NationStates Jolt Archive

The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds is looking to establish military bases/orbital yards abroad . Nations who participate in this will benefit from protection and ties between our nations also will dramatically increase . The fleet/flotilla/army present will ensure that your nation is safe by participating in border patrolls or defensive action and if the time is right , offensive action .

Nations will also receive a 2 Billion Credit Bonus upon signing up and consequently a 100 Million Credit a month bonus for a fleet and 20 Million Credit Bonus for an army and 60 Million Credit a month bonus for a flotilla .

Just for your info :
1)Standard Navy Flotilla
Consists of :
-4 Imperial MKIII Star Destroyers
-6 VictoryII Star Destroyers
-1 Wraith/Enslaver Class Super Star Destroyer
-20-30 Nebulon-B Frigates/Carrack Class Light Cruisers
-50 Defender Class Light Cruisers
-20 Adjucidator Class Light Cruisers
-2 Venator Class Star Destroyers
-4 Interdictor Cruisers

OR...

-1 Executor/Wraith Class Super Star Destroyer
-2 Imperial MKIII Star Destroyers
-4 VictoryII Star Destroyers
-30-40 Nebulon-B Frigates/Carrack Class Light Cruisers
-50 Defender Class Light Cruisers
-40 Adjudicator Cruisers
-2 Venator Class Star Destroyers
-4 Interdictor Cruisers

2)Fleet
One of the Imperial Navy's 8 Fleets might be stationed at your nation .

4)Army Division
Consists of :
- 1 Fortress
- 2 Prefabricated Bases
- 10,000 - 20,000 Stormtroopers
- 100 - 200 Heavy Tanks
- 50 - 80 Heavy/Light Artillery
- 2 Airbases
- A total of 80 Ground Based Starfighters/Star Bombers

OOC : Bump. Is no one interested ???

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e10; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases

Okay, I'll bite. There's a system in the Andromeda galaxy [Coordinates Attached] which, though (For now) lacking any kind of assets on my - or the Hypocrisy's - part, is of considerable interest to me.

The composition's simple - a red dwarf, orbited by two smallish gas giants and three rock/ iceballs further out, and your standard (Substandard, actually) cometary cloud. The Star's metallicity is poor - 65% sol - but hey.

And, well... With my own assets being somewhat limited - it's that time of the year - I wouldn't mind foreign assistance in securing this to me and the Hypocrisy at large rather important system.

So, with regards to your offer - stationing one standard flotilla in the region would be greatly appreciated. We wouldn't mind a full fleet, either (Although I must note that stationing an army there could be vaguely troublesome, what with only the gas giants having atmospheres, and their moons being rather insignificant).

My account information is [Account Information Attached]. Feel free to begin deployment as soon as you've transferred the initial 2 bn credits to the account, and stay there for as long as you keep paying the appropriate monthly, well... 'Fees' might be the wrong term, but you know what I mean.

Oh, and now that the Kiss My Ass is asking me - your stormtroopers don't happen to include any (Lacking-a-degree-of-free-will) clone troopers, do they?

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e10; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases

Okay, I'll bite. There's a system in the Andromeda galaxy [Coordinates Attached] which, though (For now) lacking any kind of assets on my - or the Hypocrisy's - part, is of considerable interest to me.

The composition's simple - a red dwarf, orbited by two smallish gas giants and three rock/ iceballs further out, and your standard (Substandard, actually) cometary cloud. The Star's metallicity is poor - 65% sol - but hey.

And, well... With my own assets being somewhat limited - it's that time of the year - I wouldn't mind foreign assistance in securing this to me and the Hypocrisy at large rather important system.

So, with regards to your offer - stationing one standard flotilla in the region would be greatly appreciated. We wouldn't mind a full fleet, either (Although I must note that stationing an army there could be vaguely troublesome, what with only the gas giants having atmospheres, and their moons being rather insignificant).

My account information is [Account Information Attached]. Feel free to begin deployment as soon as you've transferred the initial 2 bn credits to the account, and stay there for as long as you keep paying the appropriate monthly, well... 'Fees' might be the wrong term, but you know what I mean.

Oh, and now that the Kiss My Ass is asking me - your stromtroopers don't happen to include any (Lacking-a-degree-of-free-will) clone troopers, do they?

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds is greatly pleased that you have responded and we have sent the 2 Billion Credits stated plus a bonus of 1 Billion Credits for being the first to adopt our programme .

As for our stormtroopers , they are basically clones except for StormTrooper commanders and above are normal humans produced by sexual repdoduction . We would be glad to station a standard flotilla in your nation and it would arrive in approximately 2 weeks time with a fleet of construction vessels with prefabricated parts to create a massive space dock which will be used for the flotilla .

We will also help to mantain peace and security in the system .

Regards ,
Darth Bane , Grand Admiral and Imperial Regent

OOC: Our technology is not that advanced, but you can travel to the Eraclean System, we have no enemies though.

IC:

After picking up the transmission, Eraclea has decided to submit and learn of these aliens who wish to provide bases and defenses for a stranger's homeworld. The military is both nervous and excited and will make every effort to improve their ships based upon their ships.

A transmission providing coordinates and some information about the people followed in it, but they would wait for the response of before giving everything Mationbuds.

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e10; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases

Wonderful (And thanks for the bonus!).

Anyway - well, you maintaining peace and security in the system in question is kind of the point (And a note: Only the system at the coordinates mentioned in my first transmission - the rest of the Hypocrisy is, though not strictly off-limits, not what you're supposed to guard).

And, and with regards to the clones... Would it be possible to acquire some of them? I'm thinking about, oh... 256 (2^8 - the number's odd, but based on our two-dimensional ground force structures). Of course, before making a decision, I'd need to know more about their exact processing - how is loyality ensured, how much free will is involved (I.e. may they simply desire to quit the army) and so on.

Last but not least - I imagine that you might meet with a Tactical Engagement Unit and an Interstellar Exploration Unit, once, or soon after you arrive in the system in question - they'll likely carry out seeding-operations, and leave after a 'lil while.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

Eraclea']OOC: Our technology is not that advanced, but you can travel to the Eraclean System, we have no enemies though.

IC:

After picking up the transmission, Eraclea has decided to submit and learn of these aliens who wish to provide bases and defenses for a stranger's homeworld. The military is both nervous and excited and will make every effort to improve their ships based upon their ships.

A transmission providing coordinates and some information about the people followed in it, but they would wait for the response of before giving everything Mationbuds.

The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds is pleased to hear that you have taken up our offer . You will be immediately given the 2 Billion Credits promised plus an additional 1 Billion Credits to help in the building of your own fleet . Since you are a new empire , we would like to extend a hand of invitation to join the Galactic Empire of Mationbuds as one of its vassal-states . By doing that , you will be given option to move into our region and you will receive 100% protection from us . Your enemy is our enemy . Whoever attacks you will be counted as an actual attack on us as well. As for now , we have stationed a Imperial Flotilla together with a orbital base . A land base of 2 Prefabricated Bases and 1 Prefabricated Airfield have been dropped to set up a minor peace-keeping force .

Regards ,
Darth Bane .

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e10; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases

Wonderful (And thanks for the bonus!).

Anyway - well, you maintaining peace and security in the system in question is kind of the point (And a note: Only the system at the coordinates mentioned in my first transmission - the rest of the Hypocrisy is, though not strictly off-limits, not what you're supposed to guard).

And, and with regards to the clones... Would it be possible to acquire some of them? I'm thinking about, oh... 256 (2^8 - the number's odd, but based on our two-dimensional ground force structures). Of course, before making a decision, I'd need to know more about their exact processing - how is loyality ensured, how much free will is involved (I.e. may they simply desire to quit the army) and so on.

Last but not least - I imagine that you might meet with a Tactical Engagement Unit and an Interstellar Exploration Unit, once, or soon after you arrive in the system in question - they'll likely carry out seeding-operations, and leave after a 'lil while.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

IC :

We acknowledge the conditions and will adhere to them . As for our clonetroopers , we are willing to sell each clone trooper for 1,000 Credits (or less) . They have been cloned from a model soldier in the beginning . Every clone is massed produced and they are brainwashed and programmed to be eternally loyal to their masters and would never be able to even think of quitting or deserting . They will fight to the end no matter how suicidal the order is . They have not much freedom but each troop is given a personal living space abroad his assigned base/division/vessel and will automatically retire from the army at age 45 . They are genetically enhanced to have higher thinking capabilities and increased strength . That makes them the ideal clonetrooper for every army .

The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds is pleased to hear that you have taken up our offer . You will be immediately given the 2 Billion Credits promised plus an additional 1 Billion Credits to help in the building of your own fleet . Since you are a new empire , we would like to extend a hand of invitation to join the Galactic Empire of Mationbuds as one of its vassal-states . By doing that , you will be given option to move into our region and you will receive 100% protection from us . Your enemy is our enemy . Whoever attacks you will be counted as an actual attack on us as well. As for now , we have stationed a Imperial Flotilla together with a orbital base . A land base of 2 Prefabricated Bases and 1 Prefabricated Airfield have been dropped to set up a minor peace-keeping force .

Regards ,
Darth Bane .

Thank you, we will accept that offer, our people do not wish to seek any enemies, but our own biggest threat is ourselves after all.

Her Royal Highness,
Eraclea the MXI

Eraclea']Thank you, we will accept that offer, our people do not wish to seek any enemies, but our own biggest threat is ourselves after all.

Her Royal Highness,
Eraclea the MXI

You are now officially under Imperial Protection and you automatically also receive protection under the Galactic Empire (Alliance) . We have mailed you the password if you wish to move into our region .

Your's Sincerely ,
Darth Bane

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e10; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases & Clone Acquisition

This fits my expectations quite perfectly. I'll likely send a smallish craft to pick them up (If you require it, I'd come personally, but this would involve a fairly sizeable flotilla - thirteen- or eighteen ships in total - to come, as GEU's never float about without escorts).

Oh, and before I forget it - where am I supposed to pick them up? Your homeworld, some colonial system... well, I need coordinates.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

PS: Now that I think about it - okay. Now, that the Kiss My Ass mentioned it - relations between our two nations have been comparatively meager (As in, this is a first contact, of sorts, disregarding knowledge acquired through the media and a variety of less common means), and I wonder whether this contact could be increased - chiefly by way of the Hypocrisy establishing an embassy, but also through establishing certain business deals (Which would take time to be negotiated between business-related subnational entities, but still).

Our ships are capable of FTL Travel themselves and can definately make their way without any problems . As for our ties and relations , a possible diplomatic meeting may be scheduled and perhaps a FTA could be discussed .

[...INCOMING TRANSMISSION... SOURCE UNKNOWN!]
[LANGUAGE NOT RECOGNISED!]
[TRANSLATION MATRIX ONLINE]
[TRANSLATING...]
[ERROR: UNABLE TO COMPLETE TRANSLATION! LINGUAL COMPONENTS MISSING!]
[TRANSLATION TERMINATED. DISPLAYING RESULTS...]

You... warring, with many. Nations. Why do any wanting to let Mationbuds military ships, in set up the bases in their spaces? You is liability of the war! ...[LINGUISTIC ERROR!]... and the death bringing the with you! More stable be you before defence can you prove.

[...TRANSMISSION TERMINATED]

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e10; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases & Clone Acquisition

I, erm, didn't expect any different. But, as you might or might not - actually, very much not - guess, this isn't exactly what I asked for.

What I did ask for were, uh, pickup-coordinates, regardless as of where - open space, a worthless colonial system at the fringes of your holdings, your homeworld, whatever - to send my representatives or myself there (Given the present... 'Hostile Conditions' you're finding yourself in, I figure that I'd go for a fast convoy).

Granted, it's of course similarly possible for you to ship them over to me [Coordinates - Gamma Aquilae - Attached], though I figure that this might be a tad problematic for you, seeming as you're in need of keeping your assets for defensive purposes.

Well. Either way works for me.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds is currently under invasion , as you know . However our capital planet is currently safe and we will provide the coordinates which is attached to this secure transmission .

A VenatorII Star Destroyer will be picking up your delegation and will transport them safely to our Capital Planet and there you will meet the Emperor .

OOC ok you are just looking for same were to park your ships have i got that right

OOC ok you are just looking for same were to park your ships have i got that right

OOC : Well , sorta ...

OOC look my tech is PMT so i dont know much on full FT
i well think on it if let will let you in isan space above vekta and iam at war

OOC look my tech is PMT so i dont know much on full FT
i well think on it if let will let you in isan space above vekta and iam at war

OOC :

Excellent .Lets iron out the deal .

imperial isa give you the go to have base in imperial space we ask you to stay out of the war and stay away form the WSP and satellites

imperial isa give you the go to have base in imperial space we ask you to stay out of the war and stay away form the WSP and satellites

IC :

The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds will deploy one Imperial Flotilla along with a ground base .

IC :

The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds will deploy one Imperial Flotilla along with a ground base .
imperail isa will make a man made inland for the base

imperail isa will make a man made inland for the base

Excellent .They will arrive in approximately 2-3 days time .

Excellent .They will arrive in approximately 2-3 days time .
to mationbud
here this is the code ####### you need to send so you dont get blown all over the place by our SWP
form imperial isa

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e20; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases & Clone Acquisition

Perfect. I'll be on my way - that'd be me, the SEUs DEAT on Sight, Subtle Brick and This Is Going To Hurt You More Than It Is Going To Hurt Me, and the TEUs Violent Intend, Throbbing Temptation, I hope You Die, Rocket Run, Misty Menace, Hot Pursuit, Small But Menacing, Casual Disregard for the Value of Life and Knootian Healthcare Donator.

As I said - GEUs never travel alone.

Verification codes to make sure our identity is, well, our identity, are attached.

Transporting the 256 clones should be easily doable (Assuming that your system remains safe for the time being, that is), and the necessary sapients to conduct negotiations and basic contact with you will be on board, and transfer to your ship upon arrival (Ambassador/ Emissary Janine Renton and her staff-of-three, Tesla Eranus, Celtic Nefere and Idrin Aspati - yes, the names are odd. Blame the tastes of self-upgraded consciousnesses. I'm an upload myself, so... erm, anyway).

They'll come in a space-going habitation-biased module - I figure that your stardestroyer can accommodate it, although it can technically travel on its own. Slightly larger than usual, to accommodate its (Unusual) miniaturised shifting unit (FTL drive).

I'm not sure whether you're keeping up an FTL-interdiction zone, nor whether it'd actually effect us (Some methods certainly do, but gravity-based ones are rather ineffectual on ships that could shift into FTL-mode while sitting on the surface of a planet), so in case that both is true, we'll make ourselves known.

ETA should be soonish - you appear to be roughly eighty-thousand lightyears off, and I guess we'll make the journey within eleven days - okay, at a c-multiplier of nearly 500 mio... Well, make that fourteen, accounting for low-velocity course correction.

On my way now.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

Somewhere, in the depths of space, on a barren, airless dirtball of a planet, there is a single manufactured tube of metal.

When you have a planet, of no apparent value, with a single manufactured object on it, you must ask yourself, what precisely is that object? An experimental extradimensional shunter!

The top of the tube, a thin metal cylinder containing a perfect vacuum, was linked directly to the bottom of the tube. By going outside of proper dimensions, it dodged certain physical laws that would allow an object – in this case, a one kilogram weight – to accumulate energy from the gravitational potential of the planet.

As the weight fell and fell and fell, it would accumulate energy, of the kinetic variety. The object had already been running for a year or so, and so, were one to open it, bad things would happen to the person opening it.

All this was in a tube the size of a toilet roll tube, made of metal, had two buttons on it. ‘Safe [closed]’ and ‘Certain Death [open]’ Placed upon the surface of a barren planet, this was an experiment, because the toilet roll tube didn’t conform to a normal expectation of an weapon; it wasn’t radioactive, it wasn’t unusually massive (when first initiated) nor was it otherwise notable. But eventually, even if it would be in just over five hundred years, it would accumulate enough energy to implode the thin tube – with a mere one-gravity of gravity from the massive object. And then, it would explode with a force as great as an orbital bombardment as the miniature RKV inside impacted the remains of the tube.

From: Twenty Five Star General Zapp Brannigan, Worthy Honourable Order Of Planets Armed Services Section.
To: The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds

Greetings, I’ve heard that you’re offering your vast and impressive military might to those who might be a little short-handed. The WHOOP-ASS needs a little hand in protecting a valuable experiment on a distant planet. See, we don’t have enough ships or waves of infantry to protect this highly valuable secret project. Therefore, we’ve located it a little way off one of our key trade routes, on a planet no one will suspect. As soon as you agree to let us join your programme, we’ll send you the coordinates.

...Kiff! Sew some more stars on my uniform while I diplomat with the lower lifeforms!
Sir, the microphone is on. And Diplomat isn’t a verb…

Ack. Signing off!

http://www.necrontyr.plus.com/images/branniganav.jpg
Zapp Brannigan, Space Captain Extraordinare.
OD. DOM. Cx. BSc. SSc. DSc.

Buy my book, ‘Zapp Brannigan’s Big Book Of War’ available in all book clearance houses – it’s that popular, every store has it!
http://www.necrontyr.plus.com/images/branniganbook.jpg

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e20; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases & Clone Acquisition

Perfect. I'll be on my way - that'd be me, the SEUs DEAT on Sight, Subtle Brick and This Is Going To Hurt You More Than It Is Going To Hurt Me, and the TEUs Violent Intend, Throbbing Temptation, I hope You Die, Rocket Run, Misty Menace, Hot Pursuit, Small But Menacing, Casual Disregard for the Value of Life and Knootian Healthcare Donator.

As I said - GEUs never travel alone.

Verification codes to make sure our identity is, well, our identity, are attached.

Transporting the 256 clones should be easily doable (Assuming that your system remains safe for the time being, that is), and the necessary sapients to conduct negotiations and basic contact with you will be on board, and transfer to your ship upon arrival (Ambassador/ Emissary Janine Renton and her staff-of-three, Tesla Eranus, Celtic Nefere and Idrin Aspati - yes, the names are odd. Blame the tastes of self-upgraded consciousnesses. I'm an upload myself, so... erm, anyway).

They'll come in a space-going habitation-biased module - I figure that your stardestroyer can accommodate it, although it can technically travel on its own. Slightly larger than usual, to accommodate its (Unusual) miniaturised shifting unit (FTL drive).

I'm not sure whether you're keeping up an FTL-interdiction zone, nor whether it'd actually effect us (Some methods certainly do, but gravity-based ones are rather ineffectual on ships that could shift into FTL-mode while sitting on the surface of a planet), so in case that both is true, we'll make ourselves known.

ETA should be soonish - you appear to be roughly eighty-thousand lightyears off, and I guess we'll make the journey within eleven days - okay, at a c-multiplier of nearly 500 mio... Well, make that fourteen, accounting for low-velocity course correction.

On my way now.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

IC :

Of course , our capital planet boasts one of the finest security systems in the cosmos and is currently 100% safe from enemy attacks . We look forward to meeting you though the force you are bringing is rather large .

Nevertheless , a good day to you .

Your's Sincerely ,
Darth Bane .

Somewhere, in the depths of space, on a barren, airless dirtball of a planet, there is a single manufactured tube of metal.

When you have a planet, of no apparent value, with a single manufactured object on it, you must ask yourself, what precisely is that object? An experimental extradimensional shunter!

The top of the tube, a thin metal cylinder containing a perfect vacuum, was linked directly to the bottom of the tube. By going outside of proper dimensions, it dodged certain physical laws that would allow an object – in this case, a one kilogram weight – to accumulate energy from the gravitational potential of the planet.

As the weight fell and fell and fell, it would accumulate energy, of the kinetic variety. The object had already been running for a year or so, and so, were one to open it, bad things would happen to the person opening it.

All this was in a tube the size of a toilet roll tube, made of metal, had two buttons on it. ‘Safe [closed]’ and ‘Certain Death [open]’ Placed upon the surface of a barren planet, this was an experiment, because the toilet roll tube didn’t conform to a normal expectation of an weapon; it wasn’t radioactive, it wasn’t unusually massive (when first initiated) nor was it otherwise notable. But eventually, even if it would be in just over five hundred years, it would accumulate enough energy to implode the thin tube – with a mere one-gravity of gravity from the massive object. And then, it would explode with a force as great as an orbital bombardment as the miniature RKV inside impacted the remains of the tube.

OOC : Nice intro .Anyways wad is the top secret thingy you are doing ? If its very sensetive and you dont want to reveal it publicly , you can TG me the answer .

IC :

In response :

"The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds does not seek to flaunt and show off its Military Might and we will gladly look after the top secret project . However we must make it clear that the flotilla and any ground forces stationed will remain there indefinately until we decide to recall them ."

OOC: It’s that canister. That’s an experimental weapon that increases its firepower the longer you leave it there. See, it starts off as some mundane buts, but put them together on a planet and it starts building up firepower. After a year it could level a city. After a decade, a region, after a century a continent… you get the picture. Just make sure your people don’t open it or anything. That would be bad. Also bad are poking it or turning it over. Don’t touch the can of whoopass, and stop anyone else touching the can of whoopass, and you’ll be fine.

IC:

From: Twenty Five Star General Zapp Brannigan, Worthy Honourable Order Of Planets Armed Services Section.
To: The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds

That’s not a problem, though I wash my hands of any responsibility for what happens after our weapon begins emitting gravity. I really do suggest you withdraw to a safe distance when the surface gravity approaches 1 G. Otherwise, please keep close to it in order to avoid anyone else stealing it or taking readings of it (our own surveillance devices are in place already to monitor our experiment). Coordinates attached. You’re looking for a silvery tube at one hundred yards magnetic north of that location with ‘this way up’ and an arrow on it. Don’t touch it, it’s glued to the floor, so there’s no risk of it toppling in ground tremors, but you could probably lift it.
[Don’t. Really, it’s a bad idea ~Fifth Grade Ensign Kiff Kroaker]

...Kiff! Stop thinking you're smart enough to advise the good people, sign it and send it!

Signing off!

http://www.necrontyr.plus.com/images/branniganav.jpg
Zapp Brannigan
OD. DOM. Cx. BSc. SSc. DSc.

Buy my book, ‘Zapp Brannigan’s Big Book Of War’ available in all book clearance houses – it’s that popular, every store has it!
http://www.necrontyr.plus.com/images/branniganbook.jpg

IC:

"Of course we understand the danger .Application approved ."

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e20; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases & Clone Acquisition

Perfect. And as far as my entourage is concerned, well... Better safe than sorry, as they say. And thirteen ships aren't that much.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

Transit

Two weeks of merging with layers of sub-relativistic reality. Two weeks of having only a very tiny fraction of the visibility one would have in reality proper.

Two very, very boring weeks.

Well, the sapients in question - surprisingly many, almost thirty of them, ships included - deal with it, exchanging information on a scale that'd make the RIAA of ages past collapse from a collective heartstroke, and what more-or-less human/ machine mixtures live onboard tend to busy themselves with assorted domestic tasks, consuming assorted mindstate-altering substances, and playing out simulations of military, sexual, and other natures (The sexual ones not necessarily simulations, although the border between 'Reality' and 'Simulation' blurrs a little when one gets to machine-sex, and its not like the predominantly-human occupants are limited to their genetic heritage when it comes to enjoying certain forms of pleasure), and books.

Books are something traditional, and reading, though slow and inefficient, is a very worthy occupation.

Stars fly by, novaes and half a dozen nascent, not-yet-spacedy civilisations are missed, smugglers are ignored, and eventually, the deceleration routine begins.

Drop a layer. Change your position relative to relativistic space, because the vaguely exotic currents you've been using to go at superluminal RSE velocities didn't have quite the direction you would've liked them to have. Drop another layer. Change your position again, because the above still holds true.

Rinse and repeat. Subrelativistic FTL-methods may have advantages in terms of top-speed limitations (There isn't one), but its accuracy isn't quite as impressive.

Nonetheless. Eventually - after the passive field screens catching relativistic radiation echoes have lost most of their once-absurd range, courtesy of the lower layers almost-relativistic limitations -, they end up reasonably close to their destination (Jokingly called the 'Target'). Still off by a few million kilometres, but hey - who cares?

Drive fields disengage from the currents of sub-relativistic space. Velocity is shed off in pseudo-radiation flares, speeding off at superluminal RSE-velocities. Shifting units charge up. Identification codes are transmitted, showing up in relativistic space as low-energy radiations in the microwave band, announcing the arrival of the Disproportionate Application of Force and its sizeable entourage.

Hours pass.

Then the chargeup is finished, and the ships - after having shed a few Between probes, just in case - drop into relativistic space - 'Realspace', as others would say -, at a reasonably-close-but-far-enough-off-to-not-appear-to-be-an-immediate-threat distance.

By the standards of the local civilisation, anyway.

CCOM@EM1E-3; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases & Clone Acquisition

Heya. Arrived, just in time (Well, maybe a few hours late). I believe that there's a) a Veneric II class SD waiting for us & to take a few of my crew aboard, and b) a batch of clones to be put aboard, uh, myself?

Well - your system. As such, waiting for further directions.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

The 'Fleet' - thirteen ships in total, which admittedly is a fleet by Angstian standards - emits just the sort of profile one would expect a military fleet in a warzone to emit when they want to say 'We can defend ourselves, but have no intention to interfere'. Field screens are active, weapons on peacetime-readiness (Which means that they can fire on a second's notice, rather than already firing), and the active sensors are resting on rather mediocre and uninvasive powerlevels - they wont suddenly start to vaporise small asteroids nearby just by looking a little too hard at them.

The only really huge thing is the fleet's gravitational field, which is surprisingly well-measurable. Almost as if the ships were almost solid.

Which, to be fair, they are.

OOC: This time, I'm using the account as the Huntarian Empire

IC:
While the Huntarian Empire is under a civil war, the Empire has been expanding terretory into what is former Esherian Soveriegnty space which the Alliance doesn't know about. We're willing to send in coordinates to one of the planets in that system for the Mationbud's air bases.

It’s that canister. That’s an experimental weapon that increases its firepower the longer you leave it there. See, it starts off as some mundane buts, but put them together on a planet and it starts building up firepower. After a year it could level a city. After a decade, a region, after a century a continent… you get the picture. Just make sure your people don’t open it or anything. That would be bad. Also bad are poking it or turning it over. Don’t touch the can of whoopass, and stop anyone else touching the can of whoopass, and you’ll be fine.

A literal, actual, can of whoopass.

I love you.

Seventeen Lightyears From the Iskander system

Let’s see, good lord. Look at the size of that water tank, note to infiltrators, poisoning water supplies should be quite easy, nine separate tanks, which appear to be run through in sequence. Let’s see, If we drain them out… a sequence of flashes of lightning shot through the underside of the ship’s hull, and water began gushing out under pressure of artificial gravity, Ooh, good place to send them scurrying back to a shipyard, too, that. Now, find something to weld across horizontally and knock a big section through and… Presto. We’ve got a one-sixty by eighty by forty cargo bay, which we can put more missiles in… Or, shift that ‘raw materials’ stuff through into there, and we’ve got… Ooh, I like. Nice big set of magazines, in a horseshoe around the forward bay. Need armouring, but… Nice. Now, those fighter bays and all that can turn into more magazines, and we’ve turned both bays into rapid-fire missile launchers. Volume calc… One twenty eight and then some per second, all the size of TIE fighters.

Mm. Missiles. There’s an idea… The Erisavenus started probing the ship’s computer for information. Ah, nice probe droids. Now, we take your capsule, and attach to fifteen heavy space bomb warheads and we have… A hypermissile capable of some serious hurt.

Erisavenus ceased in its plans for refitting old star destroyers, and considered that it had better actually test this theory.

From: Twenty Five Star General, Zapp Brannigan, Worthy and Honourable Order Of Planets – Armed Space Services.
To: Whom it May Concern, Mationbuds.

Hello, you may have heard of me. Highly decorated Space Captain that I am. I’m writing to see if you have a few items I need for a little experiment. I imagine you can provide me with all of these without any difficulty, but still… Needless to say, I can pay (mationbuds did after all, just give quite a bit of money to WHOOP-ASS).

50,000 Heavy Space Bombs
1024 ‘Imperial’ Probe Droids, With interstellar expedition capsules.
32 Elegance message droids.
20,000 Proton Torpedos
32 Class 0.6 hyperdrive units for starfighters.
[He also wants sixteen interrogation droids and thirty two astromechs of various types ~Fifth rate ensign Kiff Kroaker]

Kiff, stop that and rub my back!

Signing off!

http://www.necrontyr.plus.com/images/branniganav.jpg
Zapp Brannigan, Highly Attractive and Available Hetrosexual Space Hero.
OD. DOM. Cx. BSc. SSc. DSc.

Buy my book, ‘Zapp Brannigan’s Big Book Of War’ available in all book clearance houses – it’s that popular, every store has it!
http://www.necrontyr.plus.com/images/branniganbook.jpg

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e20; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases & Clone Acquisition

Perfect. And as far as my entourage is concerned, well... Better safe than sorry, as they say. And thirteen ships aren't that much.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

Transit

Two weeks of merging with layers of sub-relativistic reality. Two weeks of having only a very tiny fraction of the visibility one would have in reality proper.

Two very, very boring weeks.

Well, the sapients in question - surprisingly many, almost thirty of them, ships included - deal with it, exchanging information on a scale that'd make the RIAA of ages past collapse from a collective heartstroke, and what more-or-less human/ machine mixtures live onboard tend to busy themselves with assorted domestic tasks, consuming assorted mindstate-altering substances, and playing out simulations of military, sexual, and other natures (The sexual ones not necessarily simulations, although the border between 'Reality' and 'Simulation' blurrs a little when one gets to machine-sex, and its not like the predominantly-human occupants are limited to their genetic heritage when it comes to enjoying certain forms of pleasure), and books.

Books are something traditional, and reading, though slow and inefficient, is a very worthy occupation.

Stars fly by, novaes and half a dozen nascent, not-yet-spacedy civilisations are missed, smugglers are ignored, and eventually, the deceleration routine begins.

Drop a layer. Change your position relative to relativistic space, because the vaguely exotic currents you've been using to go at superluminal RSE velocities didn't have quite the direction you would've liked them to have. Drop another layer. Change your position again, because the above still holds true.

Rinse and repeat. Subrelativistic FTL-methods may have advantages in terms of top-speed limitations (There isn't one), but its accuracy isn't quite as impressive.

Nonetheless. Eventually - after the passive field screens catching relativistic radiation echoes have lost most of their once-absurd range, courtesy of the lower layers almost-relativistic limitations -, they end up reasonably close to their destination (Jokingly called the 'Target'). Still off by a few million kilometres, but hey - who cares?

Drive fields disengage from the currents of sub-relativistic space. Velocity is shed off in pseudo-radiation flares, speeding off at superluminal RSE-velocities. Shifting units charge up. Identification codes are transmitted, showing up in relativistic space as low-energy radiations in the microwave band, announcing the arrival of the Disproportionate Application of Force and its sizeable entourage.

Hours pass.

Then the chargeup is finished, and the ships - after having shed a few Between probes, just in case - drop into relativistic space - 'Realspace', as others would say -, at a reasonably-close-but-far-enough-off-to-not-appear-to-be-an-immediate-threat distance.

By the standards of the local civilisation, anyway.

CCOM@EM1E-3; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Whom it may concern, The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds
Subject: Bases & Clone Acquisition

Heya. Arrived, just in time (Well, maybe a few hours late). I believe that there's a) a Veneric II class SD waiting for us & to take a few of my crew aboard, and b) a batch of clones to be put aboard, uh, myself?

Well - your system. As such, waiting for further directions.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportionate Application of Force

The 'Fleet' - thirteen ships in total, which admittedly is a fleet by Angstian standards - emits just the sort of profile one would expect a military fleet in a warzone to emit when they want to say 'We can defend ourselves, but have no intention to interfere'. Field screens are active, weapons on peacetime-readiness (Which means that they can fire on a second's notice, rather than already firing), and the active sensors are resting on rather mediocre and uninvasive powerlevels - they wont suddenly start to vaporise small asteroids nearby just by looking a little too hard at them.

The only really huge thing is the fleet's gravitational field, which is surprisingly well-measurable. Almost as if the ships were almost solid.

Which, to be fair, they are.

OOC :

Sorry , I havent really been paying much attention to this thread .

IC :

Upon arrival , 2 Imperial MKIII Star Destroyers met up with the Der Angst fleet and escorted them to Imperial Vagabond City , a bustling port-planet cum Imperial Stronghold which was covered with countless Imperial Weapons emplacements as far as the eye could see . The planet's space was also heavily guarded by 2 Imperial Fleets and several other Imperial Flotillas .

A message was replied :

"
Welcome ! Emperor Darth Matter's top aide and chief of Imperial Relations Sith Lord Darth Bane , Grand Admiral of the Empire protectorate starfleet and Vice-head of the Imperial Forces is waiting to meet you at Imperial Summer Palace ."

Arrival

CCOM@EM1E-3; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Presumably Darth Bane, and/ or his Staff
Subject: Continuing Chatter

Perfect. We'll, uh, park in orbit [Orbital Path Attached]. Expect us in a moment.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportional Application of Force

"You should've made mention of being honoured to be able to meet Emperor Darth Matter's top aide and chief of Imperial Relations, Sith Lord Darth Bane, Grand Admiral of the Empire's Protectorate Starfleet and Vice-Head of the Imperial Forces, really. Oh, and you're sure this really works?"

"Well, you know how I think about such overblown-ness... And yes. Yes it does."

"And if not? And regardless, diplomacy occasionally requires us to engage in this kind of excessively overblown verbal cunnilingus."

"If you say so... Oh, and your mindstate will be backed up, anyway. So how about you just risk it?"

"Well... Okay."

"See? So, lets see..."

There was no flash, no blinding light, no funky blue mist.

All there was was a little 'pop' as the air rushed into the just-produced vacuum, and that was it.

The next moment, Janine Renton sat down on a stone in the middle of a grass-covered hill, staring into the blue sky, and wondered where the sun was, while butterflies fluttered around her.

Hrm.

"Errr... I'm sorry about that one."

"Huh? Oh... Wait a moment. Why are you a butterf-"

"Well..."

"... Oh, nevermind. Displace failed?"

"Um. Well. Yes. You and me are now subatomic smears in the landscape. I mean, our former bodies are. I do however have a replacement body for you - and me, of course -, and your entourage of milspec drones hadn't been displaced, anyway, so it's alright."

"Alright, you say..." Janine looked at the ship/ butterfly that had by now landed inside her left hand, and then squished it.

Idiot. Too bad this is only a simulation.

"Pft! I lost an avatar, too, you know! No need to squish my, errr... Representation!"

"Yeah, right. Anyway, quit that disembodied-voice shit and get me into my new body. Please."

"I'm on it. Male or female?"

"..."

"Female it is."

But now. Arrival!

CCOM@EM1E-3; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Presumably Darth Bane, and/ or his Staff
Subject: Continuing Chatter

There was, ah... A mild complication. Nothing serious, but, uh... Well. [Flight Schedule: Shuttle Attached]. We'll drop off at the summer palace, no need to disturb traffic on the regular ports.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportional Application of Force

"You really sure you want to use the shuttle? Statistically, you should be safe for the next few thousand times, and jamming doesn't appear to be a particular problem."

"No, thanks. I know better than to trust ships. By the way... Odd avatar you're using."

The squirrel that was resting on Janine's left shoulder and happened to contain a (Downgraded) instance of the DAoF's mind blinked. "Why?"

"Oh, just so... Thought a human body would be more appropriate. But do as you wish."

The three drones accompanying Janine entered the transport, chatting in the infrared band and generally complaining about ship & envoy, and so did Janine (And therefore the squirrel). Sans complaining, that is.

Engines started up, and consequently, fields of a rather exotic nature formed, spitting into the face of Maxwell's equations, and then they were off, with an absurd number - well, not all that absurd, if one thought about it - of TIEs around them, much to the DAoF's enjoyment. Sure, it thought that the TIEs were an incredible maste of surface area & mass, and just about the worst design it could think of for a mobile point-defence system, but hey...

They still looked shiny.

"So. And what is your primary instance - and its pals - going to do?"

"Well, we've already done the basics - astrography and the likes -, but we're refraining from active deep scans. Collapsing uncertainty states has never been a nice thing to do. Granted, I doubt they've anything below microcircuitry, so it wouldn't exactly hurt them... Regardless. Standard sight's pretty fascinating. We're getting a nice view on their standard kit. Not that it's anything special, but still."

"I see. No gunning up?"

"But why for?! We're on a peaceful mission."

"Oh, yeah... Right." Janine petted the squirrel on her shoulder. "Anyway. It appears we're there. Also, is there any particular reason for this body to feature C-cups, as opposed to my normal Bs?"

"What are you thinking? Of course not. And I'm a squirrel, anyway."

"Yeah, right..."

Doors opened, and the five sapients stepped out of the shuttle, leaving it for itself (It'd be able to take care of its own, anyway).

In front of them was the Imperial Summer Palace in all its glory, or whatever the locals presumed it had. Presumably their tax money.

"Incidentally, did it take time to figure out where it is in the first place?"

"Nah. Condensed it out of the general in-system chatter."

"Ah. Well, lets go. Or, uh, float, in case of you three." Janine looked at the drones, who had started to play games with blades of grass they'd cut from the ground. "Attention, please?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

Arrival

CCOM@EM1E-3; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Presumably Darth Bane, and/ or his Staff
Subject: Continuing Chatter

Perfect. We'll, uh, park in orbit [Orbital Path Attached]. Expect us in a moment.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportional Application of Force

"You should've made mention of being honoured to be able to meet Emperor Darth Matter's top aide and chief of Imperial Relations, Sith Lord Darth Bane, Grand Admiral of the Empire's Protectorate Starfleet and Vice-Head of the Imperial Forces, really. Oh, and you're sure this really works?"

"Well, you know how I think about such overblown-ness... And yes. Yes it does."

"And if not? And regardless, diplomacy occasionally requires us to engage in this kind of excessively overblown verbal cunnilingus."

"If you say so... Oh, and your mindstate will be backed up, anyway. So how about you just risk it?"

"Well... Okay."

"See? So, lets see..."

There was no flash, no blinding light, no funky blue mist.

All there was was a little 'pop' as the air rushed into the just-produced vacuum, and that was it.

The next moment, Janine Renton sat down on a stone in the middle of a grass-covered hill, staring into the blue sky, and wondered where the sun was, while butterflies fluttered around her.

Hrm.

"Errr... I'm sorry about that one."

"Huh? Oh... Wait a moment. Why are you a butterf-"

"Well..."

"... Oh, nevermind. Displace failed?"

"Um. Well. Yes. You and me are now subatomic smears in the landscape. I mean, our former bodies are. I do however have a replacement body for you - and me, of course -, and your entourage of milspec drones hadn't been displaced, anyway, so it's alright."

"Alright, you say..." Janine looked at the ship/ butterfly that had by now landed inside her left hand, and then squished it.

Idiot. Too bad this is only a simulation.

"Pft! I lost an avatar, too, you know! No need to squish my, errr... Representation!"

"Yeah, right. Anyway, quit that disembodied-voice shit and get me into my new body. Please."

"I'm on it. Male or female?"

"..."

"Female it is."

But now. Arrival!

CCOM@EM1E-3; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: Presumably Darth Bane, and/ or his Staff
Subject: Continuing Chatter

There was, ah... A mild complication. Nothing serious, but, uh... Well. [Flight Schedule: Shuttle Attached]. We'll drop off at the summer palace, no need to disturb traffic on the regular ports.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportional Application of Force

"You really sure you want to use the shuttle? Statistically, you should be safe for the next few thousand times, and jamming doesn't appear to be a particular problem."

"No, thanks. I know better than to trust ships. By the way... Odd avatar you're using."

The squirrel that was resting on Janine's left shoulder and happened to contain a (Downgraded) instance of the DAoF's mind blinked. "Why?"

"Oh, just so... Thought a human body would be more appropriate. But do as you wish."

The three drones accompanying Janine entered the transport, chatting in the infrared band and generally complaining about ship & envoy, and so did Janine (And therefore the squirrel). Sans complaining, that is.

Engines started up, and consequently, fields of a rather exotic nature formed, spitting into the face of Maxwell's equations, and then they were off.

"So. And what is your primary instance - and its pals - going to do?"

"Well, we've already done the basics - astrography and the likes -, but we're refraining from active deep scans. Collapsing uncertainty states has never been a nice thing to do. Granted, I doubt they've anything below microcircuitry, so it wouldn't exactly hurt them... Regardless. Standard sight's pretty fascinating. We're getting a nice view on their standard kit. Not that it's anything special, but still."

"I see. No gunning up?"

"But why for?! We're on a peaceful mission."

"Oh, yeah... Right." Janine petted the squirrel on her shoulder. "Anyway. It appears we're there. Also, is there any particular reason for this body to feature C-cups, as opposed to my normal Bs?"

"What are you thinking? Of course not. And I'm a squirrel, anyway."

"Yeah, right..."

Doors opened, and the five sapients stepped out of the shuttle, leaving it for itself (It'd be able to take care of its own, anyway).

In front of them was the Imperial Summer Palace in all its glory, or whatever the locals presumed it had. Presumably their tax money.

"Incidentally, did it take time to figure out where it is in the first place?"

"Nah. Condensed it out of the general in-system chatter."

"Ah. Well, lets go. Or, uh, float, in case of you three." Janine looked at the drones, who had started to play games with blades of grass they'd cut from the ground. "Attention, please?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

IC :

In response :

"Excellent . There will be several ships comming to meet you and do standard security checks first before your delegation will be invited to board an Imperial Shuttle and be escorted down to Vagabond City and escorted by 2 squadrons of highly elite TIE Defenders ."

IC :

As standard response , swiftly 2 Imperial Star Destroyers and an Enslaver Class Super Star Destroyer came up to meet the Der Angst delegation and began to launch several hundred Gamma Class Assult Shuttles carrying inspectors and law enforcement officials as well as a few commando teams to board the Der Angst ships and do some checks while the larger SSD had the high tech scanning systems to scan for any too potentially dangerous stuff that shouldnt be there .

oocness: Well, errr, I already had one of my transports land at the summer palace... Largely to speed things up, because really, I'm not going to start a war (Well, uh, not this time around, anyway).

It's rather obvious and perfectly reasonable that you want to inspect the ships, so no issues there, but I'd be rather indebted if you could edit your post to 'Inspected the Ships and eventually gave clearance'. Results of the inspection see this post. I'd then edit the presence of the TIEs into my last one. I can see assorted reasons why doing so would be rather out of character for you, but, assuming that it isn't utterly impossible, I'd rather keep above post (Almost) as it was, if that isn't too much of a problem.

Oh, and whether you'd like to keep some inspectors on board after the inspection or not - your choice. They certainly wont be thrown off. I figure that you oocly, and the Inspectors ICly might also have some questions, regarding how $Thing works - I'm a little pressed by time here, and wont do any character stuff right now, but perhaps next one around.

Routine Inspections

There was a considerable degree of amusement involved - What? Inspect us? Aren't they protecting our assets with their might? -, but other than that, nothing special.

And what to find on warships?

Subcraft doubling as independent gunturrets. Field emitters that were best described as amorphous shield components, at least for the purposes of the locals (Angstians would describe them rather differently), which implied a considerable degree of utility. Missiles, of course. Von Neumann derivates. CREWs. Particle beam weaponry (In some versions with additional gear suggesting the use of somewhat explosive particles). Ground-combat-scale drones. Effectors. No or extremely small - singledigits - 'crews'. Induced Annihilatory Munitions. Sensordust. And so on.

Needless to say, the weaponry was quite nasty - but then, what else to expect from warships? They do tend to be armed.

As far as the scans were concerned, the ships proved to be rather modest - they screwed with them. Just a little, of course, but when they didn't do any deep scans, they kind of expected others not to do so, either.

A little dent in the local gravitational fields to send the intruding radiation off into deep space, or the hull re-configuring itself and happily absorbing incoming sensor-radiations just to toss them out the other end, reflecting little... It was a game or sorts, nothing else.

And what the ships emitted themselves was already sufficiently distorted to misslead the casual viewer.

Not perfectly, of course. Some details could be gleaned even from the lack thereof. That their drives were reactionless, leaving them with a considerable advantage in terms of efficiency when it came to propulsion & mass. That the ship's hulls were capable of reconfiguring their atom's and molecules' orbital structures to deal with varying electromagnetic spectra. That the ships' field emitters played with more than just the electromagnetic spectrum. That their sheer density was absurd enough to suggest a similarly absurd degree of survivability (Though one could in turn assume - and rightly assume - that their acceleration wasn't quite as impressive). That their lack of (Sizeable) crews, habitation spaces, and therefore consumables potentially meant rather high firepower- and acceleration-per-ton ratios simply by virtue of having more space for guns and drives available when one doesn't have to care for a crew. That they were considerably self-sufficient (They all had some space reserved for manufacturing). That their reaction times would beat the shit out of the locals', simply by virtue of the microseconds a shipmind would require to make a decision beat a human by assorted orders of magnitude.

The inspections and scans wouldn't yield any particularly fascinating results. Most would've been seen before. But the basics of who and what this ships were were rather obvious.

oocness: Well, errr, I already had one of my transports land at the summer palace... Largely to speed things up, because really, I'm not going to start a war (Well, uh, not this time around, anyway).

It's rather obvious and perfectly reasonable that you want to inspect the ships, so no issues there, but I'd be rather indebted if you could edit your post to 'Inspected the Ships and eventually gave clearance'. Results of the inspection see this post. I'd then edit the presence of the TIEs into my last one. I can see assorted reasons why doing so would be rather out of character for you, but, assuming that it isn't utterly impossible, I'd rather keep above post (Almost) as it was, if that isn't too much of a problem.

Oh, and whether you'd like to keep some inspectors on board after the inspection or not - your choice. They certainly wont be thrown off. I figure that you oocly, and the Inspectors ICly might also have some questions, regarding how $Thing works - I'm a little pressed by time here, and wont do any character stuff right now, but perhaps next one around.

Routine Inspections

There was a considerable degree of amusement involved - What? Inspect us? Aren't they protecting our assets with their might? -, but other than that, nothing special.

And what to find on warships?

Subcraft doubling as independent gunturrets. Field emitters that were best described as amorphous shield components, at least for the purposes of the locals (Angstians would describe them rather differently), which implied a considerable degree of utility. Missiles, of course. Von Neumann derivates. CREWs. Particle beam weaponry (In some versions with additional gear suggesting the use of somewhat explosive particles). Ground-combat-scale drones. Effectors. No or extremely small - singledigits - 'crews'. Induced Annihilatory Munitions. Sensordust. And so on.

Needless to say, the weaponry was quite nasty - but then, what else to expect from warships? They do tend to be armed.

As far as the scans were concerned, the ships proved to be rather modest - they screwed with them. Just a little, of course, but when they didn't do any deep scans, they kind of expected others not to do so, either.

A little dent in the local gravitational fields to send the intruding radiation off into deep space, or the hull re-configuring itself and happily absorbing incoming sensor-radiations just to toss them out the other end, reflecting little... It was a game or sorts, nothing else.

And what the ships emitted themselves was already sufficiently distorted to misslead the casual viewer.

Not perfectly, of course. Some details could be gleaned even from the lack thereof. That their drives were reactionless, leaving them with a considerable advantage in terms of efficiency when it came to propulsion & mass. That the ship's hulls were capable of reconfiguring their atom's and molecules' orbital structures to deal with varying electromagnetic spectra. That the ships' field emitters played with more than just the electromagnetic spectrum. That their sheer density was absurd enough to suggest a similarly absurd degree of survivability (Though one could in turn assume - and rightly assume - that their acceleration wasn't quite as impressive). That their lack of (Sizeable) crews, habitation spaces, and therefore consumables potentially meant rather high firepower- and acceleration-per-ton ratios simply by virtue of having more space for guns and drives available when one doesn't have to care for a crew. That they were considerably self-sufficient (They all had some space reserved for manufacturing). That their reaction times would beat the shit out of the locals', simply by virtue of the microseconds a shipmind would require to make a decision beat a human by assorted orders of magnitude.

The inspections and scans wouldn't yield any particularly fascinating results. Most would've been seen before. But the basics of who and what this ships were were rather obvious.

OOC :
Nah , this would do for now . Anyways I will now RP the conpletion of final checks and then I will go straight to describe the planet and then at the shuttle's landing .

IC :

The Imperial Inspectors and Custom Officials finished up their search of the ship with their advanced hand held scanners together with hundreds of Imperial Stormtroopers combing each ship . Once they had finished , they boarded their shuttles and left , only leaving behind 2 Custom Officials and 20 Stormtroopers in each Der Angst vessel .

The SSD then continued with its last search , a deep space scan and scanned thoroughly through every Der Angst ship , searching for any thing the inspectors had left out . Once they were satisfied that everything was in place , the SSD escorted the Der Angst warships to the nearby planet of Imperial Inner Outpost 01 for docking and refuelling .

<Star of Fluid Time>
Meanwhile as the Der Angst shuttle flew through the city , escorted by the squadron of TIE Defenders which flew in standard escort formation , the Imperial Aide to Darth Bane pointed out to the Der Angst delegation the few landmarks in the city like a huge Death Star replica (scaled down) which was mounted on a skyscrapper and on it was a countdown timer to which the Death Moon project was to be completed .

Other than that , there were few civillian landmarks in Vagabond City . The majority of the land were covered in forts , bases , airfields , barracks , armories , planetary defense guns and such . In the middle of the city stood a huge building which projected several beams of energy upwards into the atmosphere . There were a few such buildings on Vagabond Planet which made the 3 layered defensive shields work .
<End of Fluid Time>

As the shuttle landed , a platoon of ceremonially dressed Imperial Elite Stormtroopers snapped to attention and saluted while 6 Dicter Warrior Commandoes stepped forward to escort the Der Angst delegation towards the front entrance of the Fortress .

As the delegation walked down the courtyard , unknown to them there were hundreds of short range scanners underneath scanning them for any dangerous stuff . As they passed through the 10m long Blast Door and Shielding , scanners were also scanning them while the Dicter Warrior Commandoes manning the front entrance scanned them with hand-held body scanners and a full body check .

During the checks the aide apologized to the Der Angst delegation for all the hassle .

"I am terribly sorry for all this security checks . Currently we have a truce with our enemies but nevertheless we are on the lookout for acts of sabotage . This is also the Emperor's summer palace and it must be safe and secure at all times , according to an Imperial Decree he issued recently ."

Small Talk

(&) now talking in #Shiphive_Alpha.
(&) topic is 'Welcome to #Shiphive_Alpha: Informal Preparations for the Great Clone Liberation Movement | Keep your vNs to yourself, this is a peaceful visit | Anyone who happens to be within effector-range of a Sith- and/ or Jedi-Emperor is to report back to the SEU Alpha Complex ASAP.'
(&) set by DEATy on Tuesday, September 13th, 20XX at 6:32:54am
(&) total: 27 operators: 13 »« voices: 14 »«
(&) channel modes: +stnr
(&) created on Tuesday, September 13th, 20XX at 6:32:53am
<DEATy> So. 22 officials in each of us. Whatcha saying?
<Susan_Nakamura> Well, first of all, not all of us are ships, and I'm sure as hell not going to let our guests inside me.
<DEATy> So. 22 officials in each of us, excluding posthumans and drones. Watcha saying?
<Susan>Nakamura> Thanks.
<Throbbing_Temptation> Well. They're pretty polite, so far. And confident.
<Ulmeke_E_Asakiri> Well. Given that I'm your only other occupant, I figure that they're convinced of their numerical superiority.
<DEATy> HeHeHe
<Knootian_Healthcare_Donator> I doubt that our big brother will allow us to screw with 'em, though.
<DAoF> You bet.
<Knootian_Healthcare_Donator> :(
<Ulmeke_E_Asakiri> I guess I'll ask one of 'em if he's up for a game.
* Throbbing_Temptation will record that.
<I Hope You Die> You wouldn't believe how odd they react when one introduces oneself to the Custom Official in one's standard avatar, though.
<Throbbing_Temptation> ... You use 'Death' as your standard avatar.
<I Hope You Die> Well... Yes.
<DAoF> How apropriate. In any case, please behave. We're not here to bust planets, we're here to collect busts.
<DEATy> We are?
<DAoF> Well, the thought just occured to me. If they have an appropriate individual... Unlikely, but still.
<DEATy> I think Janine had a point when she called you an 'Old Leecherous Bastard'.
<DAoF> Pft.
<Throbbing_Temptation> DAoF's an upload, too. Perfectly feasible, if you ask me.
<DAoF> How about we start to discuss operational parameters?
<Misty> No, no... I think I like where this is going... I'm learning rather a lot *chuckles*

Approach (Before)

"Ah. Very nice." The drone - Tesla Eranus - 'nodded' as it floated in the air beside Darth Bane's aide, looking at the Death Star replica. "Countdown, I see... Apt symbolism, I suppose. Personally, well, I suppose we'd keep such a construction project secret, as opposed to building a DEATstar replica to show everyone just when it's completed... But maybe it's just me, and I figure it's good for public morale."

It was familiar enough with diplomatic conduct to not say what it was actually thinking.

Of course, regardless of what it was thinking about the society it was visiting (And it didn't think particularly positive things about it), it was interesting to see. DA, being the civilian (In terms of attitude, anyway. The military was quite absurdly overpowered, regardless of civilian attitudes, although one could argue that disciplinary issues caused by the aforementioned attitude reduced the sheer RAWR factor) society it was, well... Tesla Eranus wasn't quite used to this degree of overmilitarisation. And if it was perfectly honest to itself...

It envied it, just a little. Not the technology, of course, but the sheer numbers!

Were it human, it'd now shower the entire transport in a mixture of testosterones and endomorphines.

Summer Palace (After)

'Unknown' was, perhaps, a bit too optimistic. Well, it was true that neither Janine nor the ship-posing-as-squirrel knew about the sensors (Though in both cases, this was largely because they didn't see a need to carry extra gear on a diplomatic mission when they were already having three milspec drones with them, and in Janines case also because the displace-gone-wrong had turned her standard diplomat body with its metric fuckton of senses a baseline human could only dream of into a submolecular smear in the general vicinity of the planet, forcing her to go with a near-civilian body - admittedly a near-civilian body with C cups, which was an improvement, as far as the DAoFwas concerned), at least not before the drones told them via tightly shaped effector fields, but...

But this really didn't stop the drones from noticing.

And what did the security checks find?

Well, that the local residents - the ones enjoying a reasonable living standard by the present regime, anyway - were somewhat interested in keeping their leaders safe was understandable, and that three milspec drones were a potential - though not an actual: Nobody intended to start shooting - threat to said safety was sort of obvious, too.

In the end, the sensors were allowed more-or-less full coverage (In fact, the drones actually made this easier by changing their casing's configuration appropriately, though whether the guards would notice was another question), with countermeasures being as good as not present at all.

Regardless. A medium milspec drone manufactured by the DAoF essentially consisted of an ellipsoid, vaguely saucer-esque casing slightly less than a metre long, and again somewhat less than half a metre wide & high, with a total volume aproaching a tenth of a cubicmetre, on which eight 'Slots' could be found. When on combat missions, these 'Slots' would be occupied by weaponry - Missile boxes, CREWs, Particle Beam Cannons, drone boxes, the likes.

As this was a diplomatic mission, and this drones' state of alert was somewhere between 'Honour Guard' and 'Just in case something happens', none of the slots were occupied. Instead, they were simply covered, so as to please aesthetics (Leaving them uncovered would be kind of like a man walking with his trousers open and the one-eyed serpent looking out, ready to explore the world out there).

Still. The basic internal gear - propulsion, effector, field emitter (The drones' basic limb-replacement - putting arms on the slots had gone out of fashion a long time ago), internal microfactory, a bit of space occupied by microdrones (Missiles were inappropriate, for such a friendly visit) and assorted junk (I.e. smartdust), and of course, armour... It was all there. And that the scans would have serious trouble, decoding the specific composition of the materials, well... That wasn't all that important when it came to analysing their basic functions.

The squirrel on Janine's left shoulder, well, was unremarkable, apart from it not being entirely biological, and Janine, too, wa unremarkable. Clearly augmented in a variety of subtle ways (No crude cybernetics, but if one looked at her on the microscopic level... Nevermind the genemodding), but not hostile. Well, her necklace included another field emitter, as well as assorted microdrones (One for each pearl), but apart from that... Nothing. No gun, no sword, no knife, no bomb.

And eventually, they were through, with Janine smiling at the aide. "Oh, no problem... I've always liked it when manly man grab my ass for a while, to see whether I'm hiding something in there- OUCH! Stupid squirrel. Getting jealous whenever I mention other men... Anyway. Well, I suppose a decree is somewhat superficial - who wouldn't want one's summer palace perfectly safe at all times? Oh, and nice of you to suggest that we might be saboteurs."

She hesitated, looking around, and wondering briefly just how many people had had to starve for all the guns and the palace. "Anyway. I'm new here. Mind showing us the way?"

Small Talk

(&) now talking in #Shiphive_Alpha.
(&) topic is 'Welcome to #Shiphive_Alpha: Informal Preparations for the Great Clone Liberation Movement | Keep your vNs to yourself, this is a peaceful visit | Anyone who happens to be within effector-range of a Sith- and/ or Jedi-Emperor is to report back to the SEU Alpha Complex ASAP.'
(&) set by DEATy on Tuesday, September 13th, 20XX at 6:32:54am
(&) total: 27 operators: 13 »« voices: 14 »«
(&) channel modes: +stnr
(&) created on Tuesday, September 13th, 20XX at 6:32:53am
<DEATy> So. 22 officials in each of us. Whatcha saying?
<Susan_Nakamura> Well, first of all, not all of us are ships, and I'm sure as hell not going to let our guests inside me.
<DEATy> So. 22 officials in each of us, excluding posthumans and drones. Watcha saying?
<Susan>Nakamura> Thanks.
<Throbbing_Temptation> Well. They're pretty polite, so far. And confident.
<Ulmeke_E_Asakiri> Well. Given that I'm your only other occupant, I figure that they're convinced of their numerical superiority.
<DEATy> HeHeHe
<Knootian_Healthcare_Donator> I doubt that our big brother will allow us to screw with 'em, though.
<DAoF> You bet.
<Knootian_Healthcare_Donator> :(
<Ulmeke_E_Asakiri> I guess I'll ask one of 'em if he's up for a game.
* Throbbing_Temptation will record that.
<I Hope You Die> You wouldn't believe how odd they react when one introduces oneself to the Custom Official in one's standard avatar, though.
<Throbbing_Temptation> ... You use 'Death' as your standard avatar.
<I Hope You Die> Well... Yes.
<DAoF> How apropriate. In any case, please behave. We're not here to bust planets, we're here to collect busts.
<DEATy> We are?
<DAoF> Well, the thought just occured to me. If they have an appropriate individual... Unlikely, but still.
<DEATy> I think Janine had a point when she called you an 'Old Leecherous Bastard'.
<DAoF> Pft.
<Throbbing_Temptation> DAoF's an upload, too. Perfectly feasible, if you ask me.
<DAoF> How about we start to discuss operational parameters?
<Misty> No, no... I think I like where this is going... I'm learning rather a lot *chuckles*

Approach (Before)

"Ah. Very nice." The drone - Tesla Eranus - 'nodded' as it floated in the air beside Darth Bane's aide, looking at the Death Star replica. "Countdown, I see... Apt symbolism, I suppose. Personally, well, I suppose we'd keep such a construction project secret, as opposed to building a DEATstar replica to show everyone just when it's completed... But maybe it's just me, and I figure it's good for public morale."

It was familiar enough with diplomatic conduct to not say what it was actually thinking.

Of course, regardless of what it was thinking about the society it was visiting (And it didn't think particularly positive things about it), it was interesting to see. DA, being the civilian (In terms of attitude, anyway. The military was quite absurdly overpowered, regardless of civilian attitudes, although one could argue that disciplinary issues caused by the aforementioned attitude reduced the sheer RAWR factor) society it was, well... Tesla Eranus wasn't quite used to this degree of overmilitarisation. And if it was perfectly honest to itself...

It envied it, just a little. Not the technology, of course, but the sheer numbers!

Were it human, it'd now shower the entire transport in a mixture of testosterones and endomorphines.

Summer Palace (After)

'Unknown' was, perhaps, a bit too optimistic. Well, it was true that neither Janine nor the ship-posing-as-squirrel knew about the sensors (Though in both cases, this was largely because they didn't see a need to carry extra gear on a diplomatic mission when they were already having three milspec drones with them, and in Janines case also because the displace-gone-wrong had turned her standard diplomat body with its metric fuckton of senses a baseline human could only dream of into a submolecular smear in the general vicinity of the planet, forcing her to go with a near-civilian body - admittedly a near-civilian body with C cups, which was an improvement, as far as the DAoFwas concerned), at least not before the drones told them via tightly shaped effector fields, but...

But this really didn't stop the drones from noticing.

And what did the security checks find?

Well, that the local residents - the ones enjoying a reasonable living standard by the present regime, anyway - were somewhat interested in keeping their leaders safe was understandable, and that three milspec drones were a potential - though not an actual: Nobody intended to start shooting - threat to said safety was sort of obvious, too.

In the end, the sensors were allowed more-or-less full coverage (In fact, the drones actually made this easier by changing their casing's configuration appropriately, though whether the guards would notice was another question), with countermeasures being as good as not present at all.

Regardless. A medium milspec drone manufactured by the DAoF essentially consisted of an ellipsoid, vaguely saucer-esque casing slightly less than a metre long, and again somewhat less than half a metre wide & high, with a total volume aproaching a tenth of a cubicmetre, on which eight 'Slots' could be found. When on combat missions, these 'Slots' would be occupied by weaponry - Missile boxes, CREWs, Particle Beam Cannons, drone boxes, the likes.

As this was a diplomatic mission, and this drones' state of alert was somewhere between 'Honour Guard' and 'Just in case something happens', none of the slots were occupied. Instead, they were simply covered, so as to please aesthetics (Leaving them uncovered would be kind of like a man walking with his trousers open and the one-eyed serpent looking out, ready to explore the world out there).

Still. The basic internal gear - propulsion, effector, field emitter (The drones' basic limb-replacement - putting arms on the slots had gone out of fashion a long time ago), internal microfactory, a bit of space occupied by microdrones (Missiles were inappropriate, for such a friendly visit) and assorted junk (I.e. smartdust), and of course, armour... It was all there. And that the scans would have serious trouble, decoding the specific composition of the materials, well... That wasn't all that important when it came to analysing their basic functions.

The squirrel on Janine's left shoulder, well, was unremarkable, apart from it not being entirely biological, and Janine, too, wa unremarkable. Clearly augmented in a variety of subtle ways (No crude cybernetics, but if one looked at her on the microscopic level... Nevermind the genemodding), but not hostile. Well, her necklace included another field emitter, as well as assorted microdrones (One for each pearl), but apart from that... Nothing. No gun, no sword, no knife, no bomb.

And eventually, they were through, with Janine smiling at the aide. "Oh, no problem... I've always liked it when manly man grab my ass for a while, to see whether I'm hiding something in there- OUCH! Stupid squirrel. Getting jealous whenever I mention other men... Anyway. Well, I suppose a decree is somewhat superficial - who wouldn't want one's summer palace perfectly safe at all times? Oh, and nice of you to suggest that we might be saboteurs."

She hesitated, looking around, and wondering briefly just how many people had had to starve for all the guns and the palace. "Anyway. I'm new here. Mind showing us the way?"

The chief of Palace Security Master-At-Arms Lieutenant General Frankson stepped forward .

"I'm afraid that those droids have got to be stored in the palace's safe . They will be safely kept there for security reasons .Only one droid will be allowed to follow you as they are combat capable . You will be escorted 24/7 by a detail of elite Dicter Warrior Commandoes ."

With a wave of his hand , 5 Imperial Elite Stormtroopers and 2 Dicter Warrior Commandoes stepped forward to bring the droids to the Palace Safe ...

"That's unf-"

'DROID'? What the hell does this bast-

Oh, you three shut up.

After killing him?

No. No killing him.

Why not? He's not a minister. They can surely afford losing a bloody Lieutenant. There's thousands of them, if not millons.

... I said no, and I mean no.

Carbonofascist.

Oh, please. If you've issues, migrate to 01 or whatever.

"-ortunate, but I'm sure they can cope. You can, can't you?"

"Yes, Ma'am," came the reply, thrice.

"Although I'd argue that their combat-capabilites are not quite what they'd beif they were on a warfooting... but nevermind. So... Who of you three is going to accompany me?"

"Me," Tesla Eranus replied.

"Okay then."

With that, Celtic Nefere and Idrin Aspati turned around, seemingly annoyed, and indicated that they were ready to, well, in effect locked away (Probably ineffectively so, but the fuckup they'd cause if they decided to go on a sightseeing tour...), with Celtic Nefere eventually asking one of the Commandos whether they'd at least be allowed to move freely (Or guarded) outside the palace - it had seen a rather interesting native species of... Well, 'Insect' was the closest approximation, and it was rather interested in observing this species.

In the meantime, Janine once more turned towards the aide. "So... Now that this has been done, too... I suppose that we can now go to see, errr, meet... Darth Bane, I believe the name was?"

"That's unf-"

'DROID'? What the hell does this bast-

Oh, you three shut up.

After killing him?

No. No killing him.

Why not? He's not a minister. They can surely afford losing a bloody Lieutenant. There's thousands of them, if not millons.

... I said no, and I mean no.

Carbonofascist.

Oh, please. If you've issues, migrate to 01 or whatever.

"-ortunate, but I'm sure they can cope. You can, can't you?"

"Yes, Ma'am," came the reply, thrice.

"Although I'd argue that their combat-capabilites are not quite what they'd beif they were on a warfooting... but nevermind. So... Who of you three is going to accompany me?"

"Me," Tesla Eranus replied.

"Okay then."

With that, Celtic Nefere and Idrin Aspati turned around, seemingly annoyed, and indicated that they were ready to, well, in effect locked away (Probably ineffectively so, but the fuckup they'd cause if they decided to go on a sightseeing tour...), with Celtic Nefere eventually asking one of the Commandos whether they'd at least be allowed to move freely (Or guarded) outside the palace - it had seen a rather interesting native species of... Well, 'Insect' was the closest approximation, and it was rather interested in observing this species.

In the meantime, Janine once more turned towards the aide. "So... Now that this has been done, too... I suppose that we can now go to see, errr, meet... Darth Bane, I believe the name was?"

IC :

Lieutenant General Frankson nodded to the five stormtroopers who led the droids to the safe and stored them in it after making sure that they were confortably settled in place .

Meanwhile the Aide's face lit up as the security checks were over . He mummured to himself about all the troubles and hassles .

"Of course ! Follow me ."

The Aide then escorted Janine down the corridor , flanked by 5 Dicter Warrior Commandoes . After pasing through a few more security locked blast doors , they entered the Grand Chamber in which Darth Bane sat in the middle of the great chamber .

The Aide let Janine to Darth Bane who slowly rose to his feet ...

Summer Palace

Interesting architecture... Janine thought. It wasn't actually impressive - rather lacking in detail, as far as she was concerned - but the largish spaces she was crossing and entering weren't something she was used to.

Of course, this wasn't what she was here for.

She bowed politely, though certainly not deep enough to suggest subservience - it was somewhere between a proper bow and a simple nod - towards the just-rising Darth Bane (Tesla Eranus, the one drone who had been permitted to accompany Janine, did nothing of that sort, though, instead indulging in a wide variety of simulations involving the speed individual molecules of a carbon-based body may reach when said body combusts after dumping a given, and rather largish, amount of energy into it). "Janine Renton, envoy of the Hypocrisy, and presently here in order to establish the basis for closer political and economic contacts between our two respective entities, while my, ah, transportation is picking up the cargo it has bought from you. Honoured to meet you, Mister Bane."

Another bow, accentuated by Janine's not quite obscene, but still appreciable cleavage. "Which is exactly what we're going to do soonish, I suppose?"

Orbit

Boredom reigns supreme. Astrographic analysis being completed, and with the local sun failing to offer any kind of appreciable mystery, the ships eventually turn their interests towards closer targets - specifically, the planet below.

A military analysis is somewhat pointless, given their relatively peaceful purposes while staying inside the system, and in any case long since done in absurd detail, up to and including a few trillion likely 'First ten seconds' scenarios usually varying in a few millipercent in their predictions, but a social analysis works just as well.

Population density, civilian structures and living standards, religious and technological circumstances, family structures, distribution of commerce and habitation, supply chains, social interdependencies, accepted norms and ethical frameworks, influence of one's gender on a variety of phenomena, the education system, the lack or presence of forms of slavery, human as well as machine, and a few other things...

It's all very interesting, and the information is quite thoroughly collected.

Drones in a Safe

When one thinks about a million times faster than the unaugmented human, things can become very boring, very quickly.

Of course, one has means to deal with this. A nigh-endless supply of simulations, of scenarios and ideas to go through, working on one's thesis, or enjoying the machine equivalent of a heroin injection - it all works out.

But, when you're a little annoyed that the meatboi who can barely count as sapient doesn't bother to answer you, and 'Proper Conduct' forces you to refrain from turning him into a nice, lava-lamp like fog of glowing CHON molecules, trace elements and water vapor, you might as well entertain you in different ways.

In the case of the two drones in the safe, this did largely consist of conceiving pays to pick said safe's locks, be they mechanical or electronic, or something else. Without actually picking the locks, of course. That'd be rude (Okay, so they would rather prefer being rude - but at this moment, they really weren't supposed to be). But still.

Summer Palace

Interesting architecture... Janine thought. It wasn't actually impressive - rather lacking in detail, as far as she was concerned - but the largish spaces she was crossing and entering weren't something she was used to.

Of course, this wasn't what she was here for.

She bowed politely, though certainly not deep enough to suggest subservience - it was somewhere between a proper bow and a simple nod - towards the just-rising Darth Bane (Tesla Eranus, the one drone who had been permitted to accompany Janine, did nothing of that sort, though, instead indulging in a wide variety of simulations involving the speed individual molecules of a carbon-based body may reach when said body combusts after dumping a given, and rather largish, amount of energy into it). "Janine Renton, envoy of the Hypocrisy, and presently here in order to establish the basis for closer political and economic contacts between our two respective entities, while my, ah, transportation is picking up the cargo it has bought from you. Honoured to meet you, Mister Bane."

Another bow, accentuated by Janine's not quite obscene, but still appreciable cleavage. "Which is exactly what we're going to do soonish, I suppose?"

Orbit

Boredom reigns supreme. Astrographic analysis being completed, and with the local sun failing to offer any kind of appreciable mystery, the ships eventually turn their interests towards closer targets - specifically, the planet below.

A military analysis is somewhat pointless, given their relatively peaceful purposes while staying inside the system, and in any case long since done in absurd detail, up to and including a few trillion likely 'First ten seconds' scenarios usually varying in a few millipercent in their predictions, but a social analysis works just as well.

Population density, civilian structures and living standards, religious and technological circumstances, family structures, distribution of commerce and habitation, supply chains, social interdependencies, accepted norms and ethical frameworks, influence of one's gender on a variety of phenomena, the education system, the lack or presence of forms of slavery, human as well as machine, and a few other things...

It's all very interesting, and the information is quite thoroughly collected.

Drones in a Safe

When one thinks about a million times faster than the unaugmented human, things can become very boring, very quickly.

Of course, one has means to deal with this. A nigh-endless supply of simulations, of scenarios and ideas to go through, working on one's thesis, or enjoying the machine equivalent of a heroin injection - it all works out.

But, when you're a little annoyed that the meatboi who can barely count as sapient doesn't bother to answer you, and 'Proper Conduct' forces you to refrain from turning him into a nice, lava-lamp like fog of glowing CHON molecules, trace elements and water vapor, you might as well entertain you in different ways.

In the case of the two drones in the safe, this did largely consist of conceiving pays to pick said safe's locks, be they mechanical or electronic, or something else. Without actually picking the locks, of course. That'd be rude (Okay, so they would rather prefer being rude - but at this moment, they really weren't supposed to be). But still.

IC :

Darth Bane flashed a cold smile and replied .

"I'm sure the force we deployed to guard your project has served you well . Now lets move on to business . First things first , I'll let you name the first issue to discuss ."

Janine Renton

For a moment, Janine wondered whether Bane actually received reports from the fleet assets Mationbuds had deployed. Well, it didn't really matter... Although she did have issues keeping hercuriosity to herself. "Oh yes, certainly. We're very satisfied - in fact, we're generally recommending your excellent services to entities we're cooperating with.

"In any case... Well. There was the issue of clone-acquisition - this is, after all, why the Disproportional Application of Force is actually here - and, somewhat unrelated to this, the establishment of the basic bilateral ties around which we'd hope that further commercial and cultural ties would grow.

"The first issue is easily addressed - where are the clones, and how fast can the transfer can be done? Oh, and while we're at it - I realise that that original request mentioned a mere 256 properly prepared clones, but the Disproportionate Application of Force asked me to ask you whether there may be a surplus available. In which case it'd be interested in acquiring said surplus, too."

Janine smiled softly. "You see, there are some Regimes out there that we'd rather deal with - and to do so, considerable assets in terms of troopers are considerably useful.

"In any case. The second issue is even easier addressed - basic bilateral ties between our two entities. Of course, my own time is sadly limited, and as such, I can only do the most basic negotiations. This said, apart from drafting a declaration of intend-"

Here, the drone projected the image of said declaration, which was pretty standard, saying something about mutual cooperation, economic prospects, safety in a universe of threats, and the opportunities of power - words like 'Friendship', 'Peace' and the likes had been written out of it (Replaced with aforementioned opportunities of power), for obvious reasons. Like, talking to a pseudo-religious, IWANNABEBIG pseudo-psyker.

Who was presumably more into power than peace.

"- I think it'd be very valuable to have a constant presence in Mationbuds, in order to ensure continuous contacts and cooperation to a degree that'd presumably help Mationbuds to become less dependent on only one set of entities with similar philosophies and significant power projection capabilities, thus increasing the number of choices it can make at any given time.

"If such a presence - read, an embassy, including ambassador and staff - could be arranged, I'd be much indebted."

Janine hesitated. She'd talked this over before, with the DAoF... "Ideally, said embassy would be constructed abroad, and then, well, placed... Here? Wherever there is space on the ground, ideally close to the governmental districts, although this isn't a necessity. If this is possible, we'd generally cut down on security - no combat drones, no automated weapons or anything like that, although dual-use systems would be a necessity to keep the embassy running."

Lines of Communication

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e20; SL 9; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: The Scientific Commune of Absolute Light
Subject: Construction Works

Greetings,

Recent events have opened up an opportunity I'd rather not pass up. However, somewhat unfortunately, I'm incapable of exploiting said opportunity due to my - and DA's at large - lack of mass-production capabilities & general skill in the utilisation of contraterrene matter.

As it is, I'm interested in knowing whether you'd be willing to engage in the production of a contraterrene-matter based building complex (The basic function being a mindstate-run embassy). It'd require the appropriate shielding (It'll not be at a location where contraterrene matter is the norm) versus outside influences, shielding that would, indeed, have to feature a fairly high degree of versatility - containing smaller amounts of terrene matter (In all standard forms, I.e. solid, liquid and gas) within itself, as well as occasionally allowing the contact of terrene and contraterrene matter on the microscopic scale (Power Production).

I'm uncertain whether your shielding/ fielding systems are capable of such - if not, I'd be honoured to provide my support, which, combined with your skill in handling contraterrene matter, should allow us to find the appropriate solutions.

I'm similarly uncertain how to recompense you for your effords - I realise that you've long since transcended the capitalist stage of development to a notably higher degree than we have -, though I do hope that the general exercise in skill will make it worthwhile for you. In addition to this, some of the intellectual- and technological support I'd be capable of rendering might as well be interesting to you, though I'm of course ready to listen to your ideas regarding this matter.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportional Application of Force

Infrastructure

The message bounces merrily around. It gets broken down into component parts that get embellished upon. How much amat available in useful elements? What do we want? What can we do that's interesting/fun?

Oh, and there's the everpresent stranglehold of Security. In the Commune, that translates to a bubbly giggle and a "sure, go ahead".

Ring of Roses

It's a line, and it's black. No. A black tube, and it curves very slightly. Here! It widens... oh, branching off into a more curved one. Some other complications, aaaand... a sphere. Black. Unsurprisingly. Cluster of them.

If there were augmented-reality tags here, they would read KEEP OUT, HIGH EXPLOSIVE, and probably NO SMOKING. As it is, there're just beacons for a no-fly zone, hazardous volume. Very powerful beacons. Subtleties like AR tags tend to get lost in the hash, just over five million klicks from suncore.

Some people make their home here. Not that strange for pure-software people, most types of such can backup their midstate. Stranger for the organics working and living by the Commune's main power storage.

The message settles down through a general approval, requests for participation. It lands in Citizen Ezekiel Illugison's lap, not that he has one at the time. Laminated brain, a few inches of armor computronium shading into high-milgrade (civgrade here, but then here civgrade armor means better than milgrade) field-armor. And he's long since chosen to embrace a less humanoid-biased worldview.

Not that long ago, Ezekiel would have been termed a high-functioning cyberpsycho. And he wouldn't be running a multigigaton amat storage and processing facility, playing with ways to make heavier elements, make amat tools.

LoCs

{Return Path}
x Ezekiel Illugison
o GEU Disproportional Application of Force

Greetings,

In general, your proposal has been meeting with approval, even from the Security types. Oddly, I’d say; they are usually rather paranoid. You may want to watch yourselves in case they’re up to some spook-dance. I can vouch for the integrity of whatever we build, though.

Now, taking something on the order of a hundred kilotons out of our storage of antimaterials heavier than helium will take some doing, but there are things we could use, and just working up and manufacturing the field tools to maintain separation, working in AM, will allow us to also develop useful tools for the Ring of Roses accelerator.

And since that things is basically the reason the Commune exists, well, you’re quite popular.

Perhaps it would be best if you sent a representative over? There are public-domain documents on operating in Commune machinery, or you could ship over a core and overload into it.

Logistics and economic data appended. Hope to hear from you soon.

Janine Renton

For a moment, Janine wondered whether Bane actually received reports from the fleet assets Mationbuds had deployed. Well, it didn't really matter... Although she did have issues keeping hercuriosity to herself. "Oh yes, certainly. We're very satisfied - in fact, we're generally recommending your excellent services to entities we're cooperating with.

"In any case... Well. There was the issue of clone-acquisition - this is, after all, why the Disproportional Application of Force is actually here - and, somewhat unrelated to this, the establishment of the basic bilateral ties around which we'd hope that further commercial and cultural ties would grow.

"The first issue is easily addressed - where are the clones, and how fast can the transfer can be done? Oh, and while we're at it - I realise that that original request mentioned a mere 256 properly prepared clones, but the Disproportionate Application of Force asked me to ask you whether there may be a surplus available. In which case it'd be interested in acquiring said surplus, too."

Janine smiled softly. "You see, there are some Regimes out there that we'd rather deal with - and to do so, considerable assets in terms of troopers are considerably useful.

"In any case. The second issue is even easier addressed - basic bilateral ties between our two entities. Of course, my own time is sadly limited, and as such, I can only do the most basic negotiations. This said, apart from drafting a declaration of intend-"

Here, the drone projected the image of said declaration, which was pretty standard, saying something about mutual cooperation, economic prospects, safety in a universe of threats, and the opportunities of power - words like 'Friendship', 'Peace' and the likes had been written out of it (Replaced with aforementioned opportunities of power), for obvious reasons. Like, talking to a pseudo-religious, IWANNABEBIG pseudo-psyker.

Who was presumably more into power than peace.

"- I think it'd be very valuable to have a constant presence in Mationbuds, in order to ensure continuous contacts and cooperation to a degree that'd presumably help Mationbuds to become less dependent on only one set of entities with similar philosophies and significant power projection capabilities, thus increasing the number of choices it can make at any given time.

"If such a presence - read, an embassy, including ambassador and staff - could be arranged, I'd be much indebted."

Janine hesitated. She'd talked this over before, with the DAoF... "Ideally, said embassy would be constructed abroad, and then, well, placed... Here? Wherever there is space on the ground, ideally close to the governmental districts, although this isn't a necessity. If this is possible, we'd generally cut down on security - no combat drones, no automated weapons or anything like that, although dual-use systems would be a necessity to keep the embassy running."

Lines of Communication

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e20; SL 9; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: The Scientific Commune of Absolute Light
Subject: Construction Works

Greetings,

Recent events have opened up an opportunity I'd rather not pass up. However, somewhat unfortunately, I'm incapable of exploiting said opportunity due to my - and DA's at large - lack of mass-production capabilities & general skill in the utilisation of contraterrene matter.

As it is, I'm interested in knowing whether you'd be willing to engage in the production of a contraterrene-matter based building complex (The basic function being a mindstate-run embassy). It'd require the appropriate shielding (It'll not be at a location where contraterrene matter is the norm) versus outside influences, shielding that would, indeed, have to feature a fairly high degree of versatility - containing smaller amounts of terrene matter (In all standard forms, I.e. solid, liquid and gas) within itself, as well as occasionally allowing the contact of terrene and contraterrene matter on the microscopic scale (Power Production).

I'm uncertain whether your shielding/ fielding systems are capable of such - if not, I'd be honoured to provide my support, which, combined with your skill in handling contraterrene matter, should allow us to find the appropriate solutions.

I'm similarly uncertain how to recompense you for your effords - I realise that you've long since transcended the capitalist stage of development to a notably higher degree than we have -, though I do hope that the general exercise in skill will make it worthwhile for you. In addition to this, some of the intellectual- and technological support I'd be capable of rendering might as well be interesting to you, though I'm of course ready to listen to your ideas regarding this matter.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportional Application of Force


IC ;

Darth Bane smiled as Janine continued to rumble on about the issues . He answered the clone troopers issue first .

"The Galactic Empire will transfer the clone troopers as quickly as possible . My General staff report that it can be done within an hour or so without any complications or obstacles . Surplus can be discussed at a later time ."

"Secondly , an embassy exchange between our empires would be ... beneficial to both . We warmly welcome your embassy to be installed in Vagabond City or Maten National City . We would also like to set up an embassy on your capital planet . It would comprise of an embassy , a ambassador and his personal staff as well as security detail and a small Imperial Divisionary Unit which comes with a small Carrack Class Light Cruiser which can work in atmospheric conditions ."

Summer Palace

"That's just about perfect, I'd say." Janine replied, still smiling politely, and hoping that none of the ships in orbit were warming up their effectors. "I'm sure that the transfer will be done within the hour, then. As far as the embassy exchange is concerned, hrm... There's a minor issue insofar as the Hypocrisy doesn't have a capital planet - it shares a number of planets with other entities, which would be somewhat dangerous to live on, and there's very few minor colonies. And when I say minor, I mean minor.

"Add to this that the Hypocrisy is somewhat, well... decentralised, and 'Capital Planet' becomes a somewhat pointless concept. Of course, there's an alternative - ideally, the embassy would be established on board of a Manufacturing Unit. Read, a ship. A major ship - Manufacturing Units tend to belong to the first or second tier of policy makers within the Hypocrisy. And being located on one would enable effective communications, direct contact with high-level sapients - aforementioned 'Policy Makers' - and allow for a high degree of mobility.

"I realise that it'd pose certain issues with regards to, well, availability, but given that the Hypocrisy is effectively a somewhat anarchic democracy, there's not really a 'Highest Authority' one would have to stay close to, anyway, so this is an acceptable price.

"As far as our embassy goes, well... I believe that Mationbuds is notably more centralised than the Hypocrisy. As such, well... Wherever we could more effectively cooperate with the primary policy makers of Mationbuds - read, among others, you. Which would be... Maten or Vagabond? You tell me."

Absolute Light

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e20; SL 9; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: The Scientific Commune of Absolute Light
Subject: Construction Works

I'll keep it in mind. In any case - sounds just about perfect.

And you're right - a personal presence is indeed appropriate. An informational presence will have to do - I'm annoyingly incapable of instantaneous travel, irregardless of whether it's a physical presence or an informational blurb, but the latter still goes considerably faster.

Attached to this message is an instance of myself - dump it into the necessary computronium, and trigger it (I've added the latter to satisty paranoid security-types), and we can talk.

I'm sure it'll be a fascinating visit - in terms of popularity, I'm quite happy to say that it goes both ways.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportional Application of Force

[Attachement: Instance_3_DAoF.msa]

Summer Palace

"That's just about perfect, I'd say." Janine replied, still smiling politely, and hoping that none of the ships in orbit were warming up their effectors. "I'm sure that the transfer will be done within the hour, then. As far as the embassy exchange is concerned, hrm... There's a minor issue insofar as the Hypocrisy doesn't have a capital planet - it shares a number of planets with other entities, which would be somewhat dangerous to live on, and there's very few minor colonies. And when I say minor, I mean minor.

"Add to this that the Hypocrisy is somewhat, well... decentralised, and 'Capital Planet' becomes a somewhat pointless concept. Of course, there's an alternative - ideally, the embassy would be established on board of a Manufacturing Unit. Read, a ship. A major ship - Manufacturing Units tend to belong to the first or second tier of policy makers within the Hypocrisy. And being located on one would enable effective communications, direct contact with high-level sapients - aforementioned 'Policy Makers' - and allow for a high degree of mobility.

"I realise that it'd pose certain issues with regards to, well, availability, but given that the Hypocrisy is effectively a somewhat anarchic democracy, there's not really a 'Highest Authority' one would have to stay close to, anyway, so this is an acceptable price.

"As far as our embassy goes, well... I believe that Mationbuds is notably more centralised than the Hypocrisy. As such, well... Wherever we could more effectively cooperate with the primary policy makers of Mationbuds - read, among others, you. Which would be... Maten or Vagabond? You tell me."

Absolute Light

BL-FTLCOM@BL1e20; SL 9; Tightbeam
From: GEU Disproportional Application of Force
To: The Scientific Commune of Absolute Light
Subject: Construction Works

I'll keep it in mind. In any case - sounds just about perfect.

And you're right - a personal presence is indeed appropriate. An informational presence will have to do - I'm annoyingly incapable of instantaneous travel, irregardless of whether it's a physical presence or an informational blurb, but the latter still goes considerably faster.

Attached to this message is an instance of myself - dump it into the necessary computronium, and trigger it (I've added the latter to satisty paranoid security-types), and we can talk.

I'm sure it'll be a fascinating visit - in terms of popularity, I'm quite happy to say that it goes both ways.

Sincerely,

~ GEU Disproportional Application of Force

[Attachement: Instance_3_DAoF.msa]



IC :

"Of course ,having our embassy in one of your manufacturing ships would be rather ... effective . It will enable our diplomats to have direct links to your top policy makers and leaders , thus an effective cooperation between us will show ."

"Yes ,we are a rather centralised Empire . Our capital planet is widely believed to be Vagabond City . But contary to beliefs , it is actually at Maten National City ."

"But you can choose to set up your embassy at Vagabond Planet because there are sector Moffs and Governors stationed there ."

Janine considered this for a moment, talking it over with the instance of the DAoF sitting on her shoulder, in squirrel form, and eventually nodded. "That works, then. The ship will be the Wealth of Nations - I'm not entirely certain how much space your representative will need, but I figure that two floors will suffice. Sixty-four times sixty-four times eight metres - 32768 cubicmetres or - in effect - 8192 squaremetres of space... If any more than that is needed, the Wealth of Nations can make the necessary changes.

"Assorted luxuries to your representative's exclusive use will of course be available as well, although more public locations will of course be present, too. The ship itself will operate as link to both, the Hypocrisy at large and Mationbuds, and provide the necessary informational infrastructure. If you desire to keep the security arrangements - incidentally, how big is an imperial divisionary unit? - you mentioned, feel free, although they'd be somewhat unnecessary."

An understatement, given the capabilities of the ships of the Hypocrisy, which were perfectly capable of field-dissecting a bullet fired at their occupants into its component atoms, followed by displacing each of the atoms outside their hull, to form a slowly-drifting cloud of base elements. Granted, CREW blasts were less easy to deal with (Assuming that mirror fields weren't up in the first place), but if nothing else helped, the ship could flash-read an ambassador's mind, and transplant said ambassadors personality into a body grown based on a surviving bit of ambassador-DNA - suffice to say, it was hard to find a safer place.

"And with regards to our embassy, hrm. Well, I suppose that direct contact to your governeurs would be useful for lower-tiered contacts between our two nations, but I figure that a consulate - to be established at a later date - would suffice for such. So... I'd rather keep the embassy at Maten National City."

Janine smiled serenely, relaxing. "Well, I suppose that settles it - it'll take a few months until our embassy would be finished - conversely, accounting for travel times, you could send off one of your representatives immediately -, so I figure there's time to figure out the exact spot where we'd, ah, 'Drop' it, but apart from that... Well. That'd be the two primary issues at hand. But, while we're at it, and given that we still have a bit of time until the clones are transferred... I'm curious as of what exactly you're expecting from the relationship between our two entities."

The smile changed a little, displaying slightly less serenity, and slightly more... Voracity? Something like that, if perhaps not quite as demanding. "I'm not entirely familiar with Mationbuds' present international relations, although judging by what I know, its position is somewhat less ideal than you'd like it to be - constantly threatened by a variety of entities, some of which supposedly being allies of Mationbuds, but not exactly behaving as such.

"At least-" The smile turned serene, again. "That's the impression I get, although the information available to me is naturally limited. As such, I'm of course curious inhowfar my opinion is this regard needs to be corrected - and, of course, what your own opinions and goals are, particularly, but not exclusively, with regards to our mutual cooperation."

Infrastructure

It takes a little while. Acquiring some key components, making the rest, integrating it into a chassis, testing.

Ezekiel, meanwhile, does alchemy with high explosives. The storage, we should note, is decoupled from the main accelerator. It moves, always keeping the bulk of the Sun between itself and Earth.

The blast would be pretty, but bad for the atmosphere.

Fields go up and the armored chassis tools off to the AM storage. Great big ellipsoid of exotic materials and (sort of shoddy) field tools, QE comms array, computronium...

Mindscape

The blast is pretty.

The stores are going up, interacting with the solar wind in vast, incandescent auroras. The Sun's magnitude has dropped like a rock... it'll be hours before the flare dies down. The strobes of the original breach are propagating outsystem, hitting atmospheres, chemistries going strange.

Ezekiel and DAoF have a good view, from a small wooden spaceship surrounded by a soap bubble-like enclosure. Water gurgles, there's a smell of vegetables on a grill.

Two lawn chairs at an angle, comfortable. The DAoF in one, avatar as specified. Ezekiel in the other, so black he's basically a shadow, melanin gone mad.

"Welcome to the Commune, M Disproportional Application of Force," he begins, with a polite bow. "Ezekiel Illugison, and I'm very happy to see you. First things first, physically we're in armored utility chassis by the store. All the better to appreciate what we'll be working with. Now, if you feel for it you should see assorted data on storage and capabilities..."

Janine considered this for a moment, talking it over with the instance of the DAoF sitting on her shoulder, in squirrel form, and eventually nodded. "That works, then. The ship will be the Wealth of Nations - I'm not entirely certain how much space your representative will need, but I figure that two floors will suffice. Sixty-four times sixty-four times eight metres - 32768 cubicmetres or - in effect - 8192 squaremetres of space... If any more than that is needed, the Wealth of Nations can make the necessary changes.

"Assorted luxuries to your representative's exclusive use will of course be available as well, although more public locations will of course be present, too. The ship itself will operate as link to both, the Hypocrisy at large and Mationbuds, and provide the necessary informational infrastructure. If you desire to keep the security arrangements - incidentally, how big is an imperial divisionary unit? - you mentioned, feel free, although they'd be somewhat unnecessary."

An understatement, given the capabilities of the ships of the Hypocrisy, which were perfectly capable of field-dissecting a bullet fired at their occupants into its component atoms, followed by displacing each of the atoms outside their hull, to form a slowly-drifting cloud of base elements. Granted, CREW blasts were less easy to deal with (Assuming that mirror fields weren't up in the first place), but if nothing else helped, the ship could flash-read an ambassador's mind, and transplant said ambassadors personality into a body grown based on a surviving bit of ambassador-DNA - suffice to say, it was hard to find a safer place.

"And with regards to our embassy, hrm. Well, I suppose that direct contact to your governeurs would be useful for lower-tiered contacts between our two nations, but I figure that a consulate - to be established at a later date - would suffice for such. So... I'd rather keep the embassy at Maten National City."

Janine smiled serenely, relaxing. "Well, I suppose that settles it - it'll take a few months until our embassy would be finished - conversely, accounting for travel times, you could send off one of your representatives immediately -, so I figure there's time to figure out the exact spot where we'd, ah, 'Drop' it, but apart from that... Well. That'd be the two primary issues at hand. But, while we're at it, and given that we still have a bit of time until the clones are transferred... I'm curious as of what exactly you're expecting from the relationship between our two entities."

The smile changed a little, displaying slightly less serenity, and slightly more... Voracity? Something like that, if perhaps not quite as demanding. "I'm not entirely familiar with Mationbuds' present international relations, although judging by what I know, its position is somewhat less ideal than you'd like it to be - constantly threatened by a variety of entities, some of which supposedly being allies of Mationbuds, but not exactly behaving as such.

"At least-" The smile turned serene, again. "That's the impression I get, although the information available to me is naturally limited. As such, I'm of course curious inhowfar my opinion is this regard needs to be corrected - and, of course, what your own opinions and goals are, particularly, but not exclusively, with regards to our mutual cooperation."

IC :

Darth Bane smiled .

"I have reports from my men that the clonetrooper transfer is going according to plan . 100 Gamma Class Assult Shuttles waiting with the men are now taking off for your ships , where the transaction will commence ."

"An Imperial Divisionary unit is actually a very large unit . Hence we are going to scale it to an Imperial Expeditionary Unit which consists of 5 AT-PTs , 10 Speede Bikes and 100 Imperial Stormtroopers led by a Black Guard Commando . "

"Placing your embassy in Maten National City is a splended idea . The Emperor has just informed me that he also would like the embassy to be placed near him ."

Janine Renton

Well. Not exactly a complete response, but hey... Janine takes the squirrel from her shoulders, petting it, and thinking.

"Wonderful. And that works - there's more than sufficient space to accommodate such a force on the Wealth of Nations, so there's no problem there. I figure they can come with us once we leave, if you like. It's a bit cramped at present, but sufficient space can easily be provided with a bit of rearranging.

"As for the embassy, I'm greatly honoured to hear that Darth Matter values us so much as to wish us to be this close - my sincere gratitude for that. There's only hoping that we'll be able to respond with similar favours - which I'm sure we'll do soon enough. If not in the political field, then maybe in economic, or even military ones... Or whatever may come up. Of course, we'll have to build the embassy first, so it'll still take a while - but we'll keep you informed. And I can tell you right now that it'll be... Appropriately reflecting the trust you're having in us, being quite possibly the most unique embassy ever seen by man.

"Incidentally... Whom are you going to send as your ambassador?"

Space

Flickers of information, bouncing back and forth, penetrating starship hulls and sucking knowledge out of them.

The security checks out, and the shuttles are cleared for landing, the hangars of a multibillion ton ship opening up suggestively while field-grips guide the shuttles into the same, tentatively taking a hold of the shuttles, just in case that some accident happens - tentatively enough to leave the shuttles' pilots the illusion of control.

Quarters are plentiful, and fairly large. Luxurities aren't something commonly found on a warship of the Hypocrisy - they're generally known for having little or no living space at all, being little more than solid blocks of weaponry and drives -, but the Disproportionate Application of Force had rearranged its internal structure a little, making space for its guests and expected cargo at the cost of some minor functions' efficiency.

Within the hangars, harmless enough looking drones - unarmed, of course. There's no reason to show off with armament equivalent to the firepower of entire clone trooper divisions - are already waiting, floating patiently at chest-height, and ready to guide their guests.

Absolute Light

Brief - less brief than usual, as AL's computronium's meant for sturdiness rather than speed - moments of appreciating the pretty colours, on a scale not limited to the visible spectrum. Movement, annihilation and the rebirth of particles not seen in such quantities since a very small fraction of a second after the big bang - it's all quite beautiful, and the DAoF is epicurean enough to take in the image before business talks take over.

The DAoF's an upload, born human, and its avatar reflects as much - it's about DA standard, a mixture of human ethnicities leaving no space for clear definitions of origin. Well, maybe a bit on the white side of things... A pretty man, not above showing hints of not quite androgynous, but still vaguely feminine features, quite inappropriate given the mind's occupation and name.

That's the point.

"It's appreciated," the DAoF replies, bowing similarly, and working for a few moments on getting the hang of the computronium it's now roaming, without perfectly succeeding - can't really beat the natives in their home element. Still, it ends up being comfortable enough. "And I'm most honoured to be here. Not quite used to be this close to a star... In any case, yes, I do think this is appropriate - it's what I'm here for, after all."

What follows is a brief but comprehensive sharing of information and intentions, on both sides. Needless to say, the DAoF ends up being considerably impressed.

Janine Renton

Well. Not exactly a complete response, but hey... Janine takes the squirrel from her shoulders, petting it, and thinking.

"Wonderful. And that works - there's more than sufficient space to accommodate such a force on the Wealth of Nations, so there's no problem there. I figure they can come with us once we leave, if you like. It's a bit cramped at present, but sufficient space can easily be provided with a bit of rearranging.

"As for the embassy, I'm greatly honoured to hear that Darth Matter values us so much as to wish us to be this close - my sincere gratitude for that. There's only hoping that we'll be able to respond with similar favours - which I'm sure we'll do soon enough. If not in the political field, then maybe in economic, or even military ones... Or whatever may come up. Of course, we'll have to build the embassy first, so it'll still take a while - but we'll keep you informed. And I can tell you right now that it'll be... Appropriately reflecting the trust you're having in us, being quite possibly the most unique embassy ever seen by man.

"Incidentally... Whom are you going to send as your ambassador?"

Space

Flickers of information, bouncing back and forth, penetrating starship hulls and sucking knowledge out of them.

The security checks out, and the shuttles are cleared for landing, the hangars of a multibillion ton ship opening up suggestively while field-grips guide the shuttles into the same, tentatively taking a hold of the shuttles, just in case that some accident happens - tentatively enough to leave the shuttles' pilots the illusion of control.

Quarters are plentiful, and fairly large. Luxurities aren't something commonly found on a warship of the Hypocrisy - they're generally known for having little or no living space at all, being little more than solid blocks of weaponry and drives -, but the Disproportionate Application of Force had rearranged its internal structure a little, making space for its guests and expected cargo at the cost of some minor functions' efficiency.

Within the hangars, harmless enough looking drones - unarmed, of course. There's no reason to show off with armament equivalent to the firepower of entire clone trooper divisions - are already waiting, floating patiently at chest-height, and ready to guide their guests.

Absolute Light

Brief - less brief than usual, as AL's computronium's meant for sturdiness rather than speed - moments of appreciating the pretty colours, on a scale not limited to the visible spectrum. Movement, annihilation and the rebirth of particles not seen in such quantities since a very small fraction of a second after the big bang - it's all quite beautiful, and the DAoF is epicurean enough to take in the image before business talks take over.

The DAoF's an upload, born human, and its avatar reflects as much - it's about DA standard, a mixture of human ethnicities leaving no space for clear definitions of origin. Well, maybe a bit on the white side of things... A pretty man, not above showing hints of not quite androgynous, but still vaguely feminine features, quite inappropriate given the mind's occupation and name.

That's the point.

"It's appreciated," the DAoF replies, bowing similarly, and working for a few moments on getting the hang of the computronium it's now roaming, without perfectly succeeding - can't really beat the natives in their home element. Still, it ends up being comfortable enough. "And I'm most honoured to be here. Not quite used to be this close to a star... In any case, yes, I do think this is appropriate - it's what I'm here for, after all."

What follows is a brief but comprehensive sharing of information and intentions, on both sides. Needless to say, the DAoF ends up being considerably impressed.

Imperial Throne Room

"We are honored to receive such treatment and further ties , be it military , economic or diplomatic , I am sure that it will benefit the both of us and help us to propser and flourish ."

"It is also my pleasure to inform you that the Empire will be footing the construction and billing of your embassy on Imperial Soil . Just simply submit the design to us and we will build it as soon as possible with the best , strongest and sturdiest materials ."

"Our ambassador will be Dr James Anderson , a former Imperial Grand Admiral and holds a Doctorate in Polictical Sciences and Military Arts . His aide will be Brigadier General Thompson , who will also be incharge of embassy security ."

"And so we come to this question , who will your esteemed ambassador be ?"

Space

Upon landing , the shuttles' main doors slowly opened as the Imperial storm troopers charged out , forming 2 Combat Divisions before a senior Imperial Fleet official stepped forward to meet the chief of the warship he was in ...

Janine Renton

"Oh, I agree... And construction should be simple, given that we're constructing the major components. All we need will be the basics - space to put it in, a digged-out basement, the likes. Details will be send as soon as they are, uh, available. Which should be pretty soon, really."

Janine hesitated for a moment, surprised to hear the words 'Doctor' and 'Political Science' - hadn't 'Military Arts' and 'Admiral' be mentioned in the same sentence, her worldview (Or more specifically, her view on Mationbuds) would've collapsed.

Eventually, she bowed slightly, as a form of indicating a 'Thank You'. "I'm honoured - they must be among your greatest political - and military - minds. We'll take care and make sure that their talents will remain in good use.

"As far as our representative goes - it'll likely be an (Yet to be created) artificial construct, embedded in the embassy's computronium. Bodies in order to leave it - and to talk eye-to-eye - will of course be present."

A second's pause, and the squirrel eventually bit Janine's left thumb, softly, reminding her that other societies thought a little different about 'Constructed' intelligences.

"Oh, and, of course, a fully sapient construct, specialised for the position, and presumably going to end up in the first- or second tier of policy-making entities. About equivalent to a governeur, general, or megacorp CEO."

Janine smiled. "Of course, it'll choose its own name and preferred self-image - machine, male, female, androgynous, whatever -, so I can't yet give you a name - I'm sure it'll be happy to introduce itself once it arrives, though."

Space

Two divisions were, perhaps, a little more than what had been expected - but the DAoF and its (Small) sapient complement weren't going to complain if they got more than that.

Still, two divisions, when 256 men had been asked for - well, the necessary changes to the interior could be done in time. Either that, or the vast majority of the force in question was something like an honour guard.

Kasimir Entrep briefly considered asking the imperial fleet officer about this, but decided not to do it - surely it'd find out soon. Or, at least, before they were going to leave the system.

As it was, it floated over (Quickly followed by the - in this instance - feminine body of the DAoF), matte ellipsoid body like an oversized egg, and tipped its front end a little, bow-esque. "Kasimir Entrep, Milspec-Drone & Infantry-Equivalent combatant. May I introduce the Disproportionate Application of Force to you?"

The woman - dressed conservatively in a darkish fantasy uniform, vaguely secret-police-esque - bowed as well, smiling. "It's a pleasure. I take it that not all of the men you brought with you are our, ah... Cargo? I'm uncertain as of your arrangements, so..."

Janine Renton

"Oh, I agree... And construction should be simple, given that we're constructing the major components. All we need will be the basics - space to put it in, a digged-out basement, the likes. Details will be send as soon as they are, uh, available. Which should be pretty soon, really."

Janine hesitated for a moment, surprised to hear the words 'Doctor' and 'Political Science' - hadn't 'Military Arts' and 'Admiral' be mentioned in the same sentence, her worldview (Or more specifically, her view on Mationbuds) would've collapsed.

Eventually, she bowed slightly, as a form of indicating a 'Thank You'. "I'm honoured - they must be among your greatest political - and military - minds. We'll take care and make sure that their talents will remain in good use.

"As far as our representative goes - it'll likely be an (Yet to be created) artificial construct, embedded in the embassy's computronium. Bodies in order to leave it - and to talk eye-to-eye - will of course be present."

A second's pause, and the squirrel eventually bit Janine's left thumb, softly, reminding her that other societies thought a little different about 'Constructed' intelligences.

"Oh, and, of course, a fully sapient construct, specialised for the position, and presumably going to end up in the first- or second tier of policy-making entities. About equivalent to a governeur, general, or megacorp CEO."

Janine smiled. "Of course, it'll choose its own name and preferred self-image - machine, male, female, androgynous, whatever -, so I can't yet give you a name - I'm sure it'll be happy to introduce itself once it arrives, though."

Space

Two divisions were, perhaps, a little more than what had been expected - but the DAoF and its (Small) sapient complement weren't going to complain if they got more than that.

Still, two divisions, when 256 men had been asked for - well, the necessary changes to the interior could be done in time. Either that, or the vast majority of the force in question was something like an honour guard.

Kasimir Entrep briefly considered asking the imperial fleet officer about this, but decided not to do it - surely it'd find out soon. Or, at least, before they were going to leave the system.

As it was, it floated over (Quickly followed by the - in this instance - feminine body of the DAoF), matte ellipsoid body like an oversized egg, and tipped its front end a little, bow-esque. "Kasimir Entrep, Milspec-Drone & Infantry-Equivalent combatant. May I introduce the Disproportionate Application of Force to you?"

The woman - dressed conservatively in a darkish fantasy uniform, vaguely secret-police-esque - bowed as well, smiling. "It's a pleasure. I take it that not all of the men you brought with you are our, ah... Cargo? I'm uncertain as of your arrangements, so..."



"We appreciate all of that . Your technological ambassador will be given the best ... treatment we can offer . It will no doubtedly be heavily guarded at all times by a squad of Dicter Warrior Commandoes , the most elite units we have ."

"And once it is ... constructed , it would be a pleasure to get to know him ... or her better ."

Space

Imperial Senior Fleet Officer James Wanton smiled stiffly .

He faced Kasimir Entrep first . "It would be a honor to be introduced to the DOaF . I'm sure I will be impressed ."

Next , he replied to the woman .

"Greetings , I am Senior Fleet Officer Wanton . You are ? As for the ... cargo , all 256 men are present. The remaining 50 Stormtroopers are more of a ... honor guard as well as the 2 Dicter Warriors flanking me right now ."

From the desk of Mayor Blub,

Greetings! We are Blub. We have heard of your offer and we would like to accept it. You may find our species strange, but we are a lightly-defended colony in the Juno System on the outer edge of the Trion Galaxy.

We could use the defenses. Furthermore, your infantry would be useful to train with in wargame participation, as our race is not that advanced in the premise of warfare.

That is all.

<signed> Mayor Blub.

From the desk of Mayor Blub,

Greetings! We are Blub. We have heard of your offer and we would like to accept it. You may find our species strange, but we are a lightly-defended colony in the Juno System on the outer edge of the Trion Galaxy.

We could use the defenses. Furthermore, your infantry would be useful to train with in wargame participation, as our race is not that advanced in the premise of warfare.

That is all.

<signed> Mayor Blub.

The Galactic Empire of Mationbuds are pleased to hear of your acception of our proposal . Although you are currently lightly defended , in no time you will be a bustling city , heavily defended against all threats .

As we speak , 2 Imperial Flotillas are on the way with the promised cash , plus some free weapons/ships and some military advisers to help train your men .

Regards ,
Darth Bane .

Janine Renton

"I'm sure of that." Another smile. Incincerely, of course - diplomacy requires them, but nobody really takes them serious. "And it'll undoubtedly offer you the opportunity. In any case... I'm not sure - is there something else we'd need, or should discuss? Or see, for that matter. I figure we'll have all the time in the world until Dr. James Anderson's ready."

DAoF

Had the DAoF's feminine representation been a baseline human, it'd probably have blinked. As it was, the handful of microseconds spend on being surprised by James Wanton's reaction went somewhat unnoticed, and she just replied seamlessly. "Oh, you're missunderstanding - Kasimir introduced me, me being the Disproportionate Application of Force. Or rather, the essence of its - my - personality transferred into a block of largely-biological computronium - a mildly augmented brain - within this body, retaining control over the ship at large via remote links - I could go with two instances, but I'm already having two others run elsewhere, and I'd rather keep it limited. Oh, and of course, the ship's own computronium is still containing the vast majority of my knowledge and capacities - can't really fit those into this brain-" Here, the tipped her forehead. "-so it's kind of a necessity. I suppose you could think of it as a form of distributed brain, if you like. Or an instantaneously available library. But in any case, I rather prefer this to being a disembodied voice or some such nonsense. Oh, and I'm glad that you're honoured to be introduced to me."

She smiled a little, almost as if she was about to giggle, half embarrassed, half cute, and obviously desinterested in trying to come around as a figure of authority, her vaguely authoritarian dressing style nonwithstanding. "Well then. Our cargo," here, she glanced at the arrays of troopers, spending a few milliseconds on considering the virtues of purchasing them. She wasn't entirely certain whether the Kiss My Ass' intentions were working out as intended, but then, it was presumably as good an idea as any, and two-hundred and fifty-six clones weren't exactly going to have a significant economic impact. "-can be led to its quarters by Kasimir, I suppose." Damnit. Can't see their bodies under these encounter suits. Hrm...

Accessing the ship's internals was a simple measure. Selecting the appropriate settings was similarly easy to do, and transferring the - compressed - information back to the bit of brain the DAoF's personality was in was, again, not particularly hard to do.

Ho-hum. Not really my type... But no worse than the other people in the fleet, I suppose. Might give it a try.

Needless to say, with a largely-biological body, hormones did have an impact on the personality of any given mind.

"And as far as the rest is concerned, I guess that you're interested in an introduction to the ship itself, rather than me? I'm not sure whether your time allows for it, but I might as well ask - would you like an introductory tour? Significant parts of the ship are inaccessible to human-sized individuals, but I can improvise."

Janine Renton

"I'm sure of that." Another smile. Incincerely, of course - diplomacy requires them, but nobody really takes them serious. "And it'll undoubtedly offer you the opportunity. In any case... I'm not sure - is there something else we'd need, or should discuss? Or see, for that matter. I figure we'll have all the time in the world until Dr. James Anderson's ready."

DAoF

Had the DAoF's feminine representation been a baseline human, it'd probably have blinked. As it was, the handful of microseconds spend on being surprised by James Wanton's reaction went somewhat unnoticed, and she just replied seamlessly. "Oh, you're missunderstanding - Kasimir introduced me, me being the Disproportionate Application of Force. Or rather, the essence of its - my - personality transferred into a block of largely-biological computronium - a mildly augmented brain - within this body, retaining control over the ship at large via remote links - I could go with two instances, but I'm already having two others run elsewhere, and I'd rather keep it limited. Oh, and of course, the ship's own computronium is still containing the vast majority of my knowledge and capacities - can't really fit those into this brain-" Here, the tipped her forehead. "-so it's kind of a necessity. I suppose you could think of it as a form of distributed brain, if you like. Or an instantaneously available library. But in any case, I rather prefer this to being a disembodied voice or some such nonsense. Oh, and I'm glad that you're honoured to be introduced to me."

She smiled a little, almost as if she was about to giggle, half embarrassed, half cute, and obviously desinterested in trying to come around as a figure of authority, her vaguely authoritarian dressing style nonwithstanding. "Well then. Our cargo," here, she glanced at the arrays of troopers, spending a few milliseconds on considering the virtues of purchasing them. She wasn't entirely certain whether the Kiss My Ass' intentions were working out as intended, but then, it was presumably as good an idea as any, and two-hundred and fifty-six clones weren't exactly going to have a significant economic impact. "-can be led to its quarters by Kasimir, I suppose." Damnit. Can't see their bodies under these encounter suits. Hrm...

Accessing the ship's internals was a simple measure. Selecting the appropriate settings was similarly easy to do, and transferring the - compressed - information back to the bit of brain the DAoF's personality was in was, again, not particularly hard to do.

Ho-hum. Not really my type... But no worse than the other people in the fleet, I suppose. Might give it a try.

Needless to say, with a largely-biological body, hormones did have an impact on the personality of any given mind.

"And as far as the rest is concerned, I guess that you're interested in an introduction to the ship itself, rather than me? I'm not sure whether your time allows for it, but I might as well ask - would you like an introductory tour? Significant parts of the ship are inaccessible to human-sized individuals, but I can improvise."


Darth Bane

"That will be all for today . Now , if you may , I'll escort you to your ... room ."

He signalled and 4 Dicter Warrior Commandoes came forward . Lifting up an arm , he invited Janine to follow him .


Space

"I see . Please pardon my careless ... mistake . I hope that all ... goods are in order and that they will suite your needs . As for the tour of the ship , if we may begin ."

The Stormtroopers stood at attention , waiting for instructions from their battalion commander , who also stood unflincing , waiting for orders from Officer James Wanton who ordered them at ease and remain ...

Janine Renton

"I see-" Say, um, last I checked, we were supposed to be here for a few hours, not for a week, yes?

Well. It wasn't never really discussed... Just assumed, on our side, anyway. Not sure what else he might plan. Perhaps he's into your brand-new C-cups.

Sweet Jesus. That's really going to reassure me. Next time, I am going to run organisation, understood?

Hey, I'm just a squirrel. But okay. You have my word.

Oh, shut up.

"-and certainly. Though I really couldn't think of any threat to me in this palace - this said, your presence is more than welcome to me. Incidentally, if I may ask: As we've pretty much covered all the major topics there were, what else can I expect to happen, or to be discussed, and more importantly, throughout what kind of timeframe?"

With that, Janine joined by Darth Bane's side, following him to, well, what she supposed would be her room.

DAoF

The DAoF's female-version chuckled while watching Kasimir floating away, leading the 'Cargo', and nodded. "Oh, no problem. It's not too common in this region of space, I suspect. In any case... First, the basics, I suppose. Well. If yo'd like to follow me? And please not too many escorts - the corridors are somewhat narrow, and I'm sure you've already noticed that we're not the tallest humans in existence.

"I, that is, the Disproportionate Application of Force, am a General Engagement Unit, supposed to provide fire support at long range and to maybe boil off a continent or two, if necessary. I'm - actually, I figure it's better when I call the ship 'It', given my present body... It is 1240 metres across, spherical, and has a volume of approximately one cubickilometre, while massing around five and a half billion tons. With this, it's equivalent to Spaceball One and a few others.

"Obviously, the ship's entirely automated, and can technically run on subsapient algorithms alone, although there's usually a mind on board - which is to say, me. And as I happen to like company... Well, at present, the entire sapient 'Crew' - 'Permanent Inhabitants' would be a rather more appropriate term - consists of ten individuals, me included."

They were still in the hangar, where subcraft were aligned in rows and stacks. They weren't particularly large, varying between about twenty-four metres in length for the smallest, and about fifty-seven metres in length for the largest, with their width being half of that, and their height being half of their width. Actually, a fairly unimpressive sight - all the craft featured a dull grey, and lacked anything even remotely resembling awe- or fear-inspiring features. They looked pretty much like flying saucers with a fourth of each side clipped off.

"The subcraft make up the major component of the []DAoF[/i], allowing for an assortment of mission profiles - missile and smallcraft defence, anti-capship operations (The larger craft you see here are essentially autonomous capship-grade gunturrets), missile shepherding, recon, the likes. The majority of the available volume is, in fact, reserved for them.

"This said, they're actually rather dull - and propulsion units are actally rather close nearby. Just a moment... Ah, yes, this might end up being mildly claustrophobic, and you'll only be able to see the outer perimeter - the inner ones are, sadly, lacking any means to reach them in our present form. In any case..."

The DAoF continued to quote statistics on the ship's subcraft complement, their acceleration figures and armament, defensive capabilities and the likes, occasionally pointing out the occasional oddity, like a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa to their left. In the meantime, Kasimir reached the quarters that had been prepared for the 'Cargo' - actually fairly spacious quarters, leaving all of the men about a hundred square metres of rather oddly decorated - plants and kittens, as well as magpies, were present in rather impressive numbers, as the DAoF had been of the opinion that a somewhat non-militaristic environment would do the men some good - space for themselves.

In the meantime, the tour continued.

"Ah, there we are. The rather dense drive unit - or rather, one of them, as there's, well... A lot of them. Induced matter annihilation feeding energy into the drives, which convert it as appropriate. The principle is to use - or abuse - basic forces with the necessary range, either electromagnetism or gravity, in order to move the ship. The whole theory is mildly complex, courtesy of it being incompatible with Maxwell's equations, but... Well, anyway. Usually, we're running on electromagnetic traction, which is more efficient than gravity, which requires an additional conversion, and as gravity has only an attractive, but no repulsive element, we'd need to, errr, fly backwards all the time when shifting into the G-band. As such, the latter's more a 'Special Case', and rarely utilised.

“What you see here is, of course, rather dull. From the inside, it’d be rather more interesting… Let me project something… There.”

The metre-in-diameter image now projected in mid-air showed an absurdly complex structure, mountains of complexity, and the movement of dust invisible to the human eye. Multiple, constantly shifting colours, and a wide spectrum of what could, indeed, be defined as ‘Beauty’ (Although this certainly wasn’t the intend of the construction),

“A 1 : 10000 magnification. Now, 1 : 10000000…”

The image changed, morphing for moments, things appearing to grow. The mountains vanished, replaced with what were, indeed, individual (Macro-)molecules forming bonds resembling an untouched rainforest in look.

“And now, 1 : 10000000000. I’ll add some false colouring – at the picometer scale, things tend to get fuzzy and rather unimpressive for the human eye.”

Once more, the image morphed until it eventually showed the mindbogglingly excessive complexity of magnetic field structures putting the lie to twentieth century physics. Above and beneath the fields, giant mountains appeared to be resting – individual atoms, holding the whole together.

“It’s somewhat boring, I suppose – if we were to, say, do a max. accel run, it’d be rather more interesting to see. But a max. accel run would turn you into soup, and molecular field grips are somewhat unpleasant, so I suppose it’s better not to.”

The woman smiled politely, looking at the fleet officer. "I hope I'm not boring you? Maybe I should've choosen a shorter skirt - but anyway, I figure that the actual weaponry might be more interesting to you, given your occupation."

And with that, they were off to visit the next bits of the ship. Not quite as unaccessible as the drive units, but still… A bit of ducking was necessary. Well. At least they didn’t need to crawl. Much.

“There are three components for close-range engagements available. CREWs – Coherent Radiation Emission Weapons -, Particle Beam Weapons, and – (Macro- considering that the Particle Beams also do damage via kinetic energy) Kinetic Weapons. The CREWs and Particle Beam Weapons are, incidentally, also used on most subcraft.

“The kinetic component is a comparatively minor one, and makes up only a small minority of the gun emplacements, and playing no role whatsoever for missile/ smallcraft defence. The particle- and radiative components, however, are of major importance.

“As you might imagine, not having to bother with a crew, and therefore the space it requires, the food, the sanitary installations, and so on, generally helps in increasing firepower-per-ton – just allocate the available extra space to the guns and the reactors powering them.

“In any case – as I mentioned before, the DaoF is primarily meant for long-range engagements, and its weaponry reflects this appropriately. Generally, speaking, well…” The ship-turned-woman hesitated, more to make an impression than because she needed to. “Lets just say that interplanetary artillery’s perfectly viable.

“Of course, defensive technology is advanced, and assorted kinds of shields, superconducting armour and the likes are a considerable annoyance. As such, a reasonable degree of versatility has been incorporated into the weaponry. In the case of the CREWs, the entire electromagnetic spectrum – with the exception of gamma rays – is available, allowing to choose ranges and damage parameters – EW is just as possible as cutting opponents apart. Similarly, the pulse length can be choosen at will. Of course, the disadvantage is increased gun wear, but what can you do? Nothing’s ever perfect.

“It is pretty similar with the particle component, although instead of choosing wavelengths, one chooses the particle. Which are usually neutral – owing to charged particles having a tendency of dispersing in space -, although it’s generally possible to utilise more exotic forms of matter for the beams, namely waste from the reactors – assuming that the reactors have been configured appropriately, of course. It’s for that extra bit of boom, so to speak. Inefficient, but shiny.

“Of course, apart from this relatively conventional weaponry, more unconventional means are available as well, although these aren’t usually considered ‘Weapons’ per se, due to their general utility when it comes to more civilian purposes.

“Specifically, there’d be the field projectors and effectors. The former is a sort of universal tool – can be used to carry things, protect things, cut things to pieces, and so on -, sadly with a rather limited range. Much more limited that the radiative and particle components of the armament, in fact.

“The effectors are, essentially, EW weapons and communications tools, again allowing a broad range of actions, from copying mindstates or taking over nervous systems, over simply talking to rampaging in computers or circumventing circuitry by way of establishing your own, on the femtometer scale.

“Incidentally, both are something that’s usually – though not always – incorporated in the citizens of the Hypocrisy. Not very effectively, of course – having to work with biological components isn’t the ideal solution -, so it’s little more than a gimmick, but it’s there. Usually. Drones are generally much more potent, though.

The guns themselves didn’t look overly impressive, whether one looked at them from inside or outside the ship. The CREWs generally lacked barrels, their emplacements kind of resembling, well… Pimples, and the field emitters and effectors were even less impressive to look at, simple complexes of machinery encased in (Relatively) thin armour. That the latter were perfectly capable of turning the population – irregardless of it being humans or machines – of entire cities into, lets say, mimes didn’t help the impression: They still looked disappointingly generic.

An exception to this were the particle beam cannons, which did have huge barrels (With very limited traverse – targetting was generally done via EM fields), and looked menacingly enough – probably the only weapon that did that, so far.

“Next, we have the ranged component of the armament. Grenades and missiles, to be specific. If you’d follow me…?”

This component – seen a few moments after the DAoF had walked out of the way, which, somewhat annoyingly, removed her rather nice bottom from the view her guests had – was notably more impressive, with the largest missiles measuring a fairly nifty ten metres (And then some) in diameter, while being about ten times that in length. Granted, they were still of a boring, dull grey, and they still lacked any overtly menacing features, but, well…

Size makes an impression all of its own.

“The warheads are generally of dialable yield, and propulsion can be changed as appropriate. Similarly, the warheads can be used with directed detonations in mind, this allowing a vastly greater range.

“Tactically, they’re not usually used in head-on engagements, and if they are, we usually add a copious number of shepherds, to provide protection. This said, the more resource-intensive models utilise a rather large degree of countermeasures on their own, and given that they’re noticeably better armoured than, lets say, a fighter, well… They can get through. And of course…” The DaoF grinned. “The phallic imagery caused by the missiles is something rather pleasant, too.”

The next space to visit – after a brief pause, that is. They’d walked rather a lot, and while the DaoF didn’t appear to be tired, well… Not everyone’s a posthuman – happened to be the ship’s manufacturing-related space.

The DaoF was seemingly brightening up, enjoying the, well… chaotic space around her. “My engineering capabilities, so to speak. It’s perfectly possible for me to be off any assets of the Hypocrisy for rather significant periods of time, and as such, I need the ability to produce spare parts, and to change existing designs as appropriate in a given situation myself. Refining of the resources one can find in space, turning them into usable equipment, all to be found here, and in spaces similar to this one.

“This goes for everything, of course. Missiles as well as guns, infantry-equivalent drones as well as the production of bodies like this one.” She posed for a moment, seemingly satisfied with the body she’d created for herself. “It also includes bio-engineering resources in order to be able to rapidly provide humanitarian help in case of, lets say, a disease outbreak, or in order to incapitate opponents with unusual features – lets say, a midiclorian-seeking pathogen.

“There’s very few limits on what I can do here-“ Proving the point was a row of test tubes floating in the air, and moving from one table to the next, apparently conducting some kind of experiment. “-‘Here’ being the chemlab and manufacturing line. There’s others, of course – biological, macromechanical, etc. -, allowing me a rather considerable degree of versatility.

“Unfortunately, right now I’m only conducting a few pointless experiments out of sheer boredom, due to there being no need to manufacture, well, anything at all. It’d be rather more busy if I were to, lets say, produce a smallish army. But alas, no need to do so. Regardless… here’s the base chemical production lines, there’s more specialised designs – toxins, a few medicaments…”

The tour went on for a while, skipping a few details of the miniature-factory, until they eventually reached the biolab, which was considerably smaller than the chemlab, and appeared to lack most of the mass-production capabilities the chemlab.

“Pretty small, yes… It’s mostly meant to provide quick support, not to single-handedly create entirely new species of mammelian megafauna. Which I could do, but it’d take some time to prepare… Generally speaking, the utility of the biolab is rather limited, hence it being of this similarly limited size… And please, no playing around with the test tubes. That particular pathogen has an incubation period of a couple hours, and is rated at 10% mortality and 90% lethality for baseline humans. And I’ve yet to actually develop a cure… Although I figure I’ll have one within forty-eight hours.”

Last on the list was the ‘Mechanic’ sector, which superficially resembled car manufacturing.

“Well, yes… As I said. Not producing anything, right now. Technically, though, my resource to build aforementioned missiles, drones, guns, spare parts, you name it. Incidentally…”

The DaoF hesitated, tapping her foot, until eventually, an (Unnecessary) drone came with what appeared to be a gun – baseline humanoid biased, and rather more elaborately crafted than usual, depicting a variety of battles on its casing, apparently rather old scenes, given the muskets shown in lines of silver, gold and diamond.

The weapon itself looked just like the weapons depicted on it, pretty much like an ancient musket.

“I might not’ve much to manufacture, but hey – it’s enough for the occasional present, I suppose.” The DaoF said, as she took the gun from the drone. “A somewhat elaborate version of a musket, circa 1550. Good ‘ole notch-and-bead sights, couldn’t be any more appropriate.”

She smiled again, eventually handing the weapon over to James Wanton. “Useless for all practical purposes, but looks great in one’s apartment.”

OOC :
Wow . Thats a long post .

IC :

Darth Bane

Darth Bane flashed a re-assuring smile .

"Of course not , we are here as allies , we have no intention of harming anyone . We will also protect our allies with our lives . As for the topics and issues , I suppose we've covered pretty much everything ."

Darth Bane slowly led her to a massive room , covered in plush furniture and a big Queen Size comfy bed in the middle . The room was also fitted with state of the art security systems to give guests a sense of security .

"So how do you like this ?"



James Wanton

As he toured the massive vessel , he was amazed by the heavy weaponary and even starfighters . It was truly a vessel to be proud of . Never had he seen any Imperial ship comparable to this besides the Emperor's personal flagship .

"I am truly amazed by all that you've shown me and the gift that you presented . It is now my honor and privilage to present a token of appreciation to you ."

He barked out an order and an Fleet Commander stepped forward with a intricately designed wooden box adornished with the Galaxy's most precious minerals .

"Open it up and you will find a vintage E-2 Bolt Action Gun ,the very first laser weapon we invented . In it you will also find a lightsaber specially constructed to remember this day . It emitts a bluish-greenish energy blade and is made out of cortosis and pure gold ."

Janine Renton

"Well, that's good to know, then - and indeed, very reassuring."

She didn't necessarily mean what Darth Bane probably thought she meant.

And once they arrived at the room, well...

"Oh, very impressive... Perhaps a bit overdone? But nonetheless..."

Tesla?

Yes?

I trust you to disable or otherwise screw with any and all kinds of observing security kit in case things get farther than I'd like them. Preferably subtly so.

Roger, Ma'am. Including peeking palace personnel?

... No. Only things that can record it in audiovisual form.

Alright. Immediately or...?

No! Only in case my attempts at avoiding it fail. Jesus. I thought you're smarter than a human?

Technically, only faster, not necessarily smarter. 'sides, you've optic nerves in the first place, so the diff-

Oh, shut up.

Turning towards Darth Bane, she continued. "This said, you didn't quite answer the last part of my question - although I suspect that I'm supposed to act as an envoy until such a time that the embassy's and the ambassador proper are done?"

The squirrel/ ship on her shoulder appeared to giggle.

Smooth talking.

Nice compliment, coming from a rodent...

"In which case this appears to be just appropriate... Thank you very much for the honour of escorting me - and indeed, I figure I need some rest... Well, I'm sure the duties of being the second-in-command of an entire nation are already calling for you. The burden of power, I suppose. In any case - I'm sure we'll see each other soon."

DAoF

The DAoF's female version nodded politely, smiling, and accepting the gift - and she had to admit that the 'Box' looked rather neat, although this could also have been DAs usual lack of aesthetics, courtesy of its heritage as purely profit-oriented entity. That period had ended, sure, but it was still showing in the behaviour and attitudes of its people, as well as in its art and lifestyles, allowing foreign art to shine.

"Truly a piece of history," she replied, after opening the box and weighting the gun in her hand. "Maybe a little odd, but tradition has its place, as I'm sure we both know. And this here... Hrm."

A lightsaber. Now, one had to admit that the Hypocrisy's military didn't exactly think highly of hack'n'slash weapons in an age when infantry-scale combatants cruised along at supersonic velocities and shot targets dozens of kilometres off while releasing micromissiles that'd level entire buildings - at least not with a degree of versatility involved, as was the case with complex field structures.

But then, it was shiny.

For a moment, she swung it through the air, utilising a few swordfighting-styles she'd stored in her memory - of course, she'd never used a sword outside of simulations before, but being a ship avatar had its perks, and apart from almost cutting off a few of her limbs (Whether this was accidentally or for show remained object to discuss), she handled it reasonably well.

"Hrm. I'll need some more training, I suppose. But that has time. In any case - I hope you enjoyed the tour, and that our hospitality was as expected or better than that. But I figure your duties call for your presence elsewhere. Nonetheless - I wish you the best of luck on your way."

A quick bow, some more friendly phrases, and that was about it - with the clones transferred, they were basically ready to go. Embassy construction would of course still take a while, upon which an Exploration Unit or a heavy transport would move it over, but apart from that, their presence within the system had achived what it'd intended to achive.

Janine Renton

"Well, that's good to know, then - and indeed, very reassuring."

She didn't necessarily mean what Darth Bane probably thought she meant.

And once they arrived at the room, well...

"Oh, very impressive... Perhaps a bit overdone? But nonetheless..."

Tesla?

Yes?

I trust you to disable or otherwise screw with any and all kinds of observing security kit in case things get farther than I'd like them. Preferably subtly so.

Roger, Ma'am. Including peeking palace personnel?

... No. Only things that can record it in audiovisual form.

Alright. Immediately or...?

No! Only in case my attempts at avoiding it fail. Jesus. I thought you're smarter than a human?

Technically, only faster, not necessarily smarter. 'sides, you've optic nerves in the first place, so the diff-

Oh, shut up.

Turning towards Darth Bane, she continued. "This said, you didn't quite answer the last part of my question - although I suspect that I'm supposed to act as an envoy until such a time that the embassy's and the ambassador proper are done?"

The squirrel/ ship on her shoulder appeared to giggle.

Smooth talking.

Nice compliment, coming from a rodent...

"In which case this appears to be just appropriate... Thank you very much for the honour of escorting me - and indeed, I figure I need some rest... Well, I'm sure the duties of being the second-in-command of an entire nation are already calling for you. The burden of power, I suppose. In any case - I'm sure we'll see each other soon."

DAoF

The DAoF's female version nodded politely, smiling, and accepting the gift - and she had to admit that the 'Box' looked rather neat, although this could also have been DAs usual lack of aesthetics, courtesy of its heritage as purely profit-oriented entity. That period had ended, sure, but it was still showing in the behaviour and attitudes of its people, as well as in its art and lifestyles, allowing foreign art to shine.

"Truly a piece of history," she replied, after opening the box and weighting the gun in her hand. "Maybe a little odd, but tradition has its place, as I'm sure we both know. And this here... Hrm."

A lightsaber. Now, one had to admit that the Hypocrisy's military didn't exactly think highly of hack'n'slash weapons in an age when infantry-scale combatants cruised along at supersonic velocities and shot targets dozens of kilometres off while releasing micromissiles that'd level entire buildings - at least not with a degree of versatility involved, as was the case with complex field structures.

But then, it was shiny.

For a moment, she swung it through the air, utilising a few swordfighting-styles she'd stored in her memory - of course, she'd never used a sword outside of simulations before, but being a ship avatar had its perks, and apart from almost cutting off a few of her limbs (Whether this was accidentally or for show remained object to discuss), she handled it reasonably well.

"Hrm. I'll need some more training, I suppose. But that has time. In any case - I hope you enjoyed the tour, and that our hospitality was as expected or better than that. But I figure your duties call for your presence elsewhere. Nonetheless - I wish you the best of luck on your way."

A quick bow, some more friendly phrases, and that was about it - with the clones transferred, they were basically ready to go. Embassy construction would of course still take a while, upon which an Exploration Unit or a heavy transport would move it over, but apart from that, their presence within the system had achived what it'd intended to achive.


IC :

"Yes , you will be acting diplomat and ambassador while the embassy are still being constructed . We trust that we have provided you with sufficient lodging . Whenever you need service , just press the blue bell there ." he waved his hand to a blue console on the desk .

"Now , I will take my leave ." he turned and left as his bodyguards flanked him ...

Orbit

James Wanton chuckled as he watched her handle the weapon .

"Yes , the tour has been rather ... interesting . We wish ties between us to flourish and prosper ."

He took and bow and signalled his boduguards , who fell beside him and escorted him to the Lambada Shuttles and left with the Gammas in tow ...

Summer Palace

"Hum. You're staying with me?" Janine asked the squirrel, once Darth Bane had left the room.

"Why not? I'm sure I can find plenty of nuts in the park. This said, your bodyguards-"

"Yes, yes. I'll have to convince security to let you guys roam a 'lil more freely, huh?"

"That'd be... Fortunate," Tesla, who was by now seated on one of the couches and observing the security measures in the room, replied.

"Well, we'll get to that later. Going to send my regards to the DAoF proper, I suppose..."

Fleet

And that was it, pretty much. Cargo on board, envoy dropped off, and temporary 'Occupation' having come to a close, there was nothing else to do. The DAoF's female-version still waved after the shuttles as they left, breaking through the flimsy field-screen that kept the atmosphere in and radiations out, and then eventually transferred her conciousness back into the ships' proper computronium.

And all that followed this was counting the seconds it took a shifting unit to charge up, and somewhat less than twenty minutes after the last local occupants had left the ships, the ships simply vanished in a flimsy flare of radiations - nowhere near the level one would expect from, lets say, spacedyship drives -, quietly but determinedly suggesting that quantum physics didn't necessarily apply exclusively to atoms and even smaller objects. At least not when one was apt enough to confuse them a little.

And with that, they were on their way back home, including a quick stop in the Iskander system.

oocness: And that's about it, until I get Absolute Light to do a reply or several, after which the embassy gets dropped off.

Summer Palace

"Hum. You're staying with me?" Janine asked the squirrel, once Darth Bane had left the room.

"Why not? I'm sure I can find plenty of nuts in the park. This said, your bodyguards-"

"Yes, yes. I'll have to convince security to let you guys roam a 'lil more freely, huh?"

"That'd be... Fortunate," Tesla, who was by now seated on one of the couches and observing the security measures in the room, replied.

"Well, we'll get to that later. Going to send my regards to the DAoF proper, I suppose..."

Fleet

And that was it, pretty much. Cargo on board, envoy dropped off, and temporary 'Occupation' having come to a close, there was nothing else to do. The DAoF's female-version still waved after the shuttles as they left, breaking through the flimsy field-screen that kept the atmosphere in and radiations out, and then eventually transferred her conciousness back into the ships' proper computronium.

And all that followed this was counting the seconds it took a shifting unit to charge up, and somewhat less than twenty minutes after the last local occupants had left the ships, the ships simply vanished in a flimsy flare of radiations - nowhere near the level one would expect from, lets say, spacedyship drives -, quietly but determinedly suggesting that quantum physics didn't necessarily apply exclusively to atoms and even smaller objects. At least not when one was apt enough to confuse them a little.

And with that, they were on their way back home, including a quick stop in the Iskander system.

oocness: And that's about it, until I get Absolute Light to do a reply or several, after which the embassy gets dropped off.


OOC :
Yea , once the embassy is up then you can post here to inform me .