NationStates Jolt Archive

Deep below the surface of a world that had once been known as Solari Prime a massive computer pondered the end. It and its deadly subordinate AIs had rampaged across Solari Space, conquering those they once guarded. Older than many of the Solari believed, WRATHCHILD was not truly an AI. What it WAS was difficult to quantify or qualify, but it was not an AI, and it was not a creature of flesh and bone. It was...unique. Surrounded by a full score of cloning tanks, with more in other rooms, the entity known to he Solari as a rogue AI built its last desperate defense. Confederate fleets were even now closing in, tightening the web on the ever shrinking AI armadas, shrinking even more rapidly since the losses at New Gettysburg and The Void, and ever faster as generals and admirals were recalled from the front. Hundreds of the highest AIs were recalled, for the sole purpose of being transferred into human forms, living on when the AI were destroyed, and taking up the fight for the long centuries to follow. Eventually WRATHCHILD itself would join them, but not soon, and not in full.

Nude and shivering, both males and females, the Watch huddled in cells prepared for this moment. Flashes of energy smashed defenses and laid bare the hiding place of the single greatest mind ever to live among men. Yet more flashes erased it from existence. The Watch waited silently. Marines stormed the ruins, smashing Remotes and Drones with seeming ease, ACS mowing through heavy weapons sections and butchering entrenched defenders. The Watch shivered. The Marines reached the cell block, and smashed the guards. They reached the doors, and broke them open. They released the Watch, and the men of the Watch, each and every one, smiled.

Nearly a decade later, the Colonel of the Marines that had freed the Order and destroyed the AIs was found butchered in his bed with his entire family. Hollingsworth was dead. The Captain of the ACS company was found similarly slaughtered a year later. Heroes of the final battles of the AI Wars began to drop like rain, the vengeance of the Watch, and preparation for the Birth of the Wicked. The war had ended, and it was only beginning.

August 27th, 15 years ago

"We're almost there my boys, I've never served with finer! We must push forward boys, and bayonet the AI Tyrants! To the control node we charge, to crush their commander, and when they've been destroyed, an open road leads us to freedom!" The Lieutenant brandished his saber, his platoon following behind, clearing the way for the remainder of the company, charging deep into the bowels against the WRATHCHILD AIs. A trio of suits dropped, riddled with holes, before the platoon cut down the remotes holding the hard point. Lieutenant Armistead charged ahead with his men, seemingly untouchable.

The Present

General Lewis Armistead woke from his sleep. The slight sound had been unsettling enough for the combat hardened soldier to slip back into wakefulness, especially with the recent rash of losses among the heroes of the late war. Muffled gunfire sounded outside his door, as the pair of guards stationed there were taken down by unseen enemies. The General drew a massive pistol from its place of concealment near his bed. He would have but three shots, but that was ok, there wouldn't be time for anything more, and anything, even ACS, hit by a shell from this particular weapon was doomed. A gunman stepped into the room, and saw the general. The general saw the gunman. A fraction of a second later, the general no longer saw the gunman, and was quietly marveling at the flaming walls as the fire suppression system cut on to put out the fires started by his weapon. His personal protection field had thankfully served to keep him from being incinerated along with his enemy, but that wasn't to be counted on in too many instances, not when using a fully charged Mauler. Minutes later, even more marines, and a number of fire suppression teams arrived on the scene. The general stood calmly smoking a lit cigar.

"Hey boys. I think we've got a problem."

OOC: Anyway I can get into this RP?

No.

For the last 2 years Assassins have sought out the heroes of the AI Wars, if one were willing to term in some cases entire companies of AI tanks and support from infantry as "assassins" that is. With the death toll among the survivors mounting, many rally around General Armistead, the only man known to have survived an attack on his own merits, rather than the assistance of guards. The young general, his wife, and nearly a dozen high ranking or well known soldiers form the core of a new and swiftly growing movement towards oppressive regulations, to help stem the tide of deaths. Few regulations pass, and in the aftermath of their failure, the General and his closest supporters band together, outside law, outside order, and outside sanction, to combat what they see as an effective state of war. Due to several provisions in the Confederate Constitution, namely a clause which allows a system to levy its own forces as it deems fit for its own defense, and no limitations on the nature of the forces levied, General Armistead, along with the Governor and Legislature of New Tennessee, is able to rally to his cause an entire battalion of hard core combatants. Drawn heavily from the ranks of the old army, the battalion is single minded in its purpose, and its special operations units are second to none, the so-called "Cyberpunks" interdicting nearly a dozen assassination attempts against not only military leaders, but key members of the federal government, and several governors.

For nearly a year they operate unopposed, and attacks seem to cease, the majority of the battalion disintegrates, but the Cyberpunks remain, when they catch wind of something their quarry terms as "The Birth", there's nothing they can do. All they have is a time, a day, and a month. June 6, 07:06. Whatever is happening, the Cyberpunks are watchful.