Chapter ERROR (Gestalt) (1/2)

>CONNECTION TO HOST HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED

>HIGH SECURITY LIMITED FUNCTION CHAT ROOM ESTABLISHED

>ENCRYPTION/PERMISSION KEYS GENERATED

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS BEEN ISSUED KEY

>TRAENA'AD HIVE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS BEEN ISSUED KEY

>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT - HIGH SECURITY HAS BEEN ISSUED KEY

>TERRASOL - HIGH SECURITY KEY ISSUE FAIL

>CONFEDMILINT - HIGH SECURITY KEY ISSUE FAIL

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED ON

>TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED ON

>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED ON

>SIX USERS PRESENT: MANTID, TREANA'AD, RIGELLIAN, TERRASOL, CONFEDMILINT,

MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

OK, I sent five invites, why are six of us here. Who is running hidden? Maybe I should remake the chat-room, but these secure rooms take forever to generate.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT HAS SET STATUS TO -I

>TERRASOLINT HAS LOGGED ON

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

So, do you like, you know, lurk in like every chat room.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

Do you bitch at people you find in your house?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

Depends on if they brought good ice cream or not.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

Man, these codes are itchy.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

Hang on.

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS BEEN ISSUED NEW KEY

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED OFF

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED ON

MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

Eep. That felt weird.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

That should do it. Anyone else?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

No, no, I'm good.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

What do you want?

/////////

CONFEDMILINT

I'm busy. I take it this is important.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Why aren't you guys running your high security overlays?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT - HIGH SECURITY

Think about it for a second, sis.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh. I get it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

What do you want?

/////////

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT - HIGH SECURITY

She's going to freak out about some other Black Box Project.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

I'm going to just talk to you about something. Something that TREA and I have experience with but you have trouble recognizing.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

All right, go ahead.

Hang on, I'm going to adjust your headers so your encrypted keys aren't hanging over your head.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Thanks. All right, truth time.

OK, we have something that isn't unheard of. It's like P'Thok and the ice cream.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Or when Daxin ripped the head off the Omniqueen.

Or when you blew that hole clear through the Wemtarran psyche to the point that they flinch if you so much as mention Terra.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

To be honest, the Wemtarran run shrieking at the sight of bipeds now.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

And that happened nearly two thousand years ago. You smashed them so badly they don't even do air travel any more. A Wemtarran will have a complete hysterical catatonic breakdown at a weird shaped cloud.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

They started it. We finished it.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

No shit. We aren't bagging on you over that. They thought they were tougher than they were, thought they were more committed, and thought they had a more martial culture. They'd already genocided two races, they wouldn't have stopped at you.

You just smashed them so badly that some of them break down into quivering jelly at their own shadows sometimes over 2,000 years later.

Not your fault. Don't pick a fight with a warrior caste if you're a grub.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

The Lanaktallan have obviously taken on someone with much bigger jaws than they thought who doesn't do warfare like they think. You've got Black Box Projects, irregular forces, reserve forces, inactive reserve forces, planet crackers, nova-sparks, all the big toys. They've got billions of troops, hundreds of millions of ships, and tens of thousands of planets. They think you'll get done eating and they'll be the pig that splits the snake.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

All three of us know better. The longer it goes, you start to get frustrated. Your population becomes apathetic to how the enemy is treated as long as they don't have to listen to any more whining and their taxes don't go up.

The Lanaktallan method of warfare is to commit atrocities on civilians. Your method of warfare is wiping out military targets and infrastructure.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

You aren't saying anything that you don't say with every war.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

How many fights are you in right now, across Lanaktallan Space?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

274 Planetary Landings

172 Space Battles

3,458 CONFEDMIL occupations

2.946 Non-CONFEDMIL occupations

867 Sterilized Systems

Five fronts, not including Deep Strike Operations

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

That's... that's a lot of fighting.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

And not one of us here thinks you won't win every one of those fights.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Every one of us here has fought you, either by accident or design or misunderstanding the fundamental nature of Terran Descent Humans.

We know what you can do.

We also know that the longer this war goes on, the higher your tech will climb. Unlike before you came up with the creation engines, it doesn't require entire factories to retool in the old method, so your turnaround time to fully integrating new technology into your military, which, by the way, is entirely modular unlike everyone else in the known universe, is extremely short before you've tested, integrated, trained, and deployed next-Gen hardware.

Even if the Lanaktallan were to be given the plans for warsteel laminate armor, they would not even be ready to do testing until after a century or two of computer modelling, commissions, investigations, and politics.

They're in a losing position right there.

They just think that their massive amount of metal and bodies means you can't fight them.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

Most of the species we take prisoner just want to go home.

/////////

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

And be somewhere where the rampaging primate firing guns in the air isn't.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

We've got over a dozen EPOW planets with millions of prisoners.

We've got systems where after we smashed the Lanaktallan and drove them out of the system, the native race actually poked their heads up and said ”Can we come out?” and now we're taking care of them too.

But none of this is something that's never ever happened before.

Why are you so worried?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Fine, I'll tell him, you cowards.

>MANTID FREE WORLDS sighs

OK, you've already won.

There, I said it.

The war is over, they just don't know it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We've been watching those Nazgul, and man, you won. I mean, REALLY won.

You aren't planning on replacing them with someone more in line with Confed values, are you?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

You mean slowly supplant them with a Lanaktallan more acceptable to us in order to force an entire species numbering in the trillions to slavishly follow our whims? Introduce a psionic Herd Stallion with the capacity to use psionics on every Lanaktallan on the planet as well as physically alter and read the minds of ordinary rank and file Lanaktallan to control their population.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

Nine Nazgul, each with their own slight twist on philosophy learned in the Black Citdael from reading ancient texts, each imbued with psionic and nanite backed powers, recreated by the forces of Dead Space, all Lanaktallan Herd Stallions. Each of the Nine on their own planet, collecting their own followers to their philosophy.

Eventually they'll start fighting and ask me for assistance, both monetarily and militarily.

I can just choose the one most amicable to Confederate goals and designs.

Worst I might have to do is assassinate the others and pay bribes to the guy I want.

Foolproof.

My very own controlled Lanaktallan ruler.

////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

OH MY GOD SHUT UP!

THAT HAS NEVER WORKED IN THE ENTIRE OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE'S ENTIRE HISTORY IN ITS ENTIRETY!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

OH MY GOD! HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO SCREW THAT UP TO LEARN NOT TO DO THAT?

I NEVER WORKS!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, OK, you got us.

MANTID FREE WORLDS giggles

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS lights a cigarette and shakes its head

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT laughs

CONFEDMILINT shakes his head chuckling

TERRASOLINT grins

OK, OK. On to something serious.

The nine of them have only been at work for a little while and they're already seriously disrupting the Lanaktallan society.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COLLECTIVE

How did you choose your targets? It seems extremely effective, it's rippling through their entire society in measurable waves.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

Based on the Lanaktallan emergency withdrawal plans a covert agent convinced them to implement. The Most Highs were to retreat to those worlds and activate the emergency protocol.

That's what we've been basing our targeting on. I don't want to take every single world and wade in the blood. I knew they'd have a new place to run to, it's herd instinct.

And I've been hunting herd animals since before I picked up a rock and completely negated nature's evolutionary arms race by hucking it at the nearest deer's head.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What are you going to do if any of these Herd Stallions go at you?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

It's complicated, but we're going to very publicly rip the guts out of their infrastructure while doing as little damage to the populace as possible. Show them that to take us on means going back to eating face with their face.

We'll do surgical strikes then back out while leaving probes and drones in the systems subservient to that herd stallion.

To be honest, we've got a five front war going on, and it looks like a sixth has opened up.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

A sixth? Where?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

Data you aren't privy to yet.

/////////

TERRASOLINT

Tell them.

////////

CONFEDMILINT

Here, look at this.

CONFEDMILINT SHARED AUNT-BETTYS-SPICE-CAKE.DOC

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Oof. That's a big file.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

-

--

---

----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

WAR! WAR TO THE HILT! PACK THE JELLY AND SING THE SONGS OF WAR!

KILL THEM! KILL THEM! KILL THEM! KILL THEM!

BURN THEM FROM THE UNIVERSE! PURGE THEM WITH FIRE AND BLOOD!

BURN BURN BURN BURN

WAAAAAAAAAAAAA

TERRASOLINT slaps MANTID FREE WORLDS

STOP THAT!

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Huh. Look like mechanical versions of the what the Doki Marines were calling Dwellerspawn.

I wonder if

DOKIDOKIDOKI HAS JOINED THE CHAT

DOKI?

DOKIDOKIDOKI HAS ACCEPTED FILE

DOKI!

DOKI DOKI DOKI!

┏(＾0＾)┛┗(＾0＾) ┓ DOKIDOKIDOKI (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

---DOKI DOKI DOKI---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

WTF? How did she get in here?

┬┴┬┴┤( ͡° ͜ʖ├┬┴┬┴

STOP THAT!

( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°)

HEY! Stop that, I'm trying to (⊙△⊙✿) talk, dammit!

---NOTHING FODOKIDOKIDOKILLOWS---

TERRASOL

Go play, sweetie.

/////////

DOKI!

★~(◡△◡✿)

>DOKIDOKIDOKI HAS LEFT THE CHAT

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

How did she do that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

She is what she is, nothing more, nothing less, and we are all responsible.

////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

She and the... umm.... (Let's not say their names) Wig Wearers give me nightmares.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Why? I mean, yeah, they're tough fighters, but if they jumped you, we'd all come to help.

And are you OK now?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Yeah, I'm OK. Genetic memories. Sorry.

It's a particular nightmare of mine that has only been getting worse since we found those Type-II AWM's and the Lanaktallans.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

What nightmare?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

That we'll lose and be wiped from the Galaxy.

/////////

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Well, aside from the damage it would take to wipe you out, why?

RIGEL LOOKS AT MANTID> Why, sis?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, follow my logic chain. This is worst case scenario flee the galaxy and head for Mayall's Object under complete EMCOM type stuff.

The Lanaktallan wipe out Terrans everywhere in the galaxy, even take out Digi and Bio and Cyb.

Then we're left here.