A small security camera watches an office. People in business suits rush from office to office with papers and data pads in hand as others work over videos and photos on computer terminals. View screens cover the walls, showing news coverage of hundreds of different channels and agencies across Union space, and almost instantly they cut to static. The workers stop, like drones cut off from their queen, looking at the wall of static as an emergency sign appears with a loud monotone beep apologizing for technical difficulties. The people look around, confused, as their own devices loose interstellar service as their various comm relay service providers suddenly cease to function.
Then they do again. The computers show alerts flashing on their screens, and data pads and phones chime with mail alerts. The camera zooms in as they fumble in confusion and a man walks out from an office labeled with the title “Editor in Chief” in bold letters.
“What's going on?” He asks. “Anyone have service?”
“Nothing outside the system.” Someone replies as they read over various notifications displayed on holograms and handheld screens. The Editor pulls out his own handheld data pad, and flips through notifications of his own.
“These are gag orders.” He says with confusion. “From the BFI office. What the hell is going on?”
HYPE torn between participating in this or watching the Turkish military coup currently in progress
Jaxson Collins
AHAHAHAHAHAHA Twitter is useful! holy hell... I am using a social media for it's thingy instead of just the promotions... QuestDrone... I did not realize this until just now...
Ethan Nguyen
Fuck you do both. Took the turks long enough.
Brandon Diaz
I Just realised that mith tachion telekinesis we'll finaly have true Jedis.
Jordan Barnes
>people are losing connection elsewhere in the galaxy Is the shitshow on Tenebris fucking spreading? Are we now vindicated in throwing a massive goddamn termiteantmoth shitfit?
Hudson Murphy
No, these are orders coming from the BFI. This is just good old human bureaucracy in action.
Hunter Carter
I'm pretty sure it's because there are three server ships over a distant military base that's conducting a secret project, and an unknown alien species is with them. Union is in a ton of shit.
Angel Gomez
>three server ships Don't they shit themselves whenever there's just 1?
Gabriel Miller
Yes.
Liam Nelson
“Put your weapons down and stand aside!” The voice crackles over the radios of the marines as they look around in confusion. “You have no idea what you are dealing with or what danger this facility has placed us all in. The entire sector is at risk!”
Elizabeth stands in front of the towering relay, the massive command brain of your ship humming at the back of the large chamber. Control consoles grown from bone and chitin stand around her, for convenience more than necessity. Skin is stretched tight between the outstretched bone limbs, offering a screen as the skin's color shifts to show the surface of the dark, sunless world and the blurred images of the drones' stitched together into a shifting, foggy mosaic of the hallway where the marines stand.
Lightyears away, Windsor continues to spread his attention across his desk as phones ring and assistances pester him off screen. He holds three earphones up to his head at once as he watches the screen.
>Have your ships attempt to jam the radio communications between the marines and their transport >Attack the transport to cut off the quantum communications connection >Allow both to continue broadcasting >Other (write in)
Zachary Cook
>Attack the transport to cut off the quantum communications connection SO MUCH HAPPENING TODAY
Parker Barnes
>Allow both to continue broadcasting We've already started on "don't kill ALL the humans" route. Nuking the transport would just strand them there to die or by crystallised and /then/ die. Cutting radio makes no difference if we're letting the marines walk away.
Colton Martinez
>>Attack the transport to cut off the quantum communications connection
We should have waited slightly to intervene and blown it up immediately to cut the feed as soon as the full horror of the situation was realized by the humans.
Liam Barnes
>Allow both to continue broadcasting
Lincoln Baker
>>Allow both to continue broadcasting We gonna go LIVE and we are gonna go LOUD
Cooper Harris
>Other: >Board the transport and destroy the goddamn quantum communications.
Jordan Morales
>>Allow both to continue broadcasting
Andrew Williams
>>Have your ships attempt to jam the radio communications between the marines and their transport >>Attack the transport to cut off the quantum communications connection Windsor has seen enough, we don't want him aware of Elizabeth.
Lincoln Baker
>Have your ships attempt to jam the radio communications between the marines and their transport
Justin Nguyen
This is only being broadasted to Windsor, no one is going to know about this that he doesn't want anyway.
Kevin Turner
>>Allow both to continue broadcasting
Wyatt James
>Allow both to continue broadcasting The time has come
Why not? What the fuck are they going to do about it? They'll find out about her when we give back the prisoners we captured in the expanse.
Josiah Perez
>>Allow both to continue broadcasting
Gabriel Cooper
Like hell we did. There's no routelock in place. We may purge all that may be tainted.
Carter Sanders
Can thesus hijack it then and start broadcasting it? I am sure that he would get a good chuckle out of it.
Sebastian Hill
For what possible reason?
He's seen all he needs to see to terrify him from this field of research. This is our business now. There is no reason to allow the humans to keep talking.
Wyatt Perez
>>Allow both to continue broadcasting
Logan Green
>Allow both to continue broadcasting
You watch as the marine vessel continues its evasive maneuvers in spite of being ignored. It has pulled itself away as far back as it can while still being in range of the marine's radios. You doubt you would be able to board it easily, although you could still try.
>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise >Allow it to continue in its current position >Other
Charles Johnson
>Have your ships attempt to jam the radio communications between the marines and their transport
Hudson Perez
Ther is also no reason to not let him know, why expand resurces on blinding the humans that could attack the void crystals slaves?
Juan Nguyen
Because there's no point. Those marines cannot be allowed to return to the Union, for what purpose to we want to allow them to identify our greatest researcher to the Union's spymaster? All that does is tell the Union that the crew of the Hope is still alive before we intend to send them back.
Jason Wilson
>Have your ships attempt to jam the radio communications between the marines and their transport
Nolan Murphy
>>Allow both to continue broadcasting >Start making cracks to Windsor about how the Union are terrible parents, but don't worry, their son will clean up their mess. Again.
Isaiah Foster
>>Attack the transport to cut off the quantum communications connection
That would defeat most of the point of cutting off communications, genius. It's really slow and highly visible.
Just blow it up.
Jaxon Wilson
>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise
Isaiah Cox
>>Other Demand the transport settle the fuck down and get ready to collect its marines
Jonathan Long
>>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise Not your boat anymore humans.
Lincoln Bell
>He's seen all he needs to see to terrify him from this field of research
>a previously unknown alien race >allied with Unity >both going full purge on a research facility >this wont make him curious in the least about what implications this tech has
Adrian Hughes
>Allow it to continue in its current position >Start making cracks to Windsor about how the Union are terrible parents, but don't worry, their son will clean up their mess. Again.
Ian Lopez
>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise
Hunter Martinez
>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise
Jaxon Parker
>when we give back the prisoners
Or we can just not do that. We could do it, but we don't have to. Don't lock us into that decision ahead of time.
Officially, Vaughn must be dead to those prisoners too. A 'complication' from something she contracted on Raligha.
No one can ever see this ultra cyber augmented science bitch with antenna in her head again.
Robert Phillips
>Allow it to continue in its current position so it can collect its marines
Let them feel the fear of being a small cog in something far far greater. Just gotta make sure to not make them fire on us.
Jack Torres
I completely missed last thread, fug.
Daniel Martinez
Because that flies in the face of what we've been trying to do this entire quest and ruins any chance for a reveal at an even MORE politically precarious point for the Union's governing council.
No, just no. We can't let those marines out no matter what happens, they could have been contaminated by the void.
Leo Scott
>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise
Jayden Cooper
>Allow it to continue in its current position But make it clear that if they attempt to flee or take any hostile action then they'll have to submit to boarding.
Henry Taylor
>Allow it to continue in its current position
Matthew Parker
>Allow it to continue in its current position
Andrew Wood
Please explain what resources would be lost, crystals-attacking-wise.
Jamming costs literally nothing.
Ship to ship combat costs literally nothing in terms of ground troops, which are the ones busy attacking the facility.
It doesn't even qualify as a distraction for the hive.
Jacob Robinson
>Allow it to continue in its current position
Joshua Hernandez
>>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise
Juan Lopez
We screen them first. Wasn't it said last thread to kill anyone that'd been exposed for more than a week? These guys have been there for a like 2 hours
Evan Bailey
>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise.
Gavin Murphy
>Implying Heretic went from demanding a full planet-wide extermination of all life to just insisting that all life in contact with the Shard for more than a week be eradicated.
We've not known Heretic to under-react thus far, so we can be pretty sure that the Crystal Gods need more time than the Marines have spent to infect someone...unless they've learned new tricks since the Skyl's days, anyway.
Joshua Brown
Geez, we're not a fledgling Hive any more, we don't need to furiously cover up any and all evidence of every little thing we do in this quest.
Asher Howard
He already saw the SCARIEST POSSIBLE THING, it changed human brains into crystals and made them betray his orders.
Thatf it attracts powerful enemies makes it more mysterious but the cost of touching it has already become unacceptable and counterproductive.
Aaron Anderson
just time
Lucas Wright
>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise
Kayden Mitchell
>Allow it to continue in its current position Make it clear that we'll ruin their day if they try something hostile.
Kayden Edwards
why aren't you people on the quest board...
Hudson Garcia
Cause the old knob had to get home early t'day boy.
Mason Reyes
We've already expended so much time and effort that it makes sense to continue the effort, putting it off just makes it easier to subvert the Union using espionage.
Nathaniel Davis
Because /qst/ was a poorly planned decision that did not gain traction with a large number of quest goers and and the mods still haven't made an ultimatum on whether or not it stays.
Ryder Morgan
Because we've always been here, and we have every intention of staying thank you.
Carter Brown
Bitch how do we screen them.
We don't even understand how the fuck that happened.
We have to treat it like rabies. The only way to diagnose them is to kill them and dissect their skull.
Michael Kelly
Why are you even responding?
Dylan Murphy
>Demand the vessel hold position and prepare to be boarded, and attempt to disable it otherwise
Please roll 1d100, best of 3.
Logan Collins
barbaric, we don#t have to kill them to dissect their skulls!
Ayden Miller
We barely know Heretic at all. What he's done so far in the past, like, two weeks, hardly counts for much, when neither he nor we actually understand the enemy's limits, if they exist.
Jaxon Carter
Rolled 96 (1d100)
Because I wanted to use that image.
For Mother
Robert Moore
Rolled 11 (1d100)
Evan Brooks
Huh? There would have been no time lost. The actions occur simultaneously.
Oliver Thomas
For mother!
Brody Long
Rolled 38 (1d100)
for Mother
Jaxon Collins
Rolled 39 (1d100)
FOR MOTHER!
Ryan Flores
Rolled 25 (1d100)
Aaron White
I'd kiss ya if i wasn't so drunk user
Elijah Rivera
The hive has organs for that. Proceed anyway.
Isaiah Watson
Nice job user, nice job.
Eli Brooks
...
Caleb Garcia
If we were talking about our stealthed hives or something like that I'd agree with you, but this isn't subterfuge, we're taking overt military action against their outpost during our first official contact. If Elizabeth could have made this encounter bloodless then her discovery would have been a worthy price.
Hell, it could even have made it easier to pull the wool over their eyes since human/xeno first contact has almost always been violent.
David Jenkins
It's an important distinction however that in both this contact and the previous one where we played the rocksmashers, we are clearly attempting to render aid, regardless of whether humanity wants it.
Nathan Bailey
And that's how we'll spin it. Slapping the hand of a child off the stove. It stings, but not as badly as the burn would've.
Jackson Thomas
We will be opening official diplomacy as soon as this is done anyway. We've been meant to for a while now. Open it with every party (exlucing ceph) and try to make it look like we arnt psyonic to the general populance.
Jacob Watson
More like cauterizing the wound. We're not doing this to help the Union so much as forcibly stop them from fucking up so hard, lethal force is still on the table.
Jaxon Bell
I wonder if the ship will transmit something to the groundteams along the lines of "Pleasseeeeeee don't piss them off." before we board.
Aiden Sanders
Love you mother.
Connor Jenkins
Fuck no we won't. It still pays to infiltrate the Union's worlds without officially alerting them to our existence, and the Union has so far done nothing to show themselves as worthwhile as a peaceful partner in the interstellar order.
Logan Peterson
That's the plan, though if you consider their limited perspective who would blame them for assuming we have other, less benign motives? The obvious one would be to maintain a monopoly on a superweapon tech.
For this reason I think it worth making this intervention as palatable as possible for the Union, unless they do something stupid like try to stop us.
Nathaniel Bennett
But our study of human social interactions says that should just make you kiss them more!
Mason Martin
But we could conquer Dagmar from them.
We really do need to add more resource nodes to mine, and that one hardly has humans on it yet.
And we have blackmail to make them bend to our tune.
Isaiah Nelson
Which is why we should wait until we see how their war with the Commonwealth pans out first. When the moment is right we declare our existence and our support for the Commonwealth, and together we start hammering the Union on two fronts and politically force them to give up resources and territory/recognize our claims. Don't forget the Union still believes it controls the entire expanse while we fully intend on claiming at least half of it.
Easton Butler
>Media Blackouts and gag orders This makes me want to initiate one user's plan of jumping a battleground right into Gemini. Perhaps with the ships currently participating in the operation on Tenebris after we've concluded things. Let's see them suppress THAT first contact.
Benjamin Lopez
>blackmail Bear in mind we can whip up a solid batch of Mega-Ebola in a lazy afternoon. If they threaten/fuck with us, we simply bring cold season early to prove a point. And that point is: "Don't fuck with us or we'll rip your immune system out."
Colton Kelly
Would actually be hillarious and educational to see how they deal with such a threat.
Their quarrantine efforts might come in handy if they have parts we didnt even consider.
John Ward
Imagine a shared Hive/Commonwealth border, with beautiful terraformed hive worlds, with landside and orbital resorts for Commonwealth citizens to reside in, joint research agreements and mutual defense agreements.
Charles Nguyen
Yeah, if we can make this relatively bloodless we should. We are powerful enough we don't have to kill everything to hide out actions. It's time to take a big boy seat at the diplomatic table and to do this most effectively we should take pains to appear in as positive a light as is reasonably possible.
