Your pod drifts through nothingness. A bubble of space out from within the nebula in which your pod drifts from a long dissipated super nova. The walls of gas surround your distant, drifting pod on all sides, whispering with the reflected radiation and the subtle crackling of the nebula itself. The bubble, the system, although there is no longer any star, is silent and uninteresting. Your pod watches as the rare traffic moves to and from one of the small backwater colonies carved into the chunks of drifting stone and poorly held together derelict hulls drifting through space. It is a system of rejects, outlaws, and pirates. The only place of any interest, however fleeting, is the singular dwarf planet. A tiny world, slowly drifting through the absent void so appropriately named by the locals as Nowhere, devoid of starlight, with only the cold hum of sparse and secretive hideouts hardly large enough to be called settlements only slightly glow against the freezing backdrop of absolute zero.
Something grabs your pod's attention. A sudden, growing noise slowly, gradually building up from nothing to a distinct mental cry. Your pod moves closser, its cloaked form drifting over the dark world, and you can make out the distinct but meaningless noise of some psionic disturbance, like a grating of metal against metal making you shudder and recoil from the unnatural sensation. Before long, your pod begins to detect gravitational disturbances as well, focused, and highly localized but tremendous in strength.
(Nutrient stat + structures) * 1k * dev score + modifiers = Nutrient income total (Metal stat + structures) * dev score + modifiers = Metal income total
Leo Jackson
Hive Territory [G-426] *Leeland (capital) N 60+40 M 45 Development 50
Income: 4.886MN 162.5KM
Defensive structures >Surface to Orbit Missile System: Uses long range missiles to attack enemy ships in the system (1KN, Additional costs per launch) >Anti-orbital batteries: Directly attacks enemy ships in orbit (8KN) Military structures >Hangar facilities: Deploys atmospheric and orbital drones to intercept attackers, uses aerodynamic and fighter drone designs (4KN) >Psionic Shroud: Conceals hive activity from psionic senses (1KN) Industrial structures >Docking Pylon: (2000) (100KN) [Empty docks: 8000/8000] Economic Structures >Smart Mines active: Calculates development stat twice for metal income >Algae Farm: +25N >Film harvester dock: +15N Asteroid mining base: 50KM per day added to nearest planet.
[M-662] Raligha N 90+20 M 10 Development 25
Income: 2.75MN 0M
Defensive structures >Surface to Orbit Missile System (1KN) >Anti-orbital batteries: 35/35 (8KNN) Economic structures >Bloodroot collectors: Pipes running from Bloodroot trees extract nutrient rich sap +20N >Greystalk farms: [under construction] >Greenwall pit: Genetically engineered plant efficiently recycles waste material, Extra N income x2 >Temple alter: A place for the Ralighan locals to worship and bring offerings to your hive, built in the likeness of your local fake queen, +500N per day
[M-323] >Orbital docking pylon: Space for docking and construction of 4 sub capitals or 1 capital ship, (50N) [Empty docks: 0/4] >Mining corvette salvage operations +2,688,000M per day (+8000M per corvette)
[Farcast] Derelict Sensor array
Glassed Hive world N 0 M 100 D 10
Income: 0N 100KM
>Smart mine mantle excavation: Calculates development stat 3 times for metal income
Deep space waystation >100 docking pylons (10KN) [Empty docks 400/400]
Daniel Collins
It's Nowhere In Valen space, no star. Looks like a rogue planet with some cosmic debris
Tyler Lopez
>appropriately named by the locals as Nowhere It's literally been on the starmap since before the hiatus user. Geez notice the capital letter.Odd. Valen space. What did they get ahold of that's psionic. Crystals don't cry, they whisper.
Carter Nguyen
That implies it's either Skyl or Hive.
Adam Adams
Does this mean we'll see any of the other systems we scouted
Xavier Hall
>>Construction underway >[Citadel Hive ship] – 90% GET HYPE
Jaxon Baker
So guys, I was thinking about agent Devon and how we can best use him assuming he is eventually released from Valen custody.
At this point, he has been the nominal leader of two tremendous fiasco’s: the destruction of the psionics lab on Gemini, and diplomatic fuckup at Tannhauser. He is in very real danger of losing his, (and by extension our) connection to Killinger and the Union council. To keep from being shit-canned as an incompetent he has to deliver results. That is why I propose we allow Devon to “discover” the hive. The Union is in an all out war with the Commonwealth and are at risk of losing their Valen allies; they will not attack us. Furthermore, Devon has ample evidence the Leeland hive is not what it appears. All he needs to do (with our help) is connect the dots:
Old evidence: When our first speaker was injured on Leeland, he did not explode. All bugs “captured” at the lab did. Why were these bugs rigged to explode?
When our workers escaped containment in the lab, the power failed almost instantly. This suggests the attack was carried out by a unified, organized, intelligence.
Lyle was late and not communicating even before the Union deployed a Smith. His agent said Lyle is never late.
After dropping off the bugs, Lyle was immediately pinned by Feds as looking for Lee, a person their intelligence had determined was of little importance.
The attack on Devon’s Gemini research facility stole not just research, but Ryan Lee as well. It’s possible Lee was the primary target. If the attack was funded by the Commonwealth, why would they have such interest in Lee?
Besides Lee, the other two individuals most connected to the hive (Commander Grey and Dr. Steiner) are dead. Of the two, Steiner was outright killed by the hive. Grey, who reported finding technological debris on Leeland that disappeared on further searches, was killed in a suspicious nuclear explosion aboard a stealth ship with no nuclear weapons.
cont
Kayden Evans
Don't get too passive aggressive now, user
Mason Wood
New evidence: Before the jump to Tannhauser, unknown alien ships were seen firing in the vicinity of Devon’s ship.
The alien ships appeared organic in design. The hive has already proved to be able to translate a language rapidly, engineer a translator, and send encrypted radio data through intense interference with biological processes. Is it impossible they built a ship? Upon arrival at Tannhauser, Lyle immediately fired on the Union spy ship. How did he know of the ship? Maybe he had a description of it from the alien contact the ship had before warp?
Lyle and Co had state of the art, never before seen, military equipment. They must have a major government as their backer. However, it seems improbable that any Valen or Commenwealth agent with the authority to dispense next-gen tech would entrust it with a wild card like Lyle.
And finally: On Gemini and Tannhauser Lyle was loud, aggressive, and flamboyant. On Tannhauser he fought a Smith and drop-trooper for at least six hours and destroyed several ruins in the process. On Leeland a Smith and drop-trooper disappeared without a trace or any communication. There was no six hour battle visible from orbit. This suggests the Smith and trooper were immediately overpowered and killed discreetly, something Lyle is not keen on and may not be capable of. The hive admitted to Lee outright they killed the Smith. If they were telling the truth they are much more capable, and dangerous, than anticipated.
The hive will be revealing itself to the Union soon with a high-degree of certainty. When it does, all these connections between events will fall into place. If Devon makes this connection now, before anyone else, he may not only remain in the inner circle of government, he becomes an extremely strong candidate for DIRECTOR of counter-intelligence against hive operations. I don’t think we can let the prospect of an espionage coup like this just slip by.
Elijah Clark
Arnt we supposed to be building space elevators?
Gavin Wood
We need to make some additions to the citadel before we actually finish it. Some solar nutrient collectors would help it serve as the heart of a massive fleet, and artificial gravity plating in case we ever bring any guests aboard for negotiations.
Caleb Jones
Finished Research
>Rip Drive A powerful, and accurate drive system, it does not move the equipped ship, but allows the ship to rip open a hole in spacetime, creating something akin to an artificial wormhole that bridges the ship's current location with a location of its choosing within its range. This allows not only the ship to move through the rupture, but also allows it to open ruptures for other craft, allowing for the deployment of sub-light craft over vast interstellar distances.
[New Ship Module Available] Micro-rip drive – With some modifications to make the drive more compact in order to fit aboard an otherwise unmodified ship, the micro-rip drive is capable of being installed in the spinal mount of a ship. While still quite large of a device, the micro-rip drive is compact enough to only require a single spinal mounting, and can project a tear in spacetime capable of transporting any ship smaller than itself although the reduction in size prevents it from being used to transport itself or ships of equal size. Range has also suffered slightly due to the reduction in size compared to a ship using it as its main drive, allowing a ship to target its spacetime tear to any location within five light years, roughly half that of a full sized drive. The rip drive is capable of reliably targeting a location within a light day, although it can project a tear within the same system as its target with far greater accuracy, bringing it down to a mere light minute or less. (500N 1000M per 50 meters of ship hull length)
Regarding the map data, my computer decided to shove windows 10 in my face on night of the 4th, which caused everything to break since my drivers are, for the most part, just old enough to not work with it. I rolled it back to 7, but got a blue screen in the process. This ended up costing a day's worth of work, and I had to spend even longer fixing it after it deleted by driver for my router and my keyboard.
Gavin White
Current Research
>Hive-dusting Fast Alternative methods of hive creep spore dispersal is investigated, using a mixture of the semi-automated hive expansion methods already in use and altering the genetic composition to be more autonomous in nature, allowing spores to be deployed from non-stationary sources such as aerial dispersal from drones or spacecraft, as well as air-burst spore bombs launched from orbit, allowing for hive creep to be deployed in a more aggressive manner, effectively weaponizing the self-replicating infrastructure. The process is slower and more localized than the work of a Capillary Tower, however with no need for a tower to be present, the process can be undertaken more readily in the presence of hostile forces.
>Psionic Spores Slow While normally the hive spores used to spread infrastructure are little more than genetically engineered nanomachines, replicating and performing their function alone until their built structure is complex enough to receive mental signals, your mixture of psionic research and advancements in spore related genetic programming has made the idea of a psionically sensitive spore seem not nearly as far fetched as it once did. With a mixture of distributed networking and complex cellular reconstruction methods, it could be possible to create a spore strain that would respond to mental signals.
Luis Carter
...
Jace Jones
>Finished Research >>Rip Drive AT LAST!
Leo Powell
Looks good for bringing captured ships and material back to our space. Maybe we should replace one of the spinal mounts on the pirate cruiser design with one.
Thomas Wood
>Replaces a spinal mount of a ship Well fuck, guess we can't put it on the citadel without taking out the spinal hangar. Actually, that's okay, there is more than enough room for docking bays elsewhere.
Jeremiah Lee
Rip drives would be great for our joint invasion with the commonwealth, might need to put it on a hive ship or battleship.
Leo Adams
I like it.
Blake Price
>Complex organ splicing Medium While it is easy to pull a string of genetic data from most carbon based life and infuse it into the hive, making the inefficient genetic structure of other life accept the more efficient and deliberately programmed hive genetic data is far more challenging. In an ironic way, much of the solution seems to involve the utilization of controlled flaws, rendering the mutations deliberately inefficient in order to be more compatible with the host life so as to avoid dominating the host's genetic structure in the same way as the Hive hybrids and chimeras. Such subtle alterations could offer better, more difficult methods of infiltrating or manipulating non-hive life.
>Psionic sensors Slow This is a strange project indeed, and a concept that should not work at first assumption. It utilizes a basic concept of quantum mechanics, that being that the future of a particle effects it present state, and applies it to a mass scale. The hypothesis is a sensor that does not sense a target, but predicts it. The project is still in its infancy, however, and there is hardly any work finished beyond some basic mathematics and theories. As your thinkers attempt to put these theories into practice, however, the first prototypes seems to indicate that said prototypes never existed, causing a bout of confusion among the hive with how to proceed. The project has since gotten back on track, and shows great promise.
>Advanced Psionic Imprinting Slow With the application of psionic imprinting you are able to influence and alter the state of matter using only focused and precise mental signals. Your thinkers believe this can be taken further, using more accurate signals and more precise manipulation methods to imprint more complex thoughts and ideas more quickly and easily, and at a greater range.
Hudson Gonzalez
Okay we have a RANGE for the Rip Drive, and a precision level.
But what's its cooldown time, and what does it use for fuel? How fast can it travel in hops, and how many hops can it make?
Gabriel Thomas
Great idea but i don't feel comfortable revealing the hive.
Asher Gonzalez
>Tachyonic insulators Medium You did not find any thinker alive that was working on this strange project, with all of them nearby fossilized long ago. You did, however, find a small sample of prototype material which seems to absorb tachyonic particles and then disperse them in random directions, scrambling psionic signals and making them appear as universal background noise. The efficiency with which this material does this has proven to make researching it rather difficult, as your drones nearly lost the sample for several days until an enterprising Quantum Thinker had a worker team scour the hive for the elusive substance. The testing has resumed, and is running ahead of schedule after the short delay.
>Psionic Cloaking Medium A complex practice naturally accomplished by the Phantoms under the care of the Barren Queen, you have been instructed in the basics, and now all that is left is practice and application. In theory it is simple, using carefully woven mental signals to broadcast a sense of non-existence. While this process is most effective against being sensitive to tachyonic radiation, it can be used against virtually any organic being. A psionic race may find entire patches of planet voided from their minds like a mass-induced psychosis, while less attuned or mentally blind species find details of the cloaked unit impossible to remember or describe, or may simply not notice the unit unless it is alone and obvious in appearance. Simply turning around or standing among a small crowd is enough to become virtually invisible. Unfortunately, this invisibility comes at a cost, as it is omnidirectional, and any unit enveloped in such a shroud would be unable to mentally communicate with others, effectively cutting itself off from any hive network. This ability requires at least a moderate relay or implant to accomplish, although no drone would do so willingly and cut itself off from the Queen without a direct command to do so.
Colton Adams
>Psionic Telekinesis Very Slow With the development of psionic imprinting it is now clear to the hive that tachyons can effect real matter in a very real way. While normally so minuscule in nature the forces of tachyonic radiation offers no force whatsoever, a focused, maintained wave of psionics could, in theory, impart a real and measurable physical force. The success of Psionic Imprinting seems to offer prove of the concept in theory, and the only limiting factor now is how efficiently the imparted force from tachyonic particles scales up from the molecular level.
>Photonic armor Medium While it is not nearly as robust as what your thinkers promise from the miniaturization of shield technology, these small plates of massive photons are solid enough to deflect weapons fire and absorb energy for a brief period of time. Less a portable defensive shield and more of a temporary deployable cover, this technology, in theory, would offer drones or agents a way to quickly protect themselves during a momentary lack of cover before the photons dissipate.
>Personal shielding Slow By further shrinking the emitters, your thinkers believe they may be able to eventually make them small enough to be equipped to the carapace of a drone, or to the surface of an armored suit. At this time it is mostly speculation and an eagerness to please mother beyond all reason, and you cannot be sure what the limitations may be, but the thinkers are sure they can do it.
Adrian Evans
>Shield dome Slow The opposite way of thinking as personal shielding, by scaling the shield emitters up further to a size that would be impossible to hold and power on a ship, your thinkers suspect they should be able to construct a defensive perimeter around a hive center protected by a powerful defensive shield. The thinkers that have proposed the idea seem to be certain in the failure of the other project, as they are of this one, and you have had to separate the quantum thinkers as they attempted to disprove each others’ theories more than develop their own.
>Advanced Psionic Reading Slow With your new abilities growing, you continue to hone and develop more advanced methods of using your psionic network. Your thinkers believe that with more practice they should be able to delve deeper into the minds of non-hive life, digging past surface thoughts and emotions and into more detailed pieces of information without resorting to invasive neural interfaces.
>Atmospheric static generator Medium (is done, but working on how it adjusts the Tower's cost in the new system) By utilizing the natural friction of a sufficiently dense atmosphere against the surface of a capillary tower, the tower can be made to generate energy to feed itself and reduce its upkeep cost.
>Deep Core Mining Slow Taking planetary mining to the logical extreme, your thinkers believe that your hive infrastructure, if spread across the surface of a world and given enough time, would be able to consume the ferrous metal core of a planet itself.
Joseph Ortiz
I like where you're going with this, but the links between the bug people of G-426 and the shadowy power directing Lyle to strike at Union black ops is still very circumstantial. I'd be okay with Devon trying to identify Lyle's backers and putting some of the pieces together, but not him revealing that it is actually the Hive.
Angel Williams
>Gravity thrusters Slow Similar in function to your Skid drive, the Gravity thrusters essentially surf along pre-existing gravity fields, increasing their performance when in close proximity to major sources of gravitational pull, be it a large celestial body, a star, a planet, an exceptionally large structure or group of structures, or the core of a gravity drive. While in deep space it becomes less effective, the law of universal gravitation means it never becomes totally useless, and when in close proximity to a powerful gravity source it should outperform most other thruster designs with ease.
Available research options
>Psionic Cannon prototype Very slow/Very dangerous Detailed accounts of several experiments show the slow progress of Project Godsplitter. The cannon itself is highly volatile, and even the smallest miscalculation often results in the destruction of the ship, as well as any nearby craft. It can only be equipped to a Hive ship's spinal mount, and requires a functional Void Shard as ammunition. At least a dozen testing sizes were atomized in testing the weapon, and in the end it appears The Gardener never quite perfected it.
Alexander Walker
Hey, QD. I'd like to suggest you just drop all of these first ten posts or so into a pastebin or something. It's kind of silly.
Dominic Howard
>The efficiency with which this material does this has proven to make researching it rather difficult, as your drones nearly lost the sample for several days until an enterprising Quantum Thinker had a worker team scour the hive for the elusive substance. Ha! Nice to see the quantum thinkers proving their worth.
Leo Edwards
It's tradition! And also it allows players to filter in over time.
Aiden Morris
Hey, screw you, it's tradition. How else will we get HYPE about our impending technological breakthroughs?
Jordan Murphy
By reading the pastebin. Durr.
Wyatt Miller
Okay. That may work. My concern is that unless Devon actually succeeds at something big he won't be put in a position to learn anything important for us.
I'm fine with not revealing the Hive at this time. However, I think that if we DO decide to reveal the hive, having Devon do so is the way that would best benefit us. Since the OQ is already scouting the Union we may want to make introductions soon - which is why I proposed my idea now.
Dominic Davis
>The alien ships appeared organic in design. The Cortez actually did not make out such details, did they. Nobody knows this.
Also, they already knew Lee was the primary target of Lyle's mission. The Council talked about it. It was in Dillon's report.
And implicating the hive in the Mirage's destruction would just be silly.
Also we have left no witnesses to what equipment was used on Aral except for Mauser. The Smith is dead and Calhoun is in custody.
> The hive admitted to Lee outright they killed the Smith. The Hive was rather vague on that point, and anyway, Lee doesn't appear to have TOLD the Union that. Because in their conversation with Devon, they implicate Lyle in the destruction of the Smith, because Lyle was on the bugger planet when it died, and he's killed one before. Devon also doesn't really have specific knowledge of a lot of this evidence, like the Seiner lab things.
Lincoln Jenkins
I feel you. Given the fact that Devon was actually present on the bridge of the ship when it was attacked by the OQ, he's in a really good position to connect the dots and come up with that conclusion. Hell, we might even be able to blame all this on the OQ instead of us in the long run.
Alexander Kelly
>As your thinkers attempt to put these theories into practice, however, the first prototypes seems to indicate that said prototypes never existed, causing a bout of confusion among the hive with how to proceed. The project has since gotten back on track, and shows great promise. >The testing has resumed, and is running ahead of schedule after the short delay. M E T A E T A
Also, shouldn't the notes Gilliam was given accelerate Tachyonic insulators by... a lot? How can Gilliam study containment if he isn't informed of all of its principles?
Chase Anderson
TIME FOR QUEENY
Christian Torres
>Micro-rip drive Can this target missiles or small suicide ships?
I guess what i am asking is if this can target either and incoming missile or outgoing missile and teleport it directly into the enemy.
At least we should be able to build a small ship filled only with explosives and teleport it directly into the enemy.
Jacob Gutierrez
I suggest that before citadel hive ship is finished we retrofit its drive into rip drive, now that research is finished.
Luis Rivera
Fair enough. I largely included evidence Devon may not have directly had, but could gather if we could tell him where to look.
> The hive admitted to Lee outright they killed the Smith
My thinking here is the Union just thought of us bugs are far too stupid to be capable of killing a Smith and a Drop-trooper so easily and discarded Lee's report by assuming Lyle did it. With this other circumstantial evidence Devon may be able to get the analysts to question their initial assessment.
Joseph Watson
Yeah, I agree. The "cool" factor, and the ability to quickly make effective allied strikes, is a major bonus. The Hive ship may be less combat effective, but is probably overall worth the alteration.
Logan Jackson
Actually it feels like QM did not specify whether it needs a spinal mount, or if it can be used as a regular drive.
Jose Lee
We really don't need it. If you could present an actual reason for the rip drive then maybe. But for now the hangar is fine.
A specialized ship would be better.
Adam Cruz
Wait should we put the microripdrive or a full blown rip drive like the one Heretic uses?
Caleb Flores
>Also we have left no witnesses to what equipment was used on Aral except for Mauser. The Smith is dead and Calhoun is in custody.
Not necessarily true. The ship was monitoring the fight from orbit. There may have also been feeds from cameras the Smith or even from Mauser broadcasting back to the Union ship. We have no idea what kind of data, or lack thereof, may be in its black boxes.
Nicholas Collins
The patrols of Leeland send their attention to a burst of radiation in the distance as a corvette emerges from warp. A moment later the minds of your drones rejoin you as the Orphan begins its approach. Your clone crew and captain have taken it upon themselves to open a tab, using the first wave of funds to help refurbish the hull of the ship. The short amount of time spent in dock has left the craft looking far less conspicuous, in addition to a rather interesting set of decorations. The shield cap has been smoothed over to a shining, reflective sheen. Its name has been painted around the rim, with a new hull number lifted from one of Deep Song's many less legitimate services indicating the Orphan to be a privately owned freighter under the direction of the company FormOther to any legal authority that may pass it by. On the spine, near the back of the shield cap in smaller, greenish lettering "Mother's Favorite" surrounded by decorative designs, all using the station's offered half-off opportunity.
The ship begins to drift into the atmosphere of Leeland, touching down and docking with one of the many spires reaching up above the surface. There is some level of distress within, and your clones request a number of fire spray equipped warriors to the airlock. Concerned, you provide the forces, and prepare for the worst. As the doors to the cargo bays open, your fire teams are nearly buried under an astounding flood of fur and flesh, cooing softly as the carpet of tribbles tumble out and across the floor of the hive. The clone crew make their way to the hive's docking bay, each holding at least a dozen of the small vermin in hand. They feel your mind upon them, and the captain looks down to his feet with guilt. He holds out a tribble, the original tribble, to your waiting speaker.
"It, uh, got out of the cage." He says. A worker quickly takes the small creature from his hands and scurries off with it towards the nutrient vats.
cont.
Dylan Kelly
Probably not since calculating FTL takes time. However, I'm thinking opening a portal in front of a fleet/planet and have our ships on the other side shoot spinal railguns, sending slugs to bombard our target without endangering ships may be possible.
Jonathan Long
>may be less combat effective user is suggesting to replace the blink drive, which would not impact combat abilities at all.
But it would cost its ability to travel with any accuracy at all. It could come out literally anywhere in the target system.
Which, we're probably not going to throw the citadel into the frontlines, so maybe?
We could probably build a second hive ship that has a dedicated Rip Drive and no blink drive instead.
Adam Evans
My intention was full blown. No point wasting a spinal mount when you can use it as a regular drive for the ship.
Anthony Walker
>The ship was monitoring the fight from orbit. Its sensors were busted. Only Calhoun was reporting anything about the battle, they had no idea what was going on except through his reports indicating the Smith was in trouble.
If there were wireless feeds we could have heard them.
David Gutierrez
See:
Joseph Adams
Not worth swapping out the six kilometer railgun for it though.
It is time for weaponized tribbles.
Brandon Jenkins
>depart Lanway in 53.6 >arrive at Leeland in 57 How did it take 4 days to travel 32 lightyears at 2 lightyears per hour?
Xavier Watson
I WARNED YOU ABOUT TRIBBLES BRO
I WARNED YOU
Wyatt Campbell
Maybe they had to refuel? I seem to recall inferior human ships had to do that in an earlier post.
Colton Jones
FTL doesn't require fuel, Canderon isn't used up. And they have a literally infinite amount of energy from the damn power tap.
Christian Wright
See: It's surprising that people don't read what I wrote, I've mentioned drive, not spinal mount.
Mason Anderson
They stumbled upun some problems along the way.... Lots of little problems... Furry little problems... Literally
Lucas Robinson
Read between the lines. The micro rip drive takes up one full spinal weapons slot, and our hive ships have only two spinal weapon mounts. So in the case of the citadel we'd have to swap out either the spinal hangar or the colossal railgun it has, which is currently the single most powerful gun in our entire armada.
Carter Thompson
Concerning the rip drive, maybe it would be better to make a hive ship focused on diplomacy and combat to make joint attacks with any of our allies, have it blink into the allied fleet's system, open a wormhole to the enemy target, then leave when all the ships have gone through.
Carson Rogers
Does mother really need a big and impressive but ultimately pointless penis symbol? I mean, she's a mother.
Levi Campbell
That's a good idea, but who would we use it with? Theseus? Maybe it's more of an idea for the future.
Eli Moore
>New firepet arrives At last. Awesome.
Will our clones finish dragging that holo-printer from thread 54 back to the sewer hive this thread too?
>micro Who's talking about the micro version?
Carter Williams
I wonder if we can somehow harness these rapidly selfreproducing tribbles into a replenishing food supply? Like we could just keep them in a giant vat tossing in scraps and other junk they could eat
Nathaniel Diaz
You're right. I tried to find the thread I thought I remembered and found I was wrong. Sorry about that.
It sounds like the Orphan got a major overhaul, so that may have been where the time went instead.
Elijah Brown
Commonwealth actually, since we're gonna invade the slavs with them, although we could use it with Theseus when heretic doesn't have enough rip driven ships.
Lucas Powell
we dont pruduce any junk
Oliver Howard
Our existing vats already do that. It would be pointless unless the tribbles have some way of accessing a food source that we don't yet, like some exotic radiation or something.
But the commonwealth are slavic
Jaxson Lewis
Should we open up a joint research endevour with Theseus/Heretic to speed up some of our research?
Xavier Hughes
I think we should start mining minerals and producing food so we can build things
Austin Allen
We already have the Greenwall which does the same thing
Dylan Williams
>pointless You do realize the power of the railgun increases exponentially with the length, right? And that this gun is three times longer than the next biggest comparable weapon we can field? The slugs hit with the force of a multi mega ton nuclear warhead.
Commonwealth, pending our negotiations with them.
I don't think we have the access to the full size version yet.
Tyler Wright
A better idea would be to make an artillery battleship with 4 spinal railguns and as many missiles as will fit. Then we just fire everything through the rip from lightdays away.
Christopher Mitchell
Is anywhere worried about the consequences of ordering the commonwealth to hand over the crystal in the mirage over to us?
I mean we just alerted them to the fact we have an intelligence gathering reach to know the name of the union black op ship and also what it contained?
I mean they can not afford to have us help them against the scavs but their going to be on the guard even more now
Michael Thompson
We already maximize research speed, our Thinker count is now so large we don't even track a number anymore.
Also Theseus is still Jewing us on his spacefold drive, so the more tech we research on our own, the more we can trade to him for research he developed on his own. Independence is necessary for trade.
Research is a currency, not just an end in itself. A currency to trade for more research that would otherwise be beyond our reach.
Leo Ward
I misspelled, meant scavs.
Cooper Miller
You realize that's still just a big pointless gun, right? We don't have any situation where such a thing is necessary, because we can deal with anything by sending enough smaller and more practical ships at it.
Jason Young
Yeah, I think we showed too much of our hand here. They'll definitely be wondering how the hell we knew that. At the same time, though, we really have them over the barrel. They can either fight a two front war with a powerful ally, or a three front war with no allies. Of the two, only one option exists that allows the Commonwealth to continue to exist as an entity.
I suspect they'll give us the crystal if they can recover it, but that they'll be more cautious and probably more demanding if their internal situation ever stabilizes.
Liam Nelson
On that point my opinion is standard national procedure: Better have a fuckhuge gun and not need it than need it and not have it.
Easton Miller
We definitely need both of their help whenever we start producing the Psionic Canon. Theseus has the computing power while Heretic helped the Gardener with her Canon.
Gavin Moore
You can say the same about a giant fleet-mover.
Christopher Thomas
I think we should offer to trade some of our tech with Theseus. I really want to acquire those EMP limpets he used to down the Clarke, they'd make our harpoons so much more effective. While we're at it, there are a bunch of things we need to discuss with him, I made a list.
-Possibility of forming a formal alliance and notifying other factions of this. -Opening diplomatic/economic links with the Commonwealth, recognition of Unity's sovereignty -More open technology trades, we've been hesitant because we don't know what he can offer -Increased co-operation between our respective intelligence gathering operations.
Yes, very. Although the way QD handled that vote gives me the impression he isn't planning on fucking us over because of it.
The commonwealth is everything and everyone that existed on Earth. They basically just exported every culture and nation onto their own private planets.
Nolan Bennett
It means they'll probably expect us to have spooky-good spying techniques. Which is why we should be prepared to lie about how we detected it. Preferably by saying our 'special sensors no you cant have any,' detected it, and Union/Commonwealth media filled us in on the rest.
Also, a thought for everyone: We know where the Scavenger rally point is. We can make a ton of pods with bombs in them. They won't be expecting us to pull the same shit we pulled on the Obsidian/Black Queen, as they haven't seen it happen. So why not nuke their asses back to the stone age? If we haven't already, that is.
Ethan Miller
...
Michael Kelly
>-Possibility of forming a formal alliance and notifying other factions of this. >-Opening diplomatic/economic links with the Commonwealth, recognition of Unity's sovereignty >-More open technology trades, we've been hesitant because we don't know what he can offer >-Increased co-operation between our respective intelligence gathering operations. Agreed on all points
Aiden Hill
>We don't have any situation where such a thing is necessary Firing on the Scavenger command point like Theseus did to the lab. We could even get Theseus to help us with the calculations.
Mason Diaz
I'd say you are as thick as pig shit. The entire point of a gun is to be destructive, and this particular gun is many magnitudes more destructive than anything else we have. For god's sakes, the battlecruiser sized railgun used by the Commonwealth in the battle for Iserholn was capable of breaking up continents.
Leo Wilson
The kamikaze pods idea would be great to do right before invading with the commonwealth.
Jace Lee
We don't have a need for such a gun. It can't do anything that we can't manage without it.
Easton Cook
As your warriors clear the loading bay, filling the air with distressed squawking and the smell of burnt hair, workers swarm over to a large, heavily dented metal crate. Muffled roars escape from within as the workers haul it into the grip of several loading cranes and begin hauling it into the cargo bay of the hive. A number of heavy warriors stand ready, and a colossus waits patiently with its head emerging from a large tunnel leading deeper into the hive proper.
As the drones gather around, the crate opens, and the beast within emerges. The so called Red spotted Carnotar is certainly quite the sight. A massive, bipedal beast lumbers forth with rather frightening speed and grace. Its long, muscular arms scrape at the floor despite its almost fully erect posture, feeling the ground for anything of interest. It quickly finds something, grabbing hold of a warrior and picking it up like a toy. Your drone stabs its hand with its blades, forcing it to drop the drone as it lets out an enraged roar, and slaps it across the hangar like a rag doll. It leans forward into a run as it grinds its massive teeth in anger, and charges, slapping several heavy warriors out of its way before tackling the colossus. The large drone leans back from the impact, and slowly pushes forward as the creature claws at its face, and it grips the beast's neck in its mandibles as warriors begin to swarm over it. You feel the minds of several of your drones wink out as it crushes them in its grip, biting them in half or tossing them away like refuse before it eventually falls before your drones and your colossus throws it to the ground.
cont.
Asher Diaz
When will we finally make the scavs pay for not trading comfortable seating with us
Josiah Ramirez
Yet.
Angel Martinez
Therefore it's a waste of resources currently.
Jason Wright
You are wrong. Not even our missiles are as destructive as that gun, while being next to impossible to dodge and being free to shoot. It's a far more effective weapon platform than anything else we've got.
Carson Gray
No, you aren't hearing what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we have something else that's as powerful as that gun. What I'm saying is we don't have a conceivable situation in front of us where we need a singular gun of that power.
Angel Thompson
What about bombarding OQ strong points for a planetary invasion? It may be one of the few weapons strong enough to actually penetrate deep into her hives while "conventional" nukes only impact the surface. It's also "cheap" to fire lots of rail gun rounds compared with our other tech.
Julian Carter
Are you kidding? There are bombardment scenarios, naval duels with other capitol ships, ambushes using the rip drives, I can think of dozens of scenarios where a fuckhuge gun like that would be invaluable. Just look at how the Unity uses their 20 kilometer guns if you need an example.
