“Really, it’s fine. I’ve had far worse, sir.”

“No.” you state flatly, scowling, “Lie there quietly, that’s an order.”

Ivanova frowns at your words but complies, leaning back and once more allowing Dr. Burr to inspect the wound. He tsks, laying down the handheld scanning device before maneuvering over a larger one.

“How bad is the wound, doctor?”

He mumbles a bit to himself at your question before looking up and beckoning you to the side and speaking quietly. “Electrical burn, very nasty, everything is cooked straight to the bone.” He frowns, an uneasy look in his eyes, “At least, it should be. There’s augmentation there I haven’t seen on a level anywhere except, well, in you. No loss of functionality at all despite all the damage. Bones aren’t bone as far as I can tell, so no damage there. Spiderwebs of other cybs all through the arm, and far less damage than there should have been. I can only assume something in there absorbed the majority of the shock.”

“It looked pretty bad.”

He gives you a hard look, “It should have been very bad. Possible loss of the arm level bad. But from my scans she’s even healing faster than normal on the relatively minor damage she took. I’ll likely do some minor internal reconstruction on the limb. Some synthskin grafts to prevent scarring -- that doesn’t seem to be affected -- but this is not normal captain. In all my years I’ve never seen this level of aug work, and scans don’t tell me anything about them. Not even things I know have to be there such as muscle augs or whatever aug absorbed the shock. Nothing.”

“What are you saying, doctor?”

“I’m saying that this is not a normal level of augmentation, and I don’t have the files or ability to probe further. The Lieutenant won’t tell me anything about them either, other than saying the medical treatment I’ve proposed won’t be harmful and will help.” He steals a quick glance to your second before nodding gravely, “I would suggest you either investigate yourself or be careful, captain. I'll do what I can with the data I've collected here but I'm doubtful of real success considering my results so far.”

>wat say?
>also wat do?

==Map Legend==
Green Dotted Arrow: Current Jump
Orange Dotted Arrow: Last Jump
Yellow Dotted Arrow: Last minus 1 Jump
Red Dotted Arrow: Prior jumps.
Green dot: Current position.
Yellow Square: Your awakening position
Teal dotted zone: Hundred Systems Territory (Hundred Worlds Rebellion)

==Command Staff==
Lieutenant Kateryna Ivanova - Executive Officer
>Second Lieutenant Dray Parson - Intelligence Officer (Cryo)
Second Lieutenant Robert Tynes - Steward
Chun-Fan Dai - Chief Engineer
Third Lieutenant Mardigan “Guns” Rinn - Weapons Officer
Dr. Christof Burr - Physician

==Junior Officers==
Ensign Fie - Communictions Officer
Ensign DuBois - Staff officer
Ensign Tremko - Staff officer
Ensign Rao - Staff officer

==Persons of Note==
Dr. Eliphim Ketro -- Civilian Scientist

1: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15474877/
2: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15527576/
3: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15547424/
4: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15558914/
5: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15581324/
6: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15603188/
7: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15626860/
8: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15671288/
9: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15681393/
10: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15702140/
11: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15725852/
12: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15749179/
13: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15760403/
13-2: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15765549/
14: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15783485/
15: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15807704/

>>15856787
I assume that Ivanova's stints in Intelligence and Elite Ops before coming aboard the Harbinger are known; seeing as how its in the declassified parts of her file and all.

"Do what you can, Doctor. We all know Ivanova was in Intelligence and Armada Elite Ops before this posting. Probably something from them."

Now, I still don't know what to do about Ketro and Dai. They're both a danger to the ship in their own ways, and I wish we could just ice them both and get someone else to be chief engineer.

I suddenly get the feeling that our doctor won't be able to do shit about the implant that controls her brain.

Funny enough, one of our super engineers might actually have some input on the matter... shame they are tied up at the moment.

We're going to have to let Dai out after a little heart to heart. Ketro's a snake and there's nothing we can do about it. At least this way we'll get the repairs done before the alien project is complete or a scan gets through. We need to tell the clutchmothers to cut that shit out by the way. Tell them they have a day until we start shooting (bluff if we have to).

i propose we send some drones out and disable their scanning equipment, but not destroy the ships. or alternaitvely destroy the ships after an hour's warning. lets them know we can still stomp their asses and they don;t find anything out.

on Dai and Ketro: let one act as commander of this station. they and a small contingent of our people will remain to work on stuff here, like weapons and other things while the rest of us explore and do stuff. i propose we have Ketro go with us with his science team, and let Dai have fun with the xenos. because it won;t matter of Dai kills all of them to build something useful. and if we can give them some ftl coms so if something does go wrong we can return to stomp some xenos.

>>15856865
>seeing as how its in the declassified parts of her file and all
What makes you think that? No, you only know about it because you (theoretically) have the highest general classification on the ship.

>>15856787
>wat say
play the doctor down claiming that we heard some interesting rumors about Ivanova's past when we were going over the crew's files, tell him to be cautious about poking and prodding her and not to push her for more information than she is willing to give
>wat do
do a little background research on the highest ranking engineers still working just in case we cant resolve things with the two arguing shitheads. after that full motherfucking speed ahead on the repairs while keeping a close eye on the aliens just in case, I for one really want out of this clusterfuck of a system and finally get back on the proverbial space highway

There's nothing to really tell the doctor save for do what you can, and go have a chat with our wayward scientists. Personally, I'm going to side with Dai either way unless Ketros has something utterly amazing to lay on us, but we need to hear the whole story from both sides. And what each plans to do, if given the chance.

>>15856883
While I like this plan in theory, I don't really want to uplift xenos that are going to rightfully have a grudge against us. I'd say we do the same thing with more friendly xenos who surrender peacefully, or better yet find an Empire-guarded planet that xenos can't get past to drop them off on. Better than death AND permaicing, especially if we leave a project or two for them to work on.

In the near future, we need to make sure our doc doesn't do any snooping around. Tell him thanks and that we'll talk with Ivanova about the situation. Obviously we won't actually talk to Ivanova, but just tell the doctor we will.

What I suggest we do is eliminate this whole civilian-military problem.

We need to conscript all the civilians into a military command structure. Ketro's men are to be paired 1 to 1 with another engineer.

Secondly, direct access to ship's systems is to be revoked from both engineers, who are to report to mandatory daily psychiatric sessions with the doctor.

Finally, an engineering commission is to be created. Whenever Ketro or Dai want to institute an engineering problem, the other has the right to rebut with a counter proposal. The proposals will be presented anonymously to a panel of the ship's engineer's, who will decide which to implement.

>>15856787
>>wat say?

Well, there's really no dancing around the issue with the doc.
I think being dishonest with him would lead to more problems later on.
So, how much should we tell him?

I'd say: Former employment "elsewhere" and that not telling him more details can't be avoided for now. We'd be very interested in his report, though. Ask him to maintain secrecy about the whole thing.

>also wat do?

Repairs:
-How far have our repairs progressed and how much needs to be, or can even be, done?

Engineers:
-I assume both have been placed under house arrest or locked up?
-I guess screaming at them for a few hours won't solve the situation, right?

I love all the suggestions about forcing them to work together when both already made clear they'd rather die first. Interrogate both sides, see if anything interesting pops up, and then ice Ketro. See what of his team can be brought over, and handle the rest depending on how things play out.

>>15857011
what if we threatened to nudge them?

I'll say right now, abandoning Dai will see us dead.

Leaving Ketro with xenos will see us hounded by xeno ships filled with SCIENCE in revenge. I can see the bastard siding with xenos just to get at us, I really can.

>>15856970
the clutch mothers seem to be ok with us. they know how we could stomp their asses. simply say that we are taking control of the station now and order all of their personnel off. then our people maintain a few parts of the place and booby trap the rest.

hey ved, of the systems guarded by "Precursor sentinels" what corresponds to ship yards?

>>15856886
My mistake. I thought he had the clearance for those parts of Ivanova's personnel file. It was never mentioned what parts required our level of clearance and others would be open for a physician to read in case he needed to know something about Ivanova's medical history and augments.

In that case, just tell Burr that Ivanova had postings 'elsewhere' before coming to the Harbinger, and that he shouldn't poke around too much without Ivanova's permission.

>>15857069
what if we let dai do his thing on the station, and suggest to Ketro that if he does satisfactory we might be willing to let him beat the shit out of Dai. not kill, but severely injure. or that we would offer greater privileges to him and his staff.

>>15857109
He'd still find a way to circumvent our command and take over.

>>15857121
not if we offer him something akin to revenge. or let him think that if he does well we would consider replacing dai.

then HE would be in charge of Dai and his staff. suggest the idea that particular way would be far more crippling to him, leaving him a sad husk of a man.

>>15857153
We wants more than that. Ketro is so obviously villain material it makes my scalp itch. He wants POWER, and is willing to go at any lengths to get it.

Both Dai and Ketro are unique and priceless assets that are unfortunately full of anger.

What they really need is some serious therapy.

>>15857162
and he wants power to deal with dai. we would be offering that. and after he;s done? we were the ones who helped him, and we can break him down. especially considering we have a body now.

>>15857153
At this point they just want to kill each other.
I think the fight in the last session demonstrated that they are willing to hurt and kill anyone that gets in the way of their revenge on the other.

Dai, while perhaps knowing the Harbinger better, showed just how far he's willing to take risks with the death of Ketro's family.
Keep in mind that Dai survived. He KNEW that the experiment was unstable and could kill everyone on the habitat; otherwise, why was he the only one at a safe distance?

>>15857174
i think it;s apparent that they won't play nice, no matter how much we therapy.

we could medicate them for the time period of the repairs, so they get stuff done.

Oi, what's with all the Dai hate?
Dai has been nothing but a Bro, and has proven himself capable at every turn.
Ketro on the other hand has proven that he likes to use underhanded bullshit to fuck everything. He's not someone who can work for us under these conditions anyway. His civvies will do nothing but whine and bitch no matter how much we give them.

Dai is an all around good guy, and honestly, I feel emotionally invested in his character. Ketro seems to be made out of SPITE and POLITICS and has done nothing but rub me the wrong way.

So why the Dai hate?

Vedibere, question.
What was the weapon Ketro pulled out?

If we haven't examined it, can we? Like as a free action?

>>15857186
and those risks are mitigated by leaving him with the xenos. we can make it clear to HIM that revenge could be his reward if he serves us faithfully.

just say whoever does a better job wins.

IC I think the answer is simple.
Our loyalty goes to our crew first and forth most.
These outsiders while useful are proving to be a lot of trouble.
It should go without saying that we should stick with whatever oaths we made to our crew.

>>15857188
>So why the Dai hate?
Because until now we didn't know that Dai was essentially the head engineer signing off on a disaster equivalent to the BP disaster, the Bhopal disaster, and Chernobyl, all in one.
And he is completely unapologetic about it.

Ketro and Dai CANNOT WORK TOGETHER! Stop suggesting they can. Both of them will kill each other at the first oppurtunity.

That being said, I really don't want to leave Ketro anywhere that's not onboard the ship. I also don't really want him on board awake anymore, however, since he backstabbed Dai just to spite him. No telling what he'd do if he thought he could seize control of the ship.

Dai's dangerous, but at least he's loyal. Put Ketro back on ice. Move his cyro body into the core that only Ivanova has access to. Anywhere else and Dai will probably murder him while nobody's looking. Tell Ketro's men that Dai and Ketro simply couldn't get along and that they're working under Dai now. Make sure they do what Ketro would of wanted. Also tell them that while they should do what Dai tells them, if they think he's endangering the ship, they should tell Dai and/or us. I DO want a force on the ship that'll keep Dai from killing us all.

>>15857208
>Leaving crew with the aliens.

Were you that guy who suggested bumping the damaged ship out of orbit?

Dai knows the ship better, and would be far more loyal in the long run. furthermore, we can't leave Ketro alone, as he would dedicate his entire existance to killing us for taking Dai's side. The only logical option is to discreetely kill Ketro.

What we have here is clearly a blood feud.

The problem is that both Dai and Ketro are full of anger and too egotistic to ever apologize to each other for their transgressions, of which both are guilty of.

Is there a way we can let them vent at each other without killing each other and all of us? Like, lock their consciousnesses together in a cyberspace room for a few hours, and see what happens.

I'm for killing Ketro (or just perma freezing him) and lying about the whole thing to both sooth the crew and possibly sway a few of his team. Fabricate a story where Ketro attacked out of nowhere. Paint him as the source of all our woes, and let the crew see him punished.

>>15857266
That's... brilliant.

Fucking seconded.

I am flatly opposed to leaving anyone with the xenos. 1) they will be either killed or used to gain information from the looks of things 2) why the hell would we leave them here? I could see it if they had a functioning imperial research facility or something, but they don't. Overall it is all risk and no rewards, even if we want to get someone killed there are superior ways to do it.

I think we need to let Dai out and finish the repairs, final decision can wait until we are not in a potentially hostile situation.

As for Dr Burr, I think we can just tell him that we knew that she was heavily augmented, but that we also know that we cannot press her for more information about it and expect to get anywhere. Just have him treat her as best he can and get what data he can.

For fucks sake
No to killing anyone!
Ever!

We shouldnt even execute Parsons even though he clearly deserves it, let alone one of the bost brilliant minds in the entire fucking galaxy!

You good Ved, or should we keep at it a bit?

Even if we stranded Ketro or something, he'll work to try and take Dai out wherever he is. They'll never leave each other alone.

They both fucked up big time, but our circumstances mean we can't afford to punish them for it. We need their skills.

I don't suppose we could forcibly turn Ketro into an EI, suborn him to ourselves, and data mine him?

>>15857338
A tool we can't use is worthless no matter how shiny. There's no reason to keep him around with the threat he is.

As for Parson, he's fangless now, and it's best he just stews in there.

>>15857266
No, poisons the well if we ever want to use him again, and we shouldn't tell anyone that anyone got attacked. Ketro is valuable, the worst we should consider doing is quietly cryoing him.

>>15857357
Except, everybody already knows?

Also no to leaving anyone with the xenos.

God dammit, this quest full of idiots.
We must keep eye out on the xenos, who knows what they will do.

I am afraid that some extremists will decide to blow up the whole shipyard just to get us. Relay these concerns to Ivanova and ask her what to do, or set her job to prevent these kind of things.

>>15857366
At first I thought they were trolls, but now I think that they enjoy this quest but just happen to be really, really stupid.

Agreeing with not killing anybody or leaving them with xenos. Ice Ketro. Reprimand Dai for posing a danger to himself and others with his arm laser. He should be confined to the brig when not on duty.
(I dont care if he's always on duty, we should at least make a show of some punishment.)

Stress to the crew that there are a bunch of aliens trying to crack open our ECM to see what's inside us. If we dont complete repairs soon we'll be going back into combat and they might be ready for us this time.

I wonder if the xenos are doing star trek shit to try and make their weapons ignore our shields.

>>15857407
We'll bombard them with tachyon particles until it builds up an ionization field then reverse the polarity. With any luck our weapons will completely bypass their shields.

We should try at least to make Dai apologize.

I don't think that he actually believes that he didn't do anything wrong. Maybe there were some circumstances which will paint a whole different picture that we do not know about?
We need to talk to him and Ketro in private before deciding on anything.


Also, we only have their own words to go by. Those are not good enough evidences to make a desicion on.

>Xenos scanning us
>Fly a few wings of drone fighters at them, slowly
>Xenos stop scanning us

>>15857484
With weapons of that scale, I bet there was some serious power breathing down his neck for results.

>>15857364
That they are in the brig? Yes. Exactly why? Not clear. Frankly I see no reason to tell them that two senior personnel got into a fight, let them have rumors and scuttlebutt, but no hard confirmation.

>>15857556
They know about the fight, just not the specifics about it.
Wouldn't take a genius to figure it out as things were going anyhow.

>>15857569
>The fact that both of the lead engineers are imprisoned gets out despite your prohibition on discussing it. One of those things that one can’t control, you suppose.

How exactly are you saying the above indicates they know the reason people are in the brig. Because I think the only answer is you didn't read it closely.

>>15857590
Then just what are they talking about? You can go ahead and say they don't know shit, but if you are right we'd be better off killing them all and escaping on a shuttle with three drones.

The fights leading up to this were happening all over. My little crew can't possibly be that dense~

>Atmosphere
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flPbIxVDXd8

The cool air in the corridor of the brig is crisp and clean yet somehow also oppressive. Your explanation to Dr. Burr was accepted, of course, and though he seemed curious why her medical data in his files was so incomplete he also agreed to leave the matter alone at your discretion.

And so with nothing left you can use an excuse to delay the inevitable, you unlock and open the door to Ketro’s cell. The wiry man sits on his cot, a large purpling bruise on his left temple and slightly swollen left eye the first thing you see, shotly followed by a sharp gaze as you step into the room.

The massive unisteel barrier seals again behind you with an air-tight hiss and you walk over to the bench on the opposite wall.

“I wondered when you would come.” Ketro begins, “I apologize for my actions, I was... provoked. He used the same denials immediately after the disaster, you see. ‘Unfortunate loss. Did what I had to do, slight miscalculation. Nothing for me to apologize for.’ and such. Memories, you see.”

“It seemed more along the lines of psychosis to me.”

“Hah! Well, perhaps. I’m an educated man, Captain, and I know that it’s well into the borders of obsession. Still...” He shifts, leaning forward and looking into your cybernetic eyes. You see something there... a bright, burning fervor hotter and deadlier than stars, “Still, you could turn that to your advantage. You know who I am, and some of what I’ve done. Some of the people I knew and projects I’ve worked on. Even Fan himself admitted it. So, perhaps a deal can be arranged?”

“I’m not sure I’d like to try striking a deal with a possible liar, madman, and murderer. And you forget, you’re on my ship and in my control.”

(Suggestion - what say)

"I've got a ship about to go to war with itself, and a fleet of aliens practically looking in the portals at us. Doc, don't ask me to say explain that either aliens friends of grease monkeys might pick up on a hidden microphone, at least until we've a fighting chance of sticking together and getting out of this mess alive."

“Ah, but Captain,” he gives a chilling smile, “why would I help you if you didn’t help me? You must know that someone of my level and importance has anti-interrogation implants and training. You’ll get nothing out of me that I don’t voluntarily give up.”

He pauses, then tilts his head to one side and smiles wider, “But you do have something to trade me. Several things, in fact. And what I know is worth it, trust me. Surely Fan has told you that the gates are restricted on their range. I can fix that, and so much more. There are other little secret protocols buried inside where nobody would think to look, put in by the Empire. And I know them all.”

“What makes you think tha--” but Ketro holds up a hand.

“But that would be a poor trade, don’t you think? I can offer more, though. My team was isolated during the war, but as the liaison to command I was not. You want to know what was happening, how it progressed, don’t you? And what my connections in all three factions -- after all, I was a sought after asset -- gave me access to?”

His smile grows darker and his eyes meet yours once more, steady and cold as ice. “And as project director am the only one who knows the full extent of what we were working on prior to being frozen. Piece together what you like from my team if they even consent to tell you after this, I doubt they will be honest, but even if they were I doubt you would grasp the truth behind it. And I assure you, it is something you /want/ to know.”

This arguing has made me wonder what the crew feel about this. I mean we're omnipotent so we probably hear a good deal of the gossip, which side are they supporting more?

He leans back and waves airily, “I can even help you in other ways. Politics, for instance. You seem to be running a little military dictatorship here. Not unreasonable. But where will the civilians fit in? I can help, both with my team and any future ones you find. A persuasive argument from another civilian, leading the transition to complete control. Then as a former civilian who can bridge the gap if we find others in the future. My team trusts me, you see, and new arrivals will take the word of another former-civilian better than your own.”

“And this price?”

“Ah, a truly simple trio. My life. Status as an officer and chief engineer. And most importantly Fan’s life. I want to be able to kill him myself. Watch him die.”

“That’s quite a bit, he’s one of the greatest minds in the galaxy.”

“Perhaps.” Ketro nods absently, “Think of it this way, though. One way or another you will lose one of us. Which is more advantageous for you, hmmm? Think on it, Captain.”

With that Ketro lies down and closes his eyes, a thin smile on his face, and you have no reason to stay any longer. You’ve done what you’ve came to do: talk to the man. Now there is one more stop.

################

Dai sits on the floor, looking away from you, “Threat on my life and ship. Irrational decision in heat of the moment. Mistake on my part, won’t do it again.”

“You’ve just forgiven Ketro? You’ll work with him?” you ask, surprised

Dai snorts, “Of course not. But you will do something. Can’t not. Seen how he is. Execution probably. Or permanent cryo. Either is fine.”

“I thought you wanted him dead.” you say, remembering Dai’s aggression in your office.

“Bah. Momentary. Don’t care about cryo or dead, as long as not dangerous anymore.”

“What about his accusations before and your fights over the ship systems’ settings?”

“Stupid. Accident. Happen sometimes. Tries to blame me for doing job. Also settings all wrong. My design, know the specs better. Too conservative by far for capabilities. Also idealized, likely wouldn’t even be able to jump if stuck to statistics that are conservative even at top-output.”

>???

>And most importantly Fan’s life. I want to be able to kill him myself. Watch him die.

Absolutely fucking not. Freeze his ass. Now.

>>15857639
I think we should stick with Dai. Ketro will give us access to a lot of things but I don't think he'll ever be content with what we just give him. I figure he's either going to improve his power base so he can give us problems with the civilian section of the crew, if it increases even more, or he'll try to cause a coup and be in charge of things. With Dai, at least we don't have to worry about loyalty while we'll never be sure if we have it with Ketro.

>>15857639
"What happened at that test site, Dai?"


I trust him, he's gotten us this far and regulations and playing it by the book would have us still free floating and full of holes. We can get a more reasonable civilian from the next batch to take that role he is offering. And as for information, anything he tells us is a lie, or not the full story, he's lied up to this point and just admitted that he can continue to do so and there's nothing we can do about it.

However, I see opportunity too. Ivonova is very limited, and we can't press her too hard about it. As our intelligence officer (or at least head interrogator) she could probably root a little out of Ketro's head, and maybe leave a camera on accidentally so we'd know how to handle any other tech like that we may come across. (the first pieces of the massive puzzle of fixing hers if that wasn't clear)

>>15857679
Of the two, Dai is the more trustworthy.

Personally I'd like to stick them both into airlocks, give them a button, and tell them they can choose between accepting Cryo or ejecting the other into space and being ejected themselves too.

A trick of course. Neither button controls any airlock. But the footage would be useful as leverage against Ketro, to win civilian support, if it was "leaked" as an experiment to see if he was a psychotic threat to the safety of everyone on board.

>>15857723
Wow, I made that one a little vague.

>I trust him, he's gotten us this far and regulations and playing it by the book would have us still free floating and full of holes

Refers to Dai.

All the other "he"s refers to Ketro.

>>15857639
I don't like either of the choices, but since we need a chief engineer, I'll go with Dai.

"Too conservative? Maybe so. But keep in mind that we have no access to spare parts, no replacement components. If something breaks, it's gone for good. I don't want you pushing the parameters to improve performance, if it means that it lessens the lifespan of the reactor, or of the Jump drive, or any other system."

Unfortunate as it is, tell Ketro we're putting him in cryo. IF we find more remnants and holdouts of the Empire, and IF we're able to set up a viable colony, we can thaw him out and Dai and he can have their final battle.

Whether we actually do that or not, we'll determine if it ever happens. Ketro's just too valuable to kill, and if Dai happens to die in an engineering accident, he can be our backup (of course, any accident severe enough to kill Dai is also likely to kill or severely damage us).

We can tell the crew that Ketro and Dai have unresolvable differences, and that Ketro has chosen cryosleep rather than stay awake with Dai.

Once that's taken care of, do some fly-bys of those science stations and scanner arrays with our drone interceptors, and tell the clutchmothers to stop the scanners, or we'll stop them our way.

>>15857772
I'm sure he's persuasive enough that he could damage control it and vilify Dai in the process. That accident of his killed a lot of people that were civilians as well IIRC. Easier to make Dai out to be the bad guy there than Ketro. As painful as losing all that info will be, Ketro should go on ice and we stick with Dai.

Of course, if you guys wanted to be risky we could grab Ketro and out play him. I don't know if /tg/ could do it well enough though so I say stick with Dai.

Let Dai explain to full extent what happened during the test.
We want to know everything. Tell him he has no reasons to keep secrets

>>15857801
>Unfortunate as it is, tell Ketro we're putting him in cryo.

And we really need to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid if we tell him.
The guy's insane.

>>15857772
Course, letting Dai know beforehand that its a ruse would help build trust with him. And even if Ketro doesn't fall for it and hit the button on camera, the footage can be editted - hell, Dai himself could see to it.

Prepare some speach about "Character" and "I had my suspicions that you're murderous", "would be prepared to gamble the lives of everyone on board at the first opportunity for you to take power etc".

I don't like the idea of keeping Ketro around at all.
Just having him alive is a ticking timebomb where someone or something could thaw him out and give him weapons he shouldn't have. Kill him in a way that will keep the body nice and put it on ice.

>>15857668
>Absolutely fucking not. Freeze his ass. Now.

>>15857723
>"What happened at that test site, Dai?"
Seconded. Both of these.

>>15857836
Actually forget this.

An imminent threat of spacing Ketro might provoke him into using a contingency we've not uncovered. This plan underestimates what he'll do if he thinks he's in a no-win situation.

Also, asking again.

What was the weapon Ketro pulled out during the fight, Vedibere?

>>15857884
I completely believe he could have used the fixing setting back and forth things as a cover to hide all kinds of nasty things in our computers. That sounds right up his alley. And I have the feeling someone on his team may also know where to push the figurative "button" should it come to it.

>>15857885
Louis Wu's flashlight laser.

>>15857918
I'm half interested in the tech, and half worried we left a canister spraying super aids into our airsupply.

>>15857885
Nanomachine deployment device. Shaped like a round metal stake with a sharp point on one end and a handle. The ones in it were set to spread out and render matter around them into constituent elements for 120 seconds upon deployment.

If we freeze Ketro, we hold a card back where we can replace Dai at a moments notice if need be. I'm not sure why we'd ever want to do so, but then again, all of this fucking crew seems to have dark secrets and shit. Considering what Dai's already done, he might have even worse bullshit in his past.

I don't like Ketro, but hey, if we ever reach a point where having him around is better than Dai, I would like to be able to replace Dai.

If we kill Ketro, we lose that card. Holding Ketro in freeze is really fucking safe if we store him somewhere Dai and the civies can't reach. I'd like to resuggest our core as a secure storage location. Dai doesn't even seem remotely mad enough to kill Dai without provocation, but in any case, if Ketro has an "accident", I won't be that beat up.

>>15857946
Ah, nifty as hell.
Are nanomachines prevalent in the Empire or are they sort of rare/strictly controlled?

>>15857950
We might as well consider him gone if we freeze him. If we unfreeze him after, he is not going to cooperate with us so easily. Maybe if we still have Dai around to let him kill but it won't be the same deal he's offering us now I imagine.

>>15857946
HOLY SHIT!!!! And he just HAD something like this on board????? Or worse BUILT IT WHILE ON BOARD!!!!

Ok we need to find ALL of the trap hes left in the system while we have been letting him fuck with stuff. Good grief im half expecting the ship to fucking explode if try anything with him.

>>15857950
Unless he has tech that can unfreeze him if he knows he'll need it. Or code and a loyal follower to do the same.

>>15857954
They aren't that common, mostly because they're not really that useful in most applications and also very expensive. Mostly used in labs when they are used.

>>15857950
>I'd like to resuggest our core as a secure storage location.

Put a fucking cage around that cryopod then because god help us if he escapes in there.

>>15857963
That's fine. If Dai stays good and somehow accidentally dies, having a backup CE is nice even if he won't reveal the information he knows.

Tell Ketro we're freezing him. When we unfreeze him, either we accept his deal to kill Dai or Dai will be dead. That should lighten his mood slightly.

>>15857946
>set to spread out and render matter around them into constituent elements for 120 seconds upon deployment.
Quick question: what was the range on this thing? And what kind of spread?
Because the office we were in wasn't exactly spacious from the description, and I'd like to know if Ketro was concerned AT ALL about this thing killing everyone else in the room, and possibly also himself.

The ship is falling apart and the crew is getting riled up, aliens are preparing to fuck us in the ass, and we have the very present threat of grey goo.

But we're missing the REAL focus here, what is Parson plotting?

>>15858015
Probably would have eaten a nice sized hole through your floor after finishing with Dai, assuming they worked properly.

>>15858023
I honestly say we go in there and deck him one just to blow off steam now that you bring him up.

>>15858041
Oh, so they deploy in a cone and don't really move around, to say, fill a room.
So we probably would have been safe, and Ketro, as long as we stayed away from the cloud of gray goo.

So, where did he get the stuff? Do we have our own store of nanites for industrial purposes, or was it some stuff he had with him?
I'd like to know if we're going to have to search the ship for a gray goo bomb, or if he might have placed one a few decks from our EI core, in case he wanted to kill us.

I don't hate Parson nearly as much as I hate Ketro, even after all this time. Maybe it's the whole "better the devil you know" thing, but I think he should really step up his game if he's ever going to save face in the BBEG contest.

>>15858089
>So, where did he get the stuff?
You haven't a clue.

>Do we have our own store of nanites for industrial purposes or was it some stuff he had with him?
No, you don't because they're not very useful for said purposes.

Also to the grey goo thing: It's not like they would rape the entire ship or anything, they're very fragile and don't work THAT fast. Doing something like tossing boiling water onto them would end the problem.

Also, guys? Okay, you freeze Ketro and stuff. Cool. Fine. Now what do you DO?

>>15858164
reinstate dai, all engineers and civilian scientists are under his comand, get back to work on my damn shit you bunch of ingrates!

>>15858164
Oh, and also 120 seconds is the limit of their power sources.

>>15858164
Ask Dai about what happened at the test site. Reasons for his lack of remorse after having comitted manslaughter.

Also, still voting he be officially reprimanded for his actions in the meeting. 1 month where he spends any off duty hours in the brig.

>>15858164
Beat up Parson, talk to Ivonova about fucking with Ketro's implants, call the clutchmothers and tell them we're shooting anything within range 12 hours from the call, address the crew (or at least the officers) with the story of what went down (I vote for vilifying Ketro), Do a secutity sweep of the ship for both threats inside and out (Ketro dickbaggery and xenos infiltrations are the the focus here), start talking about these sentinals and planning the trip to go take pictures of them with our Nikon--- er, I mean blow them or recruit/re purpose/repossess them depending on how things go. Talk about the big station orbiting Earth we need to go look at with something, becuase it'll be the easiest to find, and maybe grab some coffee.

Also ask Dai about what went down at the Test Site.

>>15858197
That was ages ago, and his amends were likely made way back then. Don't waste him in the brig (>implying he's ever off duty anyway).

>>15858164
>Now what do you DO?
Tell Ivanova and Rinn that they're to keep an eye on the xenos scanning us, and to use a few drone interceptor flybys to dissuade them from continuing to scan us.
At the same time, we transmit down to the leaders that they are to pull those research ships back and to have them stop scanning. Tell them that it's interfering with our calibrations of delicate equipment, if they ask why.

We get the repairs done, with Dai as chief engineer, then we push off and make way to the nearest system with still-operational Ophidian defense systems, using a path that mostly uses the Gates.

If the scientists don't want to cooperate, they can be confined to their quarters, since we don't have any science for them to do, and we can't have them using up resources required to get our ship repaired.

We tell the xenos to clear the way, and that we will not be delayed.

Do you need anything more specific, Vedibere?

>>15858211
He'd be brigged for nearly turning our wardroom into a shooting gallery not for the accident.

>>15858224
Ah, well carry on then.
As long as it doesn't slow us down in getting the hell out of here.

Both Dai and Ketro are guilty of a lot of bad shit.

Dai killed thousands due to criminal negligence and failing to uphold the principles of being an engineer. You'll notice he wasn't charged for any of this in a court either. To this day he will not admit his mistakes.

Ketro lost his family and failed to see justice served (seeing as Dai never went to jail). But at this point he is a rabid dog that will do anything and everything in order to see Dai dead. His most recent attempt at sucking up to power includes us. And he obviously doesn't give two shits about how his actions affect other people.

I guess what Verdibere is getting at is that we can't have both of them. One has SCIENCE and Gate mastery, the other technically built *us* and is a genius engineer. Ketro will not do anything to help us without Dai dead. Dai will probably continue to work normally in Ketro's absence.

The smartest action at this point would be to freeze Ketro and take stock of the situation. We don't need Ketro to use the shipyard and we need to finish fixing shit up and get out of here.

Also seconding the drone poke at all of these telescopes pointed at us.

>>15858224
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the Wardroom.

>>15858247
>. You'll notice he wasn't charged for any of this in a court either.
How do you know this?

>To this day he will not admit his mistakes.
Who said this? When?

>Dai killed thousands due to criminal negligence and failing to uphold the principles of being an engineer

laughinggovenmentcontractors.exe

>>15858224
he SHOULD be punished though.

just out of curiosity vedibere, did the empire have something like "life in servitude" as a punishment? perhaps we should have a show trial, help clear the air, and publically disgrace him. atleast that. get ketro some closure, no matter how little.

>>15858308
FUCK Ketro.

And why do you want to demoralize our remaining engineer?

>>15858273
>How do you know this?
He may have been charged, he might not have. Either way, he was not jailed, or at least, he could still get work, seeing as he was the chief designer of the Harbinger. And Ketro's statements that he had to work actively to have projects and patents pulled out from under Dai.

>Who said this? When?
He did.
>That it got away was an miscalculation. They happen, I have nothing to apologize for.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15807704#15814463

>>15858247
but again, we can set them at separate bases. Dai stays and does stuff, told that we don;t care about what happens to the xenos as long as the station is ok.

perhaps we should make it clear to Ketro that we're not killing Dai, but offer him the opportunity to personally humiliate him. in return ketro provides the information. make it clear that it;s that or cryo.

also armed guards are nice. keep one on each of the bastards. in that lovely power armor ofcourse.

>>15858247

I am temped by the knowledge offered by Ketro and little worried about the 'ignorance' towards safety protocols that Dai has shown.

Then again, due to my loyalty towards Dai, I'd fall towards him. Ketro is an outsider.

>>15858343
Simply becuase he won't admit it in front of his mortal enemy doesn't mean he never has.

>>15858350

I'm little skeptic on whether we can keep them separate and out of harms way. They'll also take energy from us that could be better directed at something else more productive.

>>15858164
why does everyone just want to talk to people? We are a fucking spaceship and everyone just wants to talk...

I say give the crew the lowdown on the situation at hand while vilifying Ketro and reinstating Dai. Then a little time-skip would be nice, till either the aliens try something stupid or the repairs are done, then Solward Ho!

> Ketro pulls a grey goo knife that would more then likely eat through parts of the ship OR OUR HUMAN BODY OR OTHERS IN THE ROOM BESIDES THE INTENDED TARGET

This stupid bastard brought a bomb to a plasma torch fight. I am %110 for cryoing the shit out of him and trying to integrate his assistants while keeping them under watch for a time until they can be proven to be trustworthy.

Tell them the truth, he's nucking futs and put our life in danger.

>>15858434
Because talking reveals PLOT and things in space take very long amount of time.

How else will we learn which of our crew is plotting next?

Also, I'm going to have a panic attack if we don't at least shake Parson down.

>>15858454
What, like give him a cavity search?

While doing so daily may be amusing, I don't think he'd appreciate it very much.

Void Quest

Tales of sodomy and Paranoia

To all those people saying Ketro is the crazy one. Just remember that Dai is directly responsible for making him like this.

Imagine how you would be if someone killed your family, got away with it scot free and never admitted an inch of fault for his actions. THIS IS THE SHIT SUICIDE BOMBERS ARE MADE OF, and what do you think Ketro is now?

>>15858273
>laughinggovenmentcontractors
>not punished for breach of ethics or being a lazy FUCKTARD who could have spent another 5 minutes to spare 20000 lives.
>responsible for the FUTURE OF HUMANITY
>whos laughing now motherfucker?

Dai never admitted responsibility for his actions. Has demonstrated contempt for Ketro's use of redundancies and safety margins. Was never punished for his actions by an official authority and quite obviously never even learned from his mistakes.

As paradoxical as it seems, Ketro is the safest choice in the long run. If Dai is out of the picture Ketro would likely function normally and would be much less likely to make mistakes. Sooner or later Dai would take a risk and possibly kill us all. Its just in his nature.

>>15858517
Ketro was probably like this before the accident too, and simply lied to us, again.

>>15858517
Except you forget that Ketro actively wants to kill us, Starshadow. (what a silly name)

I trust Dai. Even if he made the mistake, he does seem sorry for it.

Ketro is just a lying sociopath bent on revenge.

Got enough to write on Verdibere?

AFAIK we have only one reasonable course of action at this point which is to freeze Ketro. This problem must be dealt with, but dealing with it NOW will delay our departure from the shipyard. That on its own could lead to disaster.

Let the crew know wtf is going on. A lot of the hostility is likely due to them receiving coloured interpretations of events, or not all of the facts.

Make it clear to everyone that delaying our repairs and hence departure will probably GET US KILLED. Put aside the bickering for now, we got work to do.

I'd pick Dai honestly, simply because he seems 100% loyal to us, or at the very least has never disobeyed an order or seemed to dislike doing things for us. Plus, he's mostly cybernetic, like us now, and I feel a little kinship, like when we talk inside of the ship's computers and shit.

Ketro, on the other hand, is never going to stop wheeling and dealing with us and making "trades" so he'll work for us.

Is it possible that Dai could set the ship to overload? I think we've already established, not unless he could survive, which is not bloody likely.

Could Ketro be helpful? Could he turn the minds of the civilians to our side? Sure. But he'll do more harm than good to gain power.

>>15858517
>To all those people saying Ketro is the crazy one. Just remember that Dai is directly responsible for making him like this.

Yeah, and then Ketro nearly killed Dai. And had his family ruined, then massacred.
The guy just doesn't know when to stop.

I want to remind everyone that Dai has on many occasions given us the red light when we wanted to do something citing that it would kill us all.

He is not as negligent as these two people would have as think.

do you guys think Dai is not capable of kissing ass?

he'll do something to ketro, especially after what he said about his parents. no, we need to separate them by light years after we;ve established a base.

>>15858572
That is true, after Parson WE are the most reckless member of our crew.

I say let's just house Parsons and Ketro in the same cell. It'll save space and resources!

>>15858619
Only if we fill it with vibrating drones too.

After we freeze Ketro, we should gather the remaining civilian scientists and have a quick talk with them.

They need to:
1) understand our situation: As far as we know, we're the last remnant of the Empire and possibly humanity. We will not despair and we will not sacrifice any human life.

2) They need to elect a leader or point out their most qualified members for the position for us to choose. This person will see that what needs to be done for the ship gets done, but also that this group gets some personal time for their own projects when the ship's needs aren't urgent/emergency level.

3) Why Ketro is being frozen, and why he will remain that way. "Lives will not be sacrificed needlessly. Not mine, not Dai's, not Ketro's, and not yours."

4) This is still a military ship. If needed the crew will lay down their lives to protect yours, but let's hope it doesn't come to that. You can disagree, but in the captain's orders are law.

5) We live or die together. Prayer might not hurt our chances.

>>15858631
Give the civilians the option to go back into stasis as well. We don't need malcontents who are just a drain on our supplies

>>15858631
this seems reasonable.

>>15858543
Most random pairs of words are I agree. Its just a holdover from when I was working on Emperor's Nightmare stuff.

You guys must have really short memories. "Oh I don't like Ketro, he ruined Dai's company and indirectly got his family killed"

DAI pushed a button and KILLED 20 THOUSAND PEOPLE. Go back to thread 15 and read the confrontation again and the rest of the thread.

Sometimes "sorry" just doesn't cut it. DAI WON'T EVEN GO THAT FAR.

I support Dai for now because of the situation we are in. But FFS people, choosing between Dai and Ketro is not a black and white decision.

But moving along, I fully support
>>15858631
With one addition, bring the engineers in on the meeting without Dai present. Every member of the crew needs the facts, and we can't allow the engineers to hear everything filtered by Dai.

SIMPLE IDEA

KETRO IN CHARGE OF MILITARY ENGINEERS = STABILITY

DAI IN CHARGE OF CIVILIAN SCIENTIST R&D = MAXIMIZED OUTPUT

ALSO THE MIXED LOYALTIES WILL CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT KIND OF

JUST KEEP THEM SEPERATED

So what's this quest about? I keep seeing it but haven't followed it yet.

>>15858742
I dunno, Dai's pretty cool.
Ketro's pretty crazy.

>>15858754
Vedibere writes something great and we neckbeards argue over it for six to eight hours.


We were an AI
The ship was adrift and dead as shit
we got the ship back together
we got our body back
we found some civvies who's leader wants us dead

We need to bring back our mighty Empire.

>>15858761

Ketro is pretty crazy about Dai, on everythign else he's all about safety. He's the "you'll kill us all!" mad scientist.

Dai is pretty cool. He is also willing to let mistakes that kill PLANETS slide. He's the "think of the applications!" mad scientist.

>>15858761
parsons clearly killed Ketro's wife and kids, and cleverly blamed it on Dai.

>>15858754
Voids and the vibrating drones who love them.

More seriously, you're a spaceship AI a long, long way from home and familiarity and trying to make your way in the universe.

>>15858761
Ketro is crazy yes.
Dai is a mass murdering sociopath.

Shades of grey man! Makes for an awesome quest.

>>15858806
Dai is fine, calm down man.

Dai may be a mass murderer, but sociopath Hardly.

A mistake was what killed so many, not intent.

>>15858631
>we should gather the remaining civilian scientists and have a quick talk with them.

Why is this only a civilian matter? I'm sure word has gotten around to everyone on the ship. Besides, it might foster better relations if the civilians weren't treated (much) differently from the military types. The following should be words everyone in the crew hears:

"Lives will not be sacrificed needlessly. Not mine, not Dai's, not Ketro's, and not yours. We live or die together."

Possibly add something about how 'irreplaceable resources were spent saving the Asura from a decaying orbit within the corona of a star. Even had I known what would transpire, I would have done the same.'

Also, ask the xenos what the purpose of the constructions is. Just do it. Regardless of what they say, try to steer to conversation either towards "so how do we help you in your war against the other factions" or "what do you expect the other factions to do now that they know what happened to your fleet"

>>15858806
>Shades of grey man! Makes for an awesome quest.
Now I want to run a quest thread about a superhero named "Shades-of-grey-man"

>>15858742
>choosing between Dai and Ketro is not a black and white decision.
Think about it this way:
Dai killed 20 million people in an instant, possibly to get results that his superiors wanted. He might have felt bad about it, probably. The empire probably didn't care.
Ketro systematically murdered people over decades and made others' lives hell. Intentionally, and knowing full-well what he was doing.

>>15858865

>>15858953
Glad you liked it.

If we're going to freeze Ketro where will we store his cryo pod? Dai might say attempting to kill Ketro was just an emotional outburst but I don't trust that. I think we need to keep Ketro where Dai can't get to him.

>>15858820
Sorry, engineer rage.

>>15858856
Sociopaths don't care about other people. Seeing as he refuses to admit personal responsibility. Dai apparently doesn't care about the 20k people he killed. Even if the empire had put him on trial he probably would have given the same wisheywashey response to the judge that he gave Ketro. If if that had happened he would be in jail, not chief engineer.

I know the chances are small, but if he didn't learn from his mistake then its quite possible that this could happen again. And humanity is hanging by a thread as it is.

>Dai killed 20 million people in an instant, possibly to get results that his superiors wanted. He might have felt bad about it, probably. The empire probably didn't care.
Dai didn't care either. Would you trust him with your family? Ketro did, and look where that got him. Ketro being Ketro doesn't excuse Dai from being Dai.

>>15859000
You don't know he doesn't.

You only know what he said in front of Ketro in a heated moment.

Okay, so we freeze Ketro and any other civies that want to go with him until we find other imperial assets where we can offload them. Then we get Dai to FINISH the fucking repairs so we can get the fuck out of here before the xenos try a counter attack.

>>15859000

Or he could have spent the years wondering about what he could have done to not make the mistake and rationalized it that it WAS a mistake and not anything he could / would have done differently.

You say to read the last thread, I say read the whole quest. Not once has Dai given us any reason to mistrust him, Not once has he exhibited any sociopathic tendencies.

Quit your witch hunt.

Could we store Ketro's pod somewhere where he isn't liable to get free or get killed by Dai?

Not that I'm expecting it, but just in case...

>>15857639
>“Stupid. Accident. Happen sometimes. Tries to blame me for doing job. Also settings all wrong. My design, know the specs better. Too conservative by far for capabilities. Also idealized, likely wouldn’t even be able to jump if stuck to statistics that are conservative even at top-output.”
NO NO NO NO
LEFT UNCHECKED, DAI IS A DANGER TO US ALL. This is the guy who gambled the lives of twenty thousand people (But not his own, of course) to meet deadlines and hasn't shown any remorse or admission of responsibility. Accidents do not just "happen" - they occur because of systematic problems, and as the man at the top, it is his responsibility to see they do not occur. This man is criminally negligent and cannot be trusted as Chief Engineer. He's already been wrong once with the singularity weapon. Like I said last thread, you guys obviously aren't engineers, because this stuff is drilled into our heads.

Everything Ketro has done has been in pursuit of Dai. I would take a man who has a narrow focus of hatred over one who has a history of putting lives at risk. Whatever you guys do, you CANNOT allow Dai to continue in his current position. Personally, I think we should cryo Dai.

>>15859075
>>15858997
Dai doesn't care for that overmuch.

You're just trying to defame him.

>and not anything he could / would have done differently.

>Remember how Dai talked about the gate systems a while ago? That Ketro added too many safety systems and redundancies? This is coming from a guy who ignored safety margins and got thousands of people killed. And he did it to appease what were essentially shareholders. Think about this for a second. Ketro's family were on a "habitat" station, which presumably was really fucking far from the testing barge. Everyone on it was killed. DAI SURVIVED THE BLAST which means he himself retreated to a safe distance before pushing the button. Dai is a risk taker who does things without regard for the possible consequences. He could easily have towed the barge a few more light years into the middle of nowhere just to be on the safe side.

>By the number of people arguing in favor of Dai, I can tell you guys aren't actual engineers. Here's a tip - twenty thousand dead is a much worse than six. Dai may not have intentionally caused the accident, but it occurred due to his NEGLIGENCE. As a professional engineer, it was his duty to not sign off on unsafe tasks and he failed. This is probably an alien notion to many of you, but engineers have something called professional ethics that means they have to put public safety first, before their employer's interests. The worse part is that even in retrospect he denies all responsibility and writes it off as an inevitable accident when it was clearly his fault. It wasn't something that nobody saw coming - Ketro warned him, but he ignored it. Dai has shown incredibly bad judgement. He needs to go. You CANNOT put somebody who knowingly puts thousands of lives at risk when pressured by corporate deadlines in charge. This is the kind of behavior that results in "accidents" like the BP Gulf Coast oil spill and Union Carbide explosion. Ketro has shown flexible morals himself, but it's more understandable since he lost his entire family and was denied justice.

>>15859119

Cryroing Dai wouldn't get the other working. He wants him dead by his hand an no other.

>>15859013
>You only know what he said in front of Ketro in a heated moment.

Heated moment my ass >>15857639
Dai's first thought on what we'd do with Ketro was execution. The guy wants Ketro dead.

>>15859123
Stop listing the same shit over and over.

>LEFT UNCHECKED, DAI IS A DANGER TO US ALL. This is the guy who gambled the lives of twenty thousand people (But not his own, of course)
>gambled the lives of twenty thousand people (But not his own, of course)
>But not his own, of course

Unless Dai is going off the ship, I see no reason that this is a bad thing.

>>15859000
>>15858911
>20 million people

From the last Void Quest thread:
>Twenty thousand may have been lost in the mishap

Why do people lose their ability to read information, process and retain it as soon as they entere these threads?

>>15859191
I'd want Ketro dead too, in his shoes.

Though personally, I could find other uses for him. But a blueboard probably isn't the best place to go into detail about it.

>>15859123
Get off your high horse and stop repeating things that have been stated already you pompous ass.

>>15859123
The major issue here is we need a CE. Period. And we do not really want to kill Dai. He may be incompetent, but he's loyal and any further deaths on his hands are all going to be accidental. More importantly, he doesn't deserve to die. Ketro may not deserve to die either, but he's also not going to be loyal. He may give safer results, but he's MUCH more likely to actively attempt to kill us all.

Basically, by picking Ketro, you're saying Dai deserves to die. Does he? Do you really want to execute Dai?

>>15859119

your views on Dai are VERY valid and we need to have Dai focus a bit more on safety.

But the problem is that we need ONE of these two mad scientists, and Ketro's terms include DAI'S DEATH. That is NOT acceptable IN ANY WAY.

>>15859212
Hence why we need to keep Ketro's cryopod safely away from the influence of Dai.

>>15859210
honestly, while there is a large numerical difference between 20 million and 20 thousand, "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic"

>>15859123

Looks like we got a 1st year engineering student here.

>>15859254
They WERE citing the number as though it were their scripture.

>>15859123

>It wasn't something that nobody saw coming - Ketro warned him, but he ignored it.

It was something that only ONE person guessed correctly out of EVERYONE. When a team of Scientists and Engineers work on a project, and one person THINKS something bad could happen, but has no proof or evidence, you don't stop the project. You push forward relying on your DATA.

It was a mistake, plain and simple. The fact that you keep calling for him to be a sociopath makes me wonder if you aren't a little off yourself. Anyways, think what you will, its obvious no ones going to convince you otherwise, so I wont bother.

>>15859270
It was a mistake that was the result of criminal negligence.

Let Ketro kill Dai and take his place as our new chief engineer. Letting him kill Dai will ensure his loyalty, and he's obviously the superior choice anyway. We have to chose one, so go with Ketro.

>>15859308
What could possibly go wrong?

>>15859123
>>15859263
"Vunce ze rockets are up, who cares vere zey come down
"Zats not mein department!" says Werner von Braun.

Apply it to our situation as you like.

...so basically, it boils down to

"do we want
1. a rickety old custom-rigged car that may cause us all to die, but is perfectly steerable until the engine blows up, or
2. a safe and purring sedan that may or may not be haunted and will eventually drive where it wants?"

Dai is the designer of the Harbinger correct?

I vote we let him stay the chief engineer.

>>15859308
Ketro was playing all three sides in during the civil war. "Loyalty" isn't in the mans vocabulary, all that giving him what he wants would do is grant us a temporary reprieve from his machinations until he makes contact with someone who offers him a better deal.

>>15859270
One person that we know of. And how many people do we know worked on that project, besides Dai and Ketro? The fact that the weapon was tested in range of the habitat at all is already mindboggling stupid. We know there were safety regulations that he ignored. We know there were signs of instability that Ketro pointed out and Dai ignored. Dai has never denied any of these statements, his only defense has been "BUT IT WAS AN ACCIDENT"

>>15859349
More like buy time until he finds a new way to pilot the Harbinger. I wouldn't put AI past that sneaky devil.

>>15859349
> Ketro was playing all three sides in during the civil war.
> implying this isn't just Dai's accusation
> implying Dai isn't trying to cover his as by distracting us from his criminal negligence and incompetence

Open your fucking eyes, it's obvious that Dai is the wrong choice.

>>15859308
I'm not going to cover the issues I have with your argument, but here's something to think about:
Ivanova has "worked" for Ketro in her past, but "he won't remember [her]." We trust Ivanova, right? I mean, she's a spook and all, but she's our bro-tier spook.

My guess is that Ketro hired assassins, one of whom may likely has been Ivanova. Ivanova warned us of Ketro, to be careful around him. I'm willing to trust her judgment on this matter as well.

>>15859375
>implying Ketro didn't JUST tell us this.
>implying it doesn't just make me want him more

>>15859365
You know, with that in mind, maybe we should run a complete diagnostic of our computer systems to make sure there aren't any surprises left behind. It'll probably be more difficult to find stuff with our computer specialist frozen for being a traitor but we might find something if there's something to find.

>>15859349

This.

Also, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, if we keep them both alive and out of each others' reach, they might be able to nullify the worst of both. For example, force them to approve each others' design, which the engineers then do.

Basically we want a two-man legislature who hate each other more than they care for their own lives to come up with workable solutions. I recommend both of them submit back-and-forth work orders until both of them find the result equally hideous, then enact it.

>>15859416
Hm, good point. Time to boot up the old Norten 64000, and prepare our bodies for more hackan' and counterhackan'

Vedibere, it seems we are at an impasse

So, aside from a few stragglers it looks like we've reached consensus. Let Ketro kill Dai. Make Ketro chief engineer. We can't afford to leave someone like Dai alive, if we do it's only a matter of time before his negligence gets us all killed.

>>15859420
So in other words you want the American Congress running our ship?

>>15859447
Wow, I thought we had reached the opposite consensus.

Let Dai remain chief and shove Ketro in the freezer.

>>15859447
Yes, precisely that, save for you got the names mixed up.
No problems though, you'll get the hang of it soon enough!

>>15859420
So NOTHING will EVER get done huh?

>>15859228
> Basically, by picking Ketro, you're saying Dai deserves to die. Does he? Do you really want to execute Dai?

Yes, yes, and yes.

>>15859420
Oh, and that's what got us into this mess, you silly billy~

>>15859447
What the fuck are you smoking man?

>>15859455
> implying that a samefag counts as a consensus

Dai is the wrong choice. Leaving him alive is the sort of suicidal stupidity that Vedibere talked about.

Dai should stay on as chief engineer. Ketro should be frozen or Spaced.

Dai is the PERFECT choice. He DESIGNED our ship. No one knows it as well as he.

>>15859461
>>15859453

Yes.

And nothing WILL get done. Especially nothing that will blow up the ship (Dai), and nothing that will incite mutiny (Ketro).

Basically what I'm saying is that we can use their mutual hate as a watchdog mechanism. Ketro is for Dai's problem with "wasted potential" and Dai is for Ketro's "social climber" moments.

>>15859485
Killed then frozen, becuase int he words of a perrsonal hero of mine "I can think of plenty of uses for the body of a pretty young girl".

Also, it'd mean the end of canon and the final transition into MY world.

I vote for Dai.

>>15859420

except that didn't work for shit. it got to the point where NOTHING GOT DONE. It's one or the other, at this point.

I'm siding with Dai. Ketro's a psychopathic traitorous snake. Dai made an 'oops'.

Granted, it was far from a 'small' oops. But it was an oops nonetheless. Not a premeditated Act of vengeance that ruined millions of lives.

I can't agree with tossing Dai to the wolves - negligent or not, we don't have proof beyond a reasonable doubt and there will be no breakdown of law and discipline while we're here. At best he needs to get demoted to a position where he's supervised by somebody who believes in things like "safety" and at worst he should be cryoed.

I think we should pick a third-party Chief Engineer. Dai cannot be trusted with the responsibility and Ketro will be unwilling as long as Dai is alive.

>>15859500
And he'll completely ignore safety until he gets us all killed. No matter how much he knows about Harbinger, it's pretty much all useless because he'll just use that knowledge to push everything past the breaking point.

He's a fucking terrible engineer, and keeping him as chief engineer is beyond stupid.

>>15859515
Ok so instead of, you know repairing the, getting away from this hellhole and moving towards Earth again, you instead want to have two mad scientists that hate each other sit around and argue until we run out of food, that about right?

I'm not even going to pretend that I care about the scores of posts arguing Ketro v Dai in the WORST PERSON EVER contest. Or that I even read them.

Here is my personal choice for course of action, I'm sure that most people will hate it.

1. Temporarily reinstate Dai as CE and expedite repairs. Keep Ketro brigged and make a final decision when we don't need a CE right now.
2. Make estimate on time until the aliens get their deep scan stuff up and running, be out of here before then even if it means cutting repairs short.
3. See if we can do anything in conjunction with the clutchmothers or the other leadership to placate the people, but only if it will not put ourselves in danger or somehow massively compromise our technological edge.
4. Task some people with the relevant skills to take a look at the data gathered about Ivanova's implants and capabilities, because I am curious.
5. Meet with people to try and work out a way to restore cohesion and focus to the engineering staff.
6. Same as above, but crew morale and DARK SECRETS so that we can avoid being blindsided in the future.
7. Talk with some of the civilian scientists and try and get them to feel that they aren't part of some hopeless dictatorship.
8. Make for one of the systems marked as having active percursor defenses.

>>15859537
That argument hinges on him being willing to take the risk himself, because he *has nowhere to go besides the ship*

The argument that he's negligent holds that he knew the risks and took them *BECAUSE* he wasn't there.

>>15859534
> we don't have proof beyond a reasonable doubt

Dai confessed, that's proof enough. Ketro warned him, and he tested it anyway WITHIN RANGE OF A CIVILIAN HABITAT OF TWENTY MILLION PEOPLE.

>>15859537

yeah, and the other guy is a psychopathic traitorous power hungry shitbag.

Great. one's a "BAD ENGINEER" the other's pretty much point blank going to try and usurp our command.

I like how the whole Ketro Dai feud has come to our realm, what with the whole crew backing Dai, and the token two people trying to vote in Ketro by repeating themselves as often as they can manage.

>>15859537
>He's a fucking terrible engineer, and keeping him as chief engineer is beyond stupid.
Oh yeah how could I have forgotten that part where we tried to use the ship and Dai got us killed OH WAIT.

Honestly, Dai has been a perfect engineer for the ship up until Ketro showed up and told us that Dai once messed up really bad.

Think of the worst thing you've ever done in your life, now imagine if everyone you ever met judged your value based on that thing alone. This is what I think is happening to Dai in this thread.

One mistake shouldn't ruin 500 years of creditable work.

I'm sorry Vedibre, you deserve better.

But seriously, this choice is so well written that we can't reach an agreement. I can see both side's opinions, but I think at this point we need to basically randomly pick either Ketro or Dai.

>>15859534
>>15859523
>>15859500
>>15859485

I second.

>Get off your high horse and stop repeating things that have been stated already you pompous ass.
Those weren't quoted from this thread. They are from last thread and posted AFTER Verdibere logged off and the thread was archived. Not everyone got to see them, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

I wouldn't blame anyone for not understanding. But there is a concept called "standards and ethics" that applies to most fields of work. Not just engineering, but food preparation, pharmaceuticals, tons of stuff. When people fail to follow these rules, things can happen and people can die.

If you uphold yourself to a set of standards and ethics, it bothers you that much more when people ignore them, even imaginary people. Dai didn't just make a "mistake", he chose to commit criminal negligence causing mass murder. If he had ethics he would have told the auditors to bugger off while he eliminated all dangerous variables as Ketro would have done. If he had standards, he would have moved the testing barge to a fail-safe location and eliminated all risk of harm.

But he didn't, didn't admit responsibility and didn't show any remorse for his actions. He might be a genius, but he is also a fucking terrible engineer.

Sorry for dragging that out.

I wonder if Vedibere has beaten whatever game he wandered off to play while we squabble?

>>15859566
It means that either way we should let Ketro kill Dai. In any possible case he either deserves it, or we need to do it to protect the ship, or both.

>>15859569

>implying he got to select a weapons testing range.

>>15859585
> implying that samefags can second

btw, if it comes down to "CHOOSE ONE NO THIRD OPTION," I pick Dai.

But make it an iron rule that he absolutely MUST increase his margin of safety. If he thinks something can do 1, we make him do 2/3rds. This will give us elbow room in case of emergency, too.

Though I am curious about Ketro's secrets.

>>15859584
Yeah sorry Verdibere >_>

Blessing and a curse huh? The more interesting and believable a situation the better the quest, but the more deadlocked we become trying to solve it.

If its any consolation we seem to have reached a consensus. Freeze Ketro, reinstate Dai. Brief scientists and engineers. When finish with the shipyard and get out of here, we can decide what to do next.

You lot do know that our argument had no bearing on what will happen right?

Vedibere starts his updates way ahead of our shitstorms coming to a close now.

>>15859593
maybe he suffers from some sort of post induced narcolepsy, as in he makes a post, then immediately falls asleep for hours.

or he is playing something like Deus Ex (wild guess on my part, Vedi seems like he would play it)

Is it possible that maybe we could just ask Dai about the accident?

Find out whether he had any control over the range to the civilian area.
Find out if he had anyone actually suggesting that bad things were going to happen or had anyone suggesting that it was a good idea.
Find out WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS 20 MILLION OR 20 THOUSAND BECAUSE APPARENTLY SOME PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD DON'T KNOW.

>>15859613

Or we can pick a third CE to pick and choose exactly what parts of Kerto's and Dai's fixes to enact.

>>15859598
That doesn't matter. He knew what would happen. Ketro warned him. And he went ahead anyway, and killed 20,000 people just for the sake of pleasing some investors.

6 < 20,000

Vedibere, do we possibly have anything on Dai's incident in our databases? News reports, press conferences, classified documents, anything? Would Ivanova know anything?

The point here is that Dai and Ketro are both openly gunning for each other - literally. Unless we were there for the incident - or know someone who was - everything we know is HEARSAY. Either one of them could be over- or under-exaggerating the details to make the other look bad. Having secondary sources of information will not only be helpful in piecing together what exactly happened, but can also shed some light on the character of either of our two confrontational engineers.

Just thought it would be a good idea.

>>15859660
Ketro killed several millions in the riots that followed his good fun.

i propose we just repair the drive a this point and get the hell out. there's no reason for us to do anything else. our weapons already DESTROY everything that anyone else shows up with.

otherwise there'd be a replacement for the Empire.

as for the civies, make it clear to them that we have an open door policy. they may voice any objections to us and anyone else. however in the end they must listen to us.

accept one of their suggestions to show that they CAN make a difference. they feel helpless, their leader is being jailed for what they see as a legitimate gripe with the CE. giving them free reign to research what they want either off duty or even under the supervision of dai during work hours if we think it;s a good idea. let them do what they love, and they will come to atleast respect us.

>>15859660
>investors
I keep seeing this pop up, but I don't remember anyone mentioning investors in Vedibere's posts. Am I insane or did Dai actually say "I ran the test for the money and to get investors off my back"?

>>15859582
It only takes one mistake and he's already made one. This reminds me of those people who keep wild animals as pets and think they're harmless, then one day they're getting their face ripped off by their fucking chimpanzee. The most damning thing isn't that the accident occurred, it's that it happened and Dai apparently has learned nothing at all and still denies all responsibility. We can keep him and use his expertise, but WE CAN'T LET HIM REMAIN AS CHIEF ENGINEER.

>>15859676
Bullshit. Several million lost their jobs, not died.

>>15859667
Except that Dai ADMITTED to disregarding Ketro and safety protocols and going through with the test anyway. That is not hearsay, that's fact, and even the worst of the stuff that Dai accused Ketro of is nowhere near as bad as that. Even if EVERYTHING that Dai says about Ketro is true, we're still better off letting Ketro kill Dai.

End of discussion.

>>15859676
Not sure if that's accurate, but he did cause millions to lose their jobs as I recall, which did result in rioting. Not sure if millions died because of it though...

I choose Dai

For the people considering Ketro, think on this. The reason we can only do one jump a month is due to Dai's advice, because he has said during a lot of these threads that the reactor is still unstable.
Also the reason the accident happened at the weapons testing facility was due to the fact that Imperials auditors were breathing down his back looking for a set of good results at that moment. WE on the other hand are NOT pushing him to do things. As has been stated over and over again, we are in NO hurry to get anywhere, so Dai will have more time to look through things and not make mistakes.
Im not saying Dai is perfect or that hes the best choice, but i am saying that for someone that is supposed to be LOL ON TEH EDGE, he sure has been advising a lot of the cautionary tales to our travel.
So you know maybe having been through said accident, then having a lunatic ruin his life has taught him AT LEAST A LITTLE CAUTION. Not saying he's all better, just maybe a little more careful now due to the experiences of time.

How one can tell the same two people keep suggesting Ketro are doing so only for grief.

Not once have they made mention of his skills or usefulness in any detail, but only cry of Dai's alleged "incompetence" or "negligence".

>>15859711
You know that name was actually supposed to be "DaiFan#1" to suggest that I'm Dai's #1 fan for some clarity in the post I made, but I realized afterwards that it just looks like I'm trying to post as Dai, since his first name is actually "Fan." Whoops back to tripfag school with me.

>>15859592

Right, because when you're working on some new hyperdestructive warhead technology, you have the capability to tell the government to 'bugger off' and NOT end up like Gerald Bull.

Similarly, ya know, when your company runs a weapons testing range, it's totally cool to not say anything about moving civilian habitats the FUCK AWAY FROM THEM. Christ, it's like putting suburbia 2 miles away from jackass flats and saying "naw, guys, it's cool, No WAY we could have a unexpectedly large yield from a warhead, nope, no sir"

Instead of using, you know, normal, common sense ("uh, hey, fan, maybe we ougghta use our OTHER weapons ranges here, ya know, the ones way the shit out thataway") Ketro wanted to Nix the shot completely. Under pressure form a government which, so far as has been described ain't exactly nice.

Yes, Dai made a fuckup, and people died. That neither changes, nor is somehow worse, than Ketro playing three sides against each other during a civil war, or, ya know, deliberately ruining what is, as near as we can tell, a large and powerful corporation for revenge BEYOND trying to kill Dai, then point blank demanding that a condition for him working for us is to kill Dai.

Similarly, Dai's already saved our asses once, in the jump away from the novae in the beginning of our little tale- Ketro's been nothing but a damned pain in the ass. Based on that ALONE (10$ says ketro would have balked, claiming it was 'unsafe' to modify the jumpdrives) I say we keep dai.

Finally, Professional ethics are fine... in the normal civilian world. We're a warship, possibly one of the last functioning ones of our empire, and maybe the last survivors of our race. maybe. At this point, your ethics can be described as "being acknowledged, logged, and totally disregarded". I stress that again: we're a warship. A military vessel. Dai gets that. I'm not so sure Ketro would.

SHOULDN'T WE VOTE ON THIS LIKE REASONABLE PEOPLE?

>>15859745
Didn't we? Must have forgot.

Anyhow what does Dai bring to the table? He is a genius (though unethical) engineer. He built this ship which is a plus. Great at controlling drones I guess... I dunno you guys fill in the blanks here.

Ketro has SCIENCE, a dedicated research team, Gate Mastery and a mystery box. Also quite crucially, he has full knowledge of what went down in our absence.

On their merits alone they are both highly useful, not something we can throw away.

>>15859743
Dai's excuse that it was because of auditors and investors and so on looking for results is ridiculous. The fact remains that he ignored safety, advice, and murdered 20,000 people. And Dai's ideas of safety are just as stupid. If he thinks something is "safe," we'll be dead before the month is done if we listen to him.

>>15859786
This.

>>15859836
You mean like the months we've already not been dead by letting him be chief engineer before you knew about this?

Your argument is Flawed.

>>15859813
Utterly putting aside personality and the like, Ketro is first and forth most a scientist and designer. Dai is an engineer (and designer too).

Ketro could tell me how great something could work in an absolutely perfect environment and maybe even make it (if we had any room or supplies or equitment for him to do so)

Dai can keep our bits and pieces together while we continue to get shot at and look for a place to make repairs.One is vastly more useful to us than the other.

What the fuck guys, are you still arguing over the same two points of data you were some four hours ago?

>>15859797
We should but the only people present are apparently anything but.

Pic related, it's what Vedibere is wearing right now.

>>15859745

The real question here: how do we properly neutralize Ketro? He's whipping up bizarre murder weapons in our blind spots somewhere, and I doubt it just slipped his mind that we might react when he pulled off his plotting to kill Dai. We should be able to render him inert and ice him without too much trouble (debug everything related to both processes first), then what? Store him in the vault? Store him in an impenetrable black box of some sort within the vault, that cannot be tampered with from inside period? Then what of conspiracies within the crew -- how will his faction respond to us doing this? Could a live feed of the Ketro - Dai incident be of sufficient shock value to shake his loyalists up? And if we do show it, could we reaffirm Dai as chief engineer without inciting dissent?

Also, I think we may be able to hack Ketro, and potentially loot his head depending on what he's got running in there.

>>15859786
>That neither changes, nor is somehow worse, than Ketro playing three sides against each other during a civil war, or, ya know, deliberately ruining what is, as near as we can tell, a large and powerful corporation for revenge BEYOND trying to kill Dai
This is, I think, one of the more persuasive arguments for Dai. Ketro knew Dai was dead, and then made millions of people lose their jobs and watched as his family was killed. Who's to say that he won't be satisfied with only Dai's death this time. I would say it's feasible that Ketro will try to destroy Dai's last work as well: the ship.

“Doctor Dai, I want to know what happened in that singularity test. Ketro blames you, you say it’s a mistake. What exactly went on?”

The steel man shifts, nodding, “Weapons testing. Developing advanced prototype singularity warheads. ‘Clustereater’ R&D. Weren’t getting the proper ratios, though. Had never tried to induce specified size. Kept getting stuck with fairly mild singularities, something unaccounted for in calcs. Armada wanted results, said they came to Dai Industries because we produced results but weren’t seeing any. Was true, company always got the job done. I always got the job done. Expected, part of reputation for both. Gradual experimentation taking too long, no results. So recalculated from observed yields, pushed up the mass inference, introduced a Rensor catalyst. Next test got results. Unfortunate side effects from unexpectedly large event horizon, quicker than expected yield curve variance likely cause. Device needed refinement, but working prototype like required. Project dismantled afterward, likely restarted under another section of the Armada.”

“What about the people who died? And you? What was the fallout?”

“Fallout?” His brow wrinkles, “Kor - section R-WD Clearance to know about the project existing at all. Heard outside relatives were told shuttle crash. Obviously body rebuilt after project ended myself, no company, no family, in debt. Reputation for results proven though. Hired by Armada again for lead in Sarro-class drive core design, paid off body and made enough to restart company in two years. Kept getting results, eventually rebuilt company.”

“I see. Well, that’s all for now. I assume you know there will be some punishment for trying to kill someone in my office?” At the man’s affirmative grunt you nod, rising and leaving once more.

#####################

Compared to the time you’ve spent containing the mess its end is almost anticlimactic. Ketro, flanked by two power armored Ensigns, is called before you and your command staff and sentenced to indefinite cryofreezing... much like Parson before. Unlike Parson, you situate his pod in your vault and reconnect it to the clustereater also stored there for power. Just in case, you don’t want Dai to get ideas after all.

The announcement to the crew brings mixed results, as you expected. The engineers seem vindicated and victorious, especially when Dai rejoins them. The scientists seem decidedly less pleased, both at Ketro’s fate and being conscripted and assigned ranks in your new military ‘society’, several not believing the reasons for the former and all protesting at the latter.

Regardless of belief, however, it is generally accepted that staying docked for repairs in an alien shipyard for as short a period as possible is smart and thus repairs resume. This is especially true considering the number of sensor and research vessels blown away and the resulting increased outcry from the alien populace. Still, the clutchmothers remain unphased by the mass bloodthirst and your drones destroy the occasional suicidal ship that attempts to enter the sphere.

#####################

The time is 03:00 hours, the majority of the crew abed. Your human form lies sleeping in your cabin as you run reactor checks, long tedious processes but needed for proper calibrations.

Footsteps. Movement. Made especially obvious by being in an area exposed to vacuum. Carried through the plating to an acoustic sensor, you suppose.

From the bow, near the final section of hull plating scheduled to be completed tomorrow no less. Even now your drones work tirelessly deseaming the plates and reworking them with the various coatings needed to restore 100% hull integrity.

But it’s not drone movements.

Overseeing the drone is is Engineer Spoleto, the lone worker in charge of ‘night’ duty on the prow today. He seems bored, reading a book while he floats in zero-g. Most of the work being done right now requiring only the occasional touch of oversight.

So it’s not him either. Hmmm. As you consider several of the sensors go offline. What...?

One by one you tab through the personnel. All accounted for. All drones are the same. Yet the footsteps continue. A disgruntled scientist spoofing the system? An engineer playing a joke or going for a secret still? Either is plausible.

You flick the optics on across those sections of the ship. Some are offline due to hull repairs, of course, but there are enough for this at least. Your ‘eyes’ flick about in the direction of the noises, unable to catch a glimpse due to the troublemaker being nestled in the blank area created by the last remaining gap to hard space. EVA without permission... you feel a building anger now. Life is already precious enough without any of it getting lost in the void. Finally, though, the noises of footsteps reverberating through your plating move again, slowly and achingly come into view. You gaze upon the face of the perpetrator for a split-nanosecond in shock.

Reptillian visage.

Perpetrators, plural, rather than perpetrator. Twenty eight in view with more sounds behind them.

Dressed in hard-vac suits and bristling with a multitude of weapons.

‘Oh, shit.’ sums your thoughts before one of the aliens with a large backpack connected to a hose turns and begins coating the walls with a sticky goop, matching pace with the others... eventually obscuring your lenses and optical vision.

Boarders.

Is this an official Wat do ?

>>15859743
>Also the reason the accident happened at the weapons testing facility was due to the fact that Imperials auditors were breathing down his back looking for a set of good results at that moment
All the more reason to not let him continue as CE - he cuts corners under pressure. Ketro is in cryo and that's that, but we still need a replacement. Hell, just from his interpersonal skills it seems like he's a poor manager.

>>15859972
>>15859975
...and how the fuck did we get boarded? Don't we have internal defenses?

>>15859975
SOUND THE ALARM!!!! DEPLOY DRONES!!!!! KILLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>15859975
First responder drones to hold them back and buy us time. Rouse Ivonova, and have her meet us at the front line. Page whoever it is that ranks as Sargent for a security team to kit up and meet us down there ASAP.

Seal all access to the compromised area even the one we will use until we get there.

Tell the doctor to ready for casualties.

>>15859975
Begin lockdown of all surrounding sections.
"All hands this is the Captain, prepare to repell boarders! Crewmen with power armor training report to the armory on the double!
Engineer Spoleto, if you are not armed find a weapon ASAP. We have enemies infiltrating the open hull section. Delay them as long as you can."

>>15859975
Battle alert! Everyone rated for them, get into power armor! Prepare to repel boarders.

Can we activate the hull shield, or is it down for repairs?

Our crew are too important to risk. I think we should mobilize the drones to deal with them and get the crew in safer areas or have them waiting in an area to ambush the boarders. And after this... Oh those aliens are going to pay for this.

>>15859975
Inform Ivanova and all officers immediately.
Evacuate the area they're close to as well.

You mentioned that we have some kind of anti-boarding turrets installed. Are those exclusively internal, or are a few of them external?

I second the drones and alarms but also launch some of those fancy interceptor drones to scour the hull and make sure that this group is the only one, ie no more on the hull. Wake Kateryna and tell her we're being boarded and send drones armed with antipersonel weapons to areas surrounding the intruders.

On a long term planning standpoint, what important part of their home planet shall burn for this? we cannot vaporize the clutchmothers without the rest becoming kamikazes against us

Drones out. Mop up these assholes.

Suit up several crewmen in power armor and wait at likely areas of intrusion.

Wait... Wasn't there a reason why Vedibere said no one boards ships anymore?

>>15860067
This. Our crew are a very limited asset and we should expose them to the minimum of danger. I refuse to believe we have no internal defenses.

Alert the Crew that we have been boarded.

Then Crush the hostiles with as much gravity as we can crank the dial up to as long as our personell arent in the affected areas.

>>15859975
Seal the doors to all passages to that area, and all the doors to those doors. We can assume they have some way to breach our doors. Bring drones around through the hole they came in. Alert all military crew members, have them gear up to repel boarders. Try to keep it on the down low, no loud sirens and shit, don't let them know we spotted them. Bring drones around to form up at the doors, and get all noncombat crew to the safest, most central and sealed core of the ship, with some human and drone guards. The rest of the military goes to our core and the area where the drones are preparing to defend. Also bring drones around behind the boarders, through the hole they came in.

>>15860090
Whether we glass the planets or not these xenos just lost their ship yard.

>>15859975
Wake everyone, scramble non-combat personel to the most secure parts of the ship. Anyone else heads for the armory, get Rinn, Ivanova, and Dai on the line and work out an approach to this, Make sure that the infirmary is ready to receive casualties. Crank the gravity and (if possible) the atmospheric pressure to max in the part of the ship with confirmed invaders as a preliminary measure. Power up point defense to shoot anyone else who tries to board. Lock down the blast the compromised sections of the ship, and if the locks can be undone easily and remotely, lock down all corridors that will not be needed by the crew to either get to safety, their stations, or the armory. Get people to the hover tanks too.

>>15860105
I said to bring drones around behind them twice, oh well.

>>15860109
Wait what? Surely you're not suggesting destroying our only shipyard. Or are you just saying that we're taking our shipyard away from them... again.

>On a long term planning standpoint, what important part of their home planet shall burn for this? we cannot vaporize the clutchmothers without the rest becoming kamikazes against us
Go directly to one threat they understand the most.

After this incident, every unauthorized alien who sets foot on this ship will equate to one heavy lance strike targeted at our discretion.

But first, how the hell did they get close enough to set foot on the hull?

>>15860132
When we're done with it. After we've effected repairs here we won't really need to come back, it's rather inadequate for our needs.

Also, meant to reply to >>15860081.

>>15860137
>But first, how the hell did they get close enough to set foot on the hull?
This. Must have been some stowaways on the shipyard or something. Maybe these guys aren't even allyed with the clutchmothers, maybe they're just fanatics.

We should probably save one for interrogation.

Oh, and spool up the combat drones at the vital systems, use them in conjunction with other efforts if initial attempts fail.

To all those asking, go to the thread where we laser tagged with Ivanova, Vedi told us what our defenses against boarders are. Essentially, Overpressure from the atmosphere, reducing areas to vacuum, and gravity control are what we use to repel boarders. We also have some combat drones at key systems. However, we were not made with repelling this kind of assault in mind, after all, how do you even get onboard while people are fighting in space? (obviously designers never thought about docking at a hostile shipyard.)

Straight from the mouth of Vedi himself:

>Lock all doors remotely and disable control systems
>Vent atmosphere to space and/or superpressurize it to crush them then vent remains to space
>Nullify/overcharge gravity on anyone left and then vent remains
>If anything is left standing deploy automated internal defense turrets and your small contingent of anti-boarding drones (note, you don't have THAT many of these, they are mainly around key areas)
>Laugh

Another vote for drone deployment here, keep sensors on and viewing for other parties. Suggestion for afterwards; Contact with the lizards, force an apology and a public execution of the leaders behind this. I doubt that it was the matriarchs themselves, though if we find reason otherwise we can destroy the part of the planet we held peaceful talk in.

>Aliens have hard Vaccum suits on.
>2/3 of internal defenses are useless.

>Fuckmylife.jpg

Sound Alert. Crew are to arm themselves. Get that engineer INSIDE AND AWAY FROM HOSTILES.

Broadcast a warning on all alien frequencies and to their planets/warships.
"Infiltration and assault team detected. Deliver heads of those responsible."

... Can our point defense guns blast these guys? or can we LOOK through our point defense guns?

Assign a group of men to defend the civilians.

>>15860170
Well then.....


LETS DO THIS.

>>15860061
More like, "Engineer Spoleto, hostile xenos have gained access to the ship, I am going to guide you around them and back to safety." Then depending on if he is good with a gun or not, "now report to the armory for weapons and further instructions." or, "now report to [safe place], and await further orders."

>>15860182
You kidding? They're wearing spacesuits. We're about to increase the pressure to 100 Gs. In the words of Futurama "How many Gs can this [suit] withstand?" "Well it's a space suit, so anywhere between 0 and 1."

This isn't very hard.

Dai fucked up and takes risks when he isn't around. He IS around us, all the time. No risks.

Ketro is a little mad, revenge-driven, a political machine, and loyal to himself.

Ketro might have a lot of gifts, but he's nothing but trouble later on. Dai is the safe choice. The fact that Dai doesn't require Ketro's death is proof of that.

Maroon Ketro on a habitable world, and put his team under Dai.

>>15860218
Uh well we already moved past that, but thanks for the opinion I guess.

>>15860201
It was just to cause a distraction long enough for the combat drones and/or other crewmen to arm up.

>>15860170
Guess it's time to set gravity to UMAD, and scoff.

>>15860209
Aliens can handle hard vacuum with just rebreathers. Read when we docked with this shipyard. Over pressure and gravity can still be effective, but we don't know how effective. (also for all we know these guys have awesome spec ops equipment.)

Also, I don't think we need our body for this, go to a war footing.

>>15860209
Don't astronauts experience upwards of 5gs during takeoff and or landing? Lying on a padded seat of course.

These guys will probably pop like a grape.

Okay, so, long-term concerning these xenos:
1. We demand a public apology from the clutchmothers for this affront, and the execution of the leaders of this attack against us.
2. If any further attacks against us occur, then we will respond with a heavy lance strike against a population center chosen at random. One lance strike for each standard hour that they delay our recalibrations.
3. Also, if the attacks do not stop, when we leave this system, we keep all of the Gates turned off, and see if Dai can implement some kind of self-destruct booby-trap. It'll take longer, but we'll leave via Jump.

I'm worried a little about that foam they're using.
Is it just to cover the optical sensors and cameras?
Or is it actually some kind of extruded explosive foam that they can use to blow open a hole in the hull?

>>15860137

They don't need suits, remember? These xenos are well adapted for space. They could have gone into a limited hibernation and gone on a very slow ballistic orbit to get here.

Oh and throw up some ECM make sure anything they see doesn't get back to anyone.

>>15860303
I'm guessing just cover the sensors. They odds that they have a foam that doubles as a sensor block and an explosive seems a little farfetched. That's not to say that they don't also have explosives, but I doubt they'll be blowing our optics now that they're "disabled."

>>15860209

That was atmospheres of pressure, and they were in the Planet Express ship, and they were underwater where pressures are much greater than 1 atm.

Get your pop culture references right!

>>15860137
>But first, how the hell did they get close enough to set foot on the hull?

We've been sitting in this yard too long. Even an idiot is going to spot a hole eventually.

>>15860358
>That was atmospheres of pressure,
My bad.

>and they were in the Planet Express ship,
I know, hence the brackets to indicate I'm altering the quoted text.

>and they were underwater where pressures are much greater than 1 atm.
Yessir. Good episode.

Flood the halls with drones!

And soldiers with power armor!

And when we kill these miserable bastards, glass a city in retaliation.

Vedibere, do you need more or can you write the next bit?

At least we got a course of action quickly this time.

you said we had the ability to seal off sections, expose to ahrd vacuum, and activate auto turrets.

i propose we do that. then sound the alarm to the crew, and order our best shooters into power armor and send them in. let a few live if they can and begin... interrogation.

and by "interrogation" i mean "torture until they die"

send a shuttle down to the planet with the bodies. find a way to desecrate them. transmit a message along the general lines of "And ye shall know our terrible vengence, ye sons and daughters of traitors. Great is our wrath, and great shall be your pain."

and destroy their military ships. they were warned.

>operation itlyince

ok captcha, we'll call it operation itlyince.

>>15860400
It is nice to see /tg/ come together over a common enemy, like any alien that dares presume itself better than us.
>>15860408
You know what would be fun? Gluing all the bodies together into a large mass and then throwing it into a city, meteor-style.

Pity they would probably burn up in the atmosphere instead.

You know, since the xenos were able to recover a working lance, I wonder if any of the other local powers might have another such operational Imperial weapon hidden away as a superweapon.
Perhaps this situation has been dealt with, we should go through the xeno's military datanet and concentrate on intel reports on the regional powers to see if they have anything like what the Obsidian Claw was packing.
I know that it would all be futile against us, but they might reduce our shields momentarily by a percentage point, and that is unacceptable.

>>15860430
Oh man.

Grab all the boarders and use their foam to stick them together, then space them.

Hilarious. And macabre.

Part of me wonders if this is just a small, radical part of their military that is trying to screw with us and their leaders really did want to keep peace with us. I suppose it's worth interrogating the hell out of them to find out who ordered this.

>>15860430
We can attach the scrap metal remains of their shipyard. That ought to stay together. [but seriously, if we are taking HUEG revenge for this, lets wait until we are leaving and in one piece.]

Voting for deploying anti boarding drones, locking shit down, and iniating standard counter-boarding proceduges (aka flush them into space)

>>15860444
You forgot hover tanks, you can't forget hover tanks.

>>15860545
I don't think our corridors are wide enough to use those.

This is why we should have burned their world immediately. Nothing good can come from dealing with xenos. The Empire fell because it left xenos alive, we should learn from that mistake.

Alright, Voidquest!

>wat do?
Save the engineer! physically remove him with drones, can't allow human error to lose human lives!

Turn up the GRAVITY! They have no clue about that, and their suits are probably just power armor anyway.

If they don't all die at that point, inform crew of boarders and direct Ivoniva to the aliens.

If do all die, politely inform the crew that the ship has successfully repelled it's first hostile boarders. Celebratory bean paste will be issued to commemorate the event. Followed by laughing evilly to yourself.

Then Inform via wide-range broadband transmission that any further zealots who come in contact with our ship will incur a Medium Lance blast to an important location on the planet, for each zealot.


>Also, I know this is late but...
Unfreeze Ketro and Parsons. Move them both into the brig. Set up recording devices.
ENDLESS ENTERTAINMENT.

Your response is, of course, quick. A slow, low creaking from the boarded section of the ship hearalds the effects of 100x gravity, and though you aren’t actually able to see the results you do note that the boarding party doesn’t advance any farther. Just in case, though, you seal all doors around the effected areas... better safe than sorry.

Next, the crew. Your officers are the first you awake, quickly explaining the situation, followed by rousting the crew from their barracks. In short order all save the scientists are armed with various assault weapons and powered armor, Ivanova arriving in her black commando wear as the other suit up. You use a portable holo she carries to call up a ship schematic for the men, but in the middle of directing where the scientists are to report to for safety it happens: a large explosion near the bow.

You cut off mid-word and focus, running various analysis programs. Nuclear, low megaton range. Most areas are fine, absorbing the blast even without shields up, but all across the lone section where there was still a gap in the hull alarms are ringing, the more vulnerable insides and structurally weakened area warping under the intense energy bombardment even as sensitive components and drones usually protected by your unisteel skin are damaged.

>>15860593
No, the Empire fell because Civil War.

The aliens had nothing to do with it.

Revising your plans, you have the crew stay where they are and quickly scan for Spoleto... and find him, floating along the hull and weakly attempting to make it to a hatch farther down. “Mayday, mayday.” He croaks into his transponder, “Severely... severely injured. A-Assistince required. Captain, help, it hurts, I can’t make it...” Even before he has finished speaking you’ve switched to his vitals; the prognosis is not good. Suit breach, losing oxygen. Severe radiation doses in all spectrums, pulse thready... and then he loses his grip slipping away from the ship and jerking to a halt as his EVA line pulls taut before floating listlessly.

Yet still -- still, damn them! -- the xenos hinder you. Even as you assess the floating crewman’s condition beams of focused light strike your hull, superheating the unisteel. Never designed to take direct fire, your hull is holding undamaged for now... but the bombardment continues. Thirty or fourty high-power lasers from locations across the system both planetary and celestial. Nothing to your shields, but raising the form-shields would both clip Spoleto’s line and prevent his reentry... and your two inner shields as of yet have virtually no dissipation rate.

>WAT DO?

While we're dealing with the boarders, we should also deploy drone interceptors to destroy all remaining xenos orbitals/ships and send fighters down to the planet to begin cleansing it. Once we're done repelling the boarders, we fire up the guns, cut our way out of the shipyard, and glass the planet.

>>15860643
First off, assuming we have weaponry capable of retaliating, retaliate against the lasers.

Second, send drones to recover Sandoval.

NO HUMAN DIES!

Fuck these aliens.

If they have a clear shot at our hull, we have a clear shot at them. Use the point defense to sweep the yard of aliens, use the guns to fuck up anything shooting at us or carrying a detector.

>>15860630
Son of a bitch.

I don't care how long we have to sit in orbit. We need to perform EXTERMINATUS.

Oh, it's on. The xenos will pay dearly for this. Send a drone to retrieve Spoleto ASAP. Once he's close enough, raise shields and shoot the fuck out of anything that isn't us.

>riantse every
Yes, captcha every riantse.

>>15860643
What's our hull made of again?
Unisteel?
Stuff that the aliens can't even process yet?

We'll be fine. At least for a few minutes.
Wake up ivoniva, tell her what up, and simultaneously get the closest drones to recover the man.

After that, see if we can't poke a few Lances in the direction of each attacking source. Once we have our shields up.

>>15860631
The civil war only happened because the Harbinger was deemed a failure after it was lost in the Hundred Worlds rebellion, a xeno rebellion. The Council started stepping on the Armada's toes after that, and the houses got uppity. However, if the Empire had exterminated all xenos species on first contact, then there would have been no rebellion and the Empire would never have fallen. It was because of cowardly xenos trickery that the Empire fell, and this boarding action proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the xenos haven't changed at all. We should learn from our mistakes and exterminate them all.

>>15860701
>cowardly xenos trickery
you mean house PARSONS trickery, don't you?

>>15860701
No, it was cowardly Parson's trickery that fucked us over.

>>15860643
Send a drone out with an oxygen tank and some duct-tape so he can effect suit repairs.

Shields up, weapons online.

>>15860643
Return fire. Send drones to recover crew member. Glass planet. And from now on we leave no aliens alive. Burn all ships, glass all worlds, wipe the galaxy clean of xeno filth.

>>15860699

>In short order all save the scientists are armed with various assault weapons and powered armor, Ivanova arriving in her black commando wear as the other suit up
>Ivanova arriving in her black commando wear as the other suit up
>Ivanova arriving

>Wake up ivoniva, tell her what up,

>>15860643
If we can, bring the reactor up to battle-readiness so we can get our processing on.
If we can, and it won't wash Spoleto in radiation, fire whatever energy weapons we have against anyone firing on us.

As for Spoleto himself, get a pair of drones out there to grab him, cut the cable, and get him inside to the infirmary.
As soon as he's inside, bring the shields up, then clean out the boarders if they're still alive and didn't die when they touched off their nuke.
Then we go out there and hunt down and kill every last xeno who dared to fire on us, before demanding an explanation from the clutchmothers.

>>15860698
>shoot the fuck out of anything that isn't us.
No.
We are Humans, and we will show our humanity is superior by crushing ONLY their attacking forces.
Besides, we're stil fixing things up, aren't we?

>>15860643
Raise outer shields, send drones to retrieve the injured engineer. Fire against the sources of the incoming attacks with our lances and railguns. Once the engineer is safe, bring the form shield up and send a message to the alien government, "One of my crew has been injured/killed, which one of your worlds burns?"

Send a Drone, Or Ivanova to retrieve spoleto if at all possible.

Then raise shields and cleanse these alien scum.

>>15860718
>>15860725
parsonsmind

But it was the xenos who were the pressure under the lid.

I support sending a drone out to help the engineer, with life support supplies if at all possible.

But if not, the safety of the ship supersedes the safety of an individual. Put up shields and start raping face.

>>15860718
>>15860725
All Parsons did was suggest that we jump in immediately, something all the command staff agreed with at the time. It was only because the xenos triggered two supernovas that we were taken out of action.

Besides, again, no xenos means no rebellion, and no rebellion means no civil war and the Empire never falls.

>>15860746
>Raise outer shields, send drones to retrieve the injured engineer.
The outer shields are the ones that would cut off Spoleto.

THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW!!!!!!! Vedi i dont care how long it takes us but we are wiping out EVERYTHING that belong to these alines in this system, ships, planets, EVERYTHING. WE WILL SHOW THESE SCUM WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MESS WITH US!

>>15860741
What the fuck? Are you fucking RETARDED? Last time we devastated their military, and all they did was wait a day before attacking again. And now you want to just do slight damage again, and hope that they learn? They're XENOS. They don't learn, they haven't learned anything in 65 thousand years, even when they had the most advanced technology in existence at their disposal. All they do is lie and steal from their betters.

We exterminate them all. End of discussion.

>>15860643

Return fire.

If it is on the surface: glass it

if it is in space: scrap it


get a drone to recover our wounded man, then shields up.

Once we kill everything shooting at us...

Contact their clutchmothers...

and target their population centers.

>>15860643
Grab spoleto with a drone and bring him in close enough to get the shield up, then get the shield up.

And trace the trajectories of all points of enemy fire. When this is done we'll go around an cripple every military asset the xenos have.

>>15860737
>Wake up ivoniva, tell her what up,
>displeased_englishman.jpeg
What are you implying?
I don't get what was wrong with getting our resident ubermensch into the fray.

>>15860763
>but raising the FORM-SHIELDS would both clip Spoleto’s line and prevent his reentry... and your two inner shields as of yet have virtually no dissipation rate.
No bro, you need to read more closely.

>>15860643

If there are working drones near the hatch Spoleto is trying to make it to, grab him and haul him in.

This was their alpha-strike, such as it is. We need to bring Spoleto in before their lasers do enough damage. If we can't do that, we'll have to bring the shields up and let him die. It's a math problem, and an ugly one, but we need to do it.

In any case the response after Spoleto's issue is solved is going to be destroying the enemy's ability to do anything in space, and wiping out the planet-based sites that fired on us.

Since their gates are all still down we only have to worry about what's in the system.

>>15860741

I don't think we have that luxury right now. Our first responsibility is to our crew. If we have to kill a planet of xenos to ensure their safety, then that's what we'll do.

>>15860630
Remove everything important that isn't nailed down from the irradiated sections. Raise countermeasures, if we have any, to prevent further damage.

>Lasers
Begin returning fire on their lasers. Try to avoid using missiles because we can't replace them ATM.

>Spoleto
Are any drones nearby? How fast can we raise and lower the shields?

>>15860795
SHES ALREADY AWAKE YOU IDIOT!

I can't believe their are still xenos apologists in this thread. We gave them every opportunity to be reasonable, and all they did was attack us. And then we tried talking with them again, and now they're attacking us AGAIN. Xenos never change, we should exterminate them all, fix the old Empire's mistake.

>>15860795

Shes already awake and aware of the situation you retard!

LEARN TO READ.

>In short order all save the scientists are armed with various assault weapons and powered armor, Ivanova arriving in her black commando wear as the other suit up

>>15860788
It'll take to long to glass everything in the system. We'll hit key targets and destroy the shipyard.

Maybe we should also destroy the gate in this system. Strand them in this system forever, since xenos can't build FTL

>>15860795
SHE IS ALREADY AWAKE AND SUITED UP. People, please read the posts carefully before you post half-cocked.

>>15860825
>>15860832
Oh.
Woops.

Can someone loan me a reaction image for expressing my current self-hate?

>>15860835
> It'll take to long to glass everything in the system.

Not really. We have time, and it's not like they can resist. 65k years AND the ruins of our civilization and they STILL can't touch us. There is no cost to exterminating them all, and it prevents stuff like this from happening.

In the future we should make it standard policy to destroy all xenos ships/orbitals/worlds/anything immediately. Nothing good comes from dealing with xenos.

>>15860788

They waited several weeks, and had a lot of underclass agitation for revenge to deal with as a result. This could be a coup or something in progress. 40 lasers and a nuke does not represent their full power as a species, and if you're going to make a sneak attack like this, you do it in an alpha strike. Period.

These aliens have sane leadership, this was probably an insurgent attack.

>>15860854
> more xenos apologists

You know what, GTFO. Your kind aren't welcome here. This is a HFY quest.

>>15860828
I can't believe that there are still people in this thread that will talk about billions of sentient individuals as if they could predict the actions of the entire group.

1. Retaliate against everyone shooting at us with lanced death
2. Retrieve Spoleto

>>15860788
As much as I would love to burn the planets down to their mantle, Dai already told us that extended bombardment would put too great a strain on the reactor. Now, I suppose we could space the bombardments out over a period of months, but I think it would be better to hit their major industrial and agricultural centers and have their population die a slow death as they turn on each other.

>>15860863

If you want to resort to childish insults be my guest, but it won't help your case. If we want to punish them, we've got better options than putting a huge amount of stress on our reactor while we spend the next couple of weeks destroying their planet entirely.

>>15860844

Skimming is a common ailment on the chans.

>>15860872
>but I think it would be better to hit their major industrial and agricultural centers and have their population die a slow death as they turn on each other.
You. I like your style.

>>15860863
Stop talking as if the "genocide them all, forever" camp is the only one allowed to speak. Seriously, fuck you.

>>15860854
either way, there is but one option:

Extermination.

we cannot be assured that they will not strike again, so now we need to wipe their asses back to the stone age. get the poor bastard back inside, then shields up and BRING ON THE PAIN

Can those tethers our engineer is using be reeled in autonomously? Like we take control of one of the suit systems ? Or are the just line that gets clipped to the suit and hull of the ship

>>15860854
> These aliens have sane leadership
Oh wow. No they fucking don't.

First off, they're XENOS. Aliens with "sane leadership" is a fucking oxymoron. These are savages that blow up their own stars to kill people. They use kamikaze civilian craft. And even given 64,000 years they couldn't come up with anything on their own, they just steal everything from their betters.

Second off, these xenos in particular are anything but reasonable. We gave them every opportunity to be reasonable when we first showed up and they attacked us. Now we did the same again, and they're attacking us again.

Fuck them, and fuck you. We're glassing them, end of discussion.

>>15860887
I just think that straining our reactor hitting population centers is a waste, when it's far more enjoyable to watch our enemies eat other as food becomes scarce, and force them to drink irradiated water.

>>15860897
> implying there is another camp
> implying a single anti-human samefag counts as a camp

Fuck off.

Limit retaliation to just the origins of the strike.

Lets see what the leadership replies.

If we like it, we let them live.

We don't, they die.

>>15860872
This is sufficient.

Also we can empty our sewage tanks into their water supplies.

>>15860886
I think this should suffice, yes?

>>15860928
They'll lie, of course. It's all they know how to do. They'll spin some bullshit about how it was a terrorist group or ultra nationalists or something that is trying to take revenge against us because we defended ourselves.

And even if it is true, it means that the savages can't even keep control of their own population, which means that we shouldn't even bother dealing with them. Talking to them is pointless, because no matter what they say we'll be better off just exterminating the lot of them.

>>15860961
We don't have sewage tanks, we have 100% recycling rate.

We could, however, invite the crew to can their wastes in canisters that they get the freedom of launching at on-world targets.

>>15860919

Those weren't even the same species. Are you deliberately muddying the waters to try to gain support? It won't work.

>>15860925

You've got issues fella. There's at least two people here who want to try a reasonable armed response followed up by diplomacy.

Sometimes I think 40k's grimderp setting rots people's brains, because all I ever see out of it are folks like you going on about "EXTERMINATUS KILL KILL KILL." The setting makes a virtue of unreasonable blind faith and using any measure at hand to prevent even debating the intricacies of a situation beyond 'is it a xeno? KILL IT."

>>15860928
> implying they won't just lie through their teeth

Seriously, GTFO. No one cares about your retarded ideas.

>>15860925
>BAWWWW anyone who disagrees is a samefag
no u. You think that our one world of humans wouldn't have some guys that would strike at the obviously superior invaders if aliens suddenly showed up and wiped out half our military and dictated terms? You think our governments could control them? You are both naive and nuts.

>>15860991
You know what they say, there's no kill like Overkill.

Pic related, loved this game so so much.
Any bros in here?

>>15860991
> Those weren't even the same species.

Name ONE thing that indicates that xenos are different from each other. They're all of the same tech level, even after 65 THOUSAND YEARS, they all refuse to behave reasonably, and they all try to steal from their betters.

One xeno is the same as the next, and they should ALL be exterminated.

>>15860925
You're full of shit.

>>15861011
>sample size of 2 alien species

And the bird-type we have in our hold has behaved very well.

I think everyone here is missing the point. Though a couple of people (being generous here) might want to just let the xenos off the hook, the fact of the matter is that is COMPLETELY OUT OF CHARACTER. The Empire responds to hostile xenos in one way and only one way, complete destruction. And we've kept that up so far.

>>15861032
It was stealing property of the Ophidian Empire. And not actually learning anything from what its stolen. It's inferior, same as all the rest.

umm, guys, im all for the exterminatus whiz-bang shit , but i don't think we are CAPABLE at the moment, think about two threads back, it mentions how our reactor will probably explode if we unload the righteous awesomeness on them.glassing the planet is currently not an option. needless to say, eliminate boarders with extreme prejudice.

>>15861011
At this point in time the xenos "stealing" is on par with the humans in Freelancer using the tech reverse engineered from the Dom'Kavosh. There's no real indication that the species that built the stuff is even still around, let alone that they'll come back and be pissed. We're the equivalent of the nomads in this situation, it's stupid to think there won't be opposition, even after a show of force.

>>15861051
I agree entirely, and the majority wants massive retaliation. Don't worry about the xenophiles. They'd be giving second, third, fourth, fifth chances all the way till doomsday.

It's up to good human-centric people like us to protect them from their naivete.

>>15861032
There were numerous aliens in the "Grand Federation," and they all behaved in the same way as these xenos.

Try again.

>>15861058

Not sure if you're a troll, you're genuinely retarded, or if you're just *really* in character as a human supremacist but you're not doing yourself any favors for your side of the argument.

>>15861011
You are an idiot, these guys were leveraging whatever they found and had a functional central government when we arrived. Instead of looting a shipyard for thousands of years, they repaired and made use of one. One difference: found.

>>15861062
Don't have to melt their whole planet. Just waste key cities. Capitals, trade hubs, food production centers, etc.

Cripple them and they'll fall apart on their own.

>>15861051

There's a couple of people saying "Stop this attack right now, give the aliens a chance to talk. If we don't like what they say, we'll punish them. If they have some miracle argument, we'd like to hear it."

OH LOOK, ITS VOIDQUEST!


LETS ARGUE FOR HOURS ON END!

>>15861065
Except for one thing, when human beings find advanced tech, THEY PUT IT TO GOOD USE. When humans recover any ancient, or precursor, or whatever technology, we always reverse engineer it, improve it, and move ahead technologically because of it. These aliens have been sitting on the most advanced technology in the universe for SIXTY FIVE THOUSAND YEARS and have accomplished NOTHING.

They're thieves, nothing more. Kill them all.

>>15861002
>Overkill

I was a poorfag and only ever played the demo version.

>>15860991
I agree with this guy right here. An overpriced, poorly written, poorly conceived, and poorly made wargame has destroyed some people's ability to think about aliens without resorting to killing them all.

>>15861094

What are you talking about? Are you referencing fictional tropes as evidence? In this setting the humans were the biggest kids on the block because they happened to be the first to figure out a bunch of key technologies. There were no precusors (that have been mentioned, anyway) and no examples of technology that was radically better than what humanity had already made on its own.

You've got some weird preconceived notions about what this setting is.

>>15861085
power issues again dude, the only reason why that explosion on the planet was so big was because of the fact that we hit an ancient imperial powerplant-thingy. we might still explode. plus, how are we going to glass all those targets, there could be hundreds of different locations we would need to hit, not to mention the time involved...

>>15861094
And how do you know that?

Did you suddenly read Vedi's mind and know that the aliens even existed 65000 years ago?

Did you magically learn that the aliens are reverse engineering everything they can get their hands on?

>>15861088
And that is completely out of character. We're a warship of the Ophidian Empire. We don't talk with xenos. We KILL them. And if they attack us first, we kill ALL of them. End of discussion.

>>15861125
We still have a use for them.

WE can exterminatus them later

>>15861094
When you assume you make an ass of yourself. Humans are the precursors of this setting, they never found artifacts of a more advanced society strewn about the galaxy as far as we know.

>>15861133
> implying aliens are useful
> implying they won't just turn around and attack us AGAIN

We gave them two chances to be reasonable already, and they shot at us both times. Enough is fucking enough.

>>15861124
>>are

Whoops. Meant Aren't.

>>15861125
Actually, the Ophidian empire only killed xenos when there was resistance. Like right now. This is the kind of thing the empire would wipe a species for.

>>15861141

So you'd advocate Getting destroyed if the Westboro baptists attacked an alien ambassador.

Cause for all we know, that's whats happening here.

>>15861094
Now, I'm not defending the xenos in any way (I want to see them all burn), but to be fair, they've only had 7000 years of actual civilization. They got their first nations around that time (though it looks like it was mostly tribes and large clans). In 5000 years they cracked the atom, and a hundred after that, they got spaceflight.
Now, that DOES leave them about 2000 or so years in which they had the time to reverse-engineer our technology.

Send a message to the Aliens, if they do not cease their attack immediately we will eradicate their entire civilization. As opposed to just one entire planet which we should do either way.

Reccomend we roll the ship (and the yard if it's attached to us) to prevent the open area from taking any more fire. Launch a drone shuttle to retrieve our wounded man then raise shields as soon as possible. Can we risk blasting our way out of the yard then glassing some of the planet based sites shooting us?

>>15861124
> Did you suddenly read Vedi's mind and know that the aliens even existed 65000 years ago?

The alien that we dissected existed in our 65k year old databanks. Its species had been around that long and accomplished NOTHING beyond stealing Imperial property.

It's clear as day that in this setting xenos are inferior to humans in mental capacity. This attack once again shows that they clearly have no ability to reason, just like all our previous encounters with xenos, before, during, and after the nova.

And the fact that they only have single examples of our technology means that they couldn't duplicate it, so it means that they could reverse engineer anything.

>>15861124

I've read the threads dude. I have the power of reading comprehension. I am rational and can read between the lines. Vedibere is very competent at building settings and has always included pointers, hints, and foreshadowing that helps explain the setting. There's been absolutely no mention of any precursors before humans.

Humans ARE the precursors for the aliens, but humanity had no one to learn from.

>>15861125

The Ophidian Empire was an *Empire* with many subject species all bending their knee-equivalents to Humanity. You don't build empires by exterminating everyone wholesale. You make judgement calls, and you decide when the trouble a species has caused in the process of integrating it is too much trouble.

The commander in charge of running an occupation and integration would be trained to not flip off the handle. His superiors would want him to use his brain. And in our case, we have one giant and expensive brain.

So let's at least be willing to use it.

>>15861147
You really don't have enough information to make that claim. We know that humanity would wipe aliens out if they fought after they were defeated in some cases, but we don't know if a bunch of terrorists could get your species wiped out by virtue of sharing a general appearance. I figure we only kill them all if this was really the will of them all, and otherwise simply demand the aliens round up those responsible; or we will. From orbit. With heavy lances.

>>15861151
Yeah, because the Westboro baptists have access to multiple intercontinental missile bases (or in this case inter-system lasers) and, in our case, manage to get a strike team and a nuclear bomb on a shipyard that is probably impossible to get on without the governments consent.

no to extermination

ffs

it gets us nothing

>>15861151
> implying humanity would be stupid enough to let that happen

>>15861124
>Did you suddenly read Vedi's mind and know that the aliens even existed 65000 years ago?
Not the guy you're arguing with, but Vedibere did lay out that their modern evolutionary history started about 55,000(+/- 20%) years ago, and that their civilization is 7,000 years old.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15760403#15760403

You xenofags are in the wrong quest. It's clear that in this setting, xenos are simply inferior to humans. Look at all the technology, all the culture, all the behavior, and it's plain to see that in this setting they're barbarians to our space rome. Don't like that? Then too fucking bad.

>>15861183
>implying it isn't

>>15861182
It prevents shit like this from happening. We just lost one of the only 34 remaining human beings left in existence. The proportionate response it to exterminate 1/34th of the xenos in the galaxy, starting with these xenos.

>>15861199
>xenos are simply inferior to humans

Then why are they on the hull snuffing out our sensors?

don't bother exterminating the xenos, just don't reactivate their gates. strand them here, knowing that their empire is falling apart because they fucked with us, and there's nothing they can do about it.

More importantly, how did an alien boarding crew get through our sensors and drone net?

>>15861183

This is probably more like if the UN capitulated and North Korea went "NO FUK U NORTH KOREA BEST KOREA" and launched its nuke at the aliens while activating all of its infiltrators and spies to fire the few lasers they had gotten access to in space.

>>15861220
Because the fucking xenofags spammed Vedibere enough to stop us from exterminating the lot of them when we had the chance. It's becuase of IDIOTS LIKE YOU.

>>15861199
It doesn't follow from there that the response is to glass any xeno you come across. And we have all of two civs as examples, it is possible that in another part of the galaxy, a 20,000 year old race is going to start a campaign to create a galatic empire.

One thing to keep in mind, this species has an interstellar empire at the 7000 year mark in there recorded history. That isn't nothing, and if it isn't as impressive as the OIoH, well it has had only a third as much time to develop.

>>15861240

Mammy Vedibere we gots us a big argument.

>>15861240
Don't worry about it Vedibere. Though there's a shit storm going, the consensus is pretty clearly in favor of recovering Spoleto and then exterminating the xenos. Go ahead and just write that.

>>15861237
I laughed at NORTH KOREA BEST KOREA. Thank you.

>>15861240
I would like to suggest stopping here for today. I doubt we will get anything productive done in this thread. Which is autosaging with 415 posts, btw.

>>15861244
> One thing to keep in mind, this species has an interstellar empire at the 7000 year mark in there recorded history.

No, they're 55k years in.

send drones to save spoleto
blow up whatever is shooting us
purge the xeno intruders
blow up the shipyard
jump out of the system

is there anything anyone else would like to add, or would this work?

Maybe we should have a thread after the quest is over to hash out our policy on xenos in general. it'll save a lot of thread space.

send drones to save spoleto
blow up whatever is shooting us
purge the xeno intruders

>>15861271
they're warriors, not scientists, whaddya expect?

>>15861278
Destroy enough of the planet's ecosystem that the xenos on it starve. Also, seal them in. They're apparently too stupid to develop jump drives, so that will finish them off.

>>15861291
From xenos? Nothing of value. And they delivered exactly that. There was no reason to spare them when we first jumped in, and there's even less of a reason to do so now.

>>15861226
That's the really important question.

My guess is that the spec-ops team blended in with the xeno laborers. After all, they're just a bunch of reptiles to us, we can't tell them apart except for their caste markings.

They may also have gone silent on all of their computerized equipment, if they have any, to avoid being picked up by our sensors as anything more than debris. Since they can survive vacuum without suits, the suits they're wearing might be used to mask IR signatures so they just look like floating debris until they landed on our hull.

>>15861271
No, recorded history=/=evolutionary history. By your reasoning, the OIoH was around 3 to 4 HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS in the making. These xenos are sure much more impressive than humanity, they have an interstellar empire before we had the written word. God we suck.

>>15861297
>They're apparently too stupid to develop jump drives

not necessarily, who needs jumpdrives when there are jumpgates readily availible, with planets that are more likely to be habitable on the other end. don't misinterpret lack of a certain technology as lack of intelligence.

>>15861316
To be fair, they only have an interstellar empire because they're using the Gate network that Humanity built.
And they got a jumpstart on their civilization because of the hab complexes we left behind.
And they were only able to reach the orbital shipyard 100 years after cracking the atom while Humans were able to reach an orbiting body 25 years after cracking the atom.