>>27428552
Whats up with the highlighting in that image?

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>>27428609
No idea, it was like that when I found it.

>>27428552
I've always thought it would be funny to see a universe where humanity dominates the universe by virtue of our skill in literary criticism.

>>27428669
I love the stories based in this universe

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'bootin

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>>27428883

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>>27428669
I always personally thought it would be a terrifying scenario to get out there,explore the galaxy, and we consistently find that we are the the most advanced and knowledgeable species in the galaxy. Something about us being the closest to understanding everything seems darkly chilling to me.

>>27428845
same, wish I could see em again

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>>27428901

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>>27428917

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>>27428936

>>27428552
In the 90s Scifi TV show, "Space: Above and Beyond", the alien race known as "Chiggers" or "Chigs" were almost impossibly alien to us. They breathed methane, their behavior was almost incomprehensible, and we had no way of communicating with them.

Most upsetting was their horrific tendency to dig up human graves, and mutilate the bodies. This monstrous act of desecration had the effect of causing our soldiers to fight even harder against these monsters from space.

In the last few episodes of the series, we finally established diplomatic contact with the Chigs.
It turns out that they had been able to translate our language for a while... albeit imperfectly. When they came across details of the concept of human religion, specifically the idea of an 'afterlife', the Chigs interpreted this to be the LITERAL truth.
The reason they dug up dead soldiers and chopped them up? It was because they were SCARED SHITLESS that the humans would rise from their graves and live forever beside a superbeing called 'god'. They thought we were unstoppable monsters from beyond the stars, that not even death could stop.

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>>27428945

>>27428950
Death can't stop us.

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>>27429008

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>>27429027

>>27429027
You know, that's one of those things that always amused me about Star Trek. Klingons brag that they killed their gods.

Someone should point out that we tended to torture ours before giving the mercy blow.

>>27428950
Even in death, etc.

does anyone have the one of the alien telling his son about us after the son said he wanted to go to war with us like it's father once did?

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Think the first time I typed this up it got deleted without screencap.

The following is a paraphrasing of one of the most HFY moments on one of the most HFY TV series ever.

>The ambassador sighs, then opens a new bottle and begins talking, only slightly slurring his words.
"So, you want to know the truth about the first contact, eh? Why there are so many mistakes and inconsistencies with the official record? Sure, why not..."
>The ambassador gazes into his drink for a moment before continuing
"When our probes found their little planet in its insignificant little corner of the galaxy, we followed procedure. The same procedure we had followed when meeting new species for millennia: gather information, formulate a strategy, and take over.
From the moment we looked over human history, their weakness was obvious. We employed the same strategy we had against countless identical races before: Give them free stuff.

Conquering a planet is not so easy as the vid's make it look- the logistics of transporting, landing and maintaining an army are near impossible in real life, and that's not even figuring in the defender's home ground advantage.

With a hyper-violent species like humans, our response is much simpler: give them lost of fancy new technology, especially weapons, but not FTL drive. Then just sit back in a few years and wait for them to blow themselves up.

Everything in their history said that whenever technology jumped forward, it was immediately used for war and destruction. For the price of a few old neutron projectors and some patience we could have a free, freshly sterilized planet with pre-built infrastructure. Maybe even a few survivors to gratefully accept the "aid" our early colonists would bring, training them for their new subservient role without even realizing. "

>The ambasador takes a deep drink
"But that's not how it happened"

>>27429199
go on...

>>27429199
Just as I'm about to go to sleep. Damn you.

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>>27429199

>>27429257
>>27429279
>>27429295
No, no endings. Setups are good, but trying to finish them turn into shit. Leave it open ended you faggots. This is how you ruined "Gift of Mercy"

>>27429306
Cunt

>>27429315
Fuckhead

>>27429306
There's not much to leave open ended. Gift of Mercy was unique to read, at any rate.

>>27429324
The continuation was shit though. Just leave the story as "Humanity decides to fuck shit up" and leave it to our imaginations. Trying to describe it just feels wrong.

>>27429306
Open ended is one thing. But this story needs to go somewhere first to leave us behind.

>>27429335
I'll give you 5 guesses to how it would end. It ends with humanity conquering shit. Boom, end of story.

>>27429354
Truly a modern day Homer.

>>27429354
Well we all figure that, but we want to see how the aliens as imagined by the writer would do it. I could finish this story myself, but since I have stories to write for my group, that's just more work. I want to enjoy someone else's for a change.

>>27429381
*"aliens in the story would react", sorry.

>>27429306
>Not realizing that he's paraphrasing something from Babylon 5

Has anyone ever done a story along the lines of humanity being unable to do interstellar travel, then after discovering alien species that can FTL everywhere they develop weapons that can reach where they can't?

Sort of a fortress with guns aimed at other planets that they can't reach themselves.

>>27429484
What episode is he paraphrasing?

>>27429484
But that's not how first contact happened with humans. At all.

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>>27429199

>The ambassador pours the remainder of the bottle, tossing the empty container amongst the already impressive pile.
"We had gotten the timing down so exactly, done the same thing over and over for so long, we didn't even bother sending a scout ahead of the colony ship. I can only imagine the captain's surprise when he was greeted by the "Earth confederation". Claiming humans were descended from our people was a stroke of genius on his part. Oh, what was his name... I knew this, I think I even met him once years ago..."
>The ambassador seems to have lost his glass at some point, but as it was last seen empty he gives up looking quickly.
"Still, that boy knew how to think on his feet! Can you believe he made up that entire "galactic community" ceremony on the shuttle ride down?
(In a mocking voice) One of our most cherished traditions!
HA! Cracks me up every time I watch the replay of that absurd spectacle. "
>The ambassador retrieves a fresh bottle from a nearby compartment, but does not open it yet.
No-one knows how they did it. Maybe not even them- did they unite their warring nation-states out of fear of a greater potential threat? Did our rehearsed, empty platitudes strike an unexpected chord? Or was the mere fact that someone else could see them make them suddenly take a good, hard, sorely-needed look at themselves? Maybe they even figured out what we were doing and survived just to spite our arrogance?

Whatever it was- now instead of an easily conquered planet, we have a powerful ally! And one that feels indebted to the benefactors that helped them. That"s what the humans call a "Won-won" situation.
>The ambassador opens the bottle a raises a toast.
>end recording

>>27429504
>>27429518
First contact between humans and centauri is mentioned frequently throughout the series- basically they show up and give us free stuff, claiming we look similar because Earth is a lost Centauri colony. This is scientifically debunked but he Centauri give no public explanation.

The revelation I paraphrase is from one of the movies, "river of souls" I think, not sure. I already checked "In the beginning" and the quote isn't in there.

>>27429199
>>27429558
Oh, and can someone screencap this this time? I don't want to write that out again.

>>27429614
I had to wiki it. Looks like I was wrong... I thought first contact resulted in war with the Membari.
Guess I need to re-marathon B5!

>>27429630
I think the reason no one screenied it is because it doesn't particularly go anywhere.

>>27429653
No, that was the first contact between the humans and the mimbari. Humanity's "First" first contact was with the centauri. Part of the reason humanity got into the Mimbari war was because we were drunk with power after conducting our first genocide against a group of cat-people.

Anyone have that copy pasta from an aliums point of view where they get scared of us and shoot a warhead at our solar system and it blows us up and we go dark and then we come back and our entire race is focused on annihilating theirs and sends them a transmission about it?

>>27429730

Not really. it had a lot more to do with the fact that the Minbari are a bunch of crazy fucks who think that first contact scenarios should open with diving straight at the alien ship with your gun ports open as a "sign of respect." And then when shit goes south in a can, committing a war of genocide to cover up their mistake.

And then the person who caused it is supposed to be the moral high-ground character of the series.


FUCK THAT NOISE.

>>27429730
Well pulled an Exterminatus on a planet full of furries the second we got FTL and advanced weapons?

FUCK YEAH, HUMANITY.

>>27429940
This had less to do with the xenos being furfags and more to do with them being omnicidal maniacs.
Lo, as the God Emperor of Mankind wrote in his letter to the Dilgar; "Fuck you, that's our job."

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>>27429789
Here you go, Anon.

Praise be unto Mankind, and our eternal savior the God Emperor!
Today, the faithful of our dear congregation have made it clear that they wish to hear a sermon of the manifest destiny of Mankind. I shall not disappoint!
Some among us remember the taking of 33-17. Some, including our beloved Regimental Commander,
our veterans who wear the Order of the Iron Aquila, and yes even myself remember the thrice damned xenos of that redeemed world. Who among this congregation knows the reason why they are thrice damned? Come now, the God Emperor has your hearts, but he doesn't have your tongues!

>>27430133
Because they have not the holy human form, nor the light of the god emperor, and believe in their own pagan deities?

>>27430155
Seargent! You are close indeed. They were damned for the sin of being xenos!
Damned for the sin of not recognizing the divinity of the God Emperor and killing themselves at His blessed command!
And Damned for not having the blessing of the endurance of Mankind!
Yes, my flock. The xenos of 33-17 could NOT endure against Mankind, for while they struck quicker, and while they outnumbered our regiment 3:2, they could not endure!
Cursed is the name of the 17's! So cursed that our beloved Regimental Commander has ordered it as extinct as they themselves! They do not endure! For while they struck quickly, rushing with claws and beaks faster than some among our flock could track, they grew tired! (ctd)

>>27430197

I had the honor of standing at the fortifications of sector 16, my chainsword the chorus delivering the ministry of the God-Emperors wrath unto our brothers-at-arms! I saw the thrice-damned, and while they lashed out they were fast, aye, they faltered after only a few scant strikes! Who among this assembled flock is driven to exhaustion with only five strikes of a bayonette? None, for our Commisar is good enough to bestow upon us all his personal attention in ensuring our physical strength meets the God-Emperors expectations!
The thrice damned 17's killed many of our brothers and sisters at arms on D+1. And then like exhausted cowards they tried to slink back from our righteous fury! They loped gangly and weak across the mudded plains of their own misbegotten land. In his great wisdom, our Commander ordered us forward, and shoulder to shoulder we advanced, bayonets forward, lockstep. Oh, my flock to hear the sound of a hundred thousand of the God-Emperors faithful marching in unison towards His enemy is a sound that brings these mechano-eyes to tears at the mere memory!

Anyone know any good stories where humanity is the mysterious precursor race, and instead the story focuses on the younger races.

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>>27430273

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>>27430286

>>27430133
Vecause they're filthy xenos?

>>27430286
That feel.

>>27430259
Our enemy could not endure! For eleven hours we marched forward under that purple sky and across that orange xenos grass. It was in the third hour that they began to drop! A cadet fresh from his mothers teat can last longer than that with the assitance of a Commisar. And yet the thrice damned dropped, their airsacks heaving, iodine spittle at their beaks at the inevitable, inexorable march of HUMAN BOOTS! Las-shots cracked and barked, and the layabouts couldn't even muster the dignity to die on their feet! They lay exhausted as we bayonetted them, as we ground their still heaving bodies into the dirt under us! As their blood turned the plains to mud, I had a revalation!
That is the lesson of todays sermon, dear faithful! Our enemies may outnumber us. They may seem faster! They may even seem stronger! But THEY CANNOT ENDURE! OUR VICTORY IS INEVITABLE! It may take only a day. It may take a hundred years, but we will march them down and kill every last one of them. For this galaxy does not belong to them. It belongs to the God Emperor, and He has decreed that all those misbegotten creatures that dare to claim what is His for their own must die!
Glory to the God Emperor!
Glory to the Imperium!
And Glory to Mankind!
Company... Dismissed!

You must not war against humanity.

You invited me to this war council because I alone have lived among them. I alone have fought beside them. My words do not stem from a love of humanity, nor are they a plea for mercy on humanity's behalf. No, my words are a warning, on behalf of our whole species. We cannot win a war with the humans.

This is what you must understand about humanity. They are defined by competition and the pursuit of victory. Before they reached the stars, they constantly warred against one another. The only reason they eventually stopped was to focus on having wars with other species. When they do not have conflict, they actively seek it out by competing against one another in 'Sports' or 'Games'. There is no greater purpose for a human than striving for victory in competition, and to them war is just another opportunity for triumph. And there is no length they will not go to in order to achieve that triumph.

During the time I fought alongside a human mercenary company, I relearned what I knew of war. In the thick of the battle, the human I was fighting alongside was grabbed by an enemy Exosuit and thrown into a wall. The impact shattered his external oxygen generator and broke both of his arms. If that had happened to me I would have closed my eyes and recited the final litany, knowing myself to be defeated. He stood up, primed a grenade, and tackled the mech that had thrown him. How can you war against a species that refuses to accept defeat no matter how broken? A species so enamored with victory that they will give their own life for it? They raze their own cities to the ground when they retreat so the enemy will have no cover. They burn their own planets rather than let them be taken. Nothing is beyond them.

If you fight against such an enemy, you must be ready to sacrifice as much as they are. And humanity is willing to sacrifice everything. Win or lose, they'll make sure you end in ruin.

>>27430329
*makes the sign of the Aquila*
Praise the Emperor!

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>>27430286
>>27430295
sorry took me a while to find the last of them

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>>27430286
>>27430295
>>27430366
I have these saved because it reminds me that not everything about humanity is evil.

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>>27428552
The last part of the pic woke me up as to why the slenderman is so fucking scary.
It's US. It hunts as we do. It's what we are to our preys: so alien and menacing its attempts to hide among us, to mimetize are borderline unsettling, betray omg absolute other ess from us yet absolutelly unescapable, like it knows how we think, what we fear, where we'd hide. It's scary because it's a dose of our own medicine.

>>27430366
...Shit, fuck, that got me. That got me good.

I've suddenly realized that /tg/ is taking the place of the old Asimov magazines for me. Far shorter stories, and a lot more dreck- but the spirit is there all the same. Dig through the mediocre to find the real gems. That there is a god damn gem.

>>27430446
Also consider this. Most animals have a developed sense of smell. They tell each other by smell. Hunters used to mask their smell from them with dirt or mud.
Humans have among the most developed sense of sight. We tell each other by sight, mainly through looking at each other's face.
Slenderman has no face.

>>27430430
I love stories that end on a happy note, not a sad one.

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Here's a couple.

>>27428909
Especially after you'd realise we know nothing.

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And another part.

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last part that I know of

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A few more to throw on.

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A two part story.

>>27430573
it's always nice to see one of my screen cap's, even if it is the 2nd cap I ever compiled.

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Settle down kid, and let me tell you about these 'Empties'.

Back in the days of the Stranarkian Empire – yes, it was that along ago – there was a primitive race called 'humans' and the Stranarkians, being the paranoid beings that they were, decided they couldn't let this race survive. Their only extrasolar colony was demolished by an armada of ships far beyond anything that humanity could combat, and with all attempts at contact and diplomacy being ignored save for one message: a starchart of the Stranarkian Empire. It covered hundreds of systems, a boast that there really was no way humanity could hope to survive.

The civil human government began to fall apart, but the military seized power and began a massive program that they claimed would save their race from extinction. Hundreds of small sleeper ships would be built, each carrying a number of human colonists. Loaded with supplies, it was hoped that at least some of them would survive. The true purpose of the project was, however , kept secret from the public.

A full half of the sleeper ships were loaded with soldiers, equipped with the heaviest weaponry the humans had access to, and were pointed at the Stranarkian planets as a final gesture of defiance. It was suspected that the life support systems would fail en route, given how far away the Stranarkian worlds were located, but the combat AI in the servo-suits would take over and complete the mission.

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Second part here,might be more to it but I think this is it.

>>27430610

My cousin's brother's wife's best friend's ex-wife was working in orbital control on Ktarr Minor - yes, that Ktarr Minor - and detected a ship coming in for a very hard landing on the other side of the planet. The rescue party reported that nothing was alive on board, but there were a few suits with remains inside and so we brought them back to the colony so that we could give them a decent burial.t.

>>27430526
Edgy atheists everywhere in the galaxy.
Let's genocide ourself now if its true i won't tollerate all these Fedoras.

>>27430610

My cousin's brother's wife's best friend's ex-wife was working in orbital control on Ktarr Minor - yes, that Ktarr Minor - and detected a ship coming in for a very hard landing on the other side of the planet. The rescue party reported that nothing was alive on board, but there were a few suits with skeletons inside and so we brought them back to the colony so that we could give them a decent burial.

Midflight the rescue party's ship failed to respond to hails following some erratic flying, but scanners detected that their transponder had failed so no-one thought there was a reason to panic - border world, old equipment fails mall the time and they assumed it was just a system failure. The only odd thing was the ship's computer was downloading an awfully large amount of data from the central core.

>>27430639

Obviously all she had access to was the transponder data and unencrypted communications, but what she saw was that the ship followed standard approach procedure towards the landing field until it flew over the centre of the colony, upon which the ships hastily descended and crashed into the main governmental building. She then heard reports of suited figures emerging from the flames, massacring the survivors and any bystanders. The last contact from the surface reported the spaceport was being overrun by eerily silent figures who could take a plasma bolt to the chest, have half their torso vaporised and pick themselves back up and carry on. After that nobody's really sure what caused the explosion that destroyed the colony, but a simultaneous overload of the central power grid combined with the detonation of the emergency reactor fuel stockpiles would do it.

Orbital Control naturally panicked, and called for help. The garrison on Ktarr Prime sent a reaction force, but when they landed there was nothing left of the colony but a smoking crater and a few badly damaged emergency data recorders. One of them was the internal monitor from the rescue ship, and even through all of the static and data corruption you could hear the terror of the crew as the supposedly dead creatures rose up and slaughtered them all with the calculated brutality of a machine designed for nothing but death

>>27430652

You see, back in the days of the Stranarkians Ktarr Minor was a major refueling point for their armadas. The humans must've pointed one of their attack craft towards it and hoped for the best, not realising that Stranarkia would fall centuries before their dead soldiers arrived.

Of course, the official investigation told us that it was renegades from the Outlier Cluster, but who're you going to trust – some poltician who's scheming to advance his own agenda and hasn't seen anything past his own constituency or me, a seasoned starship captain who's seen things that'll flash freeze your blood and thaw it out again before you can even think about screaming? It was the Empties I tell you, the Empties! Spirits of vengenace from a long dead species, uncaring as to the identity of their victims and driven by a single line of logic – revenge.

Now remember what I told you earlier, about how half of the human ships carried colonists? What if, somewhere out there in the depths of unexplored space, one of those ships defied the odds and made it? What if there's a world covered in enraged monsters, biding their time and contemplating revenge?

I've told you what their dead can do kid, and I lose sleep at night imagining what their living are capable of.

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A short one.

Holy fuck I love all of this. Outside of WH40K are there any HFY RP settings?

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Another short one.

Nice to see some OC in this thread!

>>27430703

Haven't seen this one before, top lel

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skimming them as I put them up,been a hot minute since I looked at them.

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>>27430716
I can't claim it,some of these are 1-2 years old or so.

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gonna leave off here.

>>27430721
Easily my favorite so far

Anyone have the one that talks about Humanity joining an interplanetary group and entering a collective species consciousness, before being attacked and forsaking it to wage a proper war?

"The Empties" has to be by far my most favorite story so far.

I'm saving it and throwing it into the next game it becomes relevant to I run.

Does anyone have the one with Zaeed saying we're a bunch of mouth breathing retards and how it makes up the perfect masters of the post apocalyptic universe?

>>27428936
Ehhhh I don't like this one as much. Comes off wrong and does not feel very FUCK YEAH

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>>27430789

Thanks anon, you just made my day

>>27430512
Stories like this one always bothered me a little.

I can understand it's a different take on things; normally the aliens are much stronger than we are. But I think it's also fairly unrealistic to classify Earth as a deathworld and make everything else pitifully weak.

We have sentience because intelligence and the ability to reason were selected for. We had selective pressures in place that selected for the ability to out think predators. Without these selective pressures, there would have been no reason to develop sentience; and while it could have happened over time through freak random mutation, that is comparable to the old monkeys on type writers adage, only billionfold.

I guess what I'm saying is that sentient species are almost certainly going to come from environments hostile to them. Because their planet needs to force them to adapt in order for them to grow. Through predation, environmental change, and so on. This does not necessitate that species "grow a brain" as it were. With a small enough generation time, they can adapt. But it selects for the ability to adapt, just as much as it selects for biological adaptations.

Naturally we could assume they'd have to be tool users of some form (unless they are something similar to the 'nids), and would have sufficient strength and appendages to craft and utilize their tools. Furthermore, the gravity couldn't be too much lower: a planet much smaller (read: mars) wouldn't be able to keep an iron core hot enough to generate a magnetic field and protect the planet from solar wind which would otherwise strip away the atmosphere (and we're still exposed to enough radiation to give us cancer, even with the o-zone in place).

Idunno. Just my musings on the subject. It probably bothers me more than it should, considering I took the time to write this all out.

>>27430590

Personal favourite.

>>27429036
Ha

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>>27429630
i was bored....

>>27430863

Can you cap that Empties one please?

>>27430830
See, I agree with you, but by the same token, that's sort of the apex of what HFY is. It's conceivable that live on a planet such as ours is an anomaly, and that while other races needed some evolutionary pressures to get to sentience, theirs were a lot less dangerous than ours.

I guess what I'm saying is that one the one hand I agree with you, but I still like reading stories where we're invincible badasses.

fookin love the empties one, stealing it as well.

>>27430877
im gonna try and cap them all,

>>27430830
I always assume in stories like this that the primary evolutionary prompt for these planets was competition for resources rather than biological hazards, especially since these stories often talk about Earth being relatively large. In a situation like that, mental progress without physical could be possible.

>>27430286
Daww

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>>27430770
This one?

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>>27430892

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>>27430925
tell me if i miss anything

>>27430937
Thanks, Anon

>>27430920
Thank you, kind Anon.

>>27430366
And then we blasted them out of the sky.

>>27430519
I think that's the biggest part of it actually. As humans, we can comprehend that we're ignorant, and in the long run, stupidly short sighted. If we also happen to be the most advanced and generally most learned race... well fuck. That doesn't say much for the universe.

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another one

>>27431049
*high Five*

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>>27431049

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>>27430626

>>27431073
im pretty sure he left over an hour ago

>>27430908
I suppose that is definitely a possibility. Though I'm not exactly certain that scarce resources would necessitate reason, competition for them could. Ultimately the selective process for thought requires situations where the subject needs to take in data, determine options, and respond appropriately. I believe the easiest way to achieve that would be competition, be it fighting predators or fighting for resources. I think we could get into a fascinating discussion on the development of intelligence and higher thought processes, but I believe you've made your point for the moment. I accounted for competition over resources, but I didn't think to account for the possibility that it alone could drive a species to sentience.

But I suppose the kicker in regards to strength is ultimately planet size. I'm not sure that Earth could be a huge world. The gravity of Mars is 38% that of earth's, and its ferro magnetic core quit a long time ago. However, if our hypothetical solar system had higher quantities of iron present during planet formation, I suppose a smaller planet with a larger iron core could last longer. However, the higher concentration of iron would no doubt cause the planets gravity to grow accordingly. If you were to take a planet of earth's exact composition, and a planet with a higher iron composition, and they were the same size, the planet with a higher iron content would have a larger gravity well. How much higher, I don't know. I'd imagine the necessary size of the core will also be dependent on the star's size or intensity.

Ultimately I suppose that it is possible for notably weaker life forms to develop on low gravity planets with large iron cores, and a suitable star

Though I'm no expert on the subject, just reasoning my way through the idea. One or more axioms could be false.

And I suppose some of the weakness could be chalked up to zero g, but I'm sure that any space faring species worth it's salt would have a method of combating it.

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>>27428910
>>27428845
theres more?

>>27431105
cant seem to download the pic, but if its the veil of madness, theres a few more of them, want me to post?

>>27430830
>Category twelve temperate

What I took from that was we were on the hot side of temperate. Its also described as "forever primordial" and it is "impossible" for sentient beings to evolve there.

This tells me that they consider it a mostly jungle planet where most species are hostile to each other and kill each other off before one can evolve to the point of sentience. The species are focused on out lasting or being extremely dangerous and there is no time or room for one species to take a step back and have enough safe downtime to evolve higher reasoning.

Its not so much a "Deathworld" as it is a world were it is to hazardes for sentience to evolve.

If you look at it that way its perfectly logical to see how humans are so much stronger, we adapted to a world that tried to exterminate us as quickly as possible. Other species on other worlds were forced to evolve sentience to survive but probably not as fast and they probably didn't need strong body's or grew out of herbivores or non hostile species.

>>27430336
Broke both his arms and then primed a grenade? Is that even possible?

>>27431157
HUMANITY FUCK YEAH

>>27431138
Not that guy, but I'd sure love it.

>>27431157
Well, depends on the severity of the break perhaps.

Assuming he only mildly fractured one arm instead of say compound fracturing, he could possible pull the pin on a grenade on a belt?

>>27431157

Pulled the pin with his teeth

>>27431157
Its a future space grenade.

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i think this is the veil

>>27431140
I can understand what you're saying. But the point I was trying to make was that peaceful worlds are not really conducive to the development of sentient life. Learning and thinking isn't selected for by having "safe downtime to evolve higher reasoning." Learning and thinking are selected for when the environment encourages them. That's circular logic, I know: "the selective pressures will be in place if there are pressures to select for that trait." But I can't think of a better way to put it.

To try an articulate it in practice: the great^9 grandchild of a cow is less likely to develop higher thought than a small mammal hunted as prey. There is no strong pressure for the cow to out think its predators, nor is there a competition for resources or to adapt to a new environment.

The small rodent, meanwhile, must face all manner of challenges which require way costs and making decisions. And when there are pressures in place that force the subject to make decisions, those are the pressures most conducive to the growth sentient though. You need to take current information into account, past experiences into account, and determine a suitable response.

While I'm not saying it's impossible that sentient species could develop in the conditions you describe, I do believe it's thoroughly unlikely. Occam's Razor and all that. It's not an unreasonable assumption; it's not often we have to think about how thought develops, you'd imagine that higher though just kinda occurred over time when we were laying around during down time. But really it's when our tiny rodent ancestors first broke that escaped from the Velociraptor by running and hiding in the tangled roots of a giant tree. (probably didn't exist at the same time, but whatever, you get the idea)

>>27431278
Damnit. I meant to say "The small rodent, meanwhile, must face all manner of challenges which require weighing costs and making decisions."

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>>27431248
another one i think

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>>27431338
im on a roll

Does anyone has the "hold the line" story? It was 40k related

>>27431384
Disregard that, I found it.

You would laugh, monster. But let me remind you.
Within that weak sack of meat and bone, uncared for by his god and wept for by none, beats a heart. A human heart, that carries with it the strength and courage of all of mankind. Within that sack of meat is ensconced the hope, the will, and the fury of every man woman and child from every corner of the Imperium. Within that weak sack of meat, festooned in thin armor and weapons only powerful in numbers, beats the heart of a man. And for ten thousand years, the hearts of men have beaten, strongly, in defiance of your so called "powers". For ten thousand years, the hearts of men have stood united against a galaxy that despises them for no reason save that they had the audacity not to lay down and die. For ten thousand years, your black crusades have been pushed back, beaten down, and made a mockery of, by weak sacks of flesh with cheap weapons, and disposable equipment.
For that weak sack of flesh that you so gleefully mock is no supersoldier, no immortal warrior, no creature cursed by chaos like you. He is a man, an Imperial Guardsmen drawn from some forgotten corner of the Imperium to fight for his species and for the safety of the people he loves. He is a factory worker, a farmer, a storekeeper, a father, a brother, a son, a mere man. And against creatures like you, teeming and numberless, powered by the very wills of thirsting gods... He holds the line. He has held the line for ten thousand years. He will continue to hold the line, for ten thousand years to come. And should an opportunity present itself to him, he will come for you. And it will be you who will have to hold the line against him. And he will be the death of you.
Can you still laugh, monster?

>>27430734
This is my favorite out of the lot. It makes us out to be bad asses yet does not paint us as the end all be all in strength. Also love the Phyrrhic victory slant.

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>>27431354

>>27431278
Oh I'm not saying they weren't in that situation, what I was saying was that they weren't in it to the degree we were/are. We are cranked up to 12 on a scale of 1 to 10, everything is so hostile here that everything is killed before it gets to the point of sentience.

They all had predators and environments to push them to sentience but they were only in a 5 to 10 where they were pushed there but they also had plenty of time to step back and not be killed off.

I just took it as they considers earth to be to dangerous that anything that could achieve sentience was killed off by something that instead went with evolving poisons to kill everything around them.

>>27431506
anyone got the veil one where this guy decides to watch an alien movie

>>27430811
>Transdimensional beings punish human hubris.
>Humanity responds through a hubristic attack in order to attain autonomy.

Of course it sounds wrong. Most of the HFY material dwells on humanity being able to be stupidly willing to be destructive towards "more evolved" paradigms, such as rational retribution, cosmic peace, and scientific discovery.

HFY usually deals with humanity as being so brash and intrinsically violent that other species are defeated through their inability to react in face of such a scandalously self-destructive behavior.

I think that, in the end, this is a mostly Western feeling. That of transforming the selfdestructive rationality of mankind into a weapon of selfpreservation. It goes very well with American concern about their self designated place as sheppard of freedom through opression. It justifies it.

In the end, I think that you felt that it was wrong because you care about things that are "meant to be", about trascendental order. The Gravitic beings represented in the story are authoritarian forces that opress mankind and which are repeled through a disproportionate application of strenght to ensure autonomy (freedom).

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>>27431248

>The holy spirit of Budhallah

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>>27431532
Ah, yeah, that makes sense. It'd take longer, but it'd work.

Earth is not exactly a stranger to mass extinction events, and I'm fairly certain that over 99% of all species every produced by this rock are now extinct. It is possible that we have an abnormally high rate of attrition.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if there were real "deathworlds" as we describe them. You'd simply need fast a generation time and rapidly fluctuating selective pressures/environmental conditions. Assuming the environment is stable enough for multicellular organisms to develop, it would definitely produce some terrifying creatures.

>>27431577
I have it.

Also captcha is: decisively ntcpti, which amuses me, probably because I'm so tired. Nap time.

>>27431691
ty

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>>27430366
Holy shit, I just realized, they are Kerbals.

Please tell me there are more veil of madness stories. They are just too damn funny.

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>>27432029
i posted all the ones i have, although i do have this funny one

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not Veil of madness, but i still thought it was awesome

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>>27431396
That was pretty cool, took a screen cap of it for posterity.

A lot of these stories remind me of the foundation of my own nation. We started out as an upstart province. Our leaders even promised to have us become part of the British Empire in exchange for full support, which they refused. Our first soldiers were pirates with river boats and fishing vessels, civilian militia's and foreign mercenaries. But over the decades we beat one of the world's leading superpowers so thoroughly they never recovered from it, and became a superpower in our own right.

One of Great Britain's most cherished military victories is a goddamn footnote to the war in our history books.

>>27432489
It's a pretty common screencap mang.

>>27432943
If you consider your nation a superpower.
Why can't I place a name to what nation it is?

>>27433012
We aren't a superpower anymore, you idiot.

Also, we had the luck to be sitting on a valuable natural resource just as it became relevant on the world stage.

“Thrusters aft, evasive ac—”
The impact was so powerful, yet so quickly over, that it was like a subliminal flash; one quake and it was gone.
Captain Blair Santos quivered in his command seat like a thrown knife, bellowing out of the side of his mouth without turning his face for an instant from the field-of-combat display. “Status!”
His Control first, Lieutenant Don Perkins, spun to face him. “It was a grazing blow, sir. Took off an entire section of the lower deck, but our lateral motion was enough to carry it past us instead of gutting the ship.”
Santos pulled up a quick wireframe schematic of the damage. The piece carved cleanly from the side of the ship looked like a bullet wound. Fortunately, though, the decks hit were only storage and auxiliaries—the damage was minimal.
“All right, keep moving, keep moving! Steph,” his voice was suddenly compassionate, “how are you doing?”
The officer on Helm, Second Lieutenant Stephanie Swift, nodded her head at him slightly with a quick, jerky motion. Her hands were flying over her command board in an uninterrupted stream; a sheen of sweat glistened on her face. Santos grimaced and rubbed one of his fingers across the knuckles of his left fist. She wasn’t even the Helm first; his first had gone down with a nasty mutation of the space virus, and Swift, the second, had been brought up to fill in for her shift.
Now, she was running sequence after sequence of overlapping evasive maneuvers, manhandling the ship on one cracked engine chamber, and despite it all, managing to bring the ship about for repeated strafing runs on the Vaas cruiser.

He wasn’t sure if he could have handled the burden. It was a wonder that she could.
A new voice cut in from the side.
“Launch, launch! Plasma launch, twelve MPs off port!”
Santos whirled once more to confront the massive, glowing projection of the field-of-combat holopanel. The FOC was shimmering and flickering with a chaotic mixture of blue, red, white, and green dots; golden threads connected them with tiny boxes of text displaying sensor readings and data tags.
“What’s the velocity?” He addressed the question to the empty air. The sensor officer picked it up.
“1200 feet per second, sir. Accelerating.”
Fast one. Shit.
“All about, give me as much speed as you can. See if you can maintain those engines at 80%.” One of the three engines had sustained a huge crack in yesterday’s engagement when a pulse of plasma had passed too close. Last-minute heroics from engineering had been enough to keep it partially running, enough to fight with, but Santos had been assured that if he pushed it to hard, it would melt down.
“C’mon, let’s sprint the bastard for the finish! Aft camera, magnify to size.”
The camera’s vision doubled, tripled, and finally found the approaching plasma torpedo with a 10x visual magnification. Looming on the screen, it closed with terrifying speed.

Nervously, Santos gave a compulsive smack of his palm against the side of his chair. “Faster, you shit!”
With any other bridge crew, he reflected, people would be starting to wonder by now. The catalog of engagements against the Vaas, mostly crushing defeats with horrifying losses, told one thing for certain: evade, escape, or destroy the enemy before they let off a shot, but of all things, you will never, ever outrun them.
The officers worked quietly and efficiently at their various tasks, nobody giving off even a murmur of dissent.
Such trust could be dangerous.
“Plasma closing,” the sensor officer reported calmly. Lieutenant Steven Donahue was a lifer, a veteran of a dozen engagements against the Vaas; he spoke as if he were ordering dinner. “Impact imminent.”
With a quick hand, Santos set collision alerts ringing throughout the ship. Then, facing forward, he fixed his gaze on his command display and issued a series of machine-gun orders.
“Positional thrusters, rotate to 70° contraspin. Give me two sets of emergency thrusters online and hot, route control to my board. Side camera! And don’t let up that speed.”
With his eyes, he tracked the approach of the shot on his display and the visual screen. 10,000 . . . 5000 . . . too fast.

Quietly, he said, “No matter what happens, Stephanie, don’t stop what you’re doing.”
He wasn’t sure if she’d heard him. He prayed that she had.
Suddenly, with only a momentary flash of unmistakable light as its harbinger, the massive charge of molten plasma was on the side-viewing camera—and with a hammering fist, he slammed into activation every emergency thruster he had.
The entire bridge of the Defiant seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.
Then, in the space of one infinitesimal mote of time and the next, it leapt fifty horizontal meters, and cleanly, neatly, the charge of plasma slipped through the gap in the keel of the cruiser.
Thrown against the side of his console with brutal force, Santos wrenched himself back into his seat, every muscle aching. The plasma was on the screen, then past—coughing, he croaked out, “Aft,” and the sensor officer flicked the main display to the aft camera—there it was, turning in a tight, elliptical arc. Half of the glowing mass was dissipated already into the surrounding maw of vacuum, and the charge was moving more slowly, but it was still very much there.
He coughed around bruised ribs. “Control,” he said, “damage?”
He could sense Perkins shaking his head. “Disregardable. Some bubbling of the hull from the close pass. Cauterized a few conduits.” Santos turned slightly now, to see Perkins exhaling, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. “That was a . . . hell of a move, sir.”
Maybe. Santos decided not to mention how much of a role luck played in such maneuvers. Luck and desperation. Some things were better left unsaid. “Let’s make it worth something.

“Weps, what’s your status?”
The lumbering Sam Deville looked up from the weapons station. “We lost a couple dozen missile pods from that stunt of yours. Cooked off right in the chambers. SLAM-C is hot and ready.
“Battery’s as charged as it’s going to get with one engine on the fritz. Laser CIWS and point-defense online.” Deville shifted uneasily. “All ten of the nukes are still off-safe and armed. You’re sure—”
“Yes.” He didn't have time to debate the exigency of that particular order. Not now. “Countermeasures are active?”
The weapons officer gave a perceptible tilt of his head. “Yes, sir.”
The plasma was back on the screen, streaking in for the kill.
“Very well. Helm, prepare for cold-start burn, 30 degree starboard rotation and all speed. Weps, on my signal—” No, that wouldn’t work. No time. “Belay that. On the signal to burn, I want you to launch every rear chaff pod that we have.”
Deville blinked. “Chaff?”
“Now!”
It was a credit to their training that despite being bewildered, they both moved instantly and simultaneously, with absolute faith in his orders.
A thought chased across his head. These are the kind of people we’re fighting for.
As the Defiant exploded into motion, Deville entered a rapid-fire string of commands, bringing online and then autosalvoing the entire rear array of 250 chaff pods. They blew out in a thick, silent, glimmering cloud, filling the air with hundreds of pounds of electrically-charged shrapnel.

The ship screamed in protest as Lieutenant Swift squeezed every last joule of energy from the agonized engines. A cold burn brought the engines into use faster than anything else, but its output of power was stutteringly irregular until the tubes could catch up to the heat of the reactors.
They were just beginning to gain real speed, pulling toward the altered course, when the remaining plasma struck the cloud of steel chaff.
It was like watching a tidal wave smash through fifty miles of dense cotton. At first, the enormous, powerful blast of molten fire tore through the storm of metal like a cannon through glass. But slowly . . . ever so slowly, it seemed to stumble, as if tripping on its own weight, and catch, and lose coherence.
The Defiant, desperately scrambling for velocity, arched onto its new heading—just as the shreds of the plasma ripped out of the metallic haze. Its energy dispersed, its containing field ruined, it was literally torn to fragments.
It missed the Defiant by five hundred meters, and sailed past into space, all control lost.
The chaff field was almost wholly destroyed; its pieces had been first vaporized, then slowly condensed into liquid, and finally solidified into a single, massive sphere of ruined metal.
Santos released his death grip on the arms of his chair, closed his eyes, and took three full, deep breaths. Only then did he look up once more at the FOC display and begin to think.
He considered doing a full status round of the bridge crew, as was proper, but decided not to bother. “Anything drastic I should know about?”
Shaking of heads.

>>27433035
Humanity fuck yeah thread's are not a place for you to stoke your nationalistic prick, go to /int/ or /pol/ if you want to do that.

“Okay. Steve,” he said, “What’s that Vaas bastard up to?”
The sensor officer consulted his board.
“She's . . . still just sitting there, sir. I don’t . . . I don’t know. She hasn’t moved an inch, but readings still have her fully powered and active.”
Perkins looked over at Santos. “Maybe a mobility kill, sir? That nuke we threw at her might have nailed something with EMP.”
Santos shook his head. “Doubtful. EMP’s never done shit in any previous engagements.”
“We did put a few SLAM-C rounds down her gullet before that, sir. Maybe something got jarred loose. Or maybe another ship got to her before us and damaged her.”
Sighing, Santos massaged his temples, trying to mitigate the pounding in his head. “Maybe. But in any case, they’ve still got their guns—so they’re still dangerous.
“Especially this son of a bitch. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not normal.”
Deville spoke up. “There have been those rumors of that rogue flagship that’s been rampaging through the systems. Supposedly bigger than any cruiser we’ve seen before, travels without any support. And they say she’s taken on two full-sized task forces that were assigned to handle her and ruined them.”
Trying to smile, Santos got only a wretched half-smirk. “This would be the same one that they say single-handedly dusted the entire Tau defense fleet without taking a hit?”
Swift finally took a moment to lean back from her board. She looked exhausted as she put her two cents in—“That part’s no rumor, sir. My brother was staffing the Tau planetary defense center when it happened. Six out of the seven ships defending the colony, including the cruiser Queen Mary, were either wiped out or crippled. The Mary managed to jump out, but only on AI—everybody aboard was dead.”

She met Santos's eyes with her own. “I don’t know what did it. Fleet’s still saying it was just another attack force. But . . . ”
“How could a single ship destroy six of ours in one go, without us at least tagging her?” Santos scowled. “They’re good, people—but they’re not that good.”
“Permission to speak freely?” asked Donahue drily. Santos looked at him in mild surprise, but nodded. Donahue raised his voice slightly.
“They jumped into the system without any warning, but with an energy reading that was off the charts. They were using some kind of thermal ducting, though, so not even we saw her at first, and we were right next to her.
“Ten Broadswords. All of them were snapped out of space practically before they left our shadow. Then no less than six SLAM-C heavies—including the prototype superheavy that the Sanctuary tech heads have been raving to us about—and she took every one of them without even flinching. By the rough-and-ready color charts, her shields didn’t even lose more than 25%.
“Then the nuke, which Sam managed to drop practically up their asses, but that didn't take her shields by more than a third, either.
“Following this she launches her own fighters, and those frickin’ tricked-out Seraphim decimate our entire 10th Fighter Squadron, save for a handful. You pull ’em back, and it takes us almost 90% of our point-defense capability to finally hose them all. In the meanwhile, long-range comms are lost. Not that they’d have done much good—as you know, communication have been on the blink ever since the Vaas ship despaced in the system. What a surprise.

“And finally, allow me to remind you that she then proceeded to pump no less than three torpedoes at us in a single volley. This from more than twice the range of any previously recorded plasma attacks, and half again the speed. We dodge one until it sputters, we eat one, and we play with that last one until you, Sam, and Steph pull off a nice bag of miracles.”
Donahue crossed his arms and sat back in his seat. “And mind you, they’ll do this all again as soon as we get back into range.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but it sure sounds to me like this sumbitch could take on a couple battlefleets of our guys—especially if she had her engines.”
Grimacing, Santos fingered the exposed muzzle of his pistol where it sat on his belt. “But we have to do something. If this ship gets out of the system, god know what she’ll do.”
Nobody spoke, until Deville said quietly, “Yes, sir.”
Santos tapped a key on his command board repeatedly, trying to relieve the tension in his body. Then he stopped. The captain of a combat vessel could show a lot of emotions, but nervousness was not one of them.
“Don,” he said, turning to his second-in-command, Control first Perkins. “Options.”
He looked back at him. They both knew how short a list it would be.
“One. We do nothing. Wait here and hope that somebody comes by on a standard run. Tell them what’s up, have them call in support. Hope that whatever’s wrong with the Vaas’s engines, they don’t get them fixed until we have time to muster a fleet the size of Jesus and tackle her.

“Two. We run. Try to get enough distance between us to achieve FTL travel on a different vector than the one the Vaas’s guarding.” Perkins stopped. “But that’s not an option, because there are no other vectors. The only inhabited system within a thousand light-years is New Plymouth, and to get there, we need to go”—he pointed at the FOC display, where the single, massive, blinking red dot was shown prominently—“through that.”
“Three.” Lieutenant Perkins wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. “We hit them. We go in with everything we have, and hope for a miracle.”
Santos looked at Perkins, his voice weary. “And your recommendation, Lieutenant?”
There was a moment of silence. Then he coughed convulsively. When he finally spoke, it was with a tired, raspy voice.
“I think we’ve about gone through our quota of miracles for the day.” He coughed again, then subsided.
“But . . . I also think that hoping for a miracle is better than no hope at all.”
Santos nodded.
Then he looked around the bridge, and stood.
“Make ready what you can, people. In twenty minutes, we move. I’ll be in my quarters . . . ” He picked up a numerical data pad and started to walk quickly from the bridge. “Adding up our miracle.”
He exited, and the pressure-sealing hatch slipped quietly shut.

Thousands of kilometers away, the gargantuan, menacing, dark-hued figure of the Vaas behemoth awaited their decision.

“My ass you do! Let me see your sleeves!”
Corporal Tony Palomino put down his cards and lifted both hands above his waist, holding them out in the air with a grin. “Nothin’ but air, Boursey!”
“Aw . . . fuck you, man.” Groaning, Warrant Officer Taz Bourse picked up his billfold and shucked off five bills, balled them up one by one, then pitched them at Palomino. “God . . . damned . . . mother . . . fucking . . . scammer . . . ”
“You sure swear an awful lot for a career ah–feec–er, Boursey. You sure your mama would like that?”
“No, but I got something else that your mama likes a whole lot, asshole . . . ”


“Hot and ready, Scoundrel?” Major Sarah Hathcock flicked the “Test” toggle on her helmet’s HUD twice, then picked it up and began climbing the ladder to her Javelin spaceplane.
Her pilot, Major David “Scoundrel” Huntington, looked up at her and smiled. He tightened the last strap on his flight suit and scrambled up into the front seat of the plane, then slipped inside. A flight deck attendant wheeled the ladder away.
“Come one, weenies.” He muttered up at the high ceiling, above which, he knew, the Defiant’s bridge was located. “Just give us a chance . . . ”

“Load in!”
“Locked!”
“And . . . armed.” The chief watch officer in charge of the deck 9 equipment preparedness slapped the key to activate the tube and flood it with helium, providing a safe, clean atmosphere for the launch.
“Next one!”
“Load in!”
“Locked!”
”Armed!”
The first loading assistant lifted the loading tongs again. The watch officer looked over the row of armed torpedoes, taking a quick count. They’d been given a strict time window of fifteen minutes to work with, and they had to be finished by the time they battened down and returned to their G-seats for a burn.
A dozen more, and they would be ready.


“Attention, all hands.”
Captain Blair Santos released the mike switch for a moment to clear his throat. Then he mopped his neck with the edge of his uniform.
“This is your Captain.”
Once more, he hesitated. Then, wavering but bitterly firm, he forged ahead.
“I am addressing the ship as a whole to inform you of the actions we are now taking, to ensure victory and eventual success in this engagement, and to safeguard the lives of our fellow warriors.”
Too formal. Must relax.
“At 1400 hours today, as you know . . . we met in combat with a Vaas ship of unknown type. Shots were exchanged, and we fell back out of range to escape her fire. We have been considering our choices now, and have decided on a course of action.”
Around the ship, heads turned away from their tasks, eyes looked up at the loudspeakers. A deck of cards fell from a pair of hands.
“This . . . unknown vessel is of a kind we have never seen before, and possesses extremely potent weapons and defenses. She is a target of very high priority for the security of the UN, maybe a higher priority than we’ve ever seen.
“As such, she cannot be ignored.

“The most prudent course of action would be to abandon this area, and retreat to a location where reinforcements can be gathered. However, circumstances have rendered this impossible. The enemy ship has positioned herself, either by chance or by intent, directly in line of the vector-path we would need to take in order to escape this area by FTL travel.
“Nor can we speak with FLEETCOM remotely. In the contact with the enemy, our long-range communications array was disabled. Repairs have been deemed to be unfeasible. Also, the Vaas ship seems to be equipped with some kind of jamming mechanism that is capable of blocking our transmissions even if we had a working signal broadcaster.
In the fighter bay, a dozen pilots—the last survivors of the 10th Fighter Squadron—concentrated on the words with a single thought on all of their minds. Let us hit them . . .
“With these facts in mind, we have made the decision to assault the enemy in the best means we can, with every weapon at our disposal.”
Four gunner's mates slapped their last round into its loading tube, switched it hot, then, as one, sprinted for their G-seats to strap in.
“The abilities already shown by the enemy ship have made it clear that . . . any conventional attack would be futile. With this in mind, we have crafted a strategy which the senior bridge officers and myself believe will allow us to utterly and completely destroy the Vaas attacker.”
It was inevitable. A massive, unruly, spirited cheer immediately rose from the throats of every man and woman aboard the Defiant. They cried out their joy as one that they might be able to strike back at those who would crush them . . . and their gratitude that they had been given the chance.
Hearing, Santos paused. Then he clicked the microphone back on and said:
“Don’t cheer yet.”

>>27430734
This one's always my favourite, I like the idea that alien life wouldn't be defeated by our strength, our intelligence or our pluck, but by the horrifyingly low value we accord to each other's lives. It kind of reminds me of that line in Guards! Guards! when the dragon reads that guy's mind, looks at the history of humanity and finds it sickening.

The first step was simple. Every fighter the cruiser-class Defiant carried was launched.
Wave after wave of Broadsword interceptor shot into space. Then bombers, dozens of them. Then a swarm of Locusts, filling the space around the Defiant in a protective sphere. Finally, the few remaining attack boats of the 10th squadron: sleek, powerful weapons platforms that could turn on a dime, crewed by the most elite pilots in the Navy.
The fighters formed up and began a flight plan directly toward the Vaas cruiser, which sat motionless, deceptively placid.
They flew straight and unerring. To the man, not one of them altered their course by a meter. Arrowing in for their target, they surged forward like a silent and lethal tide.
Behind them, the Defiant rose looming.
When they reached ten thousand kilometers away from the unmoving behemoth, she attacked, and the Defiant began to move.
As a never-ending tide of Vaas Seraphim poured out into the inky space surrounding the attacking ship, and bands of intensely bright light slowly started to gather around her hull, the Defiant jetted her engines to their full, overload-prone capacity. One second . . . two seconds . . . three . . . four . . . and then, quite suddenly, they cut out. She coasted forward on inertia alone, as her fighters flew ahead in a dark, seething mass.

Then, first one, then several attitudinal thrusters flared up, spotting the Defiant's hull with sharp, piercing lights. Slowly, she angled forward, until finally she had reversed her direction: bridge, weapons, and bays backward; engines, cold and inactive, in front.
She had just reached her position when the Vaas ship fired.
The flaming, unbelievably intense ball of blue and red flame appeared and lanced away in a barely perceptible instant. But the streaks of light decorating the sides of the ship didn’t disappear; they barely shortened while she launched another torpedo into the night, and then a third.
The Defiant continued forward unwavering. Her fighters refused to flinch.
Forward, forward, forward—and the first of the plasma shots slammed into the crowd of fighters, liquefying five immediately and crippling ten more as it carved through their ranks.
The second torpedo hits seconds afterward, destroying another dozen fighters, including two of the 10th Squadron gunboats. Then the third shot, which claimed 8 fighters and six fully loaded spacebombers.
The scene was quiet for several heartbeats, then the Vaas fired again.

“Blue One, this is Shooter One. Break, break.”
“Roger that, command! Breaking formation.” Major Huntington slapped his helmet happily, giving a whoop of joy and twirling his comm switch to the local channel with his other hand. “All units, abandon formation! Spread out and do what you can! Good hunting, boys. Tenth, you know what to do.”
The majority of the fighters and spaceplanes swept away from their tight grid formation, splitting off into space and forming up for attack runs on the Vaas ship.
However, the remaining ten planes of the 10th Squadron kept their course locked, straight ahead.
With the five nuclear weapons silently coasting along beside them.

Captain Santos stood unblinking, addressing the busy field-of-combat display without a word or a flinch.
Nobody spoke any warnings or status updates on the three incoming plasma torpedoes. He could see them as well as they could.
One last time he checked the numbers on the small data pad lying next to his seat. If the timing on the attack wasn’t perfect . . . if they didn’t reach the enemy at precisely the right moment after the 10th Squadron fighters did . . .
Then he shook his head to clear it and strapped himself into his chair for the high-G maneuvers. Strongly, he called, “Lieutenant Swift, the controls are yours.”
Technically, weapons were always under the direct control of the senior weps officer. But Deville said nothing. The SLAM-C guns were no longer weapons now; they were navigational tools.
The torpedoes flashed on the screen—collision alarms warbled from the computer—
—and Swift slammed her finger down on a control, as the ship exploded.

Huntington turned his gaze away reluctantly from the alien cruiser that had been growing on his screen when he saw the flash with his peripheral vision. With quick fingers, he brought his nav screen up to show the view from his plane’s rear camera.
It appeared just in time to show the Defiant emit another blinding flash of light, and stumble forward like an avalanche. It looked slow, but Huntington knew how accurate that was—at these distances, she would need to be moving at hundreds of kilometers an hour to appear to be moving so quickly on his screen.
A third time she jumped, and Huntington at last saw what was happening.
She was firing her SLAM-C cannon straight down the axis of her flight, directly behind her. Her recoil was smashing her forward with incredible power.

Spitting blood, Santos swore as loudly as he could. Bridge discipline scarcely mattered at this point. “Talk to me!”
“The gun’s ruined, Cap’n.” Deville said breathlessly. He sounded strained. Broken rib, maybe. “Stress was too much. I knew it wouldn’t last long. The damn thing isn’t made to fire more than one shell at a time—and taking the dampeners off-line surely didn’t help.”
“Captain!” Lieutenant Donahue gave a startled cry. “That last one wasn’t enough, sir! Plasma compensating—it’s correcting its course!”
“Brace for imp—”
The torpedo burrowed into the Defiant head-on, with enough kinetic energy to rock the entire ship.
But Santos knew that the concave rear “bell” of a cruiser-class UN combat vessel was by far the strongest point. Hardened under laser furnaces, dozens of meters thick, and coated in a meter-thick layer of reflective iridium, the surface of the ship that was designed to focus the energies of the main engines could take an enormous beating.
“Burning through . . . inner hull pierced, sir. Plasma is dying out.”

“Taking fire, sir! We’re hit! We–”
Huntington cursed venomously. He didn’t have to wonder why his wingman had suddenly cut off his transmission; the windows of his jet provided ample room to view the sudden eruption of space-borne destruction.
Another flickering light snapped through space, and the gunboat flying left guard disappeared in a conflagration that caused Huntington to jump in surprise.
He swore again, and hit his comm.

“Blair, the fighters are taking fire!” Donahue stabbed a finger at the main screen. Two of the green lights signifying the boats of the 10th Squadron had winked out. As Santos watched, another followed.
“Looks like the V figured it out. They’re picking them off with laser fire.”
Santos breathed through his nose, emotionless. “Have we lost any nukes yet?”
“No, sir.”
Another light blinked out.

Silently watching his viewports, Major Huntington refused to wince as yet another of his squadron mates died in a blaze of heat and fuel.
Locking his stick on autofly, he released the controls and reached into his flight vest.
Removing a cigar, he took the time to light it and exhale slowly, looking upward at his canopy and marveling at how many hundreds of regulations he must be breaking.
Without looking down, he reached out for his comms mike and keyed it on. Softly, he said into it:
“Hold course.”

“Sir, they’re getting close to the trigger point. Should I tell the Broadswords and the others to break off?” Perkins, Santos observed, was having an attack of conscience.
“You know better than that, Don,” Santos said quietly. “If that bastard's close-in guns aren’t occupied, she’ll fry the 10th in a heartbeat.
He watched as Perkins rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
Then another light blinked out, and he vomited on the flight deck.

It was only when the fifth of his men had died that Huntington found the strength to look out his viewport and wonder that he was still alive.
“Distance, Sarah?” he asked gently.
His headset crackled with the reply. “200,“ his weapons officer told him.
“Right.”
Moving deliberately, Huntington moved his hand up to his console and touched keys until he had selected a no-security broadcast mode.
Then, eyes dead, he stared straight ahead and activated his headset mike.
“Heads up, you son of a bitch,” he said. “This is from the Tenth.”

“The activation point’s approaching,” said Lieutenant Swift.
Santos turned to look at Deville. He nodded back, “Ready to send.”
Keeping his eyes on the main monitor, Santos squeezed his fists until he cut into himself.
“Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . ”
“Forgive me,” Santos said under his breath.
“Activate.”
Deville tapped a single key, and five 20-megaton tactical nuclear weapons detonated simultaneously.
The Defiant rocked only the tiniest bit to salute the passing of enough matter to raze a moon, and seven of the bravest men in the race.

The Vaas's shields staggered and flared orange.

Dimly, Santos could hear Perkins bellowing into a microphone—“Abort, abort! Wave off your shit and get clear! All fighters, abort attack and clear area!”
Only the handful of spaceplanes that had been distant enough to survive the blast heard him, and swooped away.
“Distance closing,” Donahue told him, voice quivering only slightly—making an effort, in the end, to maintain the calm he had always kept before. “Collision . . . imminent.”
I should say something to the crew.
Santos lifted one finger, even touched the intercom button, but . . . then lowered it again, and moved to switch it off. There was nothing to say.
Then he frowned, and forced himself past the fog that was cluttering his ears to hear what was coming through the bridge speakers—coming from the other end of the intercom. From the crew.
Singing.

. . . will lay their heads to rest.
Sailors from the farthest seas
From the oceans of the east
Hear my rising song today
Hear the echoing melody


Santos closed his eyes, and behind the singing could hear Deville saying, “All five warheads ready . . . positioned? Roger that. Signal prepped . . . ready to initiate five seconds after contact . . . ”


Strong her sails and brave is she
Little ship with sails of fire


“Contact!”
“Light it up!”

As the Defiant slammed down butt-first on the hull of the alien cruiser, her engines finally ignited.
Flashing yellow, red, purple, then snapping and flashing out of existence entirely, the enemy ship's shields sputtered and died.


Molded with the every wave
Sail the clouds away from me
“Firing.”
Deville touched the red fire button, and sent the signal to activate all five of the nuclear warheads that had been placed in the chamber of the cracked drive chamber. In less than a millisecond, every one of the bombs received the command and pressed shut five tiny microswitches, deep in their hearts.
As they exploded, they funneled downward, the engine cone of the ship acting as a single, massive shaped charge, directing the brunt of the blast directly into the defenseless Vaas cruiser.

>>27430811
>god says "stop growing your stupid and can only throw rocks
>grow even bigger than toss a big rock (planet) at "god" for questioning you.

thats about a HFY as it gets

The seven remaining Broadsword fighters, the only survivors of the Battle of the Defiant, activated their FTL drives as soon as they reached an adequate velocity, and returned to New Plymouth with a tale of hope.

**FIN**

Thanks for some great reading, /tg/, and for reading!

>>27428950
>implying they were wrong in the slightest

>>27433408
do you mean
>>27433375
>>27433362
>>27433348
>>27433329
>>27433316
>>27433306
>>27433287
>>27433270
>>27433253
>>27433241
>>27433228
>>27433213
>>27433192
>>27433181
>>27433154
>>27433134
>>27433119
>>27433099
>>27433088
>>27433079
>>27433072

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screen capped it... took so long had to split it into two parts

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>>27433602
Part 2

>>27433425

I do mean those, yes.

>>27433393
that one aswell? cause i put it in the screen cap

>>27433710
Yup. That one, too. The comment limit made me have to freeze out the last sentence on its own.

>>27433035
still, who? also which of GB's most chersihed victories are you refferring to?

I hope you don't mind if I throw one or two more up, /tg/

***

Jason Hibbens crouched, sweating, panting, his heart throbbing and pounding mercilessly. The never-ending fire crackled overhead, filling the air with a heavy, thrumming charge; cries of distress and agony cut in from different directions, while the thump of weapons and the smash of explosions hammered in his ears.
Shaking, he reached for a better grip on his rifle, wiping his palms on his fatigues and repositioning the heavy weapon in his arms, settling the butt against the crook of his elbow like he had seen the other men doing. Checking his magazine nervously, he jumped and dropped the M-26 as a bombshell impacted several meters from his foxhole, shaking the ground and kicking up a cloud of smoke and burnt earth.
Agitated- terrified- he gathered up his rifle and replaced the clip. Another volley of glowing fire streaked through the sky above him.
He shouldn't be here.

The darkened room was warm but crisp, the fading Augustine season on Sirius 7 granting the air a light cheeriness. The cooler was barely ticking over, and Hibbens finally reached over to switch it off, leaving the room silent. He yawned quietly, arching his back and scratching slowly at his bare chest.
Jessica Lonehart Morningside turned her head, glistening tumbles of hair shifting in the dim light as she moved. Sending the blond folds astray, she rearranged herself and lay the side of her head back on his torso. She looked up at him.
"What time is it?"
Hibbens turned slightly, trying to find the indicator. The glowing digits remained invisible. He gave up a few seconds later.
"I don't care."
Jessica shifted a little, as if to argue, then decided it wasn't worth it. "You're due in at 0900," she said half-heartedly.
"I know it."
"You don't want to miss the shuttle."
"Don't I?"
She turned up her gaze. "Do you?"
He stared into the darkness. "I don't know."
Jason Hibbens, he thought, was not a soldier. Jason Hibbens was not a fighter. Hell, Jason Hibbens- the litany ran through his mind- Jason Hibbens was the one who avoided confrontation at all cost, talked his way out of bad situations, and took cockroaches outside to let them free.

>>27433886
>>27433912
where do i put this?

Jason Hibbens was also a newly-minted Second Lieutenant, Combat class, of the SolCore fighting division Field of Lightning. 77th division, the Dual Bolts.
Jason Hibbens was expected to lead a unit of twenty men to fight and die under the banner of humanity.
He closed his eyes, feeling the old pain return. Why was he here? Well, why else but his father? Wasn't it his father who had urged him to join up? His father, Fleet Admiral Third Class Cherublain, Ret., the highly decorated hero of Montag Four himself? His father...
Whose last words had been "We all have to give something back, Jason! All of us!"- right before storming out and stepping in front of a loaded hovertram in the Bright City expressway?
Damnedest way of winning of argument he'd ever seen.
He had brooded for three days, trying to sort out his life. Cherub had left him his entire retirement package, a pension that had been virtually untouched for years due to the old man's frugal nature and urge to work for his money. Aside from that, there was the trust fund set up by the grateful citizens of the Montag colony, a fund that was now stretching into the tens of millions.
No, Jason would not find himself wanting for money.

>>27433927
New story, my friend. Do with them as you will. This is separate from the Defiant.

>>27433928

So what was he going to do? He had no job, was just finishing college, and was without a place to live. Virtually anything he wanted was within his grasp, providing he spent sufficient time on it.
He had turned the matter over and over in his head a thousand times, pretending he was considering his options, but really only putting off the inevitable.
And on the second of November, solar adjusted, he had walked into the SolCore Marine recruitment office and pressed his palm against the plate that said,

If you agree to the above terms, sign here.

>>27433952
i gotta go to bed now tg, so i cant screen cap these, good night, hopefully i can screen cap it in the morning

>>27433976

Young and foolish. That was the moment that his life changed.
He had no trouble finding his way in the Marines. Friends of his father were everywhere, helping him, guiding him, finding him the best assignments or the choiciest positions. He had been carted off to OCS, then Advanced, and then Basic in orbit around Sol where the drill sergeants had never seemed quite so hard on him as the others. Then his virgin command on Deep Fire 11, a tedious post that lasted a year, then a training job on Mars, then a logistics coordinator's desk in Centauri Station, then...
Around and around, always finding the safest, the dullest, the most utterly mind-numbing positions in the most backwater camps and sites in the galaxy. Finally, a cycler back to Sirius 7, home, where another temporary situation in an armory was waiting for him, millions upon millions of light-years from the nearest round of ammunition fired in anger.
It was the most wonderful posting in his career. Jessica was there.
He shifted positions and she stirred against him.
His life had been a dull excursion into the safest danger anywhere, and he had been happy.
Until three days ago when the word had come down the lines. He had heard while working in his office, the loudspeaker ringing across the compound.
The Vaas had taken another planet. No news. It had been happening with nearly clock-work regularity for the past several months.

>>27433996

But they had always, beneath their mourning for the lost, felt secure in their invulnerability. The newscasts' constant reassurances were invariably based upon one thing: the research station on Presidium was still turning out its mighty drop commandoes, unstoppable in their power, soon to be fielded. The Vaas could not possibly withstand the military forcefulness of the new soldiers, and they would be smashed and overridden as soon as the army was completed.
But now Presidium was destroyed, the commandoes, gone. The human race stood in shock.
The alarms had started to shriek as soon as the loudspeaker shut off. The base was being thrown into a frenzied alert, every available body instructed to begin mobilizing.
Their ace in the hole had been erased, and the SolCore army was amassing its strength to fight or die.
His quiet, peaceful life sitting behind a desk had been turned upside down.

>>27434024

Jessica had her eyes closed, but felt him shudder beneath her like a tree in a gale.
"What are you thinking about?"
There was a pause, filling the empty air around them. "Me. This. How I got here."
She waited, caressing the muscles of his abdomen absent-mindedly.
"Jessie..."
She rolled over, turning to look up at his face in the dark.
"I don't know if I can do it."
He bit his lip. She could see his black eyes glistening in the gentle light.
"I mean... We're shipping out tomorrow. We'll be going to the front lines. To "block the spearhead of the Vaas thrust with a shield of men and ships and blood," as the press releases say. Sounds a little more honest than usual. We're going to bleed.
"I'm not a warrior, Jessica. Hell, you know that. I've always been the one who sits in the back, preaching prudence and caution to the foolhardy hot-blooded fighters. If this was a story, I'd be the cowardly old man who stays at home, giving out advice to the soldiers but too afraid to leave his hovel.
"When... when I get there, Jessie... when I'm staring down the barrel of a Vaas energy rifle, when I have to fight or be killed..."
He looked her full in the face.
"I'm not sure if I can do it."
She sat in the dark, soundless. He lay absorbed in his thoughts, until she broke the silence.
"You don't like the military. Why?"

>>27434046

"Why?" He frowned. It was always something that he had felt, but not much considered the reason for. "I guess... it just seems like such a waste. I mean, here you have a nation, a tribe, a race, whatever, and it's probably doing just fine. But then, it grabs up its very best, the young people, the strong, the fresh, who have their whole lives ahead of them... and it sends them out to die. Usually, for no good reason. Maybe they think it's important at the time. But, twenty, thirty years later, who's going to care? And they'll still be just as dead."
"You don't think this... is a cause worth fighting for?"
He thought about that.
"Well... I guess. But... I mean, you know it's going to get done. Jesus, every planet with a bullet and a primer to tap together are launching for this battle. There's no way they can lose. Why... why should it be me who gets killed in the glorious victory?"
"Why you?"
"Yeah!"
He stared at the ceiling. Jessica said something.
"What?"
She rolled over and looked at him, deep blue eyes crystalline in their purity. "Because that's what everyone's thinking," she murmured.
They fixed their gaze. She sat up, the sheet falling away from her full breasts. "Don't you see? Unless they're crazy, nobody wants to die. They would all be much happier if this never happened. If the Vaas were just to be suddenly snuffed out like so much smoke.
"But what if they all said, "Oh, gee, we're going to win anyway, why don't I let the other guy die? Nobody would be fighting, would they?

>>27434066

"You think that nobody else is having these same thoughts? Lying in bed, thinking of all the grisly ways they can get killed. Trying to muster up the courage to do what they have to. Maybe considering the ways they could skip out and escape.
"But they won't, Jason. They're going to go and fight."
He sank into his pillow, rubbing at his face heavily. He sounded uneasy. "But why?"
She was still for a moment, then, almost in a whisper, she said, "I once asked my father that, you know."
Her father had been a general, killed in the "incident" with the Tau rebels.
"Do you know what he said?"
She closed her eyes. "He said, 'Go out there, thinking you're fighting the good fight. Represent the forces of justice and protect the innocent. Well and good. When it comes down to it, unless you're crooked, that is why you're there.
"But when the bullets are coming down the field, and the shells exploding around you, and maybe you're bleeding and your sergeant's dead, that's not why you do it.
"You do it for your mother, your brother, your sister, your daughter. Your girlfriend, your teacher, your husband, your father. You do it for your friends and your enemies alike.

>>27434078

"But, most importantly, you do it for the man beside you. You do it for the guy in the ditch down a ways, with the mortar fire landing all around him. You do it for the captain, two foxholes over, who's facing the charge all by himself. You do it for your bunkmate who shared a cigarette with you the day before.
"You fight, and if necessary, you die, so that they don't have to. You lead the attack, desperate and confused as you are, waving your bayonet in the air, in the hopes that the man next to you might make it.
"You fight for the private to your left, the corporal to your right, the non-com behind you or the officer in front. You could die, sure- you might.
"But if you do... they might not.
"And that's a cause worth fighting for.' "
Jessica put her head back on a pillow. "I had never heard him talk like that. I found out later that the man who had been his instructor in Advanced, a crusty old vet in his seventies, had told him that when he was gearing up to go fight the rebels on Tau 3. I called him the day before the battle and asked him why he was doing it.
"That's what he said. Then he went out and they killed him."
She turned and looked at him. He was staring at the ceiling, a blank look on his face.
She leaned over and put her lips up against his ear.
"Fight for your friends."
She paused.
"And fight for me."

>>27434094

Lieutenant Jason Hibbens, SC Marine Corps nestled into the mud of the too-shallow fighting trench and clutched uncertainly at the synthetic handles of his rifle. Water and soil oozed into the cracks and chinks of the weapon. A light rain had begun to fall.
He squeezed his eyes shut, blood pounding behind them. His fists clenched, fingernails biting into his palms and drawing up blood.
But he knew. He knew.
Scrabbling in his pockets, he found a sheet of paper, miraculously almost dry. A grease pencil was in another pocket, and he pulled that out too. Trying to keep the sheet out of the rain and dirt, he pressed the scrap into his palm and scrawled something quickly.
Finished, he put the piece back into a pocket, and with unnatural calm, placed both hands on his assault rifle.
Then, he put a foot up on the ground above the trench and hiked himself onto the field of fire.

"For Jessica"

>>27428552
op

hey

can we talk for a moment

about how much I

HATE

How people on tumble always talk like this. The last post in that picture you posted, for example. Fucking disgusting.

>>27434144
I am not OP, and your point is certainly valid, but no.

No, we are discussing the humans, not the chimpanzees.

Anyone got that post about how durable the human race is? Like how we technically breathe acid, how we are one of the few species able to survive in water and such?

My issue with HFY is that it operates under the assumption that we're special in a setting with many other sentient species. I guess it's natural to want to feel superior but that only reveals a huge fucking flaw in our character as a civilization. We can't feel good about ourselves without simultaneously bashing someone else. My favourite HFY are the ones that aren't about how terrifying we are but how inspirational we are. That's what we're mostly about. We took a world inherently hostile to us and then built the sistine chapel. Now imagine that on a galactic level - we not only prosper in war, we prosper in peace. Humanity Fuck Yeah.

>>27434144
>being this autistic

>>27432943
I literally cannot think of a single country that can claim to be a "Superpower" at some point in it's history other than Great Britain, America, and USSR. Nothing else held that much superiority for long enough. USSR / Russia never had anything to do with the British Empire in terms of becoming integrated, so you must be Murrikan

>>27436677
France. Mongolia. China. It depends on how close you look and how far back you go.

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>>27430286
>>27430295
>>27430366
>>27430430
Okay, I might have missed one, and I haven't seen "level with me" posted yet...

>>27433602
>>27433619
I am 100% certain that this story has been posted here before.

>>27436677

Keep in mind that what we could call the "prerrequisites" for hegemonical superiority have changed across the ages, mostly because humanity and geopolitical power has shifted in its concentration. Rome and Spain come to mind as the other two crucial superpowers of human history.

In the case of the former, Rome ruled over pretty much everything there was to be ruled this side of Persia, having complete cultural, political, and economical hegemony over more than 30% the estimated population of the planet. Sure, it may have not been a global power in the formal sense of the world, but humanity was a lot more localized back in those days, and Rome had the reigns of a pretty big chunk of it.

As for Spain, there is a reason they call it the first Global Empire (the whole "The Sun never sets" phrase was originally coined to refer to the Spanish Empire, not the British): It had its flag planted all over the world, its currency was the first global trade value, its traders where everywhere there was trade to be done. During its Golden Century, it was the center of political, cultural, and economical power of western civilization, and both its army and navy were by a huge stretch the most powerful in the world.

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>>27430693
wut

I am so glad this thread hadn't died when I got back from work.

>>27430430
Those are my favorites. The ones where mankind gets to the stars and finds no ancient races. No forerunners, or precursors, no kindly old projenitors who seeded our world long ago and have protected us. We survived and evolved through chance, not fair play. And now we find that there is no cosmic justice. Young races are wiped out by competing races, or natural disasters, or meteoric impacts. And this comic INjustice offends us. Insults us to the core. How dare the universe wipe out burgeoning species with callous disregard? By what authority do aggressive species conquer?

And that's when mankind realizes its destiny. Not to rule, but to protect. If the cosmos will not provide justice, peace, and safety for its children, then we will. We will stand between the young races and oblivion. We will walk the void and put right the wrongs that the universe turns a blind eye to. Because we grew up without that fatherly protection. And we refuse to let any other child-race suffer that same neglect.

>>27428552
As to your pic: I don't think we're the terminator.

To our prey, I think all humans are like Jason Voorhies. We never rush. No running, no explosions, no coordination. Just a slow steady plod. But every time you think you've lost us, there we are, picking off the weakest or dumbest of your friends and dragging them into the night. We don't speak like you. We don't even self identify in a way you understand. We just walk, kill, and vanish.

>>27439816
Let's get some more of these stories. With humanity as the good guys instead of the monsters who rape everything in the sky.

I've had an idea bouncing in my head for a HFY story for a while, but I need either some random alien race name generators or a big list of species names.

>>27437393

I posted it back in 2010 in my first HFY thread.

No more?

>>27440354

I have more stories lurking, but they're on my portable harddrive and that's at work. If the thread is still here tomorrow, I'll post more.

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more stories!

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>>27439816
from the same guy who posted all these ones >>27437268

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>>27440891
also best HFY right here

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>>27440810
Here's the original Veil of Madness story.

Dredging my deep archives, not sure how many i have left, but I'll keep going until i can't anymore.

It's the human thing to do

also, >>27440810
you beat me my literally 4 seconds in posting that

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>>27440976

Even as my archives are used, up, i take solace in the thread living on

Someone should archive this thread.

>>27440810
That's the best stuff.

>>27441185
done and done

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/27428552/

>>27441185
This is seriously the best HFY thread in awhile, numerous OC, posting best ofs in series,

>>27441616
Half my day went to reading the stuff posted here...

>>27430526
>tfw the alien's name is yours
>tfw 'Kevin' is one of my best friend's names
It figures though, I'm the pussy alien and my friend is the bad ass. Gods damned aliens.

>>27432069
Did you just win a war with SPAM?

That's a borderline atrocity, right there.