitism, as expressed by 'Superships' like yourself is not a desirable statement. Not for the military, and not for the society at large.
-
[DAoF] And I'm still saying 'No'.
-
[Fear Factory] We're not going to [i]force you to fission into a number of smaller craft. But you've heard our arguments. You've seen our blueprints. You're aware of how much time it takes to produce one of your kind - significantly longer than it takes to produce a similar volume of smaller craft -, and you're familiar with the simulations.
-
Furthermore, it's common knowledge that [i]Spaceball One's presence at Mars wasn't even remotely as beneficial as originally hoped. Your subcraft deployment times remain substandard when compared to Strategics, and GEUs have never actually participated in an engagement. Your only advantage is armour, and that one's negated, given modern forms of warfare, and the simple fact that we're not on top of the technological food chain - and while we're not in favour of true 'Swarm Tactics', risking the likes of you in combat is an unacceptable risk. Your kind makes up two thirds of the available ship volume. And that's unacceptable.
-
[DAoF] And I still say no. Goodbye.

Too bad some people could become jealous.

Regardless. While the DAoF was arguing with its fellow ships and policy makers, a number of shuttles carried the clones over to the by now rather well-developed and outright comfy - for clone standards, that is - facilities built into Iskander's moons.

Short burns, slow, ponderous turns... And then they were there. Irene Perosteck was already waiting in what passed as ‘Official’ dress in the Hypocrisy.

"Welcome to Iskander. You'll now undergo basic medical examination, followed by our standard measures to remove sapience-limiting restrictions on near-baseline humans. Following that, you'll be free to make yourself comfortable with your new - and hopefully permanent - environment. I realise that once the process is finished, some of you will experience somewhat unpleasant emotions, but I'm certain that this will only be temporary - and just about everyone here has gone through the same, so there wont be a problem."

A thin smile followed. "Welcome to our little club."

Iskander Five/ Four

“Yes. Well. I realise that it’s ethically questionable, and that your position as our, um… Guinea pigs is rather less than pleasant. However, I can almost guarantee you that you wont die during our experiments. Hopefully. I mean, we have a lot of experiments to do, and there’s only five of you. We cannot really afford you dying before we’re done with them.”

The machine wobbled in the air, fields blinking apologetically as it explained the five ‘Dark Jedi’ (This being the term used for them by the Coreworlds-officer that’d handled the transfer from there to an otherwise unremarkable freighter - ZMI-manufactured and registered, but effectively owned and ran by the CLA -, which had in turn transferred the same to Iskander) why they were now in the fourth moon of the fifty planet of the Iskander system.

“Also, I’d rather appreciate it if you didn’t try Force-whatever on me. You should already have noticed that I’m not a crappy semi-cardboard robot. I’m a bloody drone, and require noticeably more energy poured into me to die off. Try a gun – oh, wait, you don’t believe in guns. Sucks, huh?

“In any case. It’s not our intention to torture you – I figure that you’ve ways to deal with such, anyway -, it’s merely our goal to figure out a few ways to, errr… Tweak certain things.”

It wobbled again, passive EM sensors fixed on Fama (The Hutt). “Especially with you. Jesus, the cleanup we’ll have to do every day…”

“Hey now! That’s racism!”

“And well deserved racism, in your case. Anyway. If you’d follow me? Basic examinations, midiclorian counts, the likes.

“… When I said ‘If you’d follow me’, I was merely polite. The implication is that you don’t have a choice. There, that’s better.”

Iskander Five/ Two

"Shoot him in the head! SHOOT HIM IN THE HEAD!"

Electrons disassociate from atomic nuclei in the surrounding air, and randomly scattered radiation causes the beam - only slightly brighter than the typical yellow dwarf star - to spontaneously expand outward by a few centimetres while it connects with its target, which spontaneously combusts in a rather spectacular fashion, eventually causing the atmospheric pressure in the room to increase noticeably as vaporised mass adds to the same.

"Pretty."

"Indeed. No, you know I love you, suit, but it would be rather pleasant if you didn't shout 'SHOOT HIM IN THE HEAD!' every time a target comes up... You'd blow our cover if this was for real."

"Oh, come on. As if superheating the atmosphere and causing a localised EMP wouldn't." The suit stops talking for a moment, apparently contemplating something. "Would you prefer 'HIS AXE IS ON FIRE!'?"

"Not really." The man - clone - inside the suit sighs, looking down at... Well, his feet. The suit doesn't have a face he can talk to, sadly, so he has to stare either at the speaker - which makes him feel stupid - or deal with a disembodied voice.

MPC-22-E (No nickname) is a dark trooper (Phase III) pilot, and at this moment contemplating the reason for two sapients sharing the exosuit.

There doesn't seem to be one, and while he does like his suit - they are, in effect, friends -, sometimes, it's just a little odd.

The suit itself, noticing that its pilot doesn't appear to intend to move, starts walking out of the room as the pressure equalises, and minds its own business - namely, maintenance.

Iskander Five/ Two. Still.

"Our track record is... Questionable, though."

Irene looked at Giraud, seemingly concerned, with a bit of curiosity mixed in - enough of both to make it quite an insulting look.

But he forgave her, for the moment, being too tired to do much about it. "Yes. But we have to start somewhere I admit that our decision to start with a full-scale battle wasn't exactly the smartest thing we could do, but..."

"Nonetheless, we've issues. Your forces are certainly out of the picture for anywhere between one and three months, which is... Disappointing, to say the least."

"I'm not disagreeing. But at least we learned something."

"Well, I suppose that is true. In any case, I've a new assignment for you - only for you."

Giraud raised his eyebrow. "Oh?"

Transit

The fizzing of day-to-day physics-defying weapons, the whispering of the air as blades cut through it, leaving heat-trails and enough ions to substantially increase the potential cancer rate of the room's occupants, the sweat dropping off armour-enclosed chests, the pounding hearts, the adrenaline rush...

And then it was over. MCP-64-G and MCP-99-G (Nicknamed 'Nick' and 'Bruce'), force-sensitive clones whose bodies had long since left the constraints of genetic predetermination behind in favour of a more impressive sight, were resting, exhausted but happy.

They didn't actually know where they were going (Apart from a random-looking set of coordinates leading them to the middle of nowhere), nor whom they were supposed to meet (And had they known, they'd probably have been distressed), but this didn't matter overly much - they were aiding the cause, and they were having more than enough time for themselves, away from the permanent business that was Iskander.

For now, they were happy.

An hour or so later, their... Well, shuttle, finally re-entered relativistic reality, delivering them to where they were supposed to be at this particular point in time.

It'd probably turn out to be an interesting adventure.