NationStates Jolt Archive

The TN Fleet were at this point a large and powerful faction to be reckoned with. Though they still had problems with power and their link with Xiscapia was lost they were in search of an advanced race that would share their technology. Thus far they had visited thousands of worlds and no one were either willing or nor capable to share the technology. The High Command (HC) of the TN fleet were getting frustrated. Their fusion reactors took alot of preparation and planning to work effieciently but once they were online little could stand in their way. With the new threat from various pirate and rogue faction and the recent destruction of the TN-345 Cruiser Mjolnir the HC were growing more impatient

TNA as a nation covered the entire surface of a gigantic planet orbiting alone around a white dwarf. The enviroment was harsh with snow and high levels of radiation.Centuries before the development of exo-skeleton hazmat suits they relied on digging underground. This caused millions of deaths over the decades but today 3 major cities stand on water with a large shield protecting them.

Now a new ship class dubbed "Jumpship" would explore the other galaxies around. The ship was not massive but it would be considered large. With a total length of 5.5km and a width of 3km it carried enough resources for the expidition to last 2 years on its own. It took the TN research department 3 years to figure out how to bend space on such a large scale and let alone the distance and power requirements. It was a long shot but the TN felt it was the last chance.

The Federal Dominion of TNA had adopted a neutral policy and weren't allowed to attack other advanced races let alone the war would be devastating. The population didn't support war unless it was in self-defense and the TNA had special laws that the citizens could act upon the government if it was deemed corrupt or otherwise disfunctional.


Now was the time.

10 minutes until launch.

Above Terra Nova was now "JumpShip" nicked "Zeus" in full preparation on firing up the massive hyperdrive. Zeus was an spectacular view from the planet below even though there were only clear sky one hour per day.

The leader of the expedition was President of the Admiral Fleet Ron Tarush and his Co-leader the Chancellor of the TNDA (Terra Novian Diplomacy Agency) Clara Yesterson. It was important that the expedition were run by both the military and the civilians. The ship carried a total of 15.000 personnel not including colonists.

Cabinet 1-SEC001

Clara entered the large cabinet. the furnatures were placed perfectly and everything was coherent. She peaked behind the corner towards the living room. There a man in a black and red uniform sat by a bar drinking. She walked softly down the stairs and cleared her throat to get his attention.

The man went for his pocket and picked up a cigarr and lit it.

"How nice of you Clara to come visit me before the jump." the man said with a faint voice.

Clara sighed "Ron,It doesn't need to be like this. We can still make an deal out of this."

"Its not going to happen. You know it will never work and I won't allow it!" Ron said and took a swig from his glass and blew a large ring from his cigarr.

"How can you be so blinded Ron? Can't you see what is going to happen?" she stated with a strong voice.

They were interrupted by the inter-comm system

"Attention all personnel, Jump in 5,Report to your respective station. "

"We won't discuss this any further Clara" Ron said as he jumped off his chair and straightened his uniform. He then switfly walked pass her and out the door.

Ron arrived at the brig and took seat in the Commander's seat.

"Fire it up".

"10 seconds until launch"
"9"
"8"
"7"
"6"
"5"
"4"
"3"
"2"
"1"
"Initiating hyper-drive sequence."

The very large ship disappeared in the giant hyperspace window.


1 month later...

The ship had now entered the first galaxy of the 10 to explore. The hyperdrive had fried on arrival and were not capable of moving faster than sub-light which at this point was at 82% of the speed of light. It would take 387 years to the nearest planet. Luckily the ship was so big it fitted 5 TNA cruisers with interstellar hyperdrives. Each ship now launched off to seek out life.

The TN Cruiser Thor had now arrived at one of the first planets to be explored. Something wasn't right,The instruments went haywire and after 5 minutes of struggling against whatever it they gave up,they were now a sitting duck in space.

The TN Cruiser Mimir was a ECM Cruiser and had been refitted with very powerful electronics. Their objective were to send a sub-space signal throughout the system with a basic algorithm as a code. Only more sophisticated races would be able to break it.

The survey vessel APNS Clarke received the message.

It's ghost, a rather young and brash one by the handle of Stanchion received the message, and began to decode it. It didn't take long, and bored him. Alerting the captain, he sent the message down with a brief comment about wanting to send probes into the heart of a black hole using the Jump Drives instead of sitting around decoding messages.

Captain Anderson Beck rolled his eyes at the message. Stanchion was the least respectful ghost he had ever worked with, and he knew that he couldn't remove access to the computer core if he wanted the ship to run properly.

As he received the message, he decided to check it out. It was outside their survey path, but there was no ship in that path, so they had the job of checking it out.

Spinning up the Jump Drives, the Burning yellow-green long petaled flowers opened up on both sides, as the ship plunged through the Tesseract Window and to the location of the Mimir.

"Hail, this is Captain Anderson Beck of the APNS Clarke. We received your message and would like to open up communications between our two states."

The Mimir's crew was glad they got contact.

"This is Major Gallore of the TN Mimir. We are....coordinates... meeting...*radio disturbance* send........now....."

Gallore smashed the comm screen,He was obviously enraged by the failing short range radio.

"Send them a binary message"

"This is major Gallore of the TN Mimir. It is good to hear you from out here.I am giving you the coordinates for our diplomacy agency. It is encrypted within the message. You shouldn't have trouble decrypting it. Proceed to talk to Clara Yesterson."

"Shall do, if your ship has any problems, perhaps we could offer you a tow to a repair hangar? Perhaps we could call a Heighliner to come and take you to our worlds. We are in the largest dwarf galaxy orbiting this one, and it is quite a distance from here by anythign other than long distance jump drives."

"Shall do, if your ship has any problems, perhaps we could offer you a tow to a repair hangar? Perhaps we could call a Heighliner to come and take you to our worlds. We are in the largest dwarf galaxy orbiting this one, and it is quite a distance from here by anythign other than long distance jump drives."

"We will be fine thank you,It just our short range communication. Please proceed to the coordinates,they are waiting."

"Will do."

The ship jumped, the brilliant yellow-green burst exploding outward from a point in the general direction of the target co-ordinates.

At that same moment, the burst happened over the world in question, the APNS Clarke moving out like a shell from a cannon, until it got past the burst, at which point it seemed motionless in space.

"Hail, to Terra Novian Atlantis. I am Captain Anderson Beck of the APNS Clarke, we are told you are expecting us."

APNS Clarke was now infront of Zeus.

A quick message was relayed.

"Bring all that you want with you in 5 and tell me when your ready,We will beam you up."

"Will do, we will contact you when ready."

Captain Beck assembled his team, a Xenobiologist and Xenobotanist from the University of New Tortuga, a Caamasi Ambassador, the holo-drone that would allow the ship's ghost to be present, and a small, four man marine honor guard, armed only with their blastswords, like all members of the crew.

Assembled on the Teleportation Pads, they signaled the crew of their Teleportation dock, which relayed the signals with the Zeus, signaling they where ready for the Beam Up.

"Teleport them in."

The crew disappeared in a flash and reappeared in a large concrete room. In the middle was a long oak table with countless seats. After a few seconds looking around a single drone popped out of the wall and made an alarming sound. It shot a white beam of light at the Crew, When they were able to look again,they noticed their swords were gone.

Clara walked into the room in a suit with a nicely cut skirt around the knee's.

"Greetings" She said and smiled "I am Clara Yesterson,Chancellor of TN Diplomacy and second in command here."

She gave a searching look at the crew "Ah...yes..your swords. They will be returned when we beam you back. We do not carry weapons onboard.


Meanwhile

Thor was having trouble. Not only because they were sitting ducks but the life support system was down. The scientists were working as hard as possible but it looked like it would take time. Thor had already dispatched a small scout vessel to the planet below hoping to find any signs on what might cause the disruption.

The drone activated, and the image of Stanchion's chosen avatar, a half-dog half-man with a Cyclops visor, appeared standing beside the captain. "Do not worry about the swords, the power packs where not installed, and thus the swords where purely formalities at this point. This far away from the manifest zone, the chances of encountering Hive is very low."

The captain, his ambassador, and the Xenos moved towards the table, standing around it in their chosen locations, Captain Beck at the Foot, his Ambassador at his right hand, the two xenos at his left, as the Marines took up position at the door and Stanchion hovered behind Captain Beck to the right.

"It is always a pleasure to make new acquaintances out here in the black. If you don't mind my asking, how long have your people been traveling through space?"

Clara looked at the ghost.

"Well,We have been travelling for 26 years now." Clara explained and then she changed her face expression

"Hive? What are the Hive?"

"Beings that travel in spheres, some of which are up to a kilometer in length. They are able to move FTL, with distortion fields that they are able to project just from being in close proximity with each other. They can wiggle and move at 2.8 kelvin, and can insinuate their way through even the most powerful shields. They come in three types. Gorgons, who are just covered in tentacles with beaks on them. Soldiers that look like a bear/insect/bird/bug thing that are covered in black armor. And Gluies, think maggots that can only be killed with fire, lots of fire. And when they die, they turn into a caustic brown goo." Stanchion stated, dread filling his voice at the thought of them.

"They are native to another universe, one that has a manifest zone in the Large Magellanic Cloud. But there have been some people using Resonance and Ansible communications, so they slip through from time to time, as they home in on it. All ships carry swords, manual loading projectile cannons, hydrogen jets, neutron hoses, and so many other thigns that will work on beings that can wiggle at near absolute Zero."

The captain waved him down, "But that is another mater for another time, we are here to open up relations. Which brings me to our gift." The captain patted his uniform, tryign to remember where he had put the holo-pad, before finding it and pulling it out. "This," he said activating the pad to show a nine chevroned ring with constellations on it, "Is a Stargate. It is able to connect to any other stargate in the universe, so long as it is not orbiting the same star or on the same planet as the sending gate. We have one in our Central Hall back inside of New Tortuga, and we like to use them for trade with established allies."

These creatures sounded rather dull in Clara's ears. She had even seen worse. "I am sure we are able to handle them" she stated with calmness

Clara looked puzzled at the hologram. "Well...how does it work? What are the power requirements? How do I know what chevrons I put in?" And with what?"

The captain's eyebrow rose at the description of the Hive, but thought it best to wait until he had finished describing their gift.

"A stargate requires no external power, so long as the DHD is within proximity to the device, all you have to do is dial." A DHD hovered next to the stargate at the proper distance, "We will give you an Autodialer and a Dialing Computer for you to use. The Autodialer has our co-ordinates locked in, and by simply waving it in front of the 'gate, it will activate." The hologram showed a man waving a roughly triangular rock in front of the gate an a wormhole activating. "If you dial normally, and the dialing computer is able to quickly dial the co-ordinates simply by choosing your destination therein, then an unstable vortex will burst out and destroy anything within a meter and a half of the front of the gate. And just remember, while EM transmissions can go both ways, you cannot try to enter an incoming wormhole. Doing so will turn you into bits of atomic dust floating around out there, the same thing if you try to enter through the rear of the gate. The Gate will come with an Iris. If you suspect that an incoming wormhole is from an enemy, simply close the Iris and whoever is there, barring use of an Intangibility Device, will not re-integrate the person or object will be destroyed on attempted re-integration."

"Now I need to make sure you understand something about the Hive. They negate all electronic devices. Anything more complicated than a chemical reaction will not work. It is why we carry swords with us at all times. And these Gorgons come in groups of hundreds. Class Five spheres can number in the thousands. 1 class three sphere is enough to uff all power on an Eclipse Class Super Star Destroyer. The only way to detect them is with bugs, specifically Aldebaran Scarab Crickets, who will go crazy if the Hive is within an astronomical unit of them. And don't underestimate the Gluies, I mean it when I say they can only be killed with fire. Out of twenty-nine encounters with Gluie spheres, only a ship full of Samurai where able to destroy them, and mainly because they where using Lightsabers at the time. These things are dangerous, but you will likely not have to worry about them. There are no Hive Spheres heading toward the Manifest Zone at this time, so the chances of any coming through is very low."

As if in Afterthought, the Captain remarked, "Whatever you do, don't dial these co-ordinates." And with that, the images shifted to reveal a set of symbols that could be found on the Stargate.
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/thumb/f/fa/019.svg/100px-019.svg.png http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/thumb/3/34/008.svg/100px-008.svg.png http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/thumb/9/9d/004.svg/100px-004.svg.png http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/thumb/c/ce/037.svg/100px-037.svg.png http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/thumb/9/90/026.svg/100px-026.svg.png http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/thumb/2/2b/016.svg/100px-016.svg.png
"It's a blackhole, a fairly powerful one at that. And it will keep your gate open beyond the normal 38 minute window, and quite posibly suck the entire planet inside. If you do wind up dialing it, which if you use the computer will be impossible, call us up, and we will be there with a gate buster to de-activate it for you."

OOC: See here for more info on the Stargate: http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Stargate

"That is very kind of you,I am sure we can operate it without problem. First of all I would give something in return but alas I do not know anything about this galaxy,You see we are from another galaxy. Approx. 150 billion light years from here. If there is anything you want we can fix it." Clara looked abit ashamed at the fact they had no idea what they were goin in to.

"Also..." She paused for a moment "We would like you to meet our commander of this vessel. Admiral (). He expressed a great interest in talking to you. Meanwhile if you need anything just tell."

"Of course, we would be happy to assist you in the mapping of the galaxy, it is a duty we are on at this moment. Our starmaps come complete with gate addresses for you to use to get from world to world easier. And I can understand your nervousness, it is a big galaxy. And just a warning, there are some very powerful forces out there to be wary of. Chronosia for one, and Huntaer for another. One is trying to be Entropy incarnate, and the other oppression incarnate. My suggestion? Head for the Small Magellanic Cloud. It is roughly 150 thousand light years away from Terra, and so far as we can tell, there are no inhabitants of it. One reason we chose the Large Version."

He setled back after that, trying to figure out what galaxy she was talking about. "150 billion...That's out beyond the Great Wall isn't it? That is quite the distance to travel, considering the sheer number of galaxies you had to pass to reach the Virgo Supercluster alone, let alone the Milky Way Local Group."

"And as for needing something, we need ships. And guns. The Hive is in the Manifest Zone in numbers greater than anything we thought possible. Someone, somewhere taught the damn things geometry and physics, and so they are starting to form into spheres again, and they seem to be attacking us while the Romans and the Americans wage yet another of their wars in the Hive's home Universe."

A man in his early 60s entered the room with support from a stick. He was dressed in a black and red uniform and highly decorated. He waved with his hand and Clara left the room without saying a word.

"So weapons you say...We have numerous,What kinds do you need?" he muttered coldly.

"Anything with a blade honestly. And if you have anti-matter or Dark Matter weaponry, that would be of great use. We are trying to fight an enemy that cannot be squashed or frozen, and are mobile at 2.8 K. We have weapons, lots of them. But we don't have enough hands to hold them all. And as soon as this Hive dies, the next one will come around. We think that the Hive might even be the very first lifeform in this other universe that the Manifest Zone leads into."

"For now, we might be able to hold them, and luckily those Warrior Priests from the Longinean Order are now fighting the burrs, and their ships are better suited to combat with beings that can uff energy weapons and targeting."

"I won't ask you and your people to join us in the fight so soon, but when it comes to mopping up, then we could use your help. That way, you won't lose too many people and still get experience against them."

Ron looked at them with a hint of secrecy

"Let's say I have something...you might be interested in. Though,We would require more than just the stargate."

A static sound was heard and soon after a voice.

"Admiral Ron,Thor has problems. We just got their subspace stress call."

Ron sat still for a minute completly silent. He stood up and walked out of the door without saying a word.

"Wait, we can help you out with that! We can haul them through our Jump Gates and get them back here quickly. Our ships are fast, capable of reaching a pace BEFORE they left in fact. (OOC: It's only a half-second for those reading. And they have a full second period of inactivity following a jump to compensate.) And then we can continue negotiating over tech. We have lots of tech from Universes across the Multi-Verse. Who knows, you might find them very interesting."