NationStates Jolt Archive

Bekhaeran ships patrolled Via Purifico, a system on the eastern side of the Milky Way. Out of place in this system was a small vessel, just under three and a half hundred foot in length. It was somewhat tubular in nature, lights of burning blue energy about it in a haphazard nature, though surely logical in its' seeming madness. This ship orbited two planets, both closest to the sun in the system and having an average temperature of 47 degrees centigrade.

At the outside of the system, a wormhole began to form, expanding rapidly. As it reached a hundred foot in diameter, twenty-five fighters exited the wormhole, even as it expanded further. Each fighter was also tubular, seemingly identical to the Frigate. As they flew inward, reaching the first planets of the system, another ship began to pass through the wormhole, that was now seven hundred foot in width.

The cruiser entered the system. It too, was tubular, black, with jigsaw-like blue lines of energy across its' surface. Unlike the other ships, one end was convexed. An identical ship began to follow it outward, followed by a third. These three ships followed the fighters inward, with another twenty-five fighters following them closely.

Now the wormhole was at several thousand feet in diameter. A ship almost identical to the previous three penetrated the wormhole. This vessel was but a fraction larger than the previous ones and had an escort of one hundred fighters, moving around it in a protective formation. An identical vessel passed through after it. Another, slightly longer yet thinner vessel followed each with a similar escort.

Finally the wormhole reached seven and a half thousand foot in diameter. An enormous ship, also tubular, yet with many indentations at the center of its' body, passed through. Slowly but steadily it followed the other vessels.

Following this vessel came another one hundred fighters. Then as swiftly as it grew, the wormhole collapsed. This fleet reached its' destination of the planets Senhexx and Dogrinia.

Colonization would begin.

(OOC: This RP is semi-open. If you have an actual, valid reason for having any forces involved in any way, then please, get involved. If not: self explainatory.

Current fleet in Via Purifico: Colonization fleet;

450 Fighters
3 Cerberus Class Cruisers
2 Gaea Class Cruisers
1 Epimetheus Class Cruiser
1 Pandora Class Capital Ship)

OOC: NIce thread man :)

IC:

"I see theyre colonization efforts have begun" Stated Admiral Da Vance, "As Shall ours, proceed with the plan, and contact High Guard HQ, our time in this sector is at an end, tell them new blood is needed, I'm tired of seeing the same stars every day and night"

The Planets Senhexx and Donrinia were former Bekhaeran colonies but they had offered them to the incoming colonists after negotiations, they just hoped thet they'd leave the Planet Via Purifico alone, that planet was sacred, they couldnt allow anyome to claim it

OOC: oh btw you hoping for a conflict or anything in this thread or see what will happen?

(OOC: I'll go with the flow. *grins*)

"Matriarch, scanning of both planets is complete. We detect primitive civilizations on both, no threat. Shall I order the fighters to cleanse?" The male spoke telepathically though his HMA implants. As with the rest of the crew above the Pandora Class ship, he was linked with the systems of the vessel.

The Matriarch had greyish skin. Her hood was lowered, as would be expected, and she was not in armour. After a brief pause she sent a mental reply.

"Send fifty fighters to each world, cleanse them as much as possible." A pulse of thought sent the message.

"As you will it, so it shall be, Matriarch."

The bridge was filled with fifty people, all connected to the vessel and overseeing some form of operation. The exception being the Matriarch, who viewed the fleet, system and colonies on holographics.


Each fighter entered the atmosphere. Stone dwellings and wattle and daub houses sat in clearings. With grim efficency, the lasers cut through the houses, castles and people alike. The focused energy cut vicious swathes through the surface of the world, scarring it as they began the extermination of these people.

The massacre went on, across two planets, for merely fourty minutes.

TAG for possible future involvement. Depending on resolution of Civil War In Bekhaeran Colony FT (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=484736), Jurai may chose to get involved here as well, although much later.

oocness: 'Valid Reason' is relative - sorta do-gooderish, albeit with limited resources (In the general volume, anyway) and too chaotic to stage a full-scale intervention without being mortally threatened.

Which is good, given the differences in nation-capacities. Don't want to derail the thread with rawr.

Oh, and I suppose that the planets have a sufficiently high population density to not be entirely 'Cleansed' within forty minutes. Otherwise the following would be sorta pointless.

I'm also uncertain - I take it that said primitive civs are not Bekhaeran but... well, natives, with the Bekhaeran colonies being established despite their presence? Or am I utterly wrong?

Anyway...

Roughly six lightyears off Via Purifico, corewards

The Interstellar Exploration Unit Peacemaker hovered in the Between, enjoying the capacities its recently-upgraded Shifting Unit and its navigation system enabled, keeping flimsy drive-fields attached to a minor current on the thirteenth layer and propelling itself about at a reasonable velocity of about forty-five kiloc.

Spatially in the same, yet a differenct place, its remote subcraft were ahead, or following it, picking up speed as the Peacemaker left the region, their probing fields detecting the Between-radiations the wakes of electromagnetic and gravitational activity in relativistic space left, analysing and reading them.

One of the subcraft, formerly subsapient (It had upgraded itself to full sapience about a week ago, much to the joy of the Peacemaker and its small crew - the party had involved copious amounts of assorted drug-equivalents) and about five lightyears (Relativistic Space Equivalent) closer to Via Purifico, detected something odd among the Between-radiations running ahead of the crawling light in relativistic space, readings it hadn't expected, after having studied the system's typical emissions from afar.

It checked again.

Hum.

And again.

Oi.

And then it sent a short notice to the Peacemaker.

A shortish discussion involving potential courses of action, the system's structure, potential civilisations in the vicinity of the system that could show up, and other details followed. In the end, the Peacemaker changed its course, and simultaneously started to brake - ETA (Which was always an object to discuss, when one used the Between) about three hours.

Its sapient subcraft (As well as its smallish fleet of deployed subsapient ones, although the rest was exceedingly spread out, and would be fairly late, but then, it had still a few remaining inside it) changed its course as well - with its present velocity and layer, it'd take a little longer, about six hours to arrive, despite being vastly closer to the system.

It was curious, and its passives (Actives would be a somewhat poor choice when still in the Between - it didn't work very well, if at all) started to soak up information on the system in question in copious amounts. The energies the fighter weapons produced were barely noticeable (Actually, 'Not at all' fit it better - it had detected the energies produced by the incoming ships' drives, and the wormhole, but not their weaponry - which was the reason why the Peacemaker and its subcraft weren't on a war footing - as far as they were concerned, they were interested in knowing who was colonising the system, and in contacting them).

(OOC: Well they aren't Behaeran citizens, they are the people who have dwelled there naturally. The 'cleansing in forty minutes' refers to their capital cities. These nations are set in medieval times so alot of populations are too sparse even for the Ko'lashok's powerful sensors to detect, possibly tiny farming steads so isolated that finding them is practically impossible, or forest dwellers.

I'm happy with the way you've introduced yourself. So long as it isn't someone's conveniantly located fleet of six hundred and thirty ships, I'm relatively happy. *grins*

This drive system you're using, would it be possible to detect it? My people's most advanced technology are their scanning systems. Also, I don't suppose you have information about your people and so forth I could peruse? Cheers.)

The Bekhaeran worlds in the system were ready for colonization, all 5 of them including the Holy Planet Via Purifico... there were few who remained there from odl times but they spoke of a link between the peoples of the other planets, a life bond that when they die they could feel it, they bore similar traditions to an ancient order of another kind

"There is much pain..sadness...anger... the spirits are angry, they want revenge" an old man decalred on the high temple of Via Purifico, "many have lost their lives today, we can all feel it..why would they die so many of them now...the men of Chimera in the skies must answer for this

The primitive civilization had little technology but centuries after a dark and light army had fought here and many had died they had accumulated the remains of their technology, the old man went to the temple mount and pressed a panel, a screen came up, it was linked to the Bekhaeran patrol vessels Athena, Troy & Hades

"We demand answers from you triumvirate of murderers!" demanded the old man

"We do not understand Praetor, what are you on about?" asked Captain Colden Rifi of the Troy, brother of the rebel Konin Rifi

"You know very well...our kin have been killed, slaughtered we can feel it...explain yourselves" ordered the Praetor

"...Oh No... They didnt...Praetor...we apologise for the deatsh, it seems we may have inadvertantely caused them, we shal aim to rectify this, we do not wish to lose friendship with your people" Admiral Niko Fairfax answeed back, descended from THE fairfax of Beklhaera who colonized countless worlds

The comm screen went dead but the 3 captains came to one another in secret... and discussed what the Ko'lashok may have just done"


"Should we ask answers of them...it seems only right" Visceroy Juno Palmer asked, another descendant of a famous hero

"message them to find out why and make sure our colonies are safe" Ordered Colden

Ah, perfect in every regard, then.

And yes, the drives are detectable (It'd be useful for you to know what you're looking for, though - as this is a first contact, I imagine that the possibility of it coming from a ship is raised, but it wouldn't be certain until something shifts out). I'll spare you the details as of how they work (Aka, what I made up), and leave it at you noticing an increasing number of hard ZPE-radiations in the general volume - first that of the subcraft, and then later (But quickly increasing in strength) some from the Peacemaker itself. It might be hard to triangulate them, although the lower the layer the ship is in is, the more concentrated the radiations will be (Greater energy density over a smaller volume, and hence why a slower ship is easier noticeable than a faster one - high velocities require high layers.), which should make it easier once they're close.

Note, while the radiations are increasing, they still remain utterly harmless, little more than background noise, with a vastly smaller energy density than, say, the radiations of the local sun at the two inhabited planets.

Anyway - they could be detected with sixties' technology, and you shouldn't have any issues with it.

As far as the nation goes, uh... Well, the NSWiki article is horrendously outdated, so... Think a small (RPed population < NS stat population - mind, in turn they've a degree of automatisation that's just silly) civilisation with more-or-less excessive political and civil liberties - not a democracy, though, the system's a little... Ah, odd, and works a lot with public pressure on major entities.

Mostly located on Earth, with presences on/ at the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune, as well as some interstellar operations - mostly mining and outposts by shady cabals who like to plot. IEU's tend to be further out simply because they want to be (They're adventurous), not because they need to be (Hence why there's an IEU in the volume relevant in this thread, whereas you wont find a warship within the next ten kilolightyears).

There's an fairly high degree of augmentation involved, too, with regards to both, cybernetics and genetic engineering.

The rest, well... if interested in getting a feel of the civ, one could probably read some posts in here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=475573), here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=474997), here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=475961) or here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=460697), although this shouldn't be overly necessary, I might/ should/ intend to elaborate sufficiently in this thread to begin with. Oh, and the above posts tend to center around relatively high-aug and well-travelled parts of the society - its majority is less shiny, though. Just less-featured, too.

The groups of fighters made their final passes over the now ruined areas of civilization. Occasionally a wounded person or someone who had escaped the initial destruction would be detected. The powerful beam lasers of the fighters would lash out and slice through them, cauterizing their wounded and occasionally causing clothing to burst into flame.

Once it was felt that all civilization was removed, the fighters gathered at the designated sites and began patrolling the area. The two Gaea Class ships began to descend into the atmosphere of each planet, slowly but surely making their way to the chosen locations for the primary hubs.


Aboard the Korva'sstyss, the Matriarch watched the descent of the colonization ships with indifference. There was a pulse within her mind.

"Matriarch, Bekhaeran vessels are attempting to enter communications. Should I put them through?" The telepathic message came from her communications officer.

"Yes, bring up holographics."

"care to explain your actions Matriarch on Senhexx & Dongrinia... the natives?" asked Colden whilst Palmer and Rifi looked on "Why were the natives killed..."

Colden was enraged... his family always had a temper even from the old days of the first space fleet

"Is this usual protocol when you come across civilizatiosn who cannot defend themselves" interjected Rifi

The Matriarch's hood was up now, flushed with yellow, but her features were impassive.

"As it was agreed, these are our planets. Once we determine a planet is suitable for colonization, removal of xenoforms and traces of their culture is standard, regardless of their abilities to defend themselves. In removing those creatures, we are able to erect our cities in peace.

"It would appear that you are distressed at the cleansing of the planet. Might we inquire as to why?"

"Distressed....youre right we are... there were alternatives and dont you say there werent, we understand that they are now your planets but those people were of an ancient race we trace part of our history through, they were slaves taken by our former masters...our kin..." Palmer raged onwarsd before Rifi took control of the situation

"What if there any survivors... what of them... on those planets there are several ruins that need safeguarding, they are imperitive to our nations history and to unlocking the secrets to the ancient empire of the Akallabeth..a race not too dis-similar from your own"

Colden relayed recent info on the Akallabeth to them, he began to speak in a sombre tone

"Are you familiar with the order of Jedi & Sith? Well this sector was the sight fo a massacre between them and an ancient hub of the Akallabeth, the ruisn are temples to them... and the reason why the planet Via Purifico and other planets rusin are important is because the natives are guardians of them... we feel they coudl return if all are not safeguarded"

Planetside

As the second Gaea Class ship made planetfall, the first ship was already under deconstruction. Pre-frabricated housing was already constructed, as were the defensive systems; both the phase arcs and the ECM system. Fifty fighters maintained a defense during this time.

Several hundred Ko'lashok were removing nearby flora and fauna, forming a clearing slowly, growing in width with every passing hour. Occasionally another planetary inhabitant would be discovered, causing the descent of a fighter.


In Orbit

The Matriarch remained motionless in her seat, merely viewing the two men on the holographics.

"We regret any distress that we may have caused your people. If you wish to gather the remnants of these people, then please do so quickly, for more are found and eradicated by the hour.

"As for these Jedi & Sith, we have no knowledge of these species in our network. Perhaps you would be willing to give us the information?"

" The Jedi & Sith... two sides of the same coin... given "power" by something known as the force... it can be bent to the will of good and evil...the Jedi order sees the Force as soemthing to be honoured and respected whilst the Sith see it as something to control and abuse...many have died at thje hands of Sith and corrupted Jedi... the peopel of Via Purifico are the survivors of the war of jedi & sith and our ancestors..they are holy as they areof direct bloodlines to the jedi & to the old gods who perished... If you insist on learning more of the Sith....beware for they will easily crush you...many avoid contatc with them but it is our only hope of survival againt our own rebels we seek allaince with them, many of our jedi have perished and oters fled to outer worlds for safety" Palmer said

Colden relayed a message to the dropships to pick up the remainder of the civilians off the Ko'lashok planets

"send in teams of five to the ruins on the Ko'lashok pllanets.. see if anything or anyoen has been there" ordered Rifi as the bridge of the Troy went into overdrive everyone preparing shuttle launches, the Athena and Hades were on high alert in case fo anything but they knew they wouldnt be needed...or at leats they prayed

On Via Purifico

the praetor wielded a staff of wood dyed blue, his fellow elders each held ones of green,blue, yellow, purple and orange, they all prayed to Qrejua for guidance, the oen who the emperor of Bekhaera was descended, Kreya, the god

"Oh Qrejua we beg for help for too long have we been hidden away, grant su the strength to fight by ourselves, grant us the power to unite our worlds once more" the elders chanted before the temple shone white and inside the restless spirits of the dead warriors awoke, the ancients had returned but were locked away...if the temple mount had awoken..what of other worlds?

The Matriarch let out an unusual sound, perhaps a chuckle.

"Representative, we assure you that we do not feel threatened by either of these species. However, we do not wish for contact with these Sith. We are content to construct our worlds and allow our people to flourish. As an after thought, it should be stated that further vessels will soon be arriving. These vessels will be for the purpose of mining the titanium from the asteroid belt.

"Furthermore, construction of a facility for more efficient ore extraction and refinement will begin. Would it be acceptable to establish such a facility in the orbit of your planet nearest the belt?"

"We accept your request to mien near our planets but alos we must point out to you, one does not go looking for the Sith, the Sith coem looking fro you and they prey on fear but thye prey even more on peoples confidence, Our dropships have entered your planets orbit and are proceeding to locate the remainder of the populace" replied Palmer

"Palmer... were picking weird signals up off all the planets...form the...ruins" Colden said as he checked the systems...

"Matriarch..have you unusual readings coming form the ruins we mentioned?" Rifi asked as he interjected again

The Matriarch looked across to her sensor operator. It was the male with whom she had spoken previously.

"Scan the planets, inform me of any irregularities."

"As you command Mistress." Dutifully, he began a scan of the planet, attempting to detect any forms of energy.

The Praetor entered the sub chamber of the temple mount where he began to pray, the darkness began to give way to the light and long dead torches erupted into flame...and before hims tood a figure draped in crimosn and green...a humanoi it seemed but with reptilian features

"Fyed Du Khath Sakhredh Shunkin Praektorii, Kavatcho?" the figure asked

"We need to protect our worlds, I woudl give anything for this..." the praetor said as the figure held his ahnd out, suddenyl the Praetors body jerked violently, the figure clenched his fist and the Praetor's body still remain hung in mid air

"You shall be a servant to me, youre body controlled by the will of a pure being... I am Vidian... I am the embodiement of those who died here... I am the anger of the dark and the stubborn will of the light..I am the creator of worlds..you shall bow to me my student" the figure said... he was the one the council had awoken... A pure sith spirit in the body of a race older than the Sith... an Akallabeth reborn

"Go and tell your people that their god has heard their calls... I shall return soon when my power is adequate enough" and with that the Praetors body was returned to the floor, Vidian wa snowhere to eb seen

The Praetor returned to the surface a different man, his eyes more awake than before, he was the servant of a "god" and the gods will eh must carry out

"Bring me the horizon... bring the remaisn of the great strife...our god wishes them" he ordered and the peopel rushed forth to carry out his order, the council looked on at him , his blue elders staff was goen..it was replaced by a staff of red

"Matriarch, we have a positive on unusual activity from a site upon the planet. Orders?" The telepathic message rang in her mind.

"Open a communication channel with the Bekhaeran ship, then begin an orbital bombardment of the locations on both worlds. I want absolutely no traces of alien architecture come tomorrow."

"As you will it, Matriarch. Cerberus ships, concentrate orbital fire on these coordinates."

The communication channel opened up just as the Cerberus cruisers began taking up position about the first world.

"Bekhaeran Representative, we have confirmed such unusual activity at two archaeological sites on our worlds. As per our directives, we have begun orbital bombardment of these locations to remove all traces of their existence."

"youre going to destroy them! You cant do that...from what weve learnt they are seals to soemthing...theyre there to keep whatever is trapped there..there..." Colden said as he looked at the reading given off each planet

"Theyre unusually high Colden, really high" Rifi said as the readinsg gre, soemthing was there at the temples... but what

"We no longer ahve control of your planets so the ruisna re yours to do whatever you wish to them but we will be keeping watch over our set of ruins incase..." Colden was saying before Palmer busrt into the convo

"You cant destroy the ruins.. we have... reserach teasm at each of them on Senhexs & Dongrinia, destroying the temples would kill them" Palmer wailed at the screen, alwys the oen incable of controlling emotions

"Well I am terribly sorry for your losses, then, but the bombardment of Senhexx has already begun. It will take several hours to complete the bombardment and reposition the fleet. Should you wish to extract your personnel at the Dongrinia site, we advise you do so now. Furthermore, if you have any more research times located anywhere on our soil, we request that you remove the immediately."

The Matriarch watched the human on the holographic projection, even as she watched the bombardment begin on holoraphics. A lethal hail of railgun fire penetrated the atmosphere and thudded into the temple, shattering it into fragments. Countless hundreds of rounds kept launching from the railguns, cleansing the entire area.

*Bump*

The Peacemaker was coasting to mid-velocity trip perhaps half a billion kilometres off the local star, far enough away from the drive-emissions it had detected earlier to guarantee a light-speed lag sufficient to enable the degree of security it - and its crew - desired.

On board, its small team - nine in total - of what amounted to multi-talented exploration-enthusiasts was preparing for the first contact that was about to happen.

They weren't all happy, though - as the ship had slowed down, readings had become more and more detailed. Warships, they had to deal with, and the idea that they could be potentially hostile was present in the Peacemaker's accommodation section.

Especially considering out-of-sol civilisations and their somewhat medieval habits.

Well, no chance to wonder about that - the Peacemaker let the clock of its Shifting Unit tick on, and spread asorted subcraft and drones throughout the general volume (Inside the Between, that is). Some for comunications and FTL-scale sensors, other to shift simultaneously with the Peacemaker itself, one every lighthour from the innermost inhabited planet outwards - it was a method to find out what had happened hours ago, the subcraft and drones intercepting the radiations produced and reflected hours ago.

Ten. Nine. Seven. Six. Five.

Check if the degree of observation in the designated area collapses a number of uncertainty states sufficiently to block the shift.

Indirectly, of course.

Four. Three. Two. One.

Nope, nobody's looking that close. Good.

Zero.

And then they were in relativistic space. Doubtlessly observed beforehand - Between-travel wasn't exactly stealthy. But nonetheless...

Check. Check again. Nothing hostile in the immediate vicinity, which is to say, inside a sphere around the ship, roughly thirty million kilometres in radius.

So far, so good.

What remains is contacting the locals.

EM-CCOM@EM1e-2; SL 0; Widebeam
From: IEU Peacekeeper
To: Whom it may concern, unknown.
Subject: Hello

I'm the Interstellar Exploration Unit Peacekeeper, and happend to be in the general volume when I noticed your emission profiles. And, well - being an explorer, I'm of course interested in new contacts.

As such - Greetings and salutations. May I know whom I've the honour of meeting here?

At about the same time the message was sent (It'd feature quite a bit of lag, being limited by the speed of light as it was), rather faster radiations, originating from the subcraft the Peacemaker had shifted further out from the local sun, were caught by the drones that had remained in the Between, re-encoded and sent to the Peacemaker and its inhabitants.

They involved information the slightly-over-fifty-million-metric-tons spaceship Peacemaker found to be decidedly undesirable.

Sadly, it wasn't a warship, and thus settled down to coast its ellipsoid, 800m x 100m x 100m body to a relative stop perhaps ten lightseconds off the local fleet presence.

It - and its inhabitants, a few of which were already arguing for going in all guns-blazing, regardless of the Peacemaker's not particularly impressive weaponry - were quite curious as of what would happen next.

"Matriarch, unidentified vessel has entered the system." The sensor officer alerted her to their presence and the holographics extended to reveal the ship.

"I see... I want a basic scan of their vesse-"

Her thought was interupted by the communications officer, "Matriarch, unidentified vessel has sent a communication. Relaying to your HMA Unit now."

Images flicked through her mind. She spoke aloud, "I see. Begin translation and scanning."

The two staff spoke in unison. "As you will it, Mistress."

"our people..dead... seeif they relayed any info before the temples were destroyed..anything is imperitive to the cause at this moment" Rifi ordered, his thoughst turned to hsi brother, a traitor in the eyes of Bekhaera and in his eyes also

"Looks liek they found something before they died..opened tombs in the temples" Colden said as he lookd at the holo screen... it cant be...its Akallabeth scripture but theres eviddence of Sith and Jedi manipulation...this temple... its old..very old"

"Urrgh guys...looks like the planet Via Purifico's praetor is hailing us...I've patched him through" Palmer stated as the screen lit up, the Praetor was on screen

"Fools who ride in the sky...our god has returned with words for you and those who seek to claim dominion over this galaxy, he says none shall survive...leave now or face enslavement at the hands of Lord Vidian, the pure soul, bred of light, bonde dby darkness with the spirit of an ancient ruler... he shall rule once more" and with that the message ended

"what the hell just happened!?" asked Colden and then suddenly explosions from all the temple sin the system, something had cause the temples to shatter and give off immensely powerful readings...something unholy if they took the religous route

"contatc the other vessels...see if thye noticed tahta too" ordered Rifi as he looked down at Via Purifico, he saw a pure white light resonating form the temple Mount before changing to a scarlet hue...a blood red sky engulfed Via Purifico..something had awoken