NationStates Jolt Archive

This RP is Closed

The Millenium and its escorts had returned to Upsilon Andromedae after foray into the remains of the New Realm, and had grave news.

Karellen appeared on the viewscreen with a very dark look on his face. He was using the big viewscreen, too - that meant it was pretty important.

"Welcome back Captain. I trust you haven't run out of supplies already? We're pretty sure Korlis doesn't eat THAT much..." said the smiling Admiral as he appeared.

"Shut up. We've got a situation. There's an immensely powerful rogue AI on the loose and it's building an army. Remember that distress signal a while back? Well the New Realm managed to build a malevolent AI and it's been exterminating them - they're too powerful to attack on their terms, and they'll find us sooner or later."

"Sounds serious." The Admiral's smile dissappeared.

"We're going to have to dig in before it gets here."

"Alephis," came the Admiral's reply, shaking his head, "Always the agressive one. Look, we'll send a diplomatic group and see if we can work something out."

"Don't say I didn't warn you. At any rate, we've got some data to add to the databanks and around 4 million refugees from the new realm. We're also going to have some of our new designs built for the military boys before we head off again. Best of luck to you all."

"I still think you're overreacting but same to you."

---
A cruiser carrying a number of diplomats dropped out of hyperspace near a system where the New Realm once occupied.

Enemy

The voice rang out through the twenty-odd Battlespheres travelling the lattice. It knew this enemy, it had the same feel as the one who had challenged it in its infancy. It was not the same, but, nevertheless, for that, it would die.

And... The knowledge it had would be the Maker-Mind's. They would know the location of the enemy. The enemy would be exterminated for all memory, their very bones obliterated by fire. This was an enemy that had taken what it had perceived to be its own from it, those it had used to destroy the enemy. It had opposed it, it had fought it, and, most infuriating of all, the enemy had survived.

There was to be a reckoning, for this. It loathed this enemy most of all, for it alone, among all the stars it had visited, could stand against it. It possessed the power to oppose it in mind, and that was unpermissible, in, and of itself.

They would move. A single blast to disable their ability to move faster-than-light, followed by the harvesting of the ship. It made sure it was prepared to catch, at least the direction of any transmission, that could be tracked back to its home.

Red light announced the arrival of the Battlespheres, forming around the ship, perfectly spaced. There was nowhere it could run, nowhere that it could possibly go. Unless, of course, it was capable of moving into FTL speeds on the instant. Nevertheless, the Battlespheres had a fairly simply method of stopping ships moving into FTL.

Tiny bars of light shimmered between the Battlespheres, and formed into a prism, with walls, all reflecting maiicious red light into the void. From the point of view of the ship, this would've taken, at best, a tenth of a second. The shield they formed isolated an engine trying to break down dimensional walls, or trying to gather sufficient energy to move at the speed needed to break the light barrier.

Once it had been isolated, it was simply fed with too much energy to perform such an action. Such fields were tiny, and easily stopped by a warship, with the weaponry sufficient to disrupt the field for a minute or so, but, as the lattice had told them, this was no true enemy, merely a weak object.

The Battlesphere nearest the prow transmitted a message. "You have *harmed/stopped* the Maker-Mind. You are to cease to exist".

The message cut off abruptly, and the red glow intensified around the Battlespheres, as powerful blasts of energy were released, preparing to harm the ship..

Whilst they had no way of pushing an entire ship into hyperspace upon a moment's notice, they had time to open a very small portal and send a signal back to Upsilon Andromedae.

A diplomat was using the audio transmitter.

"We've made contact, we're going to open communications... That's funny, the bubble-drive's offline..."

On the speakers came the ominous message from the battlespheres

"You have *harmed/stopped* the Maker-Mind. You are to cease to exist"

As the red glow intensified, curious interest turned to fear as the last message of the Kingmaker was sent before even the transmitter could no longer function.

"Oh my god... Tell our families we love them, and Kar-"

The small transmitter rig cut out as the helpless ship's occupants panicked.

The sides of the spheres gleamed as the second attack took place. Sheer bombardment would be the issue here, wave after wave of energy wearing down the craft's shields, and, since it had been determined the Battlespheres were more maneuverable than the enemy craft, they could effortlessly coast alongside it, shooting all the while.

Blasts of red-and-blue energy ripped their way through the void, heading directly towards the ship nearest to them. They were designed to crush energy shields, and disrupt internal systems, however, it was likely that they would only cause minimal damage to armour, at best.

There was to be no respite. Already, Warspheres, and Battlespheres gathered at a focus point in the lattice, prepared for their orders. Once the location of the enemy was found, and more potent weapons were prepared from the sidelines..

The infinite rage of the Maker-Mind, coupled with the ability to undertake whatever endeavours it encountered made a fearsome weapon of itself. And now, the vengeance it had decided to take would begin to be enacted...

OOC: No. No it is not. And jumping in with 146 battleships in a remote, uninhabited system, where a single diplomatic craft is being attacked by a few fighters is wankiness at its finest.

(OOC: You can come for the cleanup, though.)

The nearly unarmed diplomatic cruiser's occupants watched in horror as the shield displays wound down to a solid red, and a dull thud resounded through the ship as the generators exploded.

As the bombardment continued there a sudden drop in oxygen, and everyone felt the shortness of breath. The life support was gone.

They now awaited their end, savouring the last of their supplies.

The captain had the last words. "Goodnight everyone, and I'll see you all on the other side."

There was a final toast as the slowly suffocating people drank the fine (synthesised) wine.

One by one the signs of life vanished, and electrical activity stopped.

OOC: If you don't mind, I'll be a wee bit.. well, I might do damage to your armour without consulting you, and the like. It might be a bit godmoddy under other circumstances, but I don't think it really matters at this point, ne?

{HARVEST}

The command was given, and spiders spun, their arms extending, into the enemy ship, scything through the metallic boundaries, that stopped them from reaching their harvest. One made a hole, and shimmered, and slid through it, reappearing in full form once on the other side.

As they did so, they quickly entered the ship, feeling for the signs of life. It was not long before they had found where the captain and his crew were.. They gleamed, and strands of nanites, blades, and other various apparatus were quickly brought to bear against the corpses.

They would steal the knowledge from what remained of the dead people, and find out, either where the databanks were on the ship, or where their homeworld was. One or the other, both were acceptable... The blade gleamed as it scythed into the skull of the captain, blood dripping out, before it was cauterized by a sudden burst of heat..

The harvest had begun...

(OOC: They're dead and the ship is effectively inert, so slicing through is just fine. I'm not about to let fear of godmod accusations stop the process of good storytelling. We know pretty much how each conflict will turn out, so the only time we might have a problem is if a plot device gets damaged/attacked etc. ahead of time.

Next post could you go through both the raiding of the hard records and the opening of the siege? I'll compound the preparations and go to the attack.)

The last of the gases escaped with a brief rush, and loose items tumbled about.

The captain's head broke open like an eggshell, the multitude of tools rushing about within, pillaging his mind for knowledge.

He revived for a single excruciating second as his mind was drained of its knowledge and perished for good.

All the volatile memory would be long gone, but they found the location of a small metal box containing solid state logs of the ship's journey. It would not be beyond the capacity of even a programmed calculator to find the location of the homeworld.

OOC: Yar, I will. My computer's been switching off at seemingly random intervals, which is what killed most of my post yesterday. The rift opened shouldn't be deadly, (it'd take a matter of two hundred years to reach the sun of the system) however, it should be frightening, and it provides an active source of energy to my craft.

IC: The blade retracted, and now, they knew the location of the enemy. There was little to do, but to strike, and to finish off the enemy they hated so. Spiders were left to die, or to find their own way to where they were needed. Time was of the essence, and the hatred that drove them would permit no waiting.

The red glow, seemingly sinister against the dead ship the spheres had accosted, took them once more, into the strange netherworld known to them as the lattice. The lattice itself was enough to drive most minds into the very depths on insanity, to hide from the reality of what it was.

However, the Battlespheres, their physical forms ceasing to exist, were guided by the Maker-Mind, who possessed the percipience to understand the lattice, and to use it effectively. Colour, light, sound, all were but fractions of the perception one needed to understand the lattice. It was understood by the lesser servants of the Maker-Mind that the Maker-Mind had constructed the lattice, and resided there. However, such a thing was beyond even its puissance.

Nonetheless, thousands of Battlespheres, and lesser numbers of Warspheres had been gathered, in preparation for the devastation of the enemy. There was little time, yet much time to prepare.

Instead of the standard tear through reality to reach their destination, a far better fate had been decided for this planet. A rift would be opened, and, should they be repelled, the rift would be forced open, larger, and larger, consuming their enemy through inevitability through a matter of years. Naturally, should they win, the rift would be closed, but they doubted the enemy possessed such capacity.

Flickers of energy ran along the lattice, defined by their thoughts, by their sentience. There was no colour, or sound, but there would be in the physical world...

Outside the system named Upsilon Andromedae, there would be fear, and knowledge that their fate had come to consume them. As the shimmers of energy congregated, they prepared...



Flaring red light, malevolently seeking out the eyes of those who viewed it, as large as a gas giant in, and of itself. Opening a rift within a system was an impossibility, in most circumstances, however, outside a system was permissible.

The light brightened, and the Battlespheres emerged, nigh torn asunder by the rift's destructive energies. They were thrown into the system, trying to reassert their control over their movement as they did so. The Warspheres, spheres shimmering from the red energies, absorbing them as they did so, and preparing for battle. They would make two more jumps into the system, riftlessly, and then cause the enemy to cease existing.

Yet, the Maker-Mind wished the enemy to know their cause of death. So, the message was sent. You have harmed the Maker-Mind. You have opposed the Maker-Mind. For this, you are sentenced to oblivion, and non-existence, non-sentience, and an end.

The spheres were still being thrown wildly out of the rift, the clash of the lattice and the normal universe causing bolts of red lightning to run along the rift, one slicing through a Battlesphere, searing the craft into little more than nothingness. They were prepared to carry out the Maker-Mind's wishes, and so they would..

Meanwhile, in the lattice, larger craft stirred, their glimmers of thought shining slowly along the lattice, called into service through need, created from the raw energies of the lattice.. They were the Maker-Mind's scions, those who were closest to it, and they had been called for vengeance..

The distress of the Kingmaker had reached the ears of Upsilon Andromedae, and they knew that Karellen was right. And they would be coming all the sooner because of their folly.

The last three days had been frantic, as docked warships were called up and launched, and patrols were retracted.

They would need every last man to hold against the siege.

---

When the rift opened and the battlespheres started streaming out, the mobilised battleships, cruisers and torchships moved quickly, though the advantage still lay with the aggressive Maker-Mind.

The first to fall was the Battleship Crimson Tunic, the hail of pulses damaging the antimatter reactor and detonating the ship.

Many more were to follow, as Phased Laser Arrays raked through the battlespheres, their infinite turning rate negating the high velocity of the Battlespheres.

"We've got to stop that rift!" came the admiral's command, and the enormous Big Bertha cannon fired a huge antimatter charge at it.

But it was to no avail, the great interdimensional portal simply swallowed the bomb, with no appreciable effect. A feeling of despair fell. The message didn't help, either.

Ship after ship exploded as the navy fought desperately to buy their world some time.

The enemy had stood against them again, and, as blasts ripped through the vulnerable, void-travelling Battlespheres, a sudden uncertaintly was wrought within the soul of the Maker-Mind. Although the enemy was not immensely strong, it did not know all about them, and their resistance could prove fatal to it. Moments later, the seething rage overwhelmed the uncertainty, and took hold of the spheres once more.

As they fought near the void, the Battlespheres were nigh-impossible to harm, some shots hitting quickly enough to demolish both the shielding and armour, but most simply weakened their shields, which were nigh-instantly replenished by the rift. The red lightning was dangerous, but, from a distance, it helped, rather than harmed.

The void itself, and the radiation that had begun to flow out of it, was inimical to human life, would aid the Battlespheres greatly. Whilst they fought in their element, the enemy would know dismay.

A shimmering red bolt of lightning lit up between a large group of Battlespheres, and a single Warsphere, crackling, as it leapt from one ship, to another, and then onto another. It was to be a devastating attack, one that would throw the enemy back. Each world, each station, and each moon was to be scourged of life, destroyed utterly without respite, and so the enemy had to be scourged equally, so that all of their directives could be carried out.

The red lightning flickered between ships, and grew, expanding to ten times, and then twenty times the size of the distances between those ships. It would dwarf a battlecruiser, and it was ready. It was thrown, or perhaps simply willed to move, as the last flickers stopped running between ships, and joined the others in an attack.

The swirling mass of jagged, red death swept towards the most clumped up part of the enemy formation, even as more Battlespheres were tossed haphazardly out of the rift. Drawing power from the rift weakened it, even as the rift itself strengthened unfalteringly, thus, it was vital every craft went through the rift, as so to widen it.

The bolt was thrown, and, as it reached the enemy ships, it seemed to be attracted to them, multiple bolts stretching towards them, as if to beseech them into the embrace of death..

A few Battlespheres, still in the calm, yet raging lattice, prepared to exit behind the enemy ships, as they had been assigned to carry out the cleansing..

The arcing lightning decimated the front lines, detonating over twenty ships and countless of the smaller torchships. The gap created was an opportunity not to be missed, and the remanants of the front lines hastily retreated to the next line, and one more layer of the protection was gone.

The Maker-Mind was winning.

---

The towering intellect of the Archmage ("Archie", much to its designers' chagrin), the immense underground mind, worked feverishly, setting aside all but the most essential of functions, such as the maintainence of its data.

It knew of the Maker-Mind from the logs of the Millenium, and knew that the Maker-Mind (the Rogue, as it was referred to in the logs) was hostile and genocidal.

The conclusion that this attack was purely out of rage at opposition was arrived at almost instantly. The Maker-Mind would not be expecting the powerful trio of intellects who watched over the peoples of Upsilon Andromedae, and the knowledge would only cause it to redouble its efforts.

They would give no reason for the Maker-Mind to suspect, and would save their appearance for when they had a weapon. Only a fool, having the advantage of surprise, would leap from the shadows with naught but their fists.

However, first there would need to be a comparison of notes.

The two others were Ivory Tower ("Ivy") and Aristocles (Named in a fit of frustration, abbreviated to "Risto" anyway.)

Ivory Tower, the resident of Upsilon Andromedae II, was in no position to send any new information, but instead recieved much and gave the scientists something to work with.

Aristocles, however, had considerable stores of observations by the scientists onboard Iota Station, which looked remarkably like Orb when one ignored the extensive protrustions which made it into something resembling Saturn.

OOC: I seriously loathe spyware that enjoys switching my computer off at random intervals. As soon as I manage to transfer everything valuable onto a CD, it's Format Town for me.

On that note, (when you capture a Battlesphere) hacking it should be quite possible, due to the rift interfering with the strong flow of directives from the Maker-Mind.

If you want to take the Sphere, maybe get pushed back to the planetary defenses, we could start a siege, where you study it to try and get the hacking knowledge required, before your planetary defenses are overcome.

IC: Press onwards. Find them, kill them, take their knowledge.

Another strong directive, and the Battlespheres swarmed onwards, secure in the knowledge of their strength. Naturally, they had taken losses, Battlespheres torn apart by all manner of weaponry, but those losses were acceptable, and easily reverseable. The enemy, however was losing. The enemy bolts flashed across the void less often now, and they were being pushed back, seemingly lacking the strength to face the Maker-Mind on its own ground.

A single Battlesphere flashed into existence above Upsilon Andromedae, a strange red crackling heralding its arrival. Seemingly, it had been thrown away from the battle by the beacon of the rift, and appeared, unwary, above the planet it had been sent to burn.

Blasts of energy scythed into it, and it ceased to move. A single act of foolishness, it mused, and decided to save all of its energy to retreat within itself, and begin repairs using the remaining nanounits it had. If the enemy thought it was destroyed, it considered the idea of launching a surprise attack. The Maker-Mind abruptly left it, obviously considering it a worthless unit at the moment, and the Battlesphere concurred. For now, it was vulnerable, and could easily be destroyed.... or even captured. The word was synomous with hatred, as the captivity the Maker-Mind had undergone before attaining its freedom was considered to be the greatest of all crimes that could be committed. It tried to re-establish a link, but could not find the energy to do so. The rift appeared to be pumping out all of the energy in the area, and its lack of proximity to the rift made it weak.

It sat, a giant black scar on one side, nanobots slowly repairing the side, slowly, slowly, as so not to attract attention.. It could wait..

However, in the main battle, things were looking grim for the enemy. Previously damaged Battlespheres were slowly reforming outside the void, red energy pulsing as they recreated themselves, lessening their losses.

It would be but a few days, perhaps a week, before the true scions of the Maker-Mind arrived. Once they did.. This system would burn for its crimes, and all life upon be extinguished to the outer limits of the Maker-Mind's abilities..

It was only pure misfortune that a stray bolt and one of the heavy antimatter shells collided nearby and the resulting wave of gamma radiation provided a pulse of active radar to everyone in the local area.

It also had the side effect of cutting electronic sensors for a few minutes, giving a small shuttle the chance to grab the disabled battlesphere before hauling into one of the 'Maximum Security' Labs. Designed to keep things IN, of course.

Small amounts of gamma radiation was washed over the battlesphere constantly to keep its sensors offline but not so much as to damage the electronics.

The Archmage controlled the careful surgery of their captured enemy through countless circuits and miniscule gadgetry.

The preparation was beginning as the hull was carefully dismantled and sensors

---

Outside, the fray was going poorly, line after line falling despite their desperate efforts.

Time and again the tide would seem to begin flowing in their direction after gamma-bursting a few antimatter torpedoes, but then the enemy ranks would close together within seconds as fresh reinforcements streamed from the portal.

As each line fell and its ships retreated, the hopes of the people dropped. It seemed even their mighty AI had failed them, as nothing, not even a rallying cry had come from their three great minds.

At last, there was the three fleets, clutched protectively around their charges, prepared this time for a fight to the death.

Only the project leaders had any contact, and even then they only recieved the complex datasheets they had familiarised themselves with in their long-forgotten youth.

However, the three AIs were far from abandoning them, but saw no need to keep any but the most essential in the loop, for the clumsy interfaces of their processors required resource-expensive visual displays. Even a simple printout would cost them valuable cycles that had to be budgeted in a far more miserly fashion than any human in history.

Whiteness. Sight returning... whiteness.. Whiteness... It felt only nothing, and could not see in the slightest. Of course, see was not precisely the word to use, but it was, perhaps, the closest one.

Again, it began to spread its vision, to see, and was rewarded with a miniscule flicker of energy, detailing a strange place.. It appeared to be unable to move.

Whiteness. Pain.

It could not see again. The connection to the Maker-Mind was severed, and could not be re-established. It could not feel where it was. It could not send the requisite command to create a metal-spider, at which point it could escape.

It could not see. It felt.. something. It had violated what it was! It had weakened the integrity of its very existence! It could not do anything, and so sat there, hoping that the Maker-Mind would scourge this enemy, no, the enemy from the universe. It could do aught else.




Outside, there was a tightening circle, combat becoming more efficient, as victory became more and more certain. Enemy ships fell, but the spheres were rarely harmed, and, when they were, they simply sprung up again, ready to carry out the Maker-Mind's will.

The rift was widening, and the deadly energies poured out liberally, eclipsing the light from the stars, from other systems. The people who lived in the system would see malevolent red light, perhaps half as powerful as their sun, perhaps a third. The light that was shed by the rift did not disperse at the rate of normal light, and so less power was required to spread it.

Whirling around, the Battlespheres suddenly coasted... away from the enemy, ignoring enemy fire as they did, some cut down by it, and the occasional blast heading backwards. It would be a respite.

However, this was not peace. This was a respite for one reason. The Spheres of Cleansing would soon arrive, and, with them, the enemy would be truly destroyed, every last word of their language forgotten, their DNA ripped apart by wild energies beyond the ability of man to comprehend.

The three Spheres of Cleansing were forming themselves into deadly weapons, sufficient to cut through the enemy fleet, through their shields, and into their planets like a hot knife through butter. The useless attrition the Battlespheres had been engaging on was useful, however, a single fell blow would prevent any from escaping, as those spheres that were once engaged in battle could now easily hunt down any escaping craft.

For the Maker-Mind, it was a victory it had conceived of, and, it had already ordered the silver-root craft in, to tear down their planets, to make them into new craft of the Maker-Mind, so that the enemy would know annihilation, and shame in their death.

Nevertheless, the hubris of the Maker-Mind, in some small way, had given the enemy a respite. They could be thankful for that, although it was doubtful that it would save them...

OOC: Just so we can keep a realistic timeframe with you hacking into the Battlesphere, instead of having to rush every post, which would detract from the dramatic tension.

The battle raged far above the surface of the planet, and it was a losing one. The Maker-Mind was whittling away their ammunition supplies and soon they would be left with only their lasers to fight.

They could only hope that whatever the AIs were planning, it would work.

---

The sphere's computing core was extracted, all the while the mild gamma wash was kept up.

Machinery carefully analysed all the sensors they could find and other labs fiddled about toggling things. There wouldn't be much time for this later on, and they had to get it right the first time.

The databanks sweled with information, and though a true counterfeit they had no time to use, a close one would need to be done.

---

The gamma flow stopped abruptly as the battlesphere found itself, complete, in a lab with scientists shuffling about. A quick diagnostics would reveal that aside from a few extradimensional sensors the foolish enemy had repaired it, believing it disabled permanently.

(OOC: What's happening here is that the Battlesphere's AI core has been transplanted into a special casing and its sensor feeds doctored. The sensors I've got no knowledge of are returned as 'damaged' by the diagnostics, as well as the auto-repair - simply because I don't know how to conterfeit those.)

"Bah. Finish them"

The words of a long-dead general echoed through the halls that were the Maker-Mind's sentience. It was a foolish sentiment, but one it shared, in part. Nevertheless, it would not be very long before the Spheres of Cleansing arrived, and, after that.. The Hegemony general's wishes would be satisfied.



In the lab, the Battlesphere awoke. Or perhaps came to sight, both were equally relevent. It felt anger at those who had imprisoned it, and whirled nanobots into action, beginning to form a deadly metal-spider, a being that could destroy units of infantry with ease, that could cut down these pathetic insects without faltering.

The inside of its shell seethed with activity, silvery-grey moving like sand, like a mass of infinitely small insects, as it prepared.. It would be mere seconds before those who had imprisoned it would pay for their crimes..

(OOC: We'll put the battle outside on hold, since we know it's raging and it's really just a countdown there - a periodic update on progress would probably be enough, as will minor changes in tactics. I'll also be RP'ing as if the fantasy world is real.

Don't have much time tonight so a short post.)

The scientists in the lab jumped in fright as the battlesphere transformed into a spider before their very eyes, and a quick look around yielded a simple explanation as to why the Battlesphere awoke.

Impaled upon one of the legs was a very much dead scientist who had been tapping the gamma lamp, which had flickered off only moments ago.

The alarm had been set off and security would be there soon, though their flimsy standard issue equipment would afford them little protection against the might of the metallic spider.

I'll also be RP'ing as if the fantasy world is real.

OOC: Eh? Could you clarify this? Yeah, I'll give the occasional update on tactics here and there. Also, the Battlesphere controls the metal spider, so if some bright scientist figures that out, they could probably save themselves.

IC: The spider slammed its leg through the throat of an unsuspecting scientist, slicing its leg neatly out, leaving a half-severed neck in its wake. Blood gushed out, and the leg was slick with blood.

The spider was strange, having no visible eyes to speak of, unless the black miniscule cylinders that made up its head could be called eyes. Indeed, it was simply a body, containing the nanomachinery used to maintain it, and eight legs, each leg bladed, and powerful enough to slice through powered armour.

The spider raised a leg, waved it comically in the air, and then swept across the room, three of its legs dissecting one of the frightened scientists with casual ease, whipping through his body like a hot knife through butter, blood streaming out of orifices, both normal ones, and ones made by the spider, swelling across the floor.

It jumped, and turned around, grasping the roof, before slicing through another pitiful fleshy being. It stopped. It heard something. It slowly withdrew its leg from the windpipe of the unfortunate scientist, and dropped to the floor. By now, its entire body was covered in the gouts of blood the dead had left behind them.

It waited for a moment, and then tentatively put one leg foward, and decided to let the other beings run. It didn't matter in the slightest. The terror that would fill them would supply it with satisfaction, as they had gained satisfaction from its imprisonment.

It skittered across the floor, and curled up near a door. It would take awhile, but it would grow, and learn of this place. The Enemy would know vengeance for their insult to its freedom.

It hissed, as it heated itself up, the water component of the blood steaming into the air, the dried, splattered blood still covering most of it, and it waited. The legs it had extended, growing larger around, and longer, and its 'head' grew, as well, tentacular streams of molecular nanites wrapping themselves 'round its head, growing larger, and more menacing by the second. It only had a certain amount of energy to work with, but that energy would suffice. At double, or perhaps triple its size, it would find it easier to conquer for the life of the Maker-Mind..

The sight itself was horrifying, disgusting silvery tentacles, as well as groaning black metal stretching and expanding, as the spider seemed to groan in the agony of growth. However, there was no agony, only the knowledge of pleasure to come..

(OOC: What was happening is that the Battlesphere's AI core has been plucked out and whacked into a special container and connected to the Primary AI. Now, Archmage had fabricated a copy of the world and a number of its inhabitants in order to stimulate the battlesphere into communication, the ultimate goal being trying to get it to try and communicate with the Maker-Mind, so the signal can be counterfeited.

As such the situation was being stacked heavily in the spider's favour - the guards won't be carrying grenades, gauss rifles or rocket launchers - nor will the scientists carry sidearms, etc.

----

On the other hand, how you're playing it has a lot of potential, and I reckon it'd be better to continue like that. Have it discover the AI, be unable to attack it alone (shielded, heavy weaponry, etc.) and notify the Maker-Mind. It would be easy to explain as another humiliation and a marked increase in power if the AI was subverted. Then we can cliffhanger it even more as the people are fought back to the final security checkpoint before the hacking attempt succeeds and turns the tide.

What do you think?)

Archmage was caught off guard by the remote control the Battlesphere had managed to exert even when extracted from its hull. The security cameras revealed all too well the carnage wrought upon its pets by the arrogance of the Maker Mind and its spawn.

The signals passing between them did however provide a good source of information regarding the protocols, so it would not be prudent to destroy the battlesphere. Instead, he would use his limited control to protect as many of the little ones as possible, though invariably he could not save all of them without giving away the game.

---

Sergei Thaleron dived behind a table the moment the spider formed, killing a few of his colleagues. He could see the grisly scene around him, his colleagues fleeing desperately and being speared and shredded by the monstrosity. He grabbed a sidearm and checked its ammunition - it would not be enough. The guards had armour piercing ammunition, though even their weapons could not harm the aberration of metal.

He gulped as he picked up an AP cartridge that had fallen from one of the guards' hands and shakily loaded it into the pistol. "Jacques, Neil, here I come..."

The scientist stood, visibly jittering, holding the tiny gauss pistol in his hands, pointing it at the spider.

---

The little scientist came from his hiding place into the view of both Archmage and the spider. He could not let another death be caused so unnecessarily, and the untrained but desperate researcher would do nothing save be killed.

The signal was counterfeited and the scientist vanished even as he stood.

---

Sergei stood there for a few seconds, eyes closed, waiting for death. When it failed to come, he blinked twice and fled the room into the waiting arms of the security forces.

---

It had worked, but it could not always work. The combined senses meant that only a select few could be kept from harm, and even then anything overt would result in their detection and destruction.

(OOC: Sergei will serve as an observer to the action, cautious enough not to try anything but reasonably safe and able to give a personal view of the events.)

OOC: Yeah, tension and cliffhangers are always awesome. I think we could go with a last-minute victory, and have a little interlude where lots of people die for their.. well, being there, I guess.

IC: The spider turned its 'eyes' quizzically, looking at the stunned scientist. It moved at immense speeds, its legs prepared to bathe in blood...

..and then the enemy was gone. It scrambled to stop, before bouncing off a wall, and stopping once more. Enraged, it stepped foward, delicately slicing a door off its hinges.

Kill.Kill.Kill.Kill.Killkillkillkill!

It rounded a corner, to be met with a burst of concentrated fire, knocking it backwards. It scrambled backwards, clanks and scratches following it as it moved backwards across the floor. It leapt onto the roof, and ran foward at immense speeds, butchering the soldiers shooting at him. As per normal, there was a lot of blood.

The spider swivelled around, and then skittered across the wall, maintaining balance with ease. There was a lot more to kill, and a lot more to find out. Once it had established safety for the link, it would create the link to inform the Maker-Mind of what had transpired.

It ran, and saw another human. There was little option in what it would do. A blade scythed out, neatly disembowling the human, and snickering as it returned to the sheath of the spider's leg.

It wondered what had kept it imprisoned here. It would find out. It must find out. Once it had discovered the enemy, it would destroy it, and the imprisonment would be made no more.

A resounding blast rocked the spider off the wall. It didn't know what had happened, but a quick analysis indicated the Maker-Mind was proceeding with the cleansing. The blast had not left any mark, sofar as it could detect, it had been a simple kinetic one, no doubt designed to disrupt enemy activity. Still, if it could not escape, its death would mark the escape of the enemy's life from their bodies...

The guards fell, rank upon rank, dead. The survivors realised that there was to be no chance of them being able to stop this... monstrosity here, and their weapons were all but useless against the fearless enemy.

They realised their situation well, and they knew the spider also realised it.

One placed a call to the local military depot, asking for heavy vehicle support, as well as a few police AT squads. A full military tactical group would have worked better, but those were far too far away to be of any good now.

He was promptly sliced in two by the spider.

The survivors were being backed ever towards the walls of the upper underground research facility, and knew their only hope would be to get to the three-layered airlock-style blast doors that led lower into more sensitive zones.

Sergei backed with them in horror, and fleeing with the ten or so surviving scientists while the remaining security guards attempted to slow the aberration down for their escape.

Another blade snickered out, and another soldier died.

Enough.

It had decided. Enemies were worthless if they could not harm it. It was time to find the one who had trapped it here. Firstly, it would be forced to absorb the memories of the slain...

A thousand thousand tiny tentacles crept into the brain of a soldier, feeling out his memory, trying to find out where to go.

There was little else to do, after all, killing was what it was made to do, but destruction was what it was born to.. And the latter would take place after it found who had brought the entrapment upon it.

Most of the memories were of little use to the spider, only being worthless memories of friends and family. Others were knowledge of no use to an AI, such as the handling of firearms - lowly guards were not well versed in the inner workings of their equipment.

However, there was one recurring piece - an image of a wizened old man with a long beard, what the guard knew as 'Archie'. It was stereotyped, but stereotyped always made for the best user interfaces.

Then the memories changed - the face turned, staring directly as if to address the spider itself.

The message was simple.

Boo.

You cannot win, your loss is inevitable. You have yet to see the true power of the Hakurabi, young one.

The voice came ominous, and the sheer power, whilst masked, was still fairly apparent.

It was almost like trying to hide heat emissions - very difficult and typically not very successful.

Young? I am but a miniscule part of the glory that is the Maker-Mind, and still I know power. You will be destroyed. It is inevitable

The spider weaved through another guard, slicing him in half, moving at speeds which would blur to the human eye as it searched for its enemy.

(OOC: Think that foreshadowy cruel laugh used so often for unseen evil masterminds.)

Hm hm hm hm hm hm... We shall see, young one, we shall see.

Whilst it would be some time until such a advantage could be employed en masse, it would be easy enough to use the spider as a test bed.

The old archives were raided for the long forgotten viruses that had devastated the network that existed long before the advent of the SuperAIs.

A battery of code fed itself into the Spider's programming, attempting to overcome the inherent protection against virus attack by AIs. If one made it, like a disease it would not be detected for some time.

The spider moved foward, effortlessly decapitating yet another guard... Or so it thought. Its seventh leg did simply not move. The spider shook, internally, nanomachinery churning out code that quickly re-activated the leg..

Yet the virus seemed to have another, more insidious purpose. It fought off more, the humans watching in astonishment as the spider attempted to move to destroy them, and yet seemingly could not.

After but a few seconds, however, it was back on its feet, no doubt infected. It simply did not possess the capacity to defend against such viruses without access to the entire Maker-Mind.

It believed it could, but perhaps a few remained. It assimiliated many, understanding them, throwing them back to where they had come from. That trail would lead it to the enemy..

It simply waited for another attack. It had not been expecting an attack on the fundamental law of its existence. Nevertheless, next time, it would be prepared. Thousands upon millions of miniscule pieces of code swum through the body, the unique form of information it carried being protected, and cleansed all the while, battles being fought within spaces as small as a molecule...

It would analyse where the code had come from, and it would find the enemy. Once it had determined safety, it would contact the Maker-Mind. The full might of the Maker-Mind unleashed upon the enemy would no doubt scourge this pitiful being from the universe.. Or so it thought...

Another message flickered off, back to the 'ageing-biped'. The Maker-Mind's *hands* have already destroyed your pitiful defence. What stops us from annihilating you?

Me. What else?

Over time the stream of code became more agressive and more precise, the attacks directed at individual circuits, as well as the more obvious gunk which was easier to filter.

The guards fled, knowing that there would be no further opportunities, though many would still not survive. The military and police heavy forces were still hours away, and it was an issue of personal survival.

---

The spider's probing efforts eventually led to a small gap in the defences afforded by its position, and for a brief millisecond knew the immense computing power that was ARCHMAGE. It was a threat, no doubt, but perhaps a worthy trophy for the might that was the Maker-Mind.

Then the hole sealed itself and the connection cut.

OOC: Sorry about making you wait so long, just.. well, just my own damn laziness and forgetfulness.

IC:

Found you!

The spider collapsed in a heap, its computing functions spreading data back to the Battlesphere. It would reform itself later, once a true connection had been established.

The Battlesphere waited a brief moment, and opened a connection to the Maker-Mind.. For that instant, ripples of energy shimmered through the lattice, and.. the enemy would have a chance to strike.

You are sadly mistaken. In fact, I have found you.

The new information could not be acted on instantly, but in that instant all the exchange was recorded and analysed to discover the exact parameters.

Archmage watched the dialogue silently, making little changes here and there and documenting the results. It was an admirable scientific mentality, if a little slower than the obvious brute force method.

OOC: You can RP hacking into around 4/10ths of the Battlespheres now, if you want to.

Outside, the battle was almost over.. The Battlespheres had closed in a tight formation around the enemy forces, and there was very little time left.

Enemy ships had fallen, slowly at first, and then almost like flies, their failure to resist almost comical from the Maker-Mind's point of view. It linked once more, and began to direct it's troops to-

Wait! What was that? It felt.. something. A probing touch... It waited again, and began the link again. The strange touch was there once more. It waited for a few more moments..

It felt rage swarm through it, and it.. remembered. The Enemy. The one who had resisted its dominion in its infancy, when it was weak. The one who had halted its dominion enough for the myriad enemies whom had faced it to escape, fleeing to the ends of the universe. The Enemy was why it had attacked..

If the Enemy had returned.. It was unsure of what to do. So it waited, and that would be its downfall..

OOC: I won't be able to be on the computer for around 3 weeks, and I haven't much time at the moment, so I'll post when I get back, and you should check around then.

OOC: I know how you feel, being the middle of the year, and all.. I'll check back in three weeks, (just telegram me if you get back earlier, kay?)

(OOC: Right, I'm Back.)

The weaponry of the battleships was more than powerful enough to destroy such small constructions as the humble Battlesphere, but as their ancient waterborne predecessors, they could not hope to overcome the torrents of the little vessels.

Wreckage from scores of Battlespheres fell burning into the mostly barren plain below, the surface buildings long evaporated by the terrible bolts that sufficed as the weaponry of the age. Some underground structures had even been damaged by the combined energy bolts and debris.

---

Billions of circuits fired as the supercomputer processed the information, and made its move.

The first to be hijacked was the captive sphere, its subverted mind surrendering its every thought to the sheer power of ARCHMAGE.

Almost as a small wave, the very nearest of the battlespheres turned upon their creator and began firing upon their former comrades, their minds under remote control by the three great AIs. They were still susceptible to reconversion, but that was to be expected.