http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19352504/Toaster, Cerebrate of the Swarm and purveyor of Nuke World, is in agony. Its form rests on its emergency escape platform, drifting through space above Nuke World as the engines prepare for warp travel.It is in agony because of the gaping wound inflicted by the cloaked Protoss warrior that managed to scramble aboard the platform before it was launched away from the surface, where Gorn's bodyguards are hunting down the others.Over Dagobah, Tassadar's fleet remains in formation over the Southern comm array, poised to cripple Cyberbrate's fleet of Love Muffins.(Scheduling: It looks like next week it'll be the 23rd for sure. While you wait, the Megas' History Repeating album is coming out on Monday. Who else is excited?)
>>19496755It was suggested last thread that we might be able to overwhelm the probably-Dark Templar slicing into Toaster by placing an immense amount of psionic power into a psi-high-five. Pic kind of related.What forces are available at Dagobah, right now? I remember we still have some love-muffin type cruisers aggressing the Protoss fleet.
>>19496755Psionic high-five the the assassin off the platform. then high-five the fleet repeatedly. Psionically shout at them, ask them what their mothers would say. Send in our fleets to take out their fleet, enough hiding out strength, carriers and battlecrusiers everywhere.>best urnmomAnd our best urnmom, though why we'd send an urn with someone's mom in it I don't know.
>>19496840>>19496868So, try to kill the Protoss with our mind before it can kill Toaster, and KAMIKAZECHARGE the Protoss fleet?Alrighty, the paper tells me that's 6d100.
Oops. Name must have been reset when moot did magic code business.>>19496945 and>>19496755are me.
rolled 20, 67, 39, 58, 36, 66 = 286>>19496945Forgot your name? And do you really have a chart for rolls, I always thought you just made them up on the spot.
rolled 29, 46, 13, 76, 50, 71 = 285>>19496945
>>19496945>>19496981I agree with the protoss killing with our mind thing, but I'm not sure if a kamikaze charge against the battlefleet of a capable Protoss commander would the best thing to do now. We could try to amass battlecruisers and divide them into groups (escorted by fast-flying Zerg) to use Yamato guns to harass such a densely-packed protoss fleet. They lack long-range guns. If a defensive line fails, we can have our Love-Muffin cruisers with no obvious weaknesses go in and tank the damage while sending Zerg forces to expand the wedge.
rolled 81, 36, 36, 44, 90, 57 = 344>>19497012>>19497010Wow, nothing really good. It sure looks like a stalemate. Maye we should add in some tentacles from an elder god?
>>19497025Fluff carries have long range planet glassing lasers, but still a valid point.
>>19497010I decided last thread to start actually writing down what each roll would mean and what you're rolling against before I asked for them. I was making them up beforehand. This seems more fair.If you guys had rolled exactly 2 less on the 4th die, the Protoss would have just destroyed the Southern array.>>19497010>>19497012We muster our consciousness into a psionic strike at the Protoss, trying crash into it like a raging tsunami, but the warrior's mind slips through our attack with a grace we have to begrudgingly respect. Thankfully, its mental grace detracts from its physical grace, and its murderous slash against Toaster swings wild, only striking a stray tendril. While it is painful, the damage is absolutely cosmetic. Perhaps Father is protecting His Cerebrate. We believe the Protoss can manage one more strike before the platform jumps to warp, taking them both to Yoshus and Warbrate's waiting ships.Over Dagobah, the Protoss prepare to strike at the Southern array, giving us an opportunity to rush their line with our armada. Warbrate presses at them with fury, and the onslaught clearly rattles the Protoss. After only a few minutes of battle, The carriers form up together and punch free, allowing the fleet to flee. Warbrate begins salvage and infestation operations on those left behind. Cyberbrate's relief is tempered by its knowledge that Toaster may yet fall.
>>19497169Hrm. Probably going to have to risk Toaster self-destructing.At least it'll be good to know if we can actually respawn cerebrates.
>>19497169Just the one dt to worry about... Quick let's integrate him so he'll just be a regular t. Or psicannon. Really I'm not sure what to do other than more psionic dickery.
>>19497169If possible, try to tail the protoss fleet with fast Zerg and cloaked Dropbservers.Toaster could attempt to use its tendrils to dislodge and/or damage the Protoss' weapon. It's a wrist-band thing with an opening for the void-blade. Alternatively, a more dangerous maneuver would be to fall on the Protoss warrior in such a way so that his sword arm will be broken or can't move due to a Cerebrate's massive bulk. From there, the Protoss would suffocate or be subdued long enough for the Yoshus fleet to deal with him.We may also want to start churning out defenses for Yoshus. If Tassadar knew about nuke-world, then he may know about our home base.
>>19497214>>19497229Toaster doesn't think a nuke from the surface will hit in time, and really doesn't like the idea of dying from one of its own missiles, but it's willing to try if we want. We can definitely try to strike the Protoss again.
>>19497265Oh, I thought the platform would have had a self-destruct on it.Yeah, just try to brainpunch it again.
>>19497265Who said anything about nuking? I made a math joke, dt, integrate, t, haha calculus.>>19497249Yoshus is really our only defended planet, a better idea would be finally fortifying Xenta. And repairing/upgrading the Tarsonis and Moria defense grids.
>>19497288>>19497214Clearly I can't read. Quick attack it with MATH!
>>19497323No math jokes. I'm in the middle of a summer precalc course, because I didn't feel ready to hop directly into calc. Apparently, I overestimated how ready I was for precalc, or underestimated how surreal math looks at 9 am.You want Defensebrate to start fortifying Xenta?
>>19497362That's probably a good idea. Tassadar will probably keep on the move, so we'll need to be ready for a strike pretty much anywhere.And let's make sure we've got plenty of detector units all over everything, goddamn Dark Templar.
>>19497362Xenta, Moria, Tarsonis, the place with the three moons that Salem Saberhagen is at, Dagohba, and nukeworld if it survives. You know the important stuff, but mainly Xenta and the Morian Republic.
Alright, the odds are still stacked in your favor on this roll.3d100 GO
rolled 80, 84, 57 = 221>>19497423
>>19497362Yes, have Defencebrate fortify Xenta, and rebuild the Tarsonis and Moria Defense Grids. As for Toaster, one more psionic attack against that Protoss.
rolled 81, 55, 65 = 201>>19497423>>19497431>stacked in our favor>roll like a champGood work guy. Here comes my roll to ruin your day.
rolled 66, 43, 78 = 187>>19497423
rolled 80, 44, 62 = 186TAKE THIS! Accountantbrate's grumbling, Nargil's curmudgeons, Gorn's MURDERDEATHKILL, Cyberbrate's restraint, Labbrate's curiousity, Warbrate's cunning, Internbrate's practicality, and Artisanlord's avant-gardine! And the collective wrath of every individual Zerg, from the humblest drone to the most vicious ultralisk! Our love, our anger, AND ALL OF OUR INSUFFICIENT VESPENE GAS!
>>19497444Also, more detectors around cerebrates, missile turrets and zerglings everywhere.>>19497362I may be biased, but calc is kinda easy, when it's not in the context of a math class.
>>19497482> AND ALL OF OUR INSUFFICIENT VESPENE GAS!I loled. Hard.
>>19497431>>19497456Once more, we muster our thoughts. Toaster's life hangs in the balance. We must not fail. Our psionic energy swirls, and the entire universe seems to hold its breath for just a moment as we slam it into the Protoss...And it barely touches him. His blade lashes out, slicing through Toaster's form. The laceration is aflame with agony that we cannot block out. It burns in our mind...but so does Toaster. The Cerebrate is severely wounded, its mind silenced by shock, but it still lives as the platform's engines flare to life. Warp travel tears at the exposed flesh, and even comatose, Toaster cries out...but it lives. The Cerebrate is still alive when it arrives over Yoshus. The Protoss warrior is not so lucky, arriving as little more than a ravaged set of Zealot armor and gore.(SWEET FENIX'S BALLS, was that close.)
>>19497566Yoink the Armor and flesh for research.
>>19497489It's been the better part of a decade since my last serious math class. These skills have degraded.
>>19497566Okay, get whatever medic type things we can to Toaster.Also an honor guard of Overlords and Mutalisks to buzz around him.And see if we can borrow someone's ridge scratcher.
>>19497566Yep, more security for cerebrates. Twisty corridors, laser grids, unnecessarily submerged hallways, the works.And make sure the ventilation systems LOOK vulnerable, but are actually teeming with horrible murdertentacles.
>>19497566>zealot armorWell that's not good. Now we have to assume that all of Tassadar's force is able to use void magic hacks. The ne rule is kill on sight.
>>19497566Get an escort to Toaster's escape pod and transfer him down to the surface as quickly as possible. He needs Creep in order to heal.Have Accountantbrate release emergency war funding to beef up security at all of our Cerebrates; this was far too close of a call for comfort.Make sure that all escape pods are checked over and upgraded with better systems, including point-defense grids, a shield that can close down on a Cerebrate, and a pair of Zergleks for defense.
I wonder if we can, on our orbital platforms, build a missile turret or photon cannon, and then encase that in a spore colony. Maybe we should just have the scicorp build a better stationary defense system. A missile turret with miniature photon cannons on it perhaps.
>>19497596>>19497444Defensebrate begins work on fortifying Xenta. Citybrate begins devoting part of the Morian and Tarsonis infrastructure reconstruction efforts to some fortification, there. Warbrate's floating form and four battlecruisers escort Toaster to the surface of Yoshus, where Internbrate and Nargil have set up a facility to administer the best medical care available to the wounded Cerebrate.>>19497584>>19497661Labbrate takes the remains. After some analysis, it informs us that the armor is almost completely average for a Protoss Zealot, except for a severely damaged cloaking device. The body is mangled beyond repair, but Labbrate manages to probe the psionic energy left in it just enough to confirm that it is the type used by the Dark Templar.It believes that Tassadar has managed to train his warriors to use the Dark Templar's energies, the only known weapon that can permanently kill a cerebrate.
>>19497747Well, it's a good thing he doesn't know that we may or may not be able to recreate Cerebrates. So those painful months spent training his rank-and-file Protoss to use Dark Templar energy may be mostly a cosmetic effect, in the end. This could open up a whole world of new possibilities with the infested protoss we captured over Tarsonis, however. Get the Zerg Science Corp to breaking the Protoss and integrating them into the Swarm. I want to see the look on Tassadar's face when he sees cloaked mantalisks tearing up his carrier with warp-infused psi-blades.
>>19497747Well fuck. Inform Kerri, and the other 'toss.Kerri might not really need to know right now, but I'd rather we tell her than completely forget it.And the 'toss will probably flip their shit over it which should prove amusing.
>>19497786That's true, not only has Tassadar gone against the will of the Conclave, but now he's a heretic as well.And yes, while Kerri might be safe on Earth, I'm sure she'd prefer to be kept informed of the situation in the Koprulu Sector.
What exactly makes a detector unit? Each race has a different equivalent and the Terran and Protoss versions are obviously mechanical. The zerg version of a detector is wholly biological. This means that with enough time and effort we could technically engineer a zerg bio-anything to have some amount of detector powers.Like say... the creep.
>>19497786Why would we tell the toss that Tassadar is teaching the only method known to kill a cerebrate? Seems like a bad idea. No we tell then nothing, the gave us a heads up, and well only tell then when we've killed Tassadar. But Kerri should be told of this development.And now that we have a breather, it's time to turn on the ol' psi compass, set it to toss, and go hunting. Labrate said he could set it to toss, but we never did.
>>19497865The creep doesn't work that way, we tried something similar and it got vetoed by CA.
>>19497865I think it needs a brain to be a detector. I mean, we could probably make the creep more sensitive to physical pressure and thereby detect cloaked ground units, but it would probably have some drawbacks.Better to just spawn more overlords, and hope some of them merge into Covertbrate or something.
>>19497785Ah. Thanks for reminding me. Roll 1d12 to see how many of those survived infestation.>>19497786Kerrigan slyly tells us it's a good thing she's halfway across the galaxy, then. Still, our link to her is psionic in nature. We can feel that she is nervous. We reassure her that we will kill Tassadar, not the reverse."Just...be careful, Cerebrate."Our message to Khas brings a different sort of response entirely."HERESY! Tassadar has forsaken all that unified my people, betrayed our deepest precepts, and spit in the eyes of the gods. Cerebrate, much as it pains me, I must ask that you allow us to assist you in destroying Tassadar. This is no act of insubordination; It is abomination."
rolled 11 = 11>>19497934Oh, he mad. He hella mad.Sure, he can help, by telling us all the places Tassadar is likely to hide out, and the places he is likely to NOT hide out.
>>19497896Oops. Didn't see this until I posted. So, um...sorry?>>19497865DetectorCreep is just way too overpowered. I allow some pretty ridiculous shit, but I can't in good conscience cripple the only things that present any threat to us in any way. In-game, the reasoning is that the overlords are detectors because of their MASSIVE BRAINS, and spore colonies because of their otherwise MASSIVE BALANCE ISSUES.Sorry.
>>19497934"He hurt my child Khas, nearly tore him from me forever.""You can find vengeance on the remains of his band of heretics and traitors, but Tassadar is MINE"Proceed to fuck Tassadar's shit in seventeen thousand dimensions.
>>19497985Since you decided Khas would go with BURN THE HERETICS! I'm okay with it.
>>19497934"Very well, Khas. Let the children of the Xel'Naga be united in this cleansing of an abomination from the galaxy."
>>19497953>>19497995>>19498052So, are we saying one of these to Khas, or what? He's offering an actual military alliance, which is unprecedented.
>>19498126This is the only time I truly regret not having my "Why not Both?.gif" on hand.
>>19497934>>19498126>>19498122This could be an elaborate ruse by Tassadar. I wouldn't put it past him.But eh, what the hell. Let's go with >>19498122
>>19498126I like this one.>>19498122Might make mention of that time we finished the Xel'Naga's work and killed a bunch of monkeys. Or not, no reason to let then know we broke that last remaining part of the worldship.
>>19498199Nonsense, the elaborate ruse by Tassadar is that he's been with the Jeal'tean all along, and that they're actually anchors made of Khala and Void energies.
>>19498204It's probably best not to mention defiling a sacred living temple of the gods...>>19498204>>19498199>>19498122"Excellent. This may be a dolorous obligation, but perhaps it is the will of the gods that we should be united in it. I shall have my ship readied immediately. When Tassadar shows his face again, we will strike at him together."Kerrigan chimes in, "I think you might have made a new friend."
>>19498226...and then we realize that we are actually a comatose Korean boy, hit by a car on his way to his first Starcraft tournament, and that the only way to wake up and see our friends and family again is to let Tassadar kill us...
>>19498253To Kerri "He followed me home. Can I keep him? I promise I'll feed him, brush his coat, and take good care of him. Pllllleeeeeaaaaaaaaaasssssssssseeeeeeeee!"
>>19498288But the real twist is that we're not a comatose Korean, but a mouse in a hallucinogen experiment. Fun fact, anyone can come up with better twists than Shama-llama-dingong.
>>19498288But it turns out that we were never a little Korean boy, but an ancient Mutated Cerebrate bent on universal domination through increasingly elaborate and convoluted means, we were just dreaming while Kerrigan secretly replaced our Ridge Scratcher while we slept.
>>19498321NO CEREBRATES.YOU ARE THE RIDGE SCRATCHERS.
>>19498333BUT CEREBRATE RIDGE SCRATCHER WAS ACTUALLY KERRIGAN ALL ALONG.Did Cerebrate Anon just derail his own thread with Shamalamadingdongsonglongchingchongchang?
>>19498321How DARE she! We're had that ridge scartcher since the second thread, and gave her pauldrons at some point. The KIngstontron butler I could lose, but not Ridge Scratcher #1.
>>19498345I am oddly ok with the rest of this thread becoming increasingly obtuse possible endings to Zerg Quest.I could always just decide that Feneschal never tasted death, and she'll explain that the Xel'Naga are actually psychic DNA ghosts who reproduce by setting alien species against each other in 50,000-year cycles...
rolled 17 = 17>>19498406that's so creative and cool
>>19498406Why does that sound familiar?
>>19498528Because it's what Keven J. Anderson and his wife want you to believe.Shadow of the Xel'Naga is a novel I wish I could purge from my memory.
>>19497953(OH! I nearly forgot about this!)While Toaster recovers (Nargil doesn't think the scars will heal unless it is reincarnated), Labbrate bears down on the Protoss prisoners. Their psionic glands are severed, as with the Dark Templar we've seen, but their minds are more vulnerable. Internbrate suggests that it's because of how recently the glands were cut, but it doesn't matter. One holds out valiantly, succumbing to the release of death before giving in to us, but the rest are not so strong. Of twelve prisoners, eleven join our thoughts. It has been such a long time since we have infested Protoss, we had forgotten how hard they fought it.
>>19498593Do we get any delicious info from their minds?
>>19498592I just got it from SCII. I haven't had the time to read the novels. Well, that and the local bookstores don't have them, so I'd have to order them online. Too much of a hassle.
>>19498592Never read it. Maybe god-like entities dicking around is just a common plot device, it certainly worked for the greeks.
>>19498593Ransack their memories for Tassadar's plans, and his base of operations.
>>19498693Seconding. We can meld their genetic distinctiveness into our own soon enough.
>>19498626Most of them were simple warriors, convinced by inches that the only way to destroy the Zerg was to embrace the Dark ways. Two of them actually believed that we had poisoned Khas' mind on its journey back to the world, turning him into our vile puppet. Of those two, one believed Khas would die forever when we fell. The other was unsure, but hoped Khas would be released.Aside from that, the details of the fleet are mostly uninteresting. Battle hymns sung before combat, combative prose to motivate the spirit...but one of them was of a higher rank, and had actually managed to hear her commander in conference with Tassadar. From her memories, we gather than Tassadar spent the weeks that he was missing training his army with the Dark energies and modifying observers to hone in on the psionic emanations of our cerebrates.Labbrate shudders. With their sensors adjusted like that, observers would function like our Psi Compass. Tassadar almost certainly knows the location of Xenta, Yoshus, and any other world that houses one of our cerebrates.
>>19498733Hmm. Than we either need something to dampen our psionic emanations or something that can be used as a decoy. Could we create a lifeform that's just designed to give off similar psionic emanations as cerebrates?That, and we should start reinforcing all cerebrates since they're going to be prime targets.
>>19498733Tassadar has been fended off of three worlds now; he may be desperate. He might try for a suicidal attack against us, on Xenta.We need orbital defenses around Xenta built quickly. And enough Scourge grown to blot out the stars.
>>19498733I vote re wiring the psicompas to track protoss, then we find Tassadar's fleet, warp in there with only zerg to make sure, then call Khas with the coordinates.
What if we made mini-heigh-liner-suits for our Cerebrates?Yes I am aware it could never work I just felt like asking.
>>19498802Have you ever tried to imagine a Zerg Cerebrate wearing a Tron suit? Because I just did, and it kind of works.Also, no.>>19498778The only way to do that would be to create an actual cerebrate. We can do that, and it might keep the Protoss away from the ones we know and love, but we would be creating children just to die, and we would feel every blow when they fell.
rolled 99 = 99well then lets open our eye and raise him to our side along with ships to defend us
>>19498983...raise who to whatnow?
>>19498733Before we infest them, let's get the Zerg Science team working with our captive subjects and the psi-cannons. See if we can get them to fire at a psionic frequency that either scrambles or disrupts Protoss brain-waves, but leaves Zerg unscathed.
rolled 12 = 12>>19499078toaster remember early on we grew a eye an you said we were on the path to becoming a new overmind.
>>19499122Er, that is, before we open them up for DNA and mutations, experiment with psi-cannons to see if we can get a viable weapon against Tassadar's protoss forces.Also, ask our science crew if doing these experiments will render them unsuitable for incorporation into the Swarm.
>>19499156Oh, we've totally got an eye. And since the Overmind's death, we've pretty effectively taken up his role.Of course, there's always chatter of using a Psi Emitter and that big, sexy revival crystal the Protoss have to bring him back. We miss our daddy.>>19499122They are already infested. That's how we can see their thoughts. Otherwise, they'd just be chanting battle poetry or their serial numbers or whatever Protoss do during interrogations.I went ahead and archived the thread, since things are slowing down, but I'm still here. I promise.
>>19499156No he didn't. You're confusing ooc statements with the narrative. Aside from CA mentioning that we have an eye to use, no other entity has ever commented on it.
Damnit, I knew I was going to forget to paste the URL.http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19496755/
>>19499222Let's get the Psi-Compass attuned to Protoss wavelengths and start tracking Tassadar down.Also get some orbital defense platforms above Xenta.
>>19498859Hmm, what about using a proxy? Bounce the psychic signal off something else to make it look like the cerebrate is there, but it really isn't.
>Psi-compassTune it to Dark Templar wavelengths, not regular Protoss.
>>19499285>set it to dtsIf you want, I mean sure it will help us find the Tar-man, but it wont help us spy on the Protoss Empire now will it? Khas may be an adorable puppy, who wuves us yes he does yes he does, now, but I never trusted him. Now I have the image of protoss with fake dog/cat ears in my head, and tron-brate was silly enough.
>>19499251>>19499285Sounds like a 1d20 roll.>>19499255That would functionally be a lobotomized cerebrate. The cerebrate feeding it thoughts would still give off its own emanations. At best, it would give the Protoss false positives in addition to genuine targets.
rolled 12 = 12>>19499377Eh close enough.
>>19499346This thread's off-topic silliness is much sillier than normal, isn't it?
rolled 6 = 6>>19499377Rolling..
>>19499395TUCAMP's starting to annoy me.
>>19499401Oh? Is it the thinking of the protoss as pets, or the paranoia about the Khala protoss? Maybe my lack of decorum? The ponies twenty threads or so ago?
>>19499388>>19499399The compass wasn't really designed with Protoss psionics in mind, but Labbrate and Cyberbrate are two of the finest minds in the universe, and they make it work.It takes several tries to get it to pick up the energies from our infested Protoss, and to quit pointing directly toward Aiur, but we finally get a result we think we can use. It's not completely accurate. It may take a few warp jumps and recalibrations to find the actual system that holds Tassadar's fleet, but it's a start.
>>19499455No, it's the LOL SO RANDUM XD bullshit.Usually you're fine.
>>19499476Alright, let's get started. Devote a couple dozen Cloak Overlords and Dropservers to track down Tassadar.
>>19499492The pet protoss might be a bit sillier than normal, but everything else seems fine. Paranoia about some group, and a suggestion to build some crazy hybrid thing-a-majig. Yep, normal. Engaging someone in a conversation about myself, only because I don't have to go into work tomorrow.
>>19499595That reminds me. Since we have never used our bomblords (overlord that's full of the chemicals that make scourge explode), we should consider fielding a few, Tassadar won't expect it, maybe.
>>19499597I don't know if I ever asked. Were you the fellow who changed his name to TARSONIS MUST BURN when Kingston was all up in our shit?>>19499595We've only got the one Psi Compass, actually. It's built into one of Kingston's old freighters. We would have to take it offline and disassemble the whole thing to figure out how it works before we could make more. Since it's just been sitting in drydock (for, what, 20 threads?), we haven't bothered before now...
>>19499688We may as well. Let's reverse-engineer that bitch.
>>19499709We won't be able to use it to track Tassadar while we're reverse-engineering it, though.
>>19499709>>19499748Let's not, until we have Tassadar, then we can forget about it for another 20 threads.
>>19499688No, that was someone else, but I was Zergquisitor (in my defense it was the third time someone was going on about machine code), but I think that was before I took up TUCAMP. And in the end Tarsonis didn't burn, but the Sawrm did rise again.
>>19499862It's kind of funny. I spent thread after thread shutting people down about machine code and psionics, and then about a year after all of that, we made Cyberbrate...
>>19499993So, we're tied at reverse-engineering the psi-compass.If we don't get any more votes, perhaps you should roll a die to see which way we go?
>>19500090(Huh. /tg/ seems to have just had a semi-major get. I hope the Emprah protected)I could flip a coin, if you guys want.
>>19500125Maybe give it 10 more minutes?
>>19500125>>19500133Well I think that's passedI'll bump this in case anyone else is around.
