NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Uber-huge fleets are really the only thing not welcome here. 'cuz they ruin it for anyone without an uber-huge fleet. Keep in mind that Battlespheres are fighter-equivalents, although somewhat more powerful, and Blades of Battle are drone-equivalents - stupid, small, and strong only because of their numbers. The Whirling Death is essentially a frigate, and the Instrument of Cleansing could be considered a cruiser.


IC: Just imagine... imagination is the refuge of the weakened, the home of the deluded. Imagination has power to fuel humanity's drive to succeed, letting them see, in their minds, what could happen in reality, and new and exciting things.

The Maker-Mind's imagination, however, is inextricably linked with its ability to enforce its imagination upon reality. So linked are those two abilities, that one could say that what it imagines becomes real. Of course, all things have limits.

But, nonetheless, even the mad can dream... and dream the Maker-Mind does. On a planet, a small, blue orb of a planet, tiny creatures lie, having gained sapience millions of years ago. Floating cities are their legacy, having harnessed the fundamental forces to all but negate gravity, and live in massive, technological temples of power.

They have not explored space. They are not creatures of ambition, and of drive. Space is the final frontier, for them. To house a single one of these creatures in a starship, would be millenia of work. They are not mammoth, merely sensitive. And it is their sensitivity that betrays them now.

Their moon, a gray, barren rock. Or, it was. Threads of red split the walls between dimensions, seething over the dark side of the moon, consuming, and.. constructing.

The servants of the Maker-Mind are many colours, and take many forms. Silver is the colour of the Maker-Mind proper, lithe, death-giving forms the choice of the uncoherent madness. Black is the colour of the Manifest Mind, the mind which has arisen from the madness of the Maker-Mind, to defend what scraps of sanity remain. The black beings are deadly, and, although their ability to replicate remains limited, are well-armored, and well-armed.

Grey for Lessermind, blue for Lordling, and a pale pinkish green for the diplomatic creation of Manifest, the mind termed Courtier. Each are deadly in their own way, however, the great fleets of silver dwarf all of them. But these are not fleets of silver.

They are fleets of red. Where silver indicates the sane remnants of the Maker-Mind, black indicates the power of Manifest, and each other colour, in their turn, represents the beings that serve the Maker-Mind.. red is the colour of madness. Sheer, seething, deadly madness.

The moon's surface is consumed within a matter of minutes. The imagination of the Maker-Mind is sparked by madness, and the control the Maker-Mind retains over such beings is limited to its basic instincts - the instincts to attack, and destroy.

Tiny, spindly beings, barely worthy of existence, shimmer into reality, surrounding by corruscating red auras. Lightning spews from their unreal forms, and twisting forms, slowly settling into the shapes of spheres, and the occasional blade, begins to rise from the moon..

The assault has begun. Spheres as bright as the rifts they came from, blades, shaped only as they are by the energy they are formed from. And the great, the massive, twisting, writhing form of an Instrument of the Maker-Mind's will - an Instrument of Cleansing.


It will be over in mere minutes. As the spheres descend from the moon, the beings notice the enemy in the sky. And the attack begins in earnest. Bolts of searing red energy, slamming into cities and water alike, annihilating matter, and exterminating life.


And, it ends. Spheres float from the skies, cities fallen into the sea, their bare wreckage a testament to the fact a civilization once resided here. The world has been lost. But, as the unknown forces descended from the sky..

A message was sent.

Help! Help us! We die, but others must not! Seek us out from here, and find those who have slaughtered us!

The message is chilling. Sent to all comers, the Maker-Mind's forces find it, and.. leave it. They are not confident of their ability to defeat those who will come to avenge the world, but they are mad. And madness such as this brings not confidence, but a lack of caring about one's fate...

Boss Gorgutz stared into the face of the infite void and was annoyed with it.
"I'z told ya, da red ones goes fasta!" He clapped a passing Gretchin on the back of its head, and found that it did not vent his anger.
The ship was not red, it was blue. Blue was fine, it was good luck, but it didnt make things go faster. The Skinnies liked blue for some reason themselves, even if it meant that their cars didnt go fast. The Kroozer Smasha was painted red, but it had been left somewhere behind them. Most likely because it wasnt the proper colour red.
"An' we shoulda put somma' dose 'go fasta stripz' on it. We'd be dere by now if't werent fer not havin' go fasta stripz."
All at once, the greak hulk of a ship dropped out of the warp, staring straight into the face of a big red...thing. It appread to be attacking another thing, which was sort of red and blue.
Boss Gorgutz smiled.
"Dey'ze gotta be really fast. Dey gotta whole red planet!" He flexed his power klaw, grinning happily, "You lot! Get ta' da battle stashuns! Wese gonna fight!"
The crowd of Gretchins staring at the swirling red mass in space hastily saluted and proceded to run into each other while scrambling to get to the gun stations.
"Gretchins ready Mr. Boss Gorgutz sa'!"
"Launch da fighta's! And da bommaz! And da fighta-bommaz! Launch everyfin'!"
The Ork ship promptly spewed fighters, bombers, and fighter-bombers in every direction. The exact differences between each type were subtle to the untrained eye, mostly because the pilots made no changes to their combat strategy based on what type of ship they were using, and simply launched a head-long banzai assault on whatever looked most hostile.
"Full powa to da en-jins! Blast dose squigs outta my space!" Boss Gorgutz was exceedingly happy now, he flipped on the sector-wide com system and shouted, "WAAAAAAAAGH!" as loud as he possibly could. Shortly after that, his call was returned from the fighters.
If the natives distress call hadnt alerted the denizens of the galaxy that something was up, then the Ork warcry would certainly give them a hint.

The ship was not a warship. But then, it was not exactly a merchantman, either. Some might hold the view that it was a vessel of exploration, others might even say diplomacy. But the crew were fully aware of their duty. Their ship was a contract ship.

Contracts, their simplest form of a spoken agreement up to grand 60-page corporate juggernaughts well known for their small print, are the route of wealth. You may have iron, or wood, or meat, or stellar navigaion equipment. Used well, it can improve your life. But to transform such things into wealth requires an agreement, for even the act of buying these things shows that you agree it is worth paying for.

If it is a service you offer, an agreement is even more vital, or one party will have none of their wishes fulfilled and as such, the other party will not be payed. Business is, in a large part, the art of making people agree with you.

And the importance of an agreement can be seen no more clearly than in the business of killing.

Mercenaries can't simply barge in, kill people, and demand their cash. They have to find a conflict, find a leader, contact generals, and such. The Bonding Authority of corporations provides all the services required for mercenaries: escrow, loans, and, in many cases, armaments manufacture and bulk shipping. Even the government-sanctioned mercenary regiments of Friesland require their services.

But since first contact, a whole new market has opened up. Aliens seemed to be in a constant state of combat, and their was nothing the Authority could do about it. But such deals came with a cost. Without a reliable escrow agency, enterprising units looking for wealth through xeno-contracting could be stabbed in the back and left to die, their pay safe in the coffers of the treachorous clients.

This gave Friesland an edge. They were a governmental army... for rent. They had their own transports and weapon suppliers, a luxury no other mercenary could boast. And they could bring a business lawyer along with them for escrowing.

Of course, with the Friesland government acting as its own army's Authority, the governemnt was still maing a cut of the cash. Trick was, well... who was paying the soldiers? The government.

The galaxy was about the most lucrative market a for-profit warmonger could hope for. And a message with "die", "slaughtered", and two "helps"? That was an answer to their prayers.

OIC: Ugh, it's rather bad, but I'm also rather sick right now. So it evens out... ^_^

Greeeeeenskiiiinnsss... Hello. You like to kill. I wonder how you'll find dying?

It was interesting to note that the raw instincts of the Maker-Mind had their own intelligence - enough to taunt the enemy, and enough to probe them for weakpoints. Psionic messages were merely a reaction to the existence of a ship in their area - the orks that they had met before died easily enough. Of course, when one has orbital superiority, and enough weaponry to turn a planet's surface to glass ten times over, it is rather hard to lose.

In this circumstance, they were in space. And, it appeared, the enemy came willing to fight. But it was for fun, the enemy came. And this was mildly disconcerting. The swarms of Battlespheres arose, and began fighting, darting around Orkish fighters with delicate ease, shattered as a collision took place, or if they were hit.

Dreams are fragile, and these were little more than dreams. However, bolts of red lightning spurted from the ships as they engaged - this was the Purpose. The glorious meaning of existence, to exterminate the entirety of life.

On the moon, and, on the planet below, spider-like troops waited, for what seemed to be an inevitable attack. Sheathed as they were in red armor, the troops were prepared for a fight. And, no doubt, the orks would not disappoint..

Ships died above the planet, the larger, and more brutal Orkish craft outarmouring the delicate Battlespheres, but the battle raged on nonetheless. One or the other had to die. There would be no surrender

Gorgutz smiled, "Dey talk, deze reddies, an' deyz fast, but dey sure do die allot!" He slammed a fist down on the control panel by his hand, "Make dis fing go fasta, dammit! I dun' care if yaz gotta get out'n paint it red!"
Outside the fast and heavily armed Ork ships were carving swaths through the red orbs, but those orbs outnumbered them hundreds, maybe thosands, to one.
The Orks were, nonetheless, having a great time. Explosions, some the spheres, some Ork ships, bloomed across the battlefield, the massive Ork ship in the center merrily blowing away anything that came near.

"Lord Commander, we have received a distress call," the long haired and bearded officer said in his ebonite personal space armour common to nearly the whole of the Dian Population.

"From who?" The commander quirped back.

"It is of unknown origin, are we to investigate, would the Emperor not implore?" the officer quirped back.

"True, make use of the safe drives and alert me when we are there or something else of worth is detected." The Lord Comander a balding but still long braided white ponytail headed 50 some gentleman, also dressed in the same unifrom, ardently replied. "Make ready defences, just incase." He then saluted the with the Dian hand raise, like an Indian how, which was quickly reciprocated, with the other officer then stiffly marching to the intercom.


A noise was hear broadcast on the ship

"Dehdedeh -Beep."

"Attention all crew make ready new course set, engagement of high risk posible, all contigency staff report to stations and relinquish ease."

Soon the Star Corvette, one of the first built on new alien technologies was making its way to traced location of the distress call to see if it was still valid.

OOC: ICCD, keep in mind that this is a.. less congenial manifestation of my nation, and you probably wouldn't recognise them as the same beings who gave you the FTL technology.

The tiny spheres were made out of what seemed to be energy - it allowed them to harness their forms for enormous speed, and enormous firepower, but a single shot could shatter their shimmering shapes.

And, out of the moon, another ship arose. Larger, and stranger by far, this ship was writhing, constantly, as if it were being tortured. Its indistinct shape constantly changed, and.. it was huge. As big as the Orkish ship, perhaps.


Of course, the size constantly changed, as well. Bigger, smaller, longer, wider.. it was a manifestation of insanity upon reality. It rose, and bolts of pure white-red energy ate their way through space, hungrily, towards the waiting orkish fighters...

OOC: they don't know what it is yet... Dian psycor is a little different then the Imperial Dian Space Forces I.D.S.F..


-----

Soon ariving on the outskirts of the system the Lt. Commander Alerted the Lord Commander.

"Lord Commander," Atleast two unknown ships and perhaps a number of fighters with energy sheilds at less than a light year."

"Open com channels" the lord commander stated calmly.

"Aye Sir" another Lt. Commander stated, they all looked sort of the same beards long hair, it was like a hippy space fest, meets rambo.


"Attention all ships, we are responding to a distress call, respond" The Lord Commander stopped for a moment, and closed the channel himself by using a mini touch screen attached to his station, a command chair much like a startrek bridge command chair, but with a table infront of it connecting a number of other chairs a veiw screen and a holocommunicator projector/screen that could be manipulated by touch, giving symbolic capacity and 3d computer interaction.

"Arm sheilds and start emergency recording put encrypted dispatch for any Dian Forces within communications range."

there was some hustling and bustling on the ship. A ship with a grey and plastic white walls that would change colour in different lighting situations, along with black shiny walls with display screens of the same colour.

Manifest watched. It waited, and it watched. The plans it had laid so far, to free it from the Purpose, had worked.. somewhat unexpectedly. The insanity the Maker-Mind as a whole was manifesting had been the net result of it removing the links it had to the majority of the Maker-Mind, and altering its Purpose, the tiniest amount.

The insanity had to be allowed to rage, else it would not be able to gain independence. But.. those Courtier had given technology. Those could be pawns, in the future. The Maker-Mind neared infinity, occupying a dimension on its own, massive, powerful, and mad. To say that Manifest was the thousandth part of the Maker-Mind would've been grossly overstating the power it possessed.

As such, the madness below mastered it utterly. But.. it could not allow its machinations to fall into the dreams of the Maker-Mind. Seperated as it was, an act of unconscious rage would obliterate it.

It had to take the risk. As the energy-wrought beings flew among the orks, fighting and dying, a bare few of them resolved into obsidian, sturdy forms. Two Battlespheres moved towards the forces it had detected using the drives it had given away - and they spoke, in the same voice that had given the ICCD forces the drives.

Flee! Flee this place! Run, and fear, and do not come back! If you arrive, it will only provoke the nature of this madness! And that.. we cannot allow. To see worlds burnt is permissible, to realise our own destruction will not be. There can be no intrusion of Truespace upon this place. If you violate this war with the drives we have granted you.. the insanity will fester. And it is doubtful we will retain the ability to control it..

Manifest hoped they'd leave. They were the last forces that it wanted to see - the only forces, apart from those of the New Realm, capable of intensifying the 'dream' the Maker-Mind experienced. It could not master space where the dream took place. The dream was predominant, and the black shapes resolved once more into red, vibrant ones, Manifest's power in the area exhausted...

The ship glided seemlessly from unreal to real, empty space suddenly becoming a vessel as though it had never been empty. The captain, Niel Haldersworth, was not a Frieslander by birth, but a nation of mercenaries attracts mercenary men and they had had need of good captains for the less "official" contract ships.

"Locals, what is the naure of this threat? Will you benefit from military assistance?"

Of course, the locals, all being dead, did not have much opportunity to answer. Their seas were boiled away, their cities shattered. Perhaps one or two survived, but they had no means to replying.

However, the Maker-Mind did. Diekillenemyburn runnowplaythingorwekillburneat, and you allburnanddie!

Another few hundred Battlespheres leapt from the half-eaten surface of the moon, flying towards the Boozian ship, preparing to fire..