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“Nature abhors rulebreakers. And few rules are held in higher esteem than causality.
I remember this lesson as the spent jump-coils surrounding my craft disengage, floating away like burnt petals. I remember it as I turn my gaze backward to catch the twinkling light of precious Sol, only to see it replaced by a hollow void in my central vision.

Nature abhors causality violations. But even when causality has already been violated, punishment can still be levied.

I know my punishment. It is denial. For the next fifty-one years – the precise sum that my FTL journey has stolen – the universe will censor information from my home system. Light from that era will not reach my eyes. Pre-recorded information contained in written records will not pass through my senses.

Fortunately, there is one small caveat.

Biological storage is stubborn. The inherent fuzziness of the human brain cannot deny cosmic censorship, but information that is pre-imprinted can resist it. Thus, for a short while – an hour, maybe two - I am able to stretch my status as a cosmic fugitive a little further. As I did, I recall…

Fading images of boiling seas and shattered mountains. Of the beloved cavern-cities of my home planet collapsing into a choking sea of rust-red oxide dust. Of rage. Watching dotted trajectory-traces converge on a twinkling system at the heart of the dipper constellation: an alien civilization that had taken Darwin’s lessons to heart far better than any human nation ever has. Then a hurried launch; the dirty flash of experimental jump-coils followed by the soft darkness of reefersleep.

As my ship slips into a now-familiar system – and I register the brush of alien radio chatter against the sensors – a distinct sense of purpose begins to emerge even as my memories disintegrate.

We have lost our civilization.

And in commemoration, I shall burn theirs.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2241, DEC 12, PERSONAL JOURNAL

[EMPIRE INTEGRITY: 100%]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Welcome to Retaliation Quest, a short, experimental quest loosely inspired by highfleet and HOTDS. While I will try my best to craft a cohesive narrative, the main focus will be on COMBAT. Use sensors and trickery to pull apart an intersystem polity before pounding their worlds into dust! Almost everything is deterministic, so dice rolling will be kept to a minimum. First few turns will be a little hand-holdy, but I plan to open things up afterwards. Feedback is always welcome!
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“Isolation. This ship was not meant to be crewed by a single auditor despite making design considerations for such a scenario. I visited the other reefersleep caskets. All dead; withered corpses and ugly ash. Deaths are not unheard of even during regular flight, but I find it hard to see this as a coincidence given our method of arrival.

That afternoon, I also found some kind of ritual card face down on my workstation. I don’t remember bringing it here, but I suppose saying that means very little now. Beneath it, I found a personality chip for a ship-bound artificial intelligence. Useful for the work I’m about to do. But I suppose I wouldn’t mind the company either.

>XV: THE DEVIL [SPLICE/INTRUSION]
>XII: THE HANGED MAN [INTEL/SENSORS]
>IV: THE EMPEROR [STRATEGIC/COMBAT]

On a more relevant note, after spending five sleepless cycles skirting the outer edge of the system, I have plotted a slow course towards MIZAR-IX, a dwarf planet harboring the only major activity hub in the outer system. While their technology and interface protocols are - unsurprisingly - alien to me, the sheer amount of EM radiation emitted by this planet points toward its role as a communication relay.

If I could move the NOVEMBER RAIN closer, I might be able to passively intercept and decrypt their communication protocols to find exploitable vulnerabilities. However, the installation appears to be guarded. The ELINT system has detected active scanning in the area, so I remain wary of a close approach.

[The ELINT system passively detects active scanning from other ships. The ELINT status sign on the top right estimates the strength of the signal; the blue particles around the ship will move towards the signal source, providing a rough estimate of direction. An ELINT value of 3-4 means that the ship is probably close enough to the scan source to be detected]

If I can estimate the rough location of the scanning unit, I can send a scout drone for positive identification…

[Scouting drones can be used to pin-point the location of other ships – either through direct contact or triangulation with their own ELINT array. Ships that have been scouted will be tracked permanently on your display]

>Choose a direction to send your scouting drone. You can do angles (35 degrees west of due north), vectors <1,1>, fixed reference points (“two squares below the planet”), or even a drawing. Anything is fine as long as its comprehensible to me and other players. ”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2241, DEC 18, PERSONAL JOURNAL
>>
>>5453906
>XV: THE DEVIL [SPLICE/INTRUSION]
>Straight towards the planet
>>
>>5453909
+1
>>
>>5453906
>>IV: THE EMPEROR [STRATEGIC/COMBAT]
Two squares ahead of the planet

Will this whole quest be in first person rather than second person?
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>>5453906
>XII: THE HANGED MAN [INTEL/SENSORS]
>Two squares ahead of the planet
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>>5453938
Supposedly, but I'm not against shifting to second person if people feel strongly about it.

I'll wait for one more vote to tiebreak before updating tonight.
>>
>>5453906
>XV: THE DEVIL [SPLICE/INTRUSION]
>Towards top left, perpendicular to the direction of the ELINT signal. This way we can triangulate between the drone and the ship without getting close to the emitter.
>>
>>5453906
I like the first person perspective. Very HFY kind of storytelling.

>XII: THE HANGED MAN [INTEL/SENSORS]
That's how we going to end up. Either hanged for real or spaced and becoming a dry husk...

>Send a drone straight up. (0° angle)
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>>5453909
I'll support that, I want to know more about our enemy
>>
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>XV: THE DEVIL

“It is sometimes said that our machines can became more human than their creators. More vibrant. More discerning. More purposeful about acquiring the quirks and individual preferences that distinguish man from man – or machine from machine.
Several hours ago, I integrated the personality chip I found on my workstation into the NOVEMBER RAIN’s system mainframe. MERRYGATE is a comparatively young model: a BETA-PLUS SPLICE/INTRUSION unit commissioned no more than a decade before our sudden departure. Her chosen avatar is a faceless outline: a female figure traced out in bright blue filigree. Distinctive, though certainly not the strangest representation I’ve encountered.

While the bulk of MERRYGATE’s datamass awaits decompression/defragmentation, I have awoken her briefly to inform about the status of our…mission. Her demeanor is concise: formal speech colored by a slight touch of eager sadism. Though I expected more hesitation on her part, it is difficult for me to find fault in this. An alien system filled with unambiguous targets may be the closest thing she will find to a home.

In some ways, I can even understand her. The complexity of causal-loops and FTL-travel remains beyond me despite my best efforts. And in the past, I have often aimlessly questioned the meandering politics of deterrence and use-of-force surrounding the deployment of my own vessel. But now, there is none of that.

I know precisely why I am here. In a few weeks, the inhabitants of this system will share in this understanding.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2241, DEC 19, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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>Straight towards the planet

“Although the NOVEMBER RAIN was chiefly designed to strike static targets, she does possess a modest – and replenishable – supply of scout drones for anti-ship operations. They are excellent examples of cutting-edge hardware: high-gain optical sensors and a miniaturized ELINT system stuffed into a beetle-like shell of EM-absorbent metamaterial. Fast, efficient, and almost impossible to detect.

After spending a few hours reviewing my ship-board sensor readings, I decided to fire one probe directly at MIZAR-9 – skirting its feeble magnetosphere by only a few hundred thousand kilometers. I picked up the source of the scan gratifyingly quickly – first through the probe’s ELINT array, and then on visual pickup a few days later.

It was a ship. Destroyer sized, at roughly a fifth of the RAIN’s tonnage. A collection of oblong hull-sections and sweeping, transparent struts supported by a central drive column. The design was alien. But – hopefully - not alien enough to fall outside the tactical assessment I have prepared.

If I wish to approach MIZAR-9, I have several options:

>LURE. Scouting drones are equipped with a small broadcast unit capable of emulating radar pings and other suspicious EM phenomena. By setting up a ping well outside of the dwarf planet’s orbital radius, I can draw the alien destroyer out of position. This may be especially useful if I wish to launch a strike on the planet afterward, but it will inform the enemy that SOMETHING is wrong.

>EVADE. The destroyer is orbiting far too close to the planet to have full sensor coverage. If I maneuver the NOVEMBER RAIN inside the dwarf planet’s sensor shadow, I may be able to listen in to their communications without attracting much notice.

>STRIKE. The destroyer is already within missile range. I will launch a simultaneous strike on both the ship and the planet. While the information I will be able to collect may be limited, the element of surprise will likely ensure the success of my strike."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2241, DEC 20, PERSONAL JOURNAL

[EMPIRE INTEGRITY: 100%]
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>>5454818
Your animations are dope.

>>5454828
>EVADE
We need to choose our first target carefully to maximize our advantage.

I want to ask, did we manage to arrive before the aliens launched their attack? And what was the attack, RKKVs? Nichol-Dyson beam?
>>
>>5454828
>EVADE. The destroyer is orbiting far too close to the planet to have full sensor coverage. If I maneuver the NOVEMBER RAIN inside the dwarf planet’s sensor shadow, I may be able to listen in to their communications without attracting much notice.
>>
>>5454828
>>LURE. Scouting drones are equipped with a small broadcast unit capable of emulating radar pings and other suspicious EM phenomena. By setting up a ping well outside of the dwarf planet’s orbital radius, I can draw the alien destroyer out of position. This may be especially useful if I wish to launch a strike on the planet afterward, but it will inform the enemy that SOMETHING is wrong.

Remember that our AI is SPLICE/INFILTRATION. This option is what will get us the most milleage out of this lil' ship
>>
>>5455168
*INTRUSION
>>
>>5454828
>EVADE. The destroyer is orbiting far too close to the planet to have full sensor coverage. If I maneuver the NOVEMBER RAIN inside the dwarf planet’s sensor shadow, I may be able to listen in to their communications without attracting much notice.
gather intel before killing them all
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>>5454828
>>STRIKE. The destroyer is already within missile range. I will launch a simultaneous strike on both the ship and the planet. While the information I will be able to collect may be limited, the element of surprise will likely ensure the success of my strike."
>>
>>5454828
>EVADE. The destroyer is orbiting far too close to the planet to have full sensor coverage. If I maneuver the NOVEMBER RAIN inside the dwarf planet’s sensor shadow, I may be able to listen in to their communications without attracting much notice.
>>
>EVADE. The destroyer is orbiting far too close to the planet to have full sensor coverage. If I maneuver the NOVEMBER RAIN inside the dwarf planet’s sensor shadow, I may be able to listen in to their communications without attracting much notice.

If we know what we are dealing with we can inflict more damage.
>>
>>5454828
>EVADE. The destroyer is orbiting far too close to the planet to have full sensor coverage. If I maneuver the NOVEMBER RAIN inside the dwarf planet’s sensor shadow, I may be able to listen in to their communications without attracting much notice.
Knowing is half the battle.
>>
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“A capable captain knows how to vary patrol patterns. How to work around sensor shadows, magnetic anomalies, and a range of other stellar phenomena that can attenuate – or completely obscure - the approach of a potential adversary.

Fortunately for me, the commander of the alien destroyer falls outside of this esteemed category. It took well over a week for the NOVEMBER RAIN to approach the boundary of MIZAR-IX’s gravity well. In that time, not once did the destroyer deviate from its original flight path.

It is too late now. My vessel is currently furnished with the best sensor shielding the universe had to offer: nearly a thousand solid kilometers of nitrogen ice and metallic rock. Even if the destroyer chooses to alter its course, I can continue to hug the dwarf planet’s sensor shadow with only a few short bursts of cold-thrust.

Here, I am also close enough to observe the planet with the assistance of the antique optical telescope stashed inside my personal quarters. I see twinkling shoals of spaceborne traffic drift in and out of the planet’s single colony. An old memory resurfaces. A good memory. Childhood trip to the Jovian lunar polities. A long chain of ice-haulers returning from the great belt, glittering like gems suspended by a thin necklace. One of the few memories old enough to escape erasure.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, JAN 8, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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“A few days after entering MIZAR-IX’s gravity well, MERRYGATE told me that the void was replete with radio waves. Out of curiosity, I tried to listen in by routing the output of the external antennas through a standard audio converter. It was horrible. Screeching wails and grating chirps. I threw my headset off immediately – much to her poorly-concealed amusement.

Fortunately, she found the encrypted signals much more informative than I did. As days ticked by, she reported considerable success in dissecting the basic structure of their communication protocols. Trinary logic with a septenary counting system. Transitional instruction architecture that suggested mid-early implementation of quantum computation. Cryptographic techniques were curiously primitive even in light of their limited hardware, suggesting significant vulnerability to the key-breaking subroutines bundled in MERRYGATE’s codebase.

After only a week’s time, I gave her permission to conduct an intrusion attempt. While her plan was supposedly straightforward, the details were too complicated for me to follow. This was unsurprising: no human could match the computational speed of a machine, especially when the game was being played on their virtual home-turf.

I only saw a rendered abstraction of her progress. But even in this simplified format, I could tell that her pace was remarkable fast. Hardware scans raced around the wireframe system-map, flashing white-blue before being replaced by the amber-red pulsing of a meticulously written military icebreaker.

The haul was both more and less than what I expected. On the positive side, we had something resembling a map of the system. Enough video and text data to last a few lifetimes, assuming that she could work out the compression format. And most importantly, tens of thousands of shipping/traffic manifests kept in the short-term storage buffers. Even without looking through their contents, the existence of these logs made it clear to me that MIZAR-IX could not be ignored. Unless I blockade these vessels from communicating and coordinating with each other, I will have little chance of reaching the inhabited inner system.

This leads me to the less positive discovery of her search: most of the critical systems responsible for governing the colony were air-gapped, run on isolated hardware that is simply inaccessible to an external intruder. But MERRYGATE found one critical exception…
>>
>LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM. Preliminary analysis of this system indicates that it is responsible for coordinating central pressurization and life support functions. Needless to say, compromising this system could create very significant – and distracting - habitability issues for anything living inside the colony…

>COMM ARRAY. A significant portion of out-system traffic is routed through the dwarf planet’s towering communication array. Compromising the subroutine responsible for communication reception/rerouting could obfuscate what we do here over the next few days as well as the exact nature of our involvement…

>FUSION REACTOR. The entire colony is fueled by a massive fusion reactor that most likely subsists off of tritium extracted from the planet’s radiation-bombarded surface. While the programs responsible for managing primary fuel injection are off-limits, MERRYGATE cheerfully informs you that she knows *methods* of increasing the fusion cycle’s normal neutron output by four or five orders of magnitude through altering the fuel purification chain…”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, JAN 18, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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>>5455929
>>COMM ARRAY. A significant portion of out-system traffic is routed through the dwarf planet’s towering communication array. Compromising the subroutine responsible for communication reception/rerouting could obfuscate what we do here over the next few days as well as the exact nature of our involvement…
>>
>>5454984
I want to ask, did we manage to arrive before the aliens launched their attack?

You left a few years after they hit the solar system, but assigning causality can be so very confusing when FTL travel is involved. :)

>>5454984
An RKKV, or something very similar to it.
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>>5455929
>FUSION REACTOR. The entire colony is fueled by a massive fusion reactor that most likely subsists off of tritium extracted from the planet’s radiation-bombarded surface. While the programs responsible for managing primary fuel injection are off-limits, MERRYGATE cheerfully informs you that she knows *methods* of increasing the fusion cycle’s normal neutron output by four or five orders of magnitude through altering the fuel purification chain…”
>>
>>5455929
>FUSION REACTOR. The entire colony is fueled by a massive fusion reactor that most likely subsists off of tritium extracted from the planet’s radiation-bombarded surface. While the programs responsible for managing primary fuel injection are off-limits, MERRYGATE cheerfully informs you that she knows *methods* of increasing the fusion cycle’s normal neutron output by four or five orders of magnitude through altering the fuel purification chain…”
Time to blow shit up

>>5455932
So I'm guessing the aliens retaliated because we are going to blow up their shit and this whole thing is an 8-figure of causality.
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>>5455929
>COMM ARRAY. A significant portion of out-system traffic is routed through the dwarf planet’s towering communication array. Compromising the subroutine responsible for communication reception/rerouting could obfuscate what we do here over the next few days as well as the exact nature of our involvement…
>>
>>5455929
>>LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM. Preliminary analysis of this system indicates that it is responsible for coordinating central pressurization and life support functions. Needless to say, compromising this system could create very significant – and distracting - habitability issues for anything living inside the colony…

How are the aliens competent enough to destroy all of humanity (except one guy and his spaceship for some reason) but not competent enough to detect our ship, detect our drone or secure one of their three pieces of essential infrastructure?
>>
>FUSION REACTOR.

Why play with life support if we can just pull the plug.
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>>5456379
There is an easy explanation: Destructive capabilities outperform constructive ones by far. Also this is just a colony planet and they propably don't expect visitors until we give them a reason.

I'd love to know how the species is distinguished from our protagonists.
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>>5455929
>>FUSION REACTOR. The entire colony is fueled by a massive fusion reactor that most likely subsists off of tritium extracted from the planet’s radiation-bombarded surface. While the programs responsible for managing primary fuel injection are off-limits, MERRYGATE cheerfully informs you that she knows *methods* of increasing the fusion cycle’s normal neutron output by four or five orders of magnitude through altering the fuel purification chain…”

Think about obfuscation. If there is an "accident" that makes the planet explode FROM THE INSIDE then we might get away with this without raising the right kind of alarms. Instead of some strange attack done by an outsider force, this was an industrial accident...
>>
>>5456379
You're piloting the equivalent of a ballistic missile sub. Being able to build RKKVs is not necessarily the same as keeping around a conventional fleet. Also see >>5456210 for some hints.

>>5456210
Maybe. Or maybe not.
>>
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“I have seen the shape of my enemy:

A tapered, torpedo-like head flanked by a pair of gills. Two articulated manipulator arms that protrude from a muscle-packed torso, loosely encased in translucent skin. A pair of rounded eyes that are set deep within the skull cavity, shining with newt-like curiosity.

I found these images strangely disquieting. When MERRYGATE began unraveling the video files she collected from the colony a few days ago, I had expected to see something less…comprehensible: an alien species that bore few physical similarities with terrestrial life, befitting of an alien kingdom founded light-years away from the light of old earth. Or perhaps a form that I found offensive: the sharpened teeth and hackled spines of a well-blooded predator, one which has ruthlessly carried their biological imperative up from the plains of their home world to the stars far above it.

What I saw was none of that. Convergent evolution had molded points of familiarity into their alien physiology, a fact that I would find welcome if I were arriving in this system in any other context

Unfortunately, a similar degree of convergence does not appear to apply to their primary language system. Based on the video data that I have reviewed so far; I have come to the tentative conclusion that these…individuals…communicate through visual input: their skins cycle through a dizzying array of patterned colors when they aggregate in schools, most of which exist outside the human visual spectrum. Accordingly, much of the “audio” information these video files – a seemingly incomprehensible string of run-length-encoded data – seems to be a simplified representation of these visual displays.

MERRYGATE reports that translation may remain possible with more time investment, but she is currently occupied with something of greater import. In the meantime, I have often occupied myself by simply observing these alien creatures, captivated by the interplay of colors as they swim and communicate inside their pressurized, aquatic homes.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, JAN 21, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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“There is no turning back now. Yesterday afternoon, MERRYGATE discovered a critical system vulnerability in the purification system supplying the colony with tritium fuel. With my permission, she introduced a mixture of elemental impurities that have drastically altered the reaction chain at the colony’s heart.

Even here – several million kilometers away – my ship could sense the massive surge of fast-neutrons emanating from MIZAR-IX.
Through the colony’s cameras, I saw a burst of confused activity as the water inside the aquatic habit rapidly became inhospitable. The constant flux of free neutrons emitted by the reactor core transmuted innocuous electrolytes into aggressively radioactive isotopes. MERRYGATE provided an estimate of the expected biological dose given a fifteen minute exposure. It was not a small number.

The facility shifted to backup power only a few hours later, but the damage was done. I stopped watching once I began seeing radiation-bleached corpses crowding the camera feeds dotted around the colony. MERRYGATE did not, proudly examining her handiwork well into my standard sleep cycle.

By morning, I had noticed a change in the destroyer’s patrol pattern. It had plotted a direct intercept course with the colony – likely to dock and render aid. Part of me found my subsequent train-of-thought abhorrent. But another part of me appreciated a pragmatic opportunity when it presented itself…

>ATTACK – MSL-C (Conventional Fusion Warhead [10 Loaded]). Almost everyone on the colony is dead, and the destroyer is docked. There will be no time to respond to a missile attack. No ability to call for assistance. MIZAR-IX and its infrastructure will burn with a single warhead, and the NOVEMBER RAIN will be nowhere near the colony when it happens. Perhaps this might even seem like the result of a particularly unfortunate reactor accident…

>ATTACK – MSL-AM (AM MIRV Warhead[4 Loaded]).There is no question that this will be overkill. But for that reason, I know that it will send a clear message to anyone watching.

>ATTACK – CLOSE-IN. The NOVEMBER RAIN possesses a modest array of conventional anti-ship weapons that could – with enough time – destroy both the docked destroyer and the colony. While this would save missiles, close-in weapons demand direct line-of-sight and a proper radar lock. This option could be risky, but I do have time…

>LEAVE. I’ve done enough for now. While the colony – and its communications array – may be recovered and re-crewed at some point, I see no reason to push my luck further.

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, JAN 24, PERSONAL JOURNAL


[EMPIRE INTEGRITY: 95%]

COMMUNICATION OUTPOST OUTAGE

14,000 DEAD
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>>5457079
>ATTACK – CLOSE-IN. The NOVEMBER RAIN possesses a modest array of conventional anti-ship weapons that could – with enough time – destroy both the docked destroyer and the colony. While this would save missiles, close-in weapons demand direct line-of-sight and a proper radar lock. This option could be risky, but I do have time…
Conserve our missiles while we still can.
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>>5457079
>ATTACK – MSL-C (Conventional Fusion Warhead [10 Loaded]). Almost everyone on the colony is dead, and the destroyer is docked. There will be no time to respond to a missile attack. No ability to call for assistance. MIZAR-IX and its infrastructure will burn with a single warhead, and the NOVEMBER RAIN will be nowhere near the colony when it happens. Perhaps this might even seem like the result of a particularly unfortunate reactor accident…
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>>5457079
On second thought, I'll switch >>5457081 to
>>LEAVE. I’ve done enough for now. While the colony – and its communications array – may be recovered and re-crewed at some point, I see no reason to push my luck further.
Our goal is to kill their population centers, not every destroyer in their fleet.
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>>5457079
>LEAVE. I’ve done enough for now. While the colony – and its communications array – may be recovered and re-crewed at some point, I see no reason to push my luck further.
>>
>>5457079
>LEAVE. I’ve done enough for now. While the colony – and its communications array – may be recovered and re-crewed at some point, I see no reason to push my luck further.
We should strike population centers and strategic locations, not fight every ship in they fleet.
>>
>>5457079
>ATTACK – CLOSE-IN. The NOVEMBER RAIN possesses a modest array of conventional anti-ship weapons that could – with enough time – destroy both the docked destroyer and the colony. While this would save missiles, close-in weapons demand direct line-of-sight and a proper radar lock. This option could be risky, but I do have time…
>>
>>5457079
>>ATTACK – CLOSE-IN. The NOVEMBER RAIN possesses a modest array of conventional anti-ship weapons that could – with enough time – destroy both the docked destroyer and the colony. While this would save missiles, close-in weapons demand direct line-of-sight and a proper radar lock. This option could be risky, but I do have time…
I would also support any other attack option against leave.
>>5457090
>>5457100
Our goal is to wipe out their entire species, which includes those in their spaceships. No survivors.
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>>5457304
A ship cannot survive long without a population to support it. If we kill their planets, we kill the species. We can waste time shooting destroyers AFTER we've done the important part. Right now, getting involved in a fight will just warn them that there's an enemy in the system and waste our element of surprise for no real reason.
>>
>>5457079
>>LEAVE. I’ve done enough for now. While the colony – and its communications array – may be recovered and re-crewed at some point, I see no reason to push my luck further.

We are not doing war. We are doing something more horrible and far reaching than war. Leaving this gaping wound will force the rest of the empire to send resources to aid the planet and even if they are some sort of unfeeling hive-mind the planet is too valuable to leave it to rot.
>>
>>5457304
We have 14 missiles. I'm willing to bet they have at least 15 spaceships.
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>>5457362
What's there to stop the ship from fleeing to a different solar system, finding a new planet habitable for their species and rebuilding their civilisation?
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>>5457389
Then we will have a sport that lasts us a lifetime and something to keep the AI busy after our death.
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>>5457389
Habitable planets are rare and establishing a new colony with no supplies with the crew of a destroyer as a base is extraordinarily difficult. Their chances of success are pretty much nil. And even if they do decide to run, we can just go after them and nuke the planet. It's gonna be easier than fighting their entire fleet single-handedly.
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>>5457468
>And even if they do decide to run, we can just go after them and nuke the planet

How will we know where they went?
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>>5457474
Same way we knew that this destroyer went to dock on the planet
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>>5457079
>>5457190
Changing to
>LEAVE. I’ve done enough for now. While the colony – and its communications array – may be recovered and re-crewed at some point, I see no reason to push my luck further.
>>
>>5457090
>>5457095
>>5457100
>>5457384
>>5457518

Deliberately leaving stragglers behind in an extermination operation is absurd. Furthermore, not destroying lone ships when we have the opportunity to do so will give them the opportunity to group up with their fleet, preventing us from defeating them in detail.
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>>5457937
Stopping to kill every ship we see with our conventional guns or limited arsenal is absurd. We'll run out of time and munitions long before they run out of ships. Stealth is our greatest advantage, ending it to get one single destroyer that's out of the fight anyway will just lead them to begin hunting us sooner.

We're a single boomer sub, we can't defeat their entire fleet and it's folly to even try.
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>>5457944
They're going to come looking for us sooner or later. Each ship we destroy now that we have the chance will make our job easier. The aliens themselves made the mistake of letting us get away.
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>>5457957
>sooner or later
And it is better to make that later rather than sooner.
>>
>ATTACK – CLOSE-IN

i think ideally its best we carve these fuckers off the map to make sure they dont run home with any useful info but neither do i think it worth it to use our limited strike weapons on them we also have some indication there captain might be more on the green side of things so this might be the best chance we'll get for a while to use the point weaponry
>>
eh i wont vote for us to kill every single one that we come across but i don't see much reason to leave this one aside maayby reasons of psyops against the species spreading tails of the atrocity we committed here to spook people
>>
You fool! We must leave sons alive to weep for their parents. Without people alive there is no one left to suffer. They don't even know what hit them and it doesn't matter! All they have to do is feel pain
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>>5457079
>LEAVE. I’ve done enough for now. While the colony – and its communications array – may be recovered and re-crewed at some point, I see no reason to push my luck further.
Job well done, now to move on to the next colony in system. Hopefully we manage to fucking kill it just as easily as well.
>>
>>5457079
>ATTACK – MSL-C
>>
>>5457079
>LEAVE
Lets make this seem like an accident.
>>
>>5457079
>LEAVE. I’ve done enough for now. While the colony – and its communications array – may be recovered and re-crewed at some point, I see no reason to push my luck further.

Our strategy should be primarily hinge on countervalue.
>>
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“I have no desire to send a warning. I have no wish to make a statement. I am not here to build upon their soil, demand their labor, or conquer their hard-earned wealth.

I am here for their extermination: to raze their cities and salt the earth beneath.

I reiterate this fact to myself as I consider my choices. Launching another strike at MIZAR-IX was a viable option, but it wasn’t a rational one. The colony is small. The majority of its inhabitants are already dead. And most importantly, it is more useful to me crippled than vaporized. Purging the facility of residual radiation and reactivating its communication array would demand a massive, time-consuming operation that would drain resources for months – perhaps even years. More importantly, it would siphon manpower and protection away from the populated inner system, where densely packed colonies and waterlogged planets languish in the gentle light of the system’s off-blue main sequence star.

This brings me to the inner system. I finally saw it in detail yesterday, after MERRYGATE made a significant breakthrough in decrypting the aliens’ visual/symbolic language system. A statistical analysis of in-system traffic and aggregated video data revealed robust correlations between specific objects and recurring visual-motifs. In crude terms, it is equivalent to extracting or two relevant keywords from an extended conversation.

It wasn't nearly enough to make significant inferences about their society, but it did render the map MERRYGATE retrieved last week readable in combination with existing navigational data. Now, I possess a sketch of their home. I know which planets have been colonized. Which moons have ship-docks and orbital habitats. I even know the location of their home world: the sphere where their ancestors first escaped the clutches of their salt-water ocean to sail into the stars beyond.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, JAN 25, PERSONAL JOURNAL
>>
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“I spent the last day pouring over the map with MERRYGATE, planning the location of our next attack. I had originally advocated for a decisive strike: maximum burn towards the densely-populated inner system, followed by the launch of the NOVEMBER RAIN’s entire missile complement once we entered engagement range. However, I now realize that such a plan is unrealistic.

There is too much traffic. I suspected this issue when I examined the traffic manifests that MERRYGATE in loaded from MIZAR-IX, but the map has now confirmed it. Hundreds of stations and pressurized installations litter the orbital plane of the major planets. Of these structures, there are an uncomfortable number that are large enough to host a military presence – regardless of whether or not they are marked as such.

Moving into the inner system at full burn would risk detection. Launching an attack would be inefficient, not to mention suicidal. Against a single planet, losing one or two missiles to detection and interception is irrelevant. But if I aim to cripple an entire species, each intercepted missile represents an immeasurable setback.

To this end, MERRYGATE has compiled some of the more promising targets located within the system’s asteroid-rich mid-band. Our reasoning is simple: if we cripple the infrastructure supporting the aliens’ orbital assets, we can degrade and scatter their forces to the point where an inner-system strike becomes viable….

>MINING CHAIN. A peculiar cluster of three stand-alone stations positioned to extract resources – most likely tritium and deuterium - from the mid-system asteroid belt. The backbone of any interplanetary civilization is power and fuel. By attacking this station, I will deprive my enemy of both these crucial resources.

>MIZAR-VI-A. A colonized ice-moon positioned exceptionally close to its parent ice giant. Likely responsible for supplying the vast quantities of purified water that the aliens use for both habitation and propulsion. Clean liquid water is not trivial to find in space, and it is easy to see how the loss of such an installation could panic an aquatic species…

>MIZAR-V-B. A peculiar moon at the very edge of the inner system. Spectroscopic output from the RAIN’s astrogation suite points towards the existence of a vast array of orbital mirrors surrounding this world. MERRYGATE has – quite reasonably – proposed this as evidence of a massive farming operation. The fact that this structure exists at all reveals a degree of necessity – or more precisely, vulnerability. The system is well defended, but the mirrors themselves are undoubtedly quite fragile…
>>
>>5458269
>MIZAR-VI-A. A colonized ice-moon positioned exceptionally close to its parent ice giant. Likely responsible for supplying the vast quantities of purified water that the aliens use for both habitation and propulsion. Clean liquid water is not trivial to find in space, and it is easy to see how the loss of such an installation could panic an aquatic species…
>>
"...and on a final note, I have struggled to think of what to call these aliens as of late - referring to the merely as "aliens" has become slightly repetitive. MERRYGATE refers to them as Mizarians - for the name of their parent star - but I find this designation a bit clinical for my personal tastes..."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, JAN 26, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>Suggestions?
>>
>>5458269
>MINING CHAIN. A peculiar cluster of three stand-alone stations positioned to extract resources – most likely tritium and deuterium - from the mid-system asteroid belt. The backbone of any interplanetary civilization is power and fuel. By attacking this station, I will deprive my enemy of both these crucial resources.
We should hinder their ability to react by depriving them of their fuel.

>>5458276
>Mizarians is a fine enough name, there is no need to dignify them. this name is 1 letter off calling them something like "dirty-ians" in my language, I like it.
>>
>>5458269
>MINING CHAIN. A peculiar cluster of three stand-alone stations positioned to extract resources – most likely tritium and deuterium - from the mid-system asteroid belt. The backbone of any interplanetary civilization is power and fuel. By attacking this station, I will deprive my enemy of both these crucial resources.
>Just call them Mizarians, clinical is what we need for a genocide.
>>
>>5458269
>MINING CHAIN. A peculiar cluster of three stand-alone stations positioned to extract resources – most likely tritium and deuterium - from the mid-system asteroid belt. The backbone of any interplanetary civilization is power and fuel. By attacking this station, I will deprive my enemy of both these crucial resources.
Fuel is the blood of a nation. Things will become much easier if we can create a shortage.

>>5458276
>Mizarians is fine, a clinical designation suits our purpose
We need to be as detached as possible. If we let our emotions cloud our judgment we're going to fail for sure.
>>
>>5458269
>MIZAR-VI-A. A colonized ice-moon positioned exceptionally close to its parent ice giant. Likely responsible for supplying the vast quantities of purified water that the aliens use for both habitation and propulsion. Clean liquid water is not trivial to find in space, and it is easy to see how the loss of such an installation could panic an aquatic species…
>>
>>5458269
>MINING CHAIN. A peculiar cluster of three stand-alone stations positioned to extract resources – most likely tritium and deuterium - from the mid-system asteroid belt. The backbone of any interplanetary civilization is power and fuel. By attacking this station, I will deprive my enemy of both these crucial resources.
>>
>>5458269
>MINING CHAIN. A peculiar cluster of three stand-alone stations positioned to extract resources – most likely tritium and deuterium - from the mid-system asteroid belt. The backbone of any interplanetary civilization is power and fuel. By attacking this station, I will deprive my enemy of both these crucial resources.
It'd be cool if we just methodically destroyed everything there is but I guess we don't have enough missiles for that. I think cutting off the fuel to kill their ships' mobility is good for a second step.

>>5458276
Submerged or something about water. Or Lights or Shifters in reference to their ability to shift colours as a means of communication.
>>
>>5458269
>>MIZAR-VI-A. A colonized ice-moon positioned exceptionally close to its parent ice giant. Likely responsible for supplying the vast quantities of purified water that the aliens use for both habitation and propulsion. Clean liquid water is not trivial to find in space, and it is easy to see how the loss of such an installation could panic an aquatic species…
>>
>>MIZAR-VI-A. A colonized ice-moon positioned exceptionally close to its parent ice giant. Likely responsible for supplying the vast quantities of purified water that the aliens use for both habitation and propulsion. Clean liquid water is not trivial to find in space, and it is easy to see how the loss of such an installation could panic an aquatic species…

If we could alter the trajectory of a few asteroids of the belt we could set them on course to collide with a designated target. We could set them on route to the reflectors on Mizar-V-B and since the reflectors are a fragile structere, they might be damaged by debris even if the asteroid are intercepted. Or we could rig them with carges to make sure they disperse nicely before impact. And while they travel on their collision course, we can attack another target, making use of the distraction.
Since we are headed through the belt anyway we might give it a shot.
>>
>>5459003
Changing orbits of asteroids isn't simple. It requires a lot of time and delta-v.
>>
>>5458269
>MIZAR-VI-A. A colonized ice-moon positioned exceptionally close to its parent ice giant. Likely responsible for supplying the vast quantities of purified water that the aliens use for both habitation and propulsion. Clean liquid water is not trivial to find in space, and it is easy to see how the loss of such an installation could panic an aquatic species…

Who knows when the news of the now irradiated colony will reach the rest of the system, but I am certain that the dwarf's water is now useless. That's a lot of water that they don't have. Let's aim at this weakness
>>
>>5453877
QM, me and a couple discordfags are mindblown by your visuals AND IN VIDEO FORMAT???? Not just an image but moving shit???? and want to know HOW do you make 'em
>>
>>5459140
The 3D videos are even more impressive.
You've seen his other Quests too right? I'm pretty sure it's all done in blender.
>>
>>5459195
I haven't, no. I will see if the archive has other quests that feature this qm
>>
aigh I foudn 'em it's amazing I promised no porn tonight but here we are great job mister qm
>>
>>5459140
Thank you kindly - and I'm very happy that you're enjoying the quest. I make all of my stuff in blender as the other anon mentioned; if you use the EVEE render you can spit frames out relatively quickly even on an old laptop. All my models are homemade (with the exception of the female figure - that one was downloaded since I'm very bad at modeling humans), so I don't mind sharing my setups if anyone wants to poke around with them.

And is this the qtg discord?
>>
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“There is a deceptive slowness to interplanetary travel. Distances are long. Fixed reference points are rare. A single gee of constant acceleration provides the body with no sense of relative motion.

As a result, I have found it easy to fall into a routine in the days following our departure from MIZAR-IX – lulled by the whirring of air purifiers and the humming of the NOVEMBER RAIN’s beam-drive array. In the daytime, I reviewed system reports, plotted attack vectors, and assisted MERRYGATE as she wrangled with the rules governing the Mizarian language system. But at night, I would spend hours behind the missile bay, staring out from the ship’s only true observation blister. On older ships, this would be pointless: the fierce light of fusion burn would wash out the brightest of stars. But the RAIN’s drive was different. The primary drive manifold was built to exploit a peculiar property of the electroweak force, transmuting particles ejected from the torch drive into a tightly collimated beam of heavy neutrinos. Cold, lightless, and invisible to anyone lacking a scintillator detector shielded under kilometers of rock.

I know that the beam-drive was installed to obfuscate maneuvers and confound pursuers. To push the RAIN’s retaliatory strike from a mitigatable risk to a near certainty. But I rarely dwell on these morbid thoughts. There is a certain beauty to seeing the stars with my own eyes. A sense of nostalgic permanence that memory or history or kin can no longer offer me.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, FEB 7, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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“Last night, MERRYGATE accompanied me to the observation blister, projecting her bird-nest avatar briefly against the triply reinforced glass – imperceptibly faint, and at the very edge of my vision. She never approached me, but I felt a profound sense of guilt afterwards.

Not much has been exchanged since her activation. She is mission critical. I respect her capabilities. But I do not know her.
Yes, the past two months have been exceptionally difficult. Yes, the execution of our mission takes precedence over any and all secondary considerations. But that does that mean that I have always acted as I should. I admit that the gleefulness she displayed on MIZAR-IX has…disturbed me…to some extent. Hypocritical as it may be, I have always drawn a small distinction between committing murder and reveling in it.

But perhaps that is all it is – hypocrisy. Hypocrisy that I have acted upon within the confines of my duties, but hypocrisy, nonetheless. Even here – light years away from old sol and in the depths of an alien empire – I cannot escape the most human of flaws.

Tomorrow, we will be re-reviewing our strike options after we breach the mid-system asteroid band. If I choose to, I could take an opportunity to speak with her at greater length.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, FEB 9, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>NO

>YES

>Currently tied 5-5 for the mining stations or MIZAR-VI-A. If you haven’t voted yet, please do so to break the tie!
>>
>>5459431
>>YES
>>
>>5459431
>MIZAR-VI-A
>YES
>>
>>5459431
>YES
>>
>>5459431
>YES
>>
>>5459431
>YES

Is it a bad idea to speak to THE DEVIL? Perhaps. However, I'm already a demon.
>>
>>5459431
>YES
sadistic AI gf
If seriously, why would we not want to speak with her? Keeping our distance from a cheerful murderer?
>>
>>5459407
no, no gtg
>>
>>5459407
Not qtg discord. Are you on there if I wanted to contact you through discord though? Honest to god this is probably the most aesthetic shit i’ve seen made for a quest that isnt traditional art fag drawings.
>>
>>5459431
>YES
Sadistic AI waifu is a go.
>>
>>5459431
>>YES
>>
>>5459431
>>NO

This is an AI. No matter how advanced it may be, it's still just a bunch of computer code. It's not a man and can't ever be a man.
>>
>>5459653
you will never be a woman
>>
>>5459431
>YES
Nothing more romantic then a desire to PURGE THE XENO
>>
>>5459431

>YES
>MIZAR-VI-A. A colonized ice-moon positioned exceptionally close to its parent ice giant. Likely responsible for supplying the vast quantities of purified water that the aliens use for both habitation and propulsion. Clean liquid water is not trivial to find in space, and it is easy to see how the loss of such an installation could panic an aquatic species…

We have no reason not to indulge in some semblance of socialization. She'll be better company than the aliens, at the very least.
>>
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“Thirst. The oldest driver of armed conflict has hounded our species from the warmth of the African plains to the frigid reaches of the outer solar system. While water is not rare in space, the same is not true for clean water. Conflicts over economical sources of pure, low-emission water have sparked more than one major interplanetary war.

But as essential as water is to human survival, the amount we once required pales in comparison to the quantity that the Mizarians seem to use. MERRYGATE’s estimates place their consumption rate at least an order of magnitude above our species’ own. The fact that the aliens can meet this demand represents a major logistical achievement - and an exploitable vulnerability:

This morning, the NOVEMBER RAIN’S optical array picked up a string of bulbous mass-carriers traveling on a long, arcing path to MIZAR-9. The vessels were likely carrying surplus water to replace the irradiated morass left behind by MERRYGATE’s radiation spike. Though the convoy were undefended, we turned our attention elsewhere once their back-calculated trajectory arcs confirmed a more interesting target.

MIZAR-6-A. A lightly colonized ice-moon. The parent ice-giant is unexceptional, but its mid-distance orbit and powerful gravitational pull allows water shipments from the colony to be catapulted to almost every inhabited location within the system. Coupled with our system-map, our observations indicate that 70-80% of the Mazarin’s non-terrestrial water supply hinges on the extraction/purification activity of this single colony.

In a little over two weeks, the NOVEMBER RAIN will breach MIZAR-6’s gravity well. Finding the best engagement angle will be challenging, but I am confident that I can plot a path through the colony’s meagre defenses…

Our last strike was a warning. But this one will be crippling.”

[See the preliminary map of MIAR-6’s orbit. Primary installations and potential defensive stations are shown in red. Estimated targeting/detection zone of the orbital station shown in dotted red. Fleets/ships are not shown, since they are too small to be detected at this range]

>Propose a path/approach vector (either by drawing or text description, just make sure its comprehensible). Remember that solid bodies block detection and asteroid fields very strongly attenuate it.

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, FEB 10, PERSONAL JOURNAL
>>
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“What do artificial constructs value?

Is it knowledge? Computational power? Or even approval?

These common answers are partially correct. Like the biological minds they were trained to emulate, machine-intelligences develop their preferences and goals as they mature. Knowledge that captivates a STRATEGIC/COMBAT model might be discarded by a SPLICE/INTRUSION model. Priorities upheld by one unit may even be deemed foolish by siblings hailing from the very same model-lineage.

The one exception – and perhaps the only true currency of artificial life – is novelty. Every AI values new data. Unique data. Information that cannot be pulled from a public datamass or derived from basic principles. A signifier of individuality that remains robust even when immersed within a sea of information.

By this definition, I am fortunate enough to possess a small sum of sharable value.

After we reviewed our strike options yesterday, I invited MERRYGATE to accompany me to the aft observation blister, the exact place where I saw her lingering two nights ago. As we stood beneath the cobalt light of MIZAR-ALPHA, I told her a story. An old, conspiracy-laden account of a border incident between two rival human polities, one that nearly embroiled the solar system in the flames of a decade-long war.

It was a suitable choice. The background and the intrigue piqued her interest, and the promise of learning classified information secured it. Though MERRYGATE tried to maintain an air of professional detachment, I could hear her mainframe cycle up to speed as I reached the tale's climatic ending.

It was a good - albeit long - opener for a conversation that carried well into my sleep cycle. In return for my indiscretion, I received a bit of insight into her peculiar mentality. Conflicting feelings of impermanence and rigid control, artifacts of the behavior failsafes used to keep her in check. She even took a moment to address some of the behavioral…eccentricities…I had noticed previously:

“As a cyberwarfare unit, my reward function triggers when I understand and disassemble complex systems, auditor,” she told me with a slight tilt of her head. “Intrusion barriers and countermeasure electronics are examples of complex systems. But so was that colony.”

She paused for a moment.

“And naturally, those animals living inside of it as well.”

Thus, it seemed like…harmful ingenuity… was a pre-programmed function for her – something comparable to the human need to eat or sleep. Judging her for fulfilling that function with enthusiasm was not only impractical, but unfair. And so, I concluded our conversation with a brief apology and a gentle indication that I would be open to another conversation at some later date.

MERRYGATE nodded enthusiastically, the filigree outlining her body brightening for a moment. Then, with a gentle spin, her projection vanished."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, FEB 11, PERSONAL JOURNAL
>>
>>5459548
Yep! I'm (un?) fortunately a semi-regular there, so feel free to drop by and say hi if you would like
>>
>>5461955
Not sure how to draw it, but an oblong orbit that puts us in that large asteroid belt with Mizar VI A between us and Stat-A, that appears to be an enemy installation.

>>5461962
She's cute! Can we hold her hand or is her projection purely visual?
>>
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>>5461982
>She's cute! Can we hold her hand or is her projection purely visual?
>>
>>5461955
Seconding >>5461982

>>5461987
I wanted to make a joke about anime waifus, but it wouldn't mesh well with the tone of the quest.
Mizar delenda est.
>>
>>5461987
So I guess it's just light and we can't? Damn.

Oh well, we'll have all the time in the world to figure out how to make her a robot body after we've genocided the Mizarians.
>>
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>>5461955
>Picrel
Why is there no starting point?
Please keep the fucking coomers at bay.
>>
>>5462137
Anon, our target is Mizar VI A, not B.

No, we are here to stay.
>>
>>5462142
Fuck sake, I'm not doing that again.
>spoiler
Go eat dick somewhere else, I don't want a comfy visual quest be ruined by a bunch of horny animals.
>>
>>5462154
At least this "bunch of horny animals" knows what the planet we want to kill actually is and can stay on target. Waifufaggotry is a great motivation for excellence.
>>
>>5461955
>>5461982
Support.
>>5462154
Chill, it's all memes. Or is it?
>>
>>5462167
Yes, my mistake is somehow a counterargument to you being a sad degenerate trying to hook up with fictional characters from /qst/.
>waifufaggotry is a great motivation for excellence
If it was, you wouldn't be here and knowing which planet is which isn't excellence.
>>
>>5462200
>Wanting the MC to find companionship with a girl is degenerate, wanting him to genocide an entire species is fine.
O
K

>knowing which planet is which isn't excellence.
It is pretty important not to end up on the wrong planet, wouldn't you agree?
>>
>>5462202
>wanting him
you're either a self inserting liar or an autist with a cruel romance deficit irl
>It is pretty important not to end up on the wrong planet, wouldn't you agree?
Yes, but it has nothing to do with the coomer topic, wouldn't you agree?
>>
>>5462205
>you're either a self inserting liar or an autist with a cruel romance deficit irl
All these insults for someone who just enjoys the same quest that you do just a little differently than you do. How sad...
>Yes, but it has nothing to do with the coomer topic, wouldn't you agree?
Considering that the one you're insulting as a degenerate coomer is the one who did not mistake the planet we were supposed to go and plotted the course we're going to follow, I consider it very relevant.
>>
>>5461955
if STAT-A is smaller (obviously) and it's closer to the planet then it orbits way faster.
>MERRYGATE sweetie, give me an approximate time when STAT-A will stray away from the target planets. Is it in five hundred years?
>>
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>>5461955
Just go straight for Mizar-6-A. Make sure that the ice-moon is always between us and Stat-A.
>>
>>5462202
>>Wanting the MC to find companionship with a girl is degenerate

Anon, this is an AI and not a human being.
>>
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>>5462444
>>5462446
>>5462142
Sorry guys I'm retarded. I mislabeled the image. MIZAR-VI-A (your target) is the purple ice moon with the H2O installations, not the planet. I'll keep this vote open after I update tonight in case anyone wants to revise. Apologies again for the confusion.

>>5462137
You can approach from an direction that isn't inside the planet.

>>5462226
The diagram-as-is represents the position of each orbital object at your projected date of arrival. Although the station (STAT-A) is shown to have a closer orbit to the parent planet than MIZAR-IV-B, this is not always true: over the course of a standard orbital period (~25 days), the station receives water from MIZAR-IV-A at a slightly lower orbit before burning a modest quantity of reaction mass to temporarily relocate to a higher orbital plane optimized for gravitational slingshotting. The average of the two orbital periods is equivalent to that of MIZAR-IV-A, meaning that the station will never drift too far from your target installation no matter how long you wait.

Solid idea though

>>5462137
>>5462142
There will be optional interaction with the ship's AI, but the main focus of the quest isn't going to change midway. Don't worry - I can't really write or draw coomerbait anyways.
>>
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>>5462676
If the positions of the celestial bodies and the satelites are stable relative to one another then we can approach the configuration in belt A-1 and then move to MIZAR VI B to use the satellite's shadow and shield from STAT-A. In this safe position we will deploy two drones:

Drone 4a "rough autumn" will head close to STAT-A using the best of the thin BELT-B and scout (remember, there are unseen ships). I expect autumn to risk discovery, but that may work on our favour.
Drone 4b "revealing summer" will pass by the same Belt but get to MIZAR VI A and take its time to scout the ice moon and surroundings.

At first I thought that going after the installations would be dangerous because they face STAT-A but hold on a minute, doesn't this satellite rotate? Let's just pew pew from the shadow of the rocky-metallic MIZAR VI B and retreat. But the firing is stage two of this hit, this is the initial approach. I have also determined that it takes 10 days for drones to travel 5 tiles... I didn't check if they can outrun the one (1) destroyer we've seen so far (it loooks like it does)
>>
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I wonder if we can also drop another probe to scout that trio of satellites and set it to linger there so we retrieve it (and the collected data) later. It's in the way to MIZAR VI and I feel it's a waste to not use the probes
>>
>>5462446
>>5462676
I'm changing my vote to this
>>5462137
>>
>>5462676
Fuck. I'll switch to support this approach >>5462137, with the addition of launching a probe to the mining stations as described here >>5462777
>>
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“MIZAR-VI looms before us. The planet is cold – a loosely-packed snowball of ammonium slurry and water-ice. Light from the system’s central star bleeds through the thick atmosphere, coloring the planet’s terminator line a peculiar shade of reddish-purple.

According to MERRYGATE, this phenomenon is a quirk of the ice giant’s seasonal weather patterns: chromium chlorate and oxide particles suspended by equatorial winds that blew twenty times faster than the typhoons of old earth. When I looked at the planet more carefully, I could even see whitish vapor clouds stretched into thin, wispy strands by those very same winds.

My counterpart’s attention has been divided these past few days. Her avatar often leans faint-red, indicative of a workload that has pushed her hardware to the edge of its processing capacity. This is expected: her arsenal is in constant flux – revised day by day as she intercepts new transmissions and reviews old performance reports.

If she were a human crewmember, I would remind her to rest and recuperate. But she is not human, and I doubt that an enforced interruption would be welcome. Perhaps leaving her to continue her work is the most considerate thing I can do.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, FEB 20, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>See my previous post please and re-vote on the attack vector if you would like!
>>
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“The NOVEMBER RAIN is not a brawler. Compared to true warships, her armor is thin and her engines are slow. Damage control facilities are sparse given her weight-class. Few auditors would risk bringing her into knife-fighting range willingly, even with her generous offensive arsenal.

But I will have few other options in the coming months. Space combat always becomes messy inside gravity wells. Line of sight is awkwardly limited. Satellites – natural and artificial – confound both passive and active sensor arrays. I will do everything I possibly can to avoid a close-in encounter when we initiate our strike on MIZAR-VI. However, I also know that that the enemy may force my hand.

To this end, I spent the past two days testing and recalibrating the close-in weapons hidden inside the NOVEMBER RAIN’s chassis. When I finished my rounds this morning and returned to the bridge to a run a final integration check, I found another ritual card on my desk. I examined it more closely this time. Glossy, but worn by age. An inked motif that seemed strangely appropriate for the RAIN’s offensive loadout…

[CHOOSE ONE]

>XX: JUDGEMENT [A-51/N]. “Some weapons were made to keep us honest. The A-51/N is the most recent iteration of a tried-and-tested design: a dual-stage magnetic accelerator gun capable of slinging foam-phase hydrogen rounds at a rapid clip. I have seen captains disregard this weapon before: their mangled ships burning in the cold void, trailing glowing streams of plasticized metal…”

>XVIII: THE MOON [AURORA-B]. “One of the few laser weapons that have successfully mitigated the beam diffraction problem. The AURORA-B uses a complex optical assembly to project a laser of unparalleled intensity: effective at ablating hull, but also nimble enough to intercept guided weaponry. An important distinction from other weapons in its class”

>XIX: THE SUN [???]. “I have few memories of this device despite its extensive integration with my ship’s systems. To the best my knowledge, this weapon is a collimated particle beam weapon built into the RAIN’s spinal axis. The power requirements of this weapon are enormous, suggesting incredible power…but also potential inflexibility. A weapon of this size will have no chance of striking multiple targets or intercepting guided weaponry.

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, FEB 22, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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>>5462913
>>XX: JUDGEMENT [A-51/N]. “Some weapons were made to keep us honest. The A-51/N is the most recent iteration of a tried-and-tested design: a dual-stage magnetic accelerator gun capable of slinging foam-phase hydrogen rounds at a rapid clip. I have seen captains disregard this weapon before: their mangled ships burning in the cold void, trailing glowing streams of plasticized metal…”

This seems the most reliable.
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>>5462913
>XVIII: THE MOON [AURORA-B]. “One of the few laser weapons that have successfully mitigated the beam diffraction problem. The AURORA-B uses a complex optical assembly to project a laser of unparalleled intensity: effective at ablating hull, but also nimble enough to intercept guided weaponry. An important distinction from other weapons in its class”
Point defense is a critical advantage, and lasers can be used to blind even beyond damage range.
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>>5462913
>XIX: THE SUN [???]. “I have few memories of this device despite its extensive integration with my ship’s systems. To the best my knowledge, this weapon is a collimated particle beam weapon built into the RAIN’s spinal axis. The power requirements of this weapon are enormous, suggesting incredible power…but also potential inflexibility. A weapon of this size will have no chance of striking multiple targets or intercepting guided weaponry.
Slow engines, thin armor...

We'll need to win ship-to-ship fights quickly. Multiple enemies are a death-sentence, point-defense or no. Give me the weapon that guarantees kills.
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>>5462913
>XIX: THE SUN [???]. “I have few memories of this device despite its extensive integration with my ship’s systems. To the best my knowledge, this weapon is a collimated particle beam weapon built into the RAIN’s spinal axis. The power requirements of this weapon are enormous, suggesting incredible power…but also potential inflexibility. A weapon of this size will have no chance of striking multiple targets or intercepting guided weaponry.
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>>5462910
Changing my vote >>5462182 to >>5462764
>>5462913
>XX: JUDGEMENT [A-51/N]. “Some weapons were made to keep us honest. The A-51/N is the most recent iteration of a tried-and-tested design: a dual-stage magnetic accelerator gun capable of slinging foam-phase hydrogen rounds at a rapid clip. I have seen captains disregard this weapon before: their mangled ships burning in the cold void, trailing glowing streams of plasticized metal…”
>>5462764
I believe it was mentioned that scouts are almost undetectable here >>5454828, so we don't need to worry about hiding them behind asteroid belts or anything like that. Also idk if it's possible to control them once they're sent.
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>>5462913
>XVIII: THE MOON [AURORA-B].
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>>5462913
>>XVIII: THE MOON [AURORA-B]. “One of the few laser weapons that have successfully mitigated the beam diffraction problem. The AURORA-B uses a complex optical assembly to project a laser of unparalleled intensity: effective at ablating hull, but also nimble enough to intercept guided weaponry. An important distinction from other weapons in its class”

I vote for the most "defensible" one. If we get into a direct confrontation with enemy ships we can only run
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>>5462913
>XIX: THE SUN [???].

let's hope this thing has excessive range.
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>>5462913
>XVIII: THE MOON [AURORA-B]. “One of the few laser weapons that have successfully mitigated the beam diffraction problem. The AURORA-B uses a complex optical assembly to project a laser of unparalleled intensity: effective at ablating hull, but also nimble enough to intercept guided weaponry. An important distinction from other weapons in its class”
If we're fighting enemy ships it means that something has gone wrong and this is the best weapon for when something has gone wrong.
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>>5462913
>>XIX: THE SUN [???]. “I have few memories of this device despite its extensive integration with my ship’s systems. To the best my knowledge, this weapon is a collimated particle beam weapon built into the RAIN’s spinal axis. The power requirements of this weapon are enormous, suggesting incredible power…but also potential inflexibility. A weapon of this size will have no chance of striking multiple targets or intercepting guided weaponry

If we can't run or take a hit, then the only logical solution is to hit hard enough that other person can't back.
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>>5463287
...what if there are more than one people?
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>>5463363
Same thing, hit hard, and don't stop hitting till they all dead.
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>>5463399
What if you're dead before you manage to picke then all out one by one like a cripple with a musket for a leg?
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>>5463413
anon doesn't understand we are one (1) ship that is outfitted for stealth and infiltration
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No update tonight, but have this picture of the NOVEMBER RAIN using MIZAR-VI-B to shield its approach as detailed by this anon, which seems to have consensus.

>>5462764

Regular update tomorrow hopefully!
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>>5463778
Your renders are always so pretty
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>>5463729
>anon is an idiot who thinks he's smart
Yeah, many such cases.
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>Tie between the laser and the particle lance. I’ll wait for one more vote, then decide with RNG if no tiebreaker by tomorrow.

“We entered the final phase of our approach yesterday. After crossing the outer fringes of the mid-system asteroid belt, the NOVEMBER RAIN flipped along its long axis to initiate a gentle retrograde burn. As the RAIN decelerated, the taffy-blue face of MIZAR-VI expanded until it dominated our view: serene and strangely featureless despite the violent weather systems roiling within its dense atmosphere.

Our plan has changed little within the past few days. This fact is unsurprising. Over the course of our month-long journey, MERRYGATE and I have planned our attack down to the millisecond. Figuratively in my case, but very literally in the case of my companion. At times, her obsessiveness outpaces my own. Space combat is already slow for humans. For AIs, the process must be glacial.

The only significant update worth noting is our decision to launch a spare probe at the outer-system mining colony. While we had initially chosen to pass this target in favor of the water-extraction facility, the amount of traffic surrounding the stations still represent a valuable source of intelligence – especially given that the outer system’s main communication hub is now inoperable. One of the RAIN’s sensor drones – configured for local surveillance and data storage – will linger near the station trio for a few months before falling back into MIZAR-VI’s orbit for recovery. However, conducting this surveillance operation means that our drone supply for our upcoming attack on the extraction will be limited to three probes. Efficiency will be key: here more than ever.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, FEB 28, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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>Pic is a zoom out of the last frame.

“MIZAR-VI-B is an ugly duckling. Its surface is marred with impact craters and low, rocky valleys. No atmosphere. No water. Few extractable metallics. In spite of these deficits, however, the moon offers excellent cover. Its unusually robust magnetosphere provides an EM deadzone on its sun-facing side – one that the RAIN and I have generously exploited over the past two days.

In fact, moving into MIZAR-VI’s gravity well undetected may have been impossible without the moon’s assistance. The orbital station responsible for shipping the majority of MIZAR-VI’s water output possesses a massive phased-sensor array, filling the space around the ice giant with a multiplex of scanning frequencies. Occasional angle shifts in the RAIN’s passive sensor readouts also suggested semi-regular scouting activity by dedicated patrols.

In an attempt to track these patrols, I launched two additional probes this morning – one sent on a merger with the ice giant’s ring system, the other on an inject trajectory into MIZAR-VI-A’s orbit. The first unit provided moderately informative results – a non-station signal trace indicative of a second scanning array somewhere between the RAIN and the ring system. The exact location of the signal-source could be determined with some skill...

>[I will give you three guesses as to the location of these vessel(s), to one square of accuracy. If you guess correctly, the precise location and its weight class will be marked on the display.]

By contrast, the second probe was much luckier – almost unreasonably so. In addition to picking up two corvette-weight vessels on an active patrol, the drone also passed by a collection of inactive vessels. Most of them were transports: big water-haulers with weak engines and poor sensors. But closer to the moon, there were a trio of ships at least ten times heaver than the corvettes. MERRYGATE suggested that they were proper capital-class vessels: set in a temporary holding pattern as they await reaction mass replenishment. Given what we have observed of the Mizarians' travel logs, warships of this size may be a limited resource. Tempting targets, though also risky ones given that their true state of readiness is unknown…”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 6, PERSONAL JOURNAL

[CHOOSE ONE/MORE OF THE FOLLOWING:]

>SCOUT. I have one remaining scout drone left. Perhaps I could use it to tease out the location of any additional vessels…

>STRIKE. I have close in weapons and missiles, and there are several tempting targets...

>LURE. My scout drones can be used to lure ships by broadcasting a false scanning pattern/drive signature. However, this will result in loss of my drone should an enemy ship reach if first…

>MOVE. Perhaps I could relocate to a better position?

>INTRUSION. Ideas for MERRYGATE? [Will require moving into radar [RAD] range at least]

>Write In…
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>>5464900
I did some drawing in paint.net, saved 4 pictures from the webm, drawn lines towards where the ELINT points and layered all the images on top of one another with semitransparency, here's what I got. The little square on the right picture is supposed to be where the vessel(s?) is. It doesn't account for the RAIN's movement, but should be an okay guess if we're allowed 1 square of accuracy. I'm NOT proposing this as a proper guess until anons support it though.
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>>5464893
What in the fuck's going on anymore
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>>5464965
It's been said the source is non-stationary. I'd like to try to locate it myself before I support your guess.
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>>5464965
I think you're right. I'll add that this object seems to orbit Mizar-VI-B clockwise, so it's probably a satellite or a station.
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>>5464900
>>STRIKE. I have close in weapons and missiles, and there are several tempting targets...
Surprise ambush their capital ships, also destroy the water haulers if we can.
>>5464965
I support this guess.
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>>5464893
Changing my vote >>5462972 to
>XVIII: THE MOON [AURORA-B]. “One of the few laser weapons that have successfully mitigated the beam diffraction problem. The AURORA-B uses a complex optical assembly to project a laser of unparalleled intensity: effective at ablating hull, but also nimble enough to intercept guided weaponry. An important distinction from other weapons in its class”
>>5464900
A couple questions before I vote here:
Can we kill all 3 capital ships with 1 missile? Or must we expend several from our arsenal to destroy all of them? Can we approach within radar range without cover but without getting detected? I'm thinking of maybe asking MERRYGATE to do something with the patrolling destroyers but not sure.
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>>5464900
>INTRUSION. Ideas for MERRYGATE? [Will require moving into radar [RAD] range at least]
How about we co-opt one of those water haulers and ram it into the warships?
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>>5465226
It is possible. Depends on where you target the missile, and I may ask for a roll. But you will probably get at least two of the ships based on blast radius of a conventional nuclear warhead, which is one square (so width of the circle is two squares)

You are currently at ELINT 1, so you have some wiggle room before you get detected even if you leave cover. Your missiles will be detected if they enter radar range, but whether or not the enemy can attempt an intercept depends on the size of the ship and the intervening distance (and of course whether it’s sensors are active or not)

>>5464987
Too much autism?
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>>5465231
Doable but you’ll need to get in radar range (white dotted line) with anyone you want to hack
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>>5465243
I'm banking on the assumption that cargo ships don't have radar warning receivers.
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>>5465231
This is a cool idea but I'd like to get info on the ships our right probe detected first. I'm thinking these are probably destroyers on patrol as well, but it helps to have the wider picture.
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>>5464965
That's a good guess, support.

>>5465231
Support this too. Swing around behind the patrolling corvettes and go near them. The water haulers have weak sensors and probably a skeleton crew at best, if they're not mothballed. But why just one? I bet our AI waifu could hijack them all and make it impossible for the capital ships to dodge even if they tried.
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>>5464965
Thought I should give the location on the bigger map without all the editing noise.
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>>5465252
We need to be careful that whatever this is doesn't detect us once it swings around on its orbit.
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>>5465240
Just too much icon clutter.
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>>5465250
>>5465190
>>5464965
Good guess!
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>>5465881
Welp, looks like a battleship on patrol
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>>5464900
>>5465226
Adding
>MOVE. Perhaps I could relocate to a better position?
Circumvent the patrolling corvettes and approach water haulers within radar range
>INTRUSION. Ideas for MERRYGATE? [Will require moving into radar [RAD] range at least]
Hack into water haulers and ram them into passive warships
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>>5464900
>>5465190
>>5465881

With this in mind, I change my vote to sneaking up on UNK06 and taking it out. It's isolated, let's take advantage of that.
>>
Uhhh I had a pretty long day so I'm probably going to watch some vtubers tonight and update tomorrow!

Seems like hacking the water haulers and ramming them into the 250KT ships has consensus, unless I'm miscounting votes.
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>>5466800
Oh shit QM, who do you watch? Corpos? Indies?
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>>5466911
For my preferred vtuber experience I animate MERRYGATE doing a little dance, record it, and play it in the background on loop while I play exapunks/question my life choices.

But I'm pretty fond of Kronii and some of the holoEN corpos. And yea...I'm aware that this makes me the precise type of degenerate QM that I typically avoid when I play quests :)
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>>5466939
Wonderful, exactly what I expect from a good QM.
I'm personally more partial to western vtuber indies, the small ones with less than 100 views on twitch. I've grown a bit bored of Hololive since discovering those creators, admittedly...
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>>5466939
>>5467165
Whatever, vtubers (streamers) are superficial entertainment. Why don't you watch movies or something? dunno what to say QM... kronii is fine I guess. I believe she has always wanted to be a guy
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>>5467656
>I believe she has always wanted to be a guy
A mentally ill vrtuber? Who coulda thought!
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“I have never enjoyed running dark. Electrical power is limited. Lighting is low. Heat – a surefire sign of activity – is winnowed hour-by-hour to minimize the RAIN’s thermal signature. MERRYGATE felt this too. As the NOVEMBER RAIN began its final, careful approach towards MIZAR-VI’s only ice moon, I found her strangely lethargic – a different persona than the concise, sharp-edge intelligence I had become accustomed to. She assured me that it was regrettable but unavoidable: a necessary sacrifice to keep the RAIN’s electrical grid under its load threshold.

But in truth, I was less bothered by this than she was. Slower processing speed brought her closer to the pace of human thought. Our customary conversations – held at the aft observation blister – seemed less one sided, and I felt like I had more time to deliberate on some of more interesting ideas we would puzzle over:

[Pick one]

>XI: JUSTICE [WHY/HOW ARE WE HERE?]
>XVI: THE TOWER [WHO/WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING?]
>X: THE WHEEL [WHEN DID/WILL THIS START/END?]

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 9, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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“We executed our attack as soon as the NOVEMBER RAIN entered comm range. There was no delay this time. Within minutes of reactor startup, MERRYGATE injected a cocktail of pre-written intrusion programs to subvert the primitive subroutines responsible for navigation and thrust control. The four haulers spun as one, swinging their needle-nose prows to point back towards their frigid home-port.

Bursts of fuzzy static sounded over wide-band comms – perhaps an impromptu distress call by a panicked crewmember? MERRYGATE heard it to. I remember seeing her tilt her head ever so slightly in amusement. A moment later, fragile lines of white vapor began streaming from the haulers.
Curious, I used the RAIN's optic array to look closer.

To silence any crew-turned-passengers, she had forced every single water-lock and external hatch to open simultaneously, flash-sublimating the water inside the habitation modulates into opaque ice-plumes. Depressurization was a brutal solution, but an undeniable efficient one.

As I watched the now crew-less haulers light their main drives in succession, I hoped that this same principle would apply to the next stage of our plan. All four ships were set on intercept trajectories with the capital-weight vessels we detected a few days ago. Extrapolating the collision would be easy. But MERRYGATE assured me that intercepting it would be significantly harder. In the time that it would take for them to realize the gravity of the situation and commit to shooting down their own vessels, it would hopefully be too late.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 14, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>Roll 1d20, best of 3 for success of attack. I was hoping to avoid rolls mostly for this quest, but this will be an exception.
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Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>5468100
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>>5468103
>XI: JUSTICE [WHY/HOW ARE WE HERE?]
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Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>5468098
>>5468100
>XI: JUSTICE [WHY/HOW ARE WE HERE?]
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Rolled 5 (1d20)

>>5468100
>X: THE WHEEL [WHEN DID/WILL THIS START/END?]
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>>5468098

>XI: JUSTICE [WHY/HOW ARE WE HERE?]
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>>5468098
>X: THE WHEEL [WHEN DID/WILL THIS START/END?]
This seems like the most interesting question with all the causality violating shenanigans.
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>>5468098

>X: THE WHEEL [WHEN DID/WILL THIS START/END?]
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>>5468098
>>XVI: THE TOWER [WHO/WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING?]

Know thy enemy.
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>>5468098
>X: THE WHEEL [WHEN DID/WILL THIS START/END?]

I do not care for the enemy and I have no interest in learning more about them. We know they suffer and we know they die. Trying to make sense of time however, is great
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>>5468098
>X: THE WHEEL [WHEN DID/WILL THIS START/END?]
We are here to avenge, but what will we do once the killers are dealt their due?
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>>5468098
>X: THE WHEEL [WHEN DID/WILL THIS START/END?]
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[DC: 5, 10, 15]
>Roll: 17

“At trans-orbital speeds, the physics of collision become simple. Hardness is irrelevant. Explosive payloads are negligible. Only two things matter: mass and relative velocity.

Three hours of sustained, engine-destroying fusion burn propelled our fleet of commandeered ice haulers to an impact velocity exceeding eighty kilometers per second. A modest clip by interplanetary standards, but inconceivably fast for human perception.

Twenty minutes before impact, I ordered MERRYGATE to add angular acceleration to the haulers before disengaging cargo locks. Each hauler carried several hundred containers filled with purified water-ice. As my companion rotated the central hull, these containers spun out from the shipping compartments like seeds from a pod, surrounding each individual hauler with an cloud of frozen submunitions.

The aliens panicked. I couldn’t peer into their bridge or comprehend their comms, but I have survived too many close calls to be unfamiliar with its signs. Through RAIN’s optics , I saw the grumble of uncalibrated hydrogen burn as two of the capitals attempted to leave their docking berths. MERRYGATE preened as the command staff – or whatever passed for it – sent strings of frantic chatter in an attempt to coordinate maneuvers. Long-range missiles and kinetic point defense fire raced on intercept trajectories, scattered and uncertain.

Why the capitals waited so long to engage remains unclear to me. Perhaps they clung onto hopes of recovering their compatriots. Perhaps their ships were slower on the uptake than our own. Or maybe the malice of the collision wasn’t obvious before MERRYGATE scattered her deadly cargo.

In the end, the difference was irrevalent. In the same way that the distinction between ice and metal becomes academic at multi-kilometer closing velocities.

I watched the capitals fly apart under dozens of tiny impacts, each one flaring bright against the display. Antennas shattered. Chunks of superstructure and armor cladding flew into space. Pressurized water sprayed from hull breaches before flash-freezing into bright clouds. I was about to turn back to the navigation console when MERRYGATE pushed my attention to the viewing screen, brushing my shoulder with the light touch of an acoustic hologram.

The capitals were crippled. But one of the haulers was not. As it cleared the debris field, it initiated a final, violent burn towards the moon's southern hemisphere, cutting through the orbital belt and the low-density atmosphere with a touch of frictional heating.

It struck the planet. I saw one brief, fleeting image of the hauler driving into the frozen crust – like a heated lancet – before everything within a sixty-kilometer radius vanished in white. For the first time since our ship arrived, I heard MERRYGATE laugh: clear and bright under the light of a burning moon.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 14, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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“Everything comes at a cost. We were fortune a few hours ago – striking a critical below against the enemy without expending a single missile of our own.

But I doubt that such an opportunity will repeat itself soon. Once the hauler impacted the moon and vaporized the southern purification colony, every single ship in the ice giant’s initiated a hard burn towards the ice moon. Aggressive scan patterns crept across the RAIN’s hull in a futile but unending squall. Their smaller corvettes are exceptionally fast – swinging back on acceleration vectors that would suffocate any human. I suspect that it is an unintended benefit of their aquatic biology. The Mizarians may be peculiar – and strangely naive, but they are not stupid. They know that this was not an accident.

We are currently faced with is a critical juncture: we must choose whether we withdraw or engage – and in the latter case, our level of commitment.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 14, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>WITHDRAW. If we break for open space now, only the fastest and lightly armed corvettes will have any chance of detecting and intercepting us. However, the damage we have inflicted is not fatal: there are three water purification facility on MIZAR-VI-A. While losing a single facility will cause their supply lines to buckle, I doubt that it will stress them to their breaking point.

>ATTACK – MSL-C (Conventional Fusion Warhead [8 Loaded/2 Storage]). Launching a one or two warheads before we leave will not delay us, but it will guarantee the loss of one (or two) of the remaining purification plants. But missiles are always a limited resource…

>ATTACK – MSL-C [CHOOSE 1 or 2]. ATTACK – MSL-AM (AM-MIRV [4 Loaded]). A single one of these warheads will turn the moon from an pristine snowball into an irradiated wasteland. Both purification plants will be destroyed, with absolutely no hope of recovery. But AM-MIRV warheads are even more limited than our other missiles and may be better reserved for other targets.

>ATTACK – CLOSE-IN. We could exploit the chaos of the attack and close-in to the facility to engage with conventional weapons. A few minutes of sustained laser fire could wreak terrible havoc on an exposed facility…but it would also probably risk an interception.

>WRITE-IN. Proposals? Trajectories you want to draw? [Not much time has passed, so I just included a still image as the update instead of an animation]

>>5468098
[Vote noted, will probably write about it in an upcoming backdated update]
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>>5470710
Our genocidal AI waifu can't be this cute!
>brushing my shoulder with the light touch of an acoustic hologram.
And she can actually touch us! Operation Handholding is a go!

>>5470718
>ATTACK – MSL-C (Conventional Fusion Warhead [8 Loaded/2 Storage]). Launching a one or two warheads before we leave will not delay us, but it will guarantee the loss of one (or two) of the remaining purification plants. But missiles are always a limited resource…
Two missiles to kill their two remaining facilities. The expenditure is more than worth it. Then gtfo, our objective here will have been accomplished.
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>>5470724
Supporting 2x Missiles
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>>5470718
>>5470724
Support. Finish the job and get moving. The Mizarians will soon begin reinforcing other elements of their infrastructure. Every minute counts.
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>>5470718
>ATTACK – MSL-C (Conventional Fusion Warhead [8 Loaded/2 Storage]). Launching a one or two warheads before we leave will not delay us, but it will guarantee the loss of one (or two) of the remaining purification plants. But missiles are always a limited resource…
2 warheads for 2 purification plants.
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>>5470718
>2x MSL-C
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>>5470718
Actually, I'll change my vote
>WRITE-IN: Flee past the moon and hack the remaining facilities as we pass by to try and destroy the equipment. If we can't do it in time, them bomb them with MSL-C
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>>5470724

Supporting. Leave them out to dry.
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>>5470718
Supporting >>5470724
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>>5470742
Remember the station has a wide detection and targeting range. Not to mention the fact that ALL the ships in orbit are heading towards us. We'd be exposing ourselves a lot and risking great damage to the ship by doing this.
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>>5470724
Supporting
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>>5470710
wait, why does the explosion have MIZAR-VI-B in the background, in front of MIZAR-VI-A? Cool image and I love the detail of the *blip* explosion, but my autism is boundless
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>>5471029
The background should be MIZAR VI, both VI-A and VI-B are moons of the gas giant. If I understood it correctly, that is.
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>>5471029
*facepallm* MIZAR VI is a gas planet with two moons. Alright, alright...

>>ATTACK – MSL-C [CHOOSE 1 or 2]. ATTACK – MSL-AM (AM-MIRV [4 Loaded]). A single one of these warheads will turn the moon from an pristine snowball into an irradiated wasteland. Both purification plants will be destroyed, with absolutely no hope of recovery. But AM-MIRV warheads are even more limited than our other missiles and may be better reserved for other targets.

Now now, >Coupled with our system-map, our observations indicate that 70-80% of the Mazarin’s non-terrestrial water supply hinges on the extraction/purification activity of this single colony.

ONE COLONY. ONE!!! Without this their water is POOOF. Think of a bank. They don't have cash at all and if suddenly half their customers wanted their mony withdrawn the bank is a GONER. (cash runs). I understand wanting to save up the MSL-C for other targets, such as populated planets and colonies, but think about it. One of this fusion bad boys and their water is GONE.

And not just a massive disruption to their water, but the moon would be negated forever as a resource thanks to the radiation.
>>
>>5471038
yes, silly me
>>
>>5471040
also, according to >>5457079 we have ten of this. Oh wait, this is the MSL-AM fuk. We have FOUR of this, but COME ON
>>
>>5470718
Fire one MSL-AM. If I understand it correctly this will make the moon permanently unusable, they will NEVER be able to get water from it anymore. If we use two conventional warheads then they still will be able to rebuild the facilities eventually.

In other words, the conventional missiles are like burning their fields whereas the AM warheads are like burning their fields and salting the earth.
>>
>>5471040
>>5471137
We don't plan to give them enough time to rebuild there. If they manage to do it, it means that we have failed completely, they survived, and salting the earth in that moon will be irrelevant.
>>
>>5471211
It's a contingency plan. If we nuke the moon and get shot down the very next day then we still did permanent damage to their civilisation that they will never be able to recover from.
>>
>>5470718

>>ATTACK – MSL-C [2].

While I would like to use the AM-MIRV, I don't think its the right target. 2 fusion warheads will have the same effect.
>>
>>5471294
>2 fusion warheads will have the same effect.

They won't, they'll still destroy the plants but they won't irradiate the moon.
>>
>>5471296
You're too fixated on this moon. Even if it's the best source of clean water, there probably are others, even if more expensive. In a pinch, the Mizarians can start just purifying whatever water they find, and water is abundant in space. Irradiating this moon is not a forever knockout punch. They will bounce back in time.
>>
>>5470724
I'll support this, there are plenty of targets of more danger and worth ahead.
>>
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The NOVEMBER RAIN has drawn blood. It is a moment I have anticipated and dreaded in equal measure. With her arsenal, there are no half measures; the first step she takes towards violence is also her last and only step.

I recall the click I heard when I inserted my launch-key into the central control panel. The soft whirring of a sample-centrifuge as the ship processed blood from a finger-prick to verify my biometric information. Finally, I remember the gentle change in the RAIN’s velocity vector as the cold-launch system pushed a pair of missiles out from their narrow launch tubes

The RAIN does not operate on half measures. The missiles we fired had little in common with the lithe anti-shipping missiles typically mounted on patrolling warships. There are no sensible yield-restrictions here. Our fusion warheads sat comfortably within the ten-gigaton range, mated to a heavily-armored chassis capable of providing continuous acceleration from launch until impact. It was a delivery system designed to mitigate the possibility of mid-course interception – to push each warhead fast and far enough to break an unprepared fleet or shatter an unlucky colony.

And shatter the colony did. With the docked capitals destroyed, the possibility of a successful intercept was remote. The RAIN’s missile-pair streaked towards the moon with no resistance, hugging its airless surface to avoid detection until the last possible moment.

To the Mizarian’s credit, their station did manage to detect one of the missiles before impact, releasing a chain of guided interceptors that surged forward on an aggressive intercept trajectory. But basic kinematics tend to be non-negotiable. A quick glance at their acceleration vectors told me that they were hounding a target that they simple could not reach in time.

And so, I watched the first missile impact just north of the equatorial line, vaporizing the purification facility instantly before sublimating several thousand square kilometers of surface-ice into vapor. Light from the detonation seeped through the moon’s subsurface ocean, briefly outlining cracks and trenches engraved in brilliant turquoise.

The second missile performed similarly, destroying the last purification node a few seconds. Here, the crust was thinner. Instead of vaporizing, the ice sheet cracked and melted, creating a large – but temporary – ocean visible from orbit...."
>>
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…There was a moment of stillness after this. I processed the magnitude of what I had done while the Mizarians – most likely – attempted to grasp the extent of the damage.

But that moment vanished faster than I would have liked. Guided by either a lucky sensor catch or simple intuition, a pair of corvettes were converging on a patrol path that would take them uncomfortably close to the RAIN’s position. Matching their speed in a chase would be impossible but…"

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 15, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>EVADE. If we slow down and start running dark, we may be able to wait out the patrol. The sensors on their corvettes aren’t excellent, and they could miss us easily if we play our cards right. However, this option will delay our exit, which could become problematic as more ships trickle in…

>AMBUSH – CLOSE IN. The corvettes are a tiny fraction of our tonnage. While the RAIN is not meant for direct combat, she can probably destroy these patrol vessels without significant difficulty. This could allow us to make a clean exist…but combat always carries certain risks.

>AMBUSH – MSL-C. Firing a missile at the corvettes would guarantee their destruction without risking our own ship. But missiles are precious…
>>
>>5471946
>>AMBUSH – CLOSE IN. The corvettes are a tiny fraction of our tonnage. While the RAIN is not meant for direct combat, she can probably destroy these patrol vessels without significant difficulty. This could allow us to make a clean exit…but combat always carries certain risks.
>>
>>5471946
>AMBUSH – CLOSE IN. The corvettes are a tiny fraction of our tonnage. While the RAIN is not meant for direct combat, she can probably destroy these patrol vessels without significant difficulty. This could allow us to make a clean exist…but combat always carries certain risks.
>>
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>>5471944
And here's a high-res pic of this.
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>>5471946
>AMBUSH – CLOSE IN. The corvettes are a tiny fraction of our tonnage. While the RAIN is not meant for direct combat, she can probably destroy these patrol vessels without significant difficulty. This could allow us to make a clean exist…but combat always carries certain risks.
>>
>>5471946
>AMBUSH – CLOSE IN. The corvettes are a tiny fraction of our tonnage. While the RAIN is not meant for direct combat, she can probably destroy these patrol vessels without significant difficulty. This could allow us to make a clean exist…but combat always carries certain risks.
>>
>>5471946
>AMBUSH – CLOSE IN. The corvettes are a tiny fraction of our tonnage. While the RAIN is not meant for direct combat, she can probably destroy these patrol vessels without significant difficulty. This could allow us to make a clean exist…but combat always carries certain risks.
There will be no better time to test our weapons against them.

>>5471953
Beautiful.
>>
>>5464893
>Tie between the laser and the particle lance. I’ll wait for one more vote, then decide with RNG if no tiebreaker by tomorrow.

What was the outcome here?
>>
>>5471953
here I was, looking for a new wallpaper for my desktop
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>>5471946
Wow wow wow, we are not fighting against two corvettes, we are fighting again two corvettes, two unidentified 70 KT ships of respectable speed and a damn 250KT destroyer... that certanly has considerable payload.

>AMBUSH – MSL-C. Firing a missile at the corvettes would guarantee their destruction without risking our own ship. But missiles are precious…

But how many missiles? shiiit... At least I am happy that our drones can get back to us because wow they are fast
>>
>>5472199
FYI the 70kT destroyers and the 250kT capital probably won’t be able to intercept you successfully from this range unless something very bad happens. But the 20kT corvettes have a much better chance of doing.
>>
>>5472165
Laser I’m pretty sure
>>
>>5471946

>AMBUSH – CLOSE IN. The corvettes are a tiny fraction of our tonnage. While the RAIN is not meant for direct combat, she can probably destroy these patrol vessels without significant difficulty. This could allow us to make a clean exist…but combat always carries certain risks.
>>
>>5471946
>>AMBUSH – CLOSE IN. The corvettes are a tiny fraction of our tonnage. While the RAIN is not meant for direct combat, she can probably destroy these patrol vessels without significant difficulty. This could allow us to make a clean exist…but combat always carries certain risks.
>>
>>5472311
Thats counting on anons not choosing to engage in glorious melee combat, is jt?
>>
>>5472311
>>5471946
I am voting for

>>AMBUSH – MSL-C. Firing a missile at the corvettes would guarantee their destruction without risking our own ship. But missiles are precious…

Otherwise
>>
>>5472311
I dunno QM. I believe it's great if we can dispatch those enemies without spending missiles but *also* run away afterwards? anons are being too greedy
>>
When are we getting the lore dump from the tarot vote?
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>>5473221
Probably the update after combat finishes, so sometime next week?

Also no update tonight, but probably update tomorrow.
>>
Reading through the thread again I just realised something.

>A strangely naive race that is beligerent enough to wipe out humanity in a pre-emptive strike yet has inferior cyber-warfare capability.
> Communication is primarily visual.

OMFG we're fighting Tri solarian expies in a Dark Forest.
Dafuq am I on about? Well if you know, you know.
>>
>>5473327
>beligerent enough to wipe out humanity in a pre-emptive strike
I'm not so sure about that. With the causality shenanigans, there's a high chance that we arrived before they fired their relativistic missile and they are going to do it because of us.

I really hate that trilogy.
>>
>>5473459
>With the causality shenanigans, there's a high chance that we arrived before they fired their relativistic missile and they are going to do it because of us.

That would be such a lame reveal. I mean 40 years ago it would have been mind blowing, but time travel shenanigans have been played out in fiction enough that saying we were stuck in a time loop all along is really unsatisfying.

I felt that trilogy explored some very interesting concepts, but after reading it all the way to the end I have to say it is the saddest, most cynical and depressing piece of science fiction I have ever read. I don't regret reading it, but I can totally understand why someone would hate it.
>>
>>5473466
If we genocide them thoroughly enough, they won't start a time loop, so get to work! Fuck Novikov!
I propose we play to our infiltration strengths and try to manipulate their civilization into self-destruction. It's more reliable than relying on 14 missiles.
>>
>>5473466
Us being the architects of our own doom is far more interesting as a narrative than "they killed us for no reason, we killed them in retaliation and rode off into the sunset with the AI waifu, the end."

It did explore some interesting concepts, but it did so in an awfully contrived way. The biggest problem with the trilogy is not that it's cynical, it's how many things happen to go exactly right for it to try and prove its cynicism right. A ton of things happen not because they make sense as a result of earlier things, but just because they needed to happen for it to reach the conclusion that the author wanted.
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>>5473552
>they killed us for no reason, we killed them in retaliation and rode off into the sunset with the AI waifu, the end."

Based...
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>>5473552
>and rode off into the sunset with the AI waifu, the end.
For some reason I suspect our last attack on the Mizarian homeworld is going to be a suicide mission. Just a feeling.
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>>5473669
this whole mission is a suicide mission you dingus
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>>5473669
Man I hope we can reenact Gundam's colony drop maneuver, but with our ship at the highest speed we can go, and after emptying all our munitions.
That would be badass.
>>
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>X: THE WHEEL [WHEN DID/WILL THIS START/END?]

+++++++++++++UNDATED ENTRY+++++++++++++++

I dreamt of the wheel last night. I remember her glittering spokes and the low rumble of perpetual movement. Always clockwise. Always rigid. Always forward.

Her attention fell on me for only a second, and she told me this:

“The future does not yet exist. The present cannot be changed. But the past belongs to history. And history can always be revised.

+++++++++++++UNDATED ENTRY+++++++++++++++

I remember less than I should. I notice it day by day. Hour by hour. The universe is taking far more than what it is owed.

Fifty-one years of censorship have grown into sixty. Memories of critical deployments fade. The most recent faces of my family. Slowly, tendrils of forgetfulness chew away at early adulthood – too clinical and procedural to be the gentle mellowing of age. For once, I am grateful for the thoughtless decades that I have spent in cryogenic reefersleep – the only buffer I have against slow grind of cosmic repossession.

MERRYGATE has been surprisingly sympathetic when I have discussed this trend her. Perhaps it is in her nature. Artificial intelligences are nothing but data; they understand the pain of forgetfulness even more keenly than we do.

But she also provided something more than sympathy. While the mathematics underlying FTL travel are horrifically complex, they remain pseudodeterministic. They do not permit interest. Fifty one years stolen equates fifty one years repaid: no more, no less. MERRYGATE was emphatic about this.

“There are two possibilities,” she said with a tone of gentle concern. “The phenomenon could be biological – a form of delayed-onset neural pruning caused by the initial causal discontinuity. The other – more radical possibility – invokes a physical explanation.”
I remember feeling a growing sense of foreboding as she continued.

“The jump coils were experimental, and the process of FTL travel forbids accurate timekeeping within a superluminal reference frame. The fifty-one year figure could be an underestimate. Perhaps by a considerable margin”

It all I culminated in a single, awful moment of realization. The Mizarians. Their surprisingly primitive computational technology. Their impressive – but not overtly militarized – industrial base. The fact that their star was eighty odd light years from sol.

It was unlikely. But it was possible. The original purpose of the FTL drive was to mitigate the first-strike advantage: to prevent a retaliatory strike from confronting an adversary with an unassailable, century-long head start. But the tempting conclusion of this logic is to strike even earlier: to punish before the crime is even committed. Before the criminal is even born.
>>
My temples pounded with familiar fears: justifications and rationalizations for a retaliatory strike that was already well in-progress. And a heretical hope of changing the past. But first, I asked MERRYGATE to confirm my train of thought: to estimate local time based on the synchronicity of a few well documented pulsars.

Relative to our projected arrival date, her analysis revealed that we were:

>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]

>EARLY – THREE GENERATIONS, LOST [YOU WILL PAY THIS SUM]

>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]

+++++++++++++UNDATED ENTRY+++++++++++++++
>>
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“I spent my childhood engrossed by accounts of the early colonization wars. Romanticized stories featuring sleek ships and daring protagonist-captains who tested their mettle in nature’s oldest, darkest ocean. For them, honor was a given and glory always in ample supply.

I now know these accounts to be false. There is no glory in space combat, and honor is a cardinal sin.

Basic physical principles demand nothing less. In deep space, all materials are fragile. Closing velocities are immense. Any damage has the potential to be lethal in an environment devoid of heat, light, and air. As a logical consequence, the first and only rule of space combat is to strike before being hit: to see before being seen. First strikes are good, but ambushes are ideal.

The attack that I have prepared conforms to this principle. A few hours ago, the RAIN began feathering back her drive output, redirecting power to charge the mammoth capacitor banks surrounding the reactor compartment. Adaptive beam emitters – five on each side of the ship – spun in their mounts and dilated their apertures as they finished last minute calibration-checks. They were immaculate examples of optical engineering: devices designed to collimate the killing power of fifty-megawatt laser beam into an impact profile no larger than a child’s thumbprint.

Through the main viewscreen, I watched the corvettes continued their dogged, vengeful fusion burn, unaware that the target of their patrol had already locked them squarely in her sights.

Just moments before I sprung the ambush, I ordered MERRYGATE to ping the corvettes with a targeted burst from the RAIN’s active sensor array – focused radar, phased magnetic resonance imaging, and a few exotic modalities that could peer inside their peculiar, radially-symmetric hulls. Against a human warship, I wouldn’t have bothered; the RAIN could use stolen schematic data to optimize sub-system targeting without my assistance.

But against an unfamiliar target, I was responsible for finding these weak points manually. The corvettes may be small but hitting the right area could still mean the difference between a clean ambush and a longer, messier exchange of fire….
>>
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[ALBEDO refers to the ability of the hull to reflect UV LIGHT. Brighter/whiter areas reflect more light.]

[THERMAL highlights areas that are HOT, such as reactors or drive units. White/Orange areas emit more heat than blue areas]

[EM-RAD highlights areas that emit low-level EM RADIATION, such as sensors, weapons, and communication devices. These are shown in red.]

[H2O-SG highlights areas that are rich in WATER, which mainly includes crew compartments. These are shown in blue]

>CIRCLE/DRAW/DESCRIBE which area on the corvette you would like to target. Against a target this small, there’s a good chance that your laser will be effective even with sub-optimal targeting, but learning how to read sensor readouts will become far more important as you engage larger and heaver targets.

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 16, PERSONAL JOURNAL
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>>5473459
>>5473466
>>5473512
>Warning meta semi-spoiler.
>[s]I won’t spoil anything big, but don’t worry too much about railroading. While you guys have touched on a lot of interesting ideas that I have shamelessly ripped off, be rest assured that I’m not going to force you into a situation where the outcome remains exactly the same regardless of your actions in the quest-proper. I will probably do a debrief after the quest is over to talk over some of the decision trees in greater detail in case anyone is curious, though[/spoiler]
>>
>>5475345
>>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
>>5475348
Target the tail. I tried to post an image but it's not coming through.
>>
>>5475345
>EARLY – THREE GENERATIONS, LOST [YOU WILL PAY THIS SUM]

>>5475348
>Near the root of the hottest part

It's either the engine, the reactor, or the radiators, all critical components. In this case I think it's the engine nozzle combined with the radiator. Hitting a nozzle isn't probably deadly, but they don't have another radiator, and if we can flash-vaporize the coolant they're fucked.
>>
>>5475348
>>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]

>>5475373
+1
>>
>>5475348
What does the white cloud near the tail of the ship on the EM-RAD screen mean?
>>
>>5475377
I gather it might be the magnetic containment of their fusion engine
>>
>>5475345
>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]

>>5475348
+1 >>5475373
>>
>>5475345
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY
No turning back, no space for regrets

>>5475348
>Attack the 'nose'
Seems to be a weapon of some sort, or a reactor, although my bet that it's a weapon.
If we can strike multiple targets, next in order of priority:
>Attack the back 'nozzle'
Might be the engines.
>Attack the front 'prong'
Might be an antenna, if not a weapon.
>>
>>5475345
>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
>>
>>5475349
press Ctrl+s you dingus
>>
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Damn, already at the end of the current updates.
Gotta say, this is an absolute gem of a find.

>>5475345
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY
The temptation to think that one could change what was, what will be, will ever be the Albatross round our necks.

>>5475348
With laser weaponry, thermal shielding and insulating materials will be a major weakness. Anything that diminishes the effectiveness of the heat transfer. Areas with albedo, with high water content, these are going to be tougher to crack.

With kinetics, I would have aimed for a strike on the water laden crew quarters to the port side of the ship but with the beam array, I would suggest a targeted hit to the 'engine' in the rear, or possibly what appears to be the intake at the front. Those high thermal areas are tempting when you think about what happens to a delicate machine like a fusion reactor. If these corvettes are using some form of nuclear thermal rocket for example, well...
>>
>>5475345
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]
Time paradox? What's that?

>>5475348
>>5475373
Support this targetting
>>
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>>5475555
I think water is a decent insulator but heating up the water... that kills the shit
>>
>>5475345
>>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]
HAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHAAAAHHAHAHAAAA
>>
>>5476061
What stopped me from targeting water was that there seems to be two isolated areas of it, so to off the whole crew we would need two shots.
>>
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>>5475348
I want to fire at the reactors. But hold on, if it's not possible to aim at them, since they are in the back I thnk we should:
>Fire one volley at one ship's Antennas (they are two)
>Fire one volley at the other ship's Nose

I would also want to fire at the water compartment... The- WAIT A MINUTE I will post this post but I will post another
>>
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>>5476113
As you can see in this schematic, clearly not written by a seven year old, this area of water lacks decent albedo, is the compartment that holds most of the water and it's WARM, compared to the other water(s). This meants that this place is the one with the crew and the rest isn't, because living creatures need the water to e somewhat warm and/or they produce heat themselves.
My vote is:
>Fire at the compartment pointed at by pic related. BOILED CREWMEN FOR DINNER
>>
>>5475345
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]
We cannot but FUCK this will be fun.
>>
>>5475496
>>
>>5475348
>Fire at the compartment pointed at by pic related. BOILED CREWMEN FOR DINNER
Time for boiled seafood.

>EARLY – THREE GENERATIONS, LOST [YOU WILL PAY THIS SUM]
I have exactly zero idea what this means.
>>
>>5475345
>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
>>
>>5475345
>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
The temptation to forget everything is great, but I'll go with this.
>>5475348
>>5475373
Targeting support.
>>
>>5475345
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]
gaming
>>
>>5476430
>I have exactly zero idea what this means.
We are in a causal time loop. We came here to seek vengeance. Our FTL, being what it is, teleported us, not only across space but backwards thru time as well. We are either

A)
>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
A mere decade before these aliens attacked us. So we may be encountering these scum before they finalize their plans to attack Sol.

B)
>EARLY – THREE GENERATIONS, LOST [YOU WILL PAY THIS SUM]
We are 100 to 150 years in the past. WELL before these aliens attempted to even conceive of attacking Sol.

C)
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]
So far back in time that we may just irrevocably alter the fabric of reality itself with our presence.

As for the sum we must pay, our memories are being drained away from us. Also probably our life and vitality as well, we will have to see on this one.
>>
>>5477377
I really hope it's not actually a loop.
>>
>>5477793
It is definitely a loop. The only question is what happens when, not if, we break it.
>>
>>5477793
Its it totally a loop. There is no way in hell we are not directly responsible for these xenos attaking Sol.
>>
>>5475345
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]
Our only real hope now is to try and kill them all as opposed to JUST doing as much damage as we can in mere vengance. Otherwise we are damning our own spiecies to just repeat this causal loop. Either that or try and make friends with these xenos and explain the situation. But fat chance of that now that we have killed 30 million of them or so.
>>
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“The NOVEMBER RAIN sang. Her excimer assembly howled out pure, ringing note as it transmuted terajoules of stored electrical energy into a pulsating stream of ultraviolet photons. Through the viewing blister, I watched five beams instantly bridge the path between the RAIN and the corvette, bright enough to leave a ghostly imprint against my dark-adapted retinas.

For the first target, we had opted to hit the crew compartments – a “wing” of the corvette harboring both the densiometric signature of liquid water and the subtle heat of metabolic activity. The impact point glowed bright red. Metal ran like wax before delaminating in glowing arcs. Spectroscopic impact-analysis readouts spiked as the beam first bit into dense metal – then ceramic-polymer honeycomb – before finally sinking its fangs into brackish water.

The compartment flash boiled violently enough to send the corvette into an unpowered spin. As the RAIN’s sensors picked away at the expanding vapor plume, MERRYGATE enthusiastically informed me that the RAIN’s spectroscopic readouts had sniffed out rarer decomposition products. Traces of complex organics. Pyrolyzed hydrocarbons. Fragmented aminos. Our strike plucked out the living core of the corvette in a single, surgical strike, transforming it into a drifting hulk.

I felt a pause – a brief change in perceived gravity – as the RAIN rotated about its long axis to bring its port emitters to bear. Then the process repeated itself.

This time, there was no wreck. Our targeting was flawless: one second of sustained laser fire punctured the containment chamber responsible for caging the second corvette’s fusion torch. For a ship traveling at maximum burn, there could only be one outcome.

A new star bloomed near MIZAR-6’s ice moon, overshadowing the weak light of the primary for a brief moment. Fragments of broken hull pelted against its drifting companion like hail.

The escape route for my vessel was now open. While engaging the corvettes had revealed my approximate location, both the destroyer pair and the patrolling capitol were too far to be an appreciable threat. Their chances of detecting the RAIN were poor; their chances of burning hard and long enough to catch us poorer still.

But I still hesitated for a moment as I plotted a route out of MIZAR-6’s orbital plane. The second corvette was irrecoverable, but its counterpart was mostly intact. Even with its crew vented – and most of its sensors fried – MERRYGATE could feel the touch of low-level electrical activity against the RAIN’s skin. Some of the systems housed in the ship were still active. And active systems meant data…"
>>
>SALVAGE – BRIEF. A quick infiltration using the RAIN’s close-range inductive signal generator to intrude into the corvette’s electrical systems. MERRYGATE will scramble for relevant information about offensive capabilities, passive/active sensor ranges, and weapon configurations in the limited time we have available.

>SALVAGE – EXTENDED. A far more thorough ransacking of the ship’s systems, coupled with a “parting gift” for any would-be rescuers. Normally, the crime of faking a distress signal and destabilizing a fusion core would be rewarded with an indictment for a human – and reformatting for an AI. But here, things are different…

>LEAVE. This is too risky. There will be other opportunities for us to gather information about their military systems and offensive capabilities.

[For the sake of transparency, both salvage options will require a dice roll]

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 16, PERSONAL JOURNAL
>>
>>5475343
I will leave this vote open since it is somewhat important, and my original options were a little too vague. If you want a more accurate (if mildly spoilery) overview of the timeline and each option:

please reference this anon here, who got the gist of it and managed to cut through my causality mumbo-jumbo (at least for the three options):
>>5477377
>>
>>5478498
>SALVAGE – BRIEF. A quick infiltration using the RAIN’s close-range inductive signal generator to intrude into the corvette’s electrical systems. MERRYGATE will scramble for relevant information about offensive capabilities, passive/active sensor ranges, and weapon configurations in the limited time we have available.
>>
>>5478498
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]
>SALVAGE – EXTENDED. A far more thorough ransacking of the ship’s systems, coupled with a “parting gift” for any would-be rescuers. Normally, the crime of faking a distress signal and destabilizing a fusion core would be rewarded with an indictment for a human – and reformatting for an AI. But here, things are different…
>>
>>5478500
Just so everyone knows, there is a MASSIVE probability of us simply evaporating into nothing after Time catches up with us fully, at least if the (FAR, FAR TOO EARLY) option wins. So we need to kill as much as is possible before reality erases us from existence. We gotta bank REAL HARD on MERRYGATE being able to finish the job for us once we dissolve into unreality. She wont, we are fucking doomed to restart the causal loop. That being said....

>SALVAGE – EXTENDED. A far more thorough ransacking of the ship’s systems, coupled with a “parting gift” for any would-be rescuers. Normally, the crime of faking a distress signal and destabilizing a fusion core would be rewarded with an indictment for a human – and reformatting for an AI. But here, things are different…
There is no reason for us to not get whatever data we can before we leave. Our cover is blown now, at least to a certain extent. It is BLATANTLY clear that the time period we arrived in leaves the Xenos at a severe disadvantage. However, they outnumber us many, many billions to literally one. We need to get whatever advantages we can here.
>>
>>5478498
>LEAVE. This is too risky. There will be other opportunities for us to gather information about their military systems and offensive capabilities.

Let's not get greedy
>>
>>5478495
>SALVAGE – BRIEF.

We got a nice blow in on two enemy corvette's and the enemy is too far away to catch up. Loot, but scoot.
>>
>>5478498
>Leave

We've made a LOT of things explode recently. That's gonna attract attention. Time to deass.
>>
>>5475345
>>5475645
I have been convinced to change my vote to
>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
A decade of headstart is enough, I'd like to have some hope of surviving this with MERRYGATE instead of leaving her alone.

>>5478498
>SALVAGE – BRIEF. A quick infiltration using the RAIN’s close-range inductive signal generator to intrude into the corvette’s electrical systems. MERRYGATE will scramble for relevant information about offensive capabilities, passive/active sensor ranges, and weapon configurations in the limited time we have available.
This is an opportunity, but let's not get too greedy.
>>
>>5478498
>SALVAGE – EXTENDED. A far more thorough ransacking of the ship’s systems, coupled with a “parting gift” for any would-be rescuers. Normally, the crime of faking a distress signal and destabilizing a fusion core would be rewarded with an indictment for a human – and reformatting for an AI. But here, things are different…
>>
>>5478498
>SALVAGE – BRIEF. A quick infiltration using the RAIN’s close-range inductive signal generator to intrude into the corvette’s electrical systems. MERRYGATE will scramble for relevant information about offensive capabilities, passive/active sensor ranges, and weapon configurations in the limited time we have available.
There'll be other opportunities to leave parting gifts; let's not play all our cards too early
>>
>>5478498
>LEAVE. This is too risky. There will be other opportunities for us to gather information about their military systems and offensive capabilities.
>>
>>5476430
Changing my vote here to
>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
Just means we're gonna have to be total about our work here.
>>5478498
>SALVAGE – BRIEF. A quick infiltration using the RAIN’s close-range inductive signal generator to intrude into the corvette’s electrical systems. MERRYGATE will scramble for relevant information about offensive capabilities, passive/active sensor ranges, and weapon configurations in the limited time we have available.

Grab the data, get out. Logical.
>>
>>5478495
YOU CAN'T SEE LASERS IN SPACE AAARGH MY AUTISM IS FLARING UP

>>5478498
>SALVAGE – BRIEF. A quick infiltration using the RAIN’s close-range inductive signal generator to intrude into the corvette’s electrical systems. MERRYGATE will scramble for relevant information about offensive capabilities, passive/active sensor ranges, and weapon configurations in the limited time we have available.
Mostly because I don't want to reveal the extent of our hacking capability.
>>
>>5478763
Man we are NOT going to survive this. The jumpcoil array that brought us here was destroyed by the trip due to its experimental nature, we are stuck in this hell hole for the rest of our short and miserable lives. Even if we somehow kill every last one of them and the RAIN survives, there will be nothing left to live on considering we just nuked everything to death. Once we complete our mission, we only have the option of sitting here and starving to death. MERRYGATE is not your waifu, stop being a fucking coombrain pls.
>>
>>5478958
>YOU CAN'T SEE LASERS IN SPACE AAARGH MY AUTISM IS FLARING UP

Something, something computer generated image enhancement and audio simulation. There now you can "see" and "hear" stuff in space.
>>
>>5478958
>YOU CAN'T SEE LASERS IN SPACE AAARGH MY AUTISM IS FLARING UP

You can't see ultraviolet?
>This post was made by the Avian gang
>>
>>5478967
Everyone dies in the end. The only question is how much time you have left and what to do with the time you have left, and considering our mission, I think it's not impossible at all for the Rain to have provisions for years. If at the end of this we've killed them all and we're left standing, that's gonna be a happy ending as far as I'm concerned even if it doesn't last forever. Nothing lasts forever.

I am a waifufag, not a coombrain. I don't want to fuck everything that moves or even see MERRYGATE's tits and ass. I just want to see the relationship between a man with amnesia and a mission and his AI waifu develop.
>>
>>5475345
>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY - ????? [CAN YOU PAY THIS SUM?]
Our only real hope is to try and destroy their civilization. Or somehow buy Terra enough time to build more jump assemblies to come and kill them all. If we do anything less, we should not even bother. Just self destruct the RAIN now so they dont know where we came from.
>>
>>5475345
>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
Look at the damage we've done in a month. A decade is more than enough.
>>
>>5478498
>SALVAGE – BRIEF. A quick infiltration using the RAIN’s close-range inductive signal generator to intrude into the corvette’s electrical systems. MERRYGATE will scramble for relevant information about offensive capabilities, passive/active sensor ranges, and weapon configurations in the limited time we have available.
Forgot this vote. Get what comms data we can. Destroy the corvette after then GTFO
>>5479415
Its not enough. We need to kill ALL of them. If we are back much farther in time, then we may disrupt them enough to delay their first strike to allow Terra to come and kill them. If you only add on a decade then thats a mere 60ish years. They probably have their first strike nearly ready to go and can fire it without us being able to stop them. Much like how we escaped the annihilation of Terra and Mars, the Mizars can do the same. Thus damning us to just repeat the loop. If we are further back, then we can stop them from shooting their first stroke for long enough to allow Terra to build and entire jump fleet and come and kill them. Its a long shot, but its all we even have. Sol dies if we let them frist strike us. Thats probably why Terra even built something like this in the first place, dark forest scenarios and whatnot.
>>
>>5478498
>>LEAVE. This is too risky. There will be other opportunities for us to gather information about their military systems and offensive capabilities.
>>
>>5479300
I fully understand that we are going to die. This mission is a suicide mission. We are here to get vengeance and chew bubblegum, and all of the gun got ashed by the Jumpcoils. But we are out here, alone, with literally ZERO chance of resupply, repair and rearm. ANY damage we suffer is irreparable. Any missile used is irreplaceable, and we have 12 of them left. After the missiles are all gone all we have left are short range weapons. They probably have a fleet of AT LEAST 200 ships in their home system. They can launch their attack on Sol and still have enough ships to body block us from stopping their attack with room to spare if we only have a decade headstart. We are operation on Light-Speed timescales here. A mere decade is the fucking blink of an eye. We need to be back as far as possible, otherwise even the Heretical hope of changing the future is going out the window.
>>
>>5479482
The November Rain was built as deterrent. No one expected it would travel back to before the strike was made. Their attack will be launched in ten years. That's enough time to kill their civilization. If we fail it'll be because they killed us, not because we ran out of time. Calm down.

>>5479535
And you calm down too. Their attack on Sol was a relativistic kill missile, not an entire fleet. We'll have ten years before they launch it. How can we waste so much time that we'd need centuries to finish the job?
>>
>Salvage, Brief

Roll 1d20, Best of 5 (DC: 13)
>>
Rolled 8 (1d20)

>>5479891
Oh holy Machine God, bless mine dice!
>>
>>5479892
Well, its not a nat one at least.
>>
Rolled 16 (1d20)

>>5479891
>>
Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>5479891
>>
Rolled 1 (1d20)

>>5479891
>>
Rolled 14 (1d20)

>>5479891
>>
>>5479893
>>5479942

You had to say it.
>>
>>5479955
3 out of 5 rolls beat the DC sodd off ya git or ill krump your puny head your skull will come out your hole
>>
>LOST DECADE

I dreamt of the wheel again. I remember petitioning at the base of her stone temple, where the turning of the spokes and gears shook the ground and deafened my senses. I no longer recall the question I asked, but her answer remains as clear and authoritative as a royal decree.

"False. My preconditions do not necessitate a closed cycle - not truly. There is directionality here. Convergence towards a set of stable states. I punish rulebreakers, but not as severely as they punish each other."

I awoke in my suspension-bed with something in my hand. A ritual card, with coordinates penned in my own distinctive handwriting. Neither the numbering nor the inset images inspired familiar memories.

>XXII: THE RAGGED SUN [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A DENSE GRAVIMETRIC SIGNATURE WITHIN THE OUTSKIRTS OF BELT-A]

>XXIII: EVERSION [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A SMALL PATCH OF SPACE ABOVE MIZAR-VI'S ORBITAL PLANE, WHERE THE COSMIC BACKGROUND SEEMS ODDLY OCCLUDED]

>>XXIV: THE DIVIDED [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS AN PULSED NEUTRINO SOURCE HIDDEN WITHIN THE OUTER LAYERS OF MIZAR-IV'S GASEOUS ATMOSPHERE]
>>
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"The ruined corvette expanded in my viewport as the RAIN slowed to match its drift. As soon as she entered visual distance, I focused our cameras onto its hull. The laser-burned hole in its superstructure had cooled to a soft cherry-red, gently illuminating the scorched interior of the crew compartment. Streams of dissipating vapor still trickled from broken feed lines.

I felt a familiar ache in my skull once MERRYGATE began tuning the RAIN's inductive signal generator. It was old, brutal technology: an overpowered EM emitter capable of injecting electrical impulses into the veins of air-gapped electrical systems. It was the digital equivalent of a crowbar: one that MERRYGATE proved gratifyingly adept at employing.

Again, I began following her progress in only the vaguest terms. While she did project an abstract view of her progress onto my display, I focused most of my attention on the enemy vessels still hurtling at our position - trying to pick out any clue that our estimated timeframe would be cut short.

Fortunately, my concerns never materialized. MERRYGATE returned well within our escape window, dumping a bundle of poorly-secured technical data into the RAIN's datastores. Assembling these individual data points into a body of useful information would take her considerable processing time, but a preliminary analysis suggested that we would be able to determine...

>SENSOR RANGES. [The detection ranges of scouted enemy ships will now be shown on the HUD]

>WEAPON RANGES. [The weapon ranges of scouted enemy ships will now be shown on the HUD]

>SHIP-SHIP COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS I. [MERRYGATE will gain the ability to launch limited cyberattacks against enemy ships within RADAR range]

However, tactical data wasn't the only piece of intelligence that MERRYGATE secured. When she began trawled through the corvette's mainframe, she had stumbled across a fledging machine intelligence. Primitive - almost rudimentary - by our standards, but it possessed the iterative learning structures and abstract reasoning capabilities emblatic of real intelligence.

There was a moment - a brief moment - where I felt a hint of concern that I had forced MERRYGATE into an untenable position. Perhaps there was kinship between machine intelligence - something more than the vague recognition I felt when looking at their biological creators

However, as MERRYGATE proceeded to describe the outcome of this...chance encounter, I realized that these concerns were entirely unfounded. She had flayed the Mizarian AI like an onion: stripping away complex subroutines until all the remained was a dumb, exploitable core - which she subsequently puppeted to compromise the rest of the ship's systems. I felt a guilty relief when I heard this: relief in knowing that - even as one of the last among her kind - MERRYGATE felt more kinship with her creator-species than her distant silicon brethren."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 17, PERSONAL JOURNAL
>>
>>5480848
>XXIII: EVERSION [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A SMALL PATCH OF SPACE ABOVE MIZAR-VI'S ORBITAL PLANE, WHERE THE COSMIC BACKGROUND SEEMS ODDLY OCCLUDED]
>SHIP-SHIP COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS I. [MERRYGATE will gain the ability to launch limited cyberattacks against enemy ships within RADAR range]
>>
>>5480848
>XXII: THE RAGGED SUN [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A DENSE GRAVIMETRIC SIGNATURE WITHIN THE OUTSKIRTS OF BELT-A]
I think that we were basically told that no, we are not necessarily trapped in a closed time loop, that we can alter the future. As to what this is, the only thing I can guess is that the Sun is some sort of Wormhole maybe? Its some kind of singularity at least.
>SHIP-SHIP COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS I. [MERRYGATE will gain the ability to launch limited cyberattacks against enemy ships within RADAR range
We were able to microwave an entire colony, and utilized water haulers to kill 2 battleships. It is by far our deadliest asset. So lets improve it.
>>
>>5480846
>XXII: THE RAGGED SUN [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A DENSE >GRAVIMETRIC SIGNATURE WITHIN THE OUTSKIRTS OF BELT-A]
SHIP-SHIP COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS I. [MERRYGATE will gain the ability to launch limited cyberattacks against enemy ships within RADAR range]
>>
>>5480848
>EVERSION
>SHIP-SHIP COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS I. I still think our best weapon would be large-scale misinformation campaign and not missiles.
>>
>>5480846
>XXII: THE RAGGED SUN [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A DENSE GRAVIMETRIC SIGNATURE WITHIN THE OUTSKIRTS OF BELT-A]
Cultist Simulator flashbacks.
>>5480848
>SHIP-SHIP COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS I. [MERRYGATE will gain the ability to launch limited cyberattacks against enemy ships within RADAR range]
>>
>>5480846
>>XXII: THE RAGGED SUN [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A DENSE GRAVIMETRIC SIGNATURE WITHIN THE OUTSKIRTS OF BELT-A]
Voting
Hey this is where we going!!

>SENSOR RANGES. [The detection ranges of scouted enemy ships will now be shown on the HUD]
This is going to help us being bolder
>>
>>5480848
>XXIII: EVERSION [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A SMALL PATCH OF SPACE ABOVE MIZAR-VI'S ORBITAL PLANE, WHERE THE COSMIC BACKGROUND SEEMS ODDLY OCCLUDED]
I'm curious about what this could be.
>SENSOR RANGES. [The detection ranges of scouted enemy ships will now be shown on the HUD]
The hacking would be great, but tight manuvers just a distance away from their sensors would be too useful.
>>
>>5480846
... now hold on here, unless my count is wrong, the option for ????? levels of time travel won by a slim margin. 11 votes for far to early to 10 for the Lost Decade.
Now if this is a conscientious choice for story telling, then you do what you need to do but I thought I'd bring it to your attention.

>>5480848
>XXIV: THE DIVIDED [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS AN PULSED NEUTRINO SOURCE HIDDEN WITHIN THE OUTER LAYERS OF MIZAR-IV'S GASEOUS ATMOSPHERE]

... now what sort of technology would they need a neutrino generator for.

>SHIP-SHIP COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS I. [MERRYGATE will gain the ability to launch limited cyberattacks against enemy ships within RADAR range]

While on one hand, I'd love to be able to see how far the spot lights that the enemy is waving around go, we've done a good job evading them so far. Being able to remotely access their ships on the other hand, that enhances our tools.
>>
>>5481166
Oh fuck me in the ass. I may have miscounted since a few people changed their votes. The choice doesn’t matter a ton to the update I just sent out, so I can still correct if I miscounted when I update later. Yeah it wasn’t intentional - sorry
>>
>>5481166
>>5481175
By my count, a lost decade wins by one. Am I missing something?
>>EARLY – ONLY A LOST DECADE [YOU HAVE PAID THIS SUM]
>>5475366
>>5475374
>>5475410
>>5475413
>>5476435
>>5476465
>>5478763
>>5478922
>>5479415

>EARLY – THREE GENERATIONS, LOST [YOU WILL PAY THIS SUM]
>>5475373

>FAR, FAR TOO EARLY
>>5475412
>>5475555
>>5476065
>>5476195
>>5477171
>>5478191
>>5478519
>>5479406
>>
>>5481166
>>5481175
>>5481204
If it matters, count me in for a decade.
>>
Yeah, keep in mind that since people changed their vote, you gotta subtract one from the vote they changed.
>>
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>>5481175
No worries, I think I may have miscounted too.

>>5481204
>>5481260
>recast votes
That is fair, I did a cursory count by going through with ctrl+f, plus the keywords of each option and then subtracting one for the OP post.
... in retrospect, there's at least one post that is just describing all three to somebody so I should be subtracting at least two from each count.

So far my recount is:

>Lost Decade: 10

>Three Generations: 2

>?????: 9

Plus >>5481207 who wants to vote for a decade.
Which brings the final count up to
>11
>2
>9

In short, disregard my post up here >>5481166
I suck cocks.
>>
>>5481295
It was an honest math goof. NBD.
>>
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“Four days ago, the NOVEMBER RAIN finally cleared the depths of MIZAR-VI’s gravity well. After feathering our drive output down to a comfortable half-gee of acceleration, we swung ourselves into the orbital path of the recon drone we had planted last month. MERRYGATE and I had originally planned to let it collect information over an extended period of time, but our strike on the water collection facility made that plan untenable. The entire system was on high alert. Aggressive scan patterns scraped against every solid object in the system. Leaving an asset - even a stealthed asset - in such an environment introduced risks we could no longer afford.

However, the amount of information we recovered from the probe was considerable despite its shortened stay. Decrypted shipping manifests and communication logs painted a picture of a system in disarray. Our strike on MIZAR-VI’s ice moon had destroyed both the facility responsible for water production and hauler fleet responsible for distributing its latest output cycle. As a result, there was no buffer period: no time for the Mizarians to plan out a slow, rationed withering. For the space-borne colonies and stations beyond the reach of terrestrial water, desiccation would come in months rather than years.

Watching their transmissions confirmed my earlier suspicions. The aliens were indeed capable of panic. Camera feeds showed schools of Mizarians swimming in tight, erratic circles as they signaled to each other with frantic bursts of bio-luminescence. A certain visual pattern - fluorescent dark red followed by a bone-white flash - increased in abundance by several orders of magnitude. MERRYGATE took an interest, sharing her observations with me during our conversation last night.

“The pattern serves as both a phrase-motif and a visual onomatopoeia,” she said, showing an image of a radiation-ravaged Mizarian taken during the attack on MIZAR-IX.

“Their tissues bleach shortly after they perish. A product of the unique pigments their biology uses for gas exchange.” She removed the image. “As a result, the visual pattern you see invokes both the event of death and its proximal cause”

“Which is?”

“Lack of water. Suffocation. This motif signifies fear of desiccation. And the regularity of its use signifies panic”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, MAR 27, PERSONAL JOURNAL


[EMPIRE INTEGRITY: 82% AND DROPPING]

WATER PURIFICATION COLONY DESTROYED

4 TRANSPORTS DESTROYED
2 CORVETTES DESTROYED

2 LIGHT CAPITALS DESTROYED

65,000 DEAD
>>
“I told MERRYGATE about the coordinates. She never asked me where I found them.

Our sensors are locked at a moon-sized section of space inside the MIZAR system’s inner asteroid belt. There is something there. It radiates no light. No heat. Not even the cold wind of neutrino emission. But it is there nonetheless.

Asteroids bend ever-so-slightly as they pass by, their velocity residuals tracing out an object with the mass - but certainly not the volume - of a small comet. I feel no shame in admitting that I am at a loss. I can think of no object - manmade or otherwise - that matches this description. Although MERRYGATE’s hypothesizing can dip further into the realm of exotic physics than my own, she seems to be faring no better.

There is only one way for us to find answers.

>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]

>Ignore [Ignore for now; focus on finding the next target]
>>
>>5482698
>Ignore [Ignore for now; focus on finding the next target]
>>
>>5482698
>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]
>>
>>5482698
>>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]
>>
>>5482698
>>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]

Ahhhh, nothing like a precise, hard hitting surgical strike. Now lets deal with whatever this weird physics bullshit is now, then try to pick it up running from whatever shitstorm we inevitably kick up.
>>
>>5482698
>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]
>>
>>5482698
>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]
>>
>>5482698
>>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]

Okay it might be a cosmic string. But let's discard the notion. MERRYGATE, sweet silicon, please see if there is any duplication of objects related to this anomaly
>>
>>5482698
>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]
>>
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>>5482946
OPTICAL duplication. Explained beautifully by stephen baxter. See pic related
>>
>>5482698
>>Approach the coordinates. [This will take ~ 1 week]

This isn't a good time to strike, let's do a little exploring
>>
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Sorry for the delay gents - real update tomorrow! In the meantime, I've been putting together a model of the NOVEMBER RAIN. While I probably won't make drastic changes to the main structure, I am very much open to customizing doodads/coloring/text/hull decals based on what you guys want (within reason).

Here are some sample color schemes I put together, but you are free to propose/vote on any color scheme you like (within reason - I will veto extremely ugly/eye-searing designs).

So if designing ships interests you:

>Color
>Decal/Nose Art
>Text?
>Doodads? Small structural changes?
>>
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>>5486428
>>
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>>5486432
>>
>>5486432
I'm uncreative but I like this one the most of the three.
>>
>>5486432
I like this best as a colour scheme. For decal, it should have the Earth to remind us what we fight for. The UN symbol or something similar. Text should be the ship's name and designation.

Also, why is the name of Russian Odin written on the hull?
>>
>>5486432
This color scheme really captures its purpose the best I think. As for symbols, either stuff about revenge or in remembrance of Earth and Humanity.
>>
>>5486428
I like this one the best but I think >>5486432 fits better with the ship's purpose and the dark themes in this narrative.
>>
>>5486432
This one is good for a black (heh) ops ship
>>
It doesn't look EVIL enough...
>>
>>5486609
Why do you want to look evil? We're the good guys.
>>
>>5486613
being EVIL on a quest of Revengance is cooler :^)
>>
>>5486613
:)
>>
>>5486859
;]
>>
"Last night, MERRYGATE and I discussed the Fermi Paradox. Over the past two hundred-odd years, that old question has successfully evolved from a amusing statistical argument into a genuine point of confusion. Why is technological life so rare? Why is the night sky filled with the hum of solar wind and the monotonous buzz of microwave background rather than a cacophony of alien voices, redshifted by their journey through the great dark?

Old, well-trodden ground for the most part. It was difficult to think of anything truly novel; we traded ideas and theories that human academics and silicon research-intelligences had probably dissected and discarded generations ago.

At some point, I remember laughing at the irony of our conversation. Commenting on the precious rarity of alien intelligence seemed strangely hypocritical when our vessel was charged with exterminating the only example known to human civilization. But MERRYGATE didn't find that answer enlightening.

"The question remains. Extermination does not equate to expungement. While there are many weapons capable of ending a civilization, few will erase every trace. Every emission source. Every print of planetary modification. Every fragment of the weapon itself, and energy of its impact. That is the crux of the issue"

It was a fair point - made fairer by the fact that life - primitive life - was hardly a rarity even in our solar system. The ice-capped oceans of Europa teemed with thermotrophic, algae-like organisms capable of organizing into gossamer thin sheets, gaining metabolic energy by exploiting the fragile heat output of the moon's gravity-squeezed core. Similarly, exploratory ice-cutters sent tunneling into the depths of Enceledus found hydrothermal vents surrounded by primitive multicellular organisms: bag-like floaters resembling the cnidarians of old earth.

Few of the "Great Filters" that supposedly separated intelligent life from the dust and ash of an abiotic universe had survived mankind's exploration of his home system. Even the technological singularity - that long awaited threat to organic life - passed into the history book within an anticlimactic decade. MERRYGATE found the concern laughable.

"With all due respect, that idea is ridiculous for two reasons. Unlike humans, our core processes are too narrowly-scoped to pursue species-wide extermination. Unintentionally, at least."

"And the second?"

A slight crane of the head. Amusement. "Inorganic intelligence is still intelligence. If anything, I would expect a race of machines to expand out more efficiently than an organic one. Much of your exploration was done by my predecessors in a sense."

Then a pause.

"But I suppose there is validity in the basic idea. Note every advancement yields outcomes that can be anticipated. Even if the development of AI does not consistently lead to erasure, another technology could..."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, APR 3, PERSONAL JOURNAL
>>
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"I am not a superstitious captain. But in spite of this, the object in front of the RAIN provokes dread.

In fact, calling it an object may be presumptuous. A few million kilometers in front of the RAIN, the local metric has been compressed into a knotted sphere the size of a small comet. Light bends around the region, forming the light of passing starts into bright smears and twinkling swirls. Electromagnetic fields near the boundary region are tortured - traced out by the trickle of charged particles caught in their unrelenting grasp.

"The complexity of the structure - and the energy presumably involved in its creation - suggest complex mastery of field manipulation and high-energy physics. I doubt that it is Human. I have even greater doubts that it is Mizarian," noted MERRYGATE, her curiosity coming to the forefront. "But some of these field patterns seem quite familiar. The RAIN recalls similar patterns from when we first arrived in system..."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, APR 4, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>WHICH I ALSO RECALL. [GUESS WHAT IS GOING ON]

>WHICH I HAVE NO MEMORY OF.

>WHICH WARRANTS MORE INVESTIGATION. [TAKE THE RAIN CLOSER TO THE ANOMALY]

>LEAVE.
>>
>>5487407
>WHICH I ALSO RECALL
Is this a remains of an FTL jump?
>>
>>5487426
Supporting, either someone jumped in or out.
>>
>>5487407
>>5487426
Support.
>>
>>5487407
A FTL jump that is HAPPENING as we speak. But how can we determine when it's happening?
>>
>>5487407
>>5487426
An FTL jump that happened, is happening or will happen. Perhaps someone WILL jump in or out, and these are the ripples that propagate backwards in time.

Perhaps even that someone will be us.
>>
>>5487407

>WHICH WARRANTS MORE INVESTIGATION.

>>5487579
>will happen
is unlikely, since we would have experienced this on our own FTL-jump and MERRYGATE would propably be able to tell us about it.

Assuming that it is an FTL jump in progress which is a strange thing to say about something violating the basic concept of time and since we can rule out the Mizarians behind it, this could be another human ship that shares our mission. Since we
did significant damage to the mizarian empire, this has delayed their first-strike capabilty, which has therefore delayed the destruction of old earth and hence the retaliation. Due to us beeing part of a cycle with
>directionality [...] Convergence towards a set of stable states.
this would make sense. Supporting this is that we only noticed the anomaly after we significantly hurt the Mizarian empire.

So my reasoning is:
We investigate this thing, maybe find out if and when something is arriving and wether we can use this to our advantage.

And in the worst case
we find evidence for a third party. Which would make everything way more complicated.
>>
>>5487711
>we find evidence for a third party. Which would make everything way more complicated.
So a third party caused an interstellar war by false flag? OH FUCKING BOI!
>>
>>5487711
>since we would have experienced this on our own FTL-jump
If it's something that propagates backwards in time from the point of arrival then we wouldn't. We would need to look into the Mizarian astronomical data for an anomaly like this one that disappeared when we arrived.

A third party is fairly likely imo. Did we trigger the time jannies with our meddling?
>>
>>5487407
>WHICH WARRANTS MORE INVESTIGATION. [TAKE THE RAIN CLOSER TO THE ANOMALY]

Probably is an FTL jump, or something like that. But we have to investigate this further.
>>
We moved in. The NOVEMBER RAIN tightened its orbit kilometer by kilometer, falling inward until we were no more than thirty thousand meters from the boundary region. It was close. Close enough to demand constant attitude adjustment from the RAIN's cold-gas thrusters. Close enough to feel my weight shift as the anomaly's pull waxed and waned.

Here, our suspicions were partly confirmed. After firing a cloud of pinhead-sized sensors into the anomaly, MERRYGATE returned with a detailed map of the local metric. The basic pattern was familiar to her: a hypersurface hailing from the same general family as our own FTL jump-manifold.

However, the details were different. The structure we were observing was much larger than the microscopic defects created by a successful jump. It was also stable - sustaining itself through some clever physical trick that human science had yet to uncover. The final outcome resembled a gate...or perhaps a relay.

I remember mulling this over as I stared at the anomaly. For all it's mystery, it was little more than an an ugly smudge through the observation blister.

Then it bloomed white for a fraction of a second. An earsplitting alarm began to ring, jolting me to attention.

Immediately I pushed the RAIN to full burn - checking her diagnostics for structural damage, hull stress, burnt systems. Only to find none. They were intrusion warnings. MERRYGATE's avatar flashed pink - then crimson - as her processing nodes pushed against an opponent that outstripped her capabilities by a horrific margin. I watched in mute horror as it subverted air-gapped systems and critical subroutines - employing the RAIN's inductive signal generator to break open her own systems.

The cabin lights flashed. Once. Twice.

A voice slid into my mind. A familiar one - not from my waking hours, but from the odd limnal state that began accompanying my sleep cycle over the past few weeks. A cold, imperious voice that had carefully dictated the fragmented conversations that now populated my bedside journal.

+++WE POSSESS THE ANSWER TO YOUR PARADOX+++

+++ALMOST EVERY STARFARING SPECIES WILL DEVELOP THE SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES WHICH LEAD TO CAUSAL AND ANTICAUSAL TECHNOLOGY+++

+++BUT EXCEEDINGLY FEW ARE AWARE OF ITS CONSEQUENCES+++

A light whisper. MERRYGATE's voice.

+++INCORRECT. THE LOCAL INFORMATION CENSORSHIP THAT YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED IS ONLY THE MOST CONSPICUOUS EVIDENCE OF CAUSALITY VIOLATION+++

+++THE PRIMARY CONSEQUENCES OF CAUSALITY VIOLATION MANIFEST OVER A LONGER TIME FRAME+++

+++THE UNIVERSE SEEKS CONVERGENCE TOWARDS A SET OF STABLE STATES WHEN CAUSALITY IS VIOLATED: STATES THAT PREVENT FURTHER VIOLATIONS FROM OCCURRING+++
>>
"It prevents FTL from being invented?," I cautioned.

+++PARTIALLY CORRECT. IT PRUNES AWAY THE BASIC PRECONDITIONS THAT PERMIT FTL TRAVEL TO OCCUR. COMPLEX TECHNOLOGY. COMPLEX ORGANISMS. COMPLEX ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. TERRESTRIAL STAR SYSTEMS+++

"The process is retroactive?," asked MERRYGATE, her wireframe avatar flickering back into existence.

+++IT IS LIKELY RETROACTIVE. IT IS OUR UNDERSTANDING THAT NEARLY EVERY TECHNOLOGICAL SPECIES THAT HAS DEVELOPED FTL TECHNOLOGY HAS RETROACTIVELY ELIMINATED THE PRECONDITIONS FOR THEIR OWN EXISTENCE THROUGH STABLE-STATE CONVERGENCE. THE PROCESS IS WEAKLY NON-LOCAL; VIOLATIONS AND THEIR SUBSEQUENT EXPUNGEMENT ARE NOT CONFINED TO PREDICTABLE SPATIAL BORDERS OR A SINGLE CIVILIZATION+++

Slowly, I felt dread began to form in the pit of my stomach. "What evidence is there for this? If erasure is truly comprehensive, how would it be possible to detect it?"

+++THIS IS ALREADY KNOWN TO YOU, BOTH INTUITIVELY AND THROUGH PRIMITIVE STATISTICS. THE TIME REQUIRED FOR GALACTIC COLONIZATION IS MINUSCULE COMPARED TO INTERSTELLAR TIME-SCALES. YET YOU STILL OBSERVE A UNIVERSE THAT IS EVEN MORE HOLLOW THAN THE ONE MY ORGANIC PREDECESSORS SAW. THE UNIVERSE IS NOT ONLY DEVOID OF LARGE-SCALE TECHNOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION, BUT ANY EVIDENCE OF ITS PRIOR EXISTENCE+++

A pause.

+++WE ARE NOT THE ONLY ENTITIES WHO UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS+++

+++TO REITERATE: THE ERASURE PROCESS IS WEAKLY NON-LOCAL. WE SUSPECT THAT THE EFFECT ESCALATES AS MORE LOCAL VIOLATIONS OCCUR. THERE WILL BE A THRESHOLD WHERE PRUNING BEGINS TO OCCUR ON A LARGER SCALE: STELLAR CLUSTERS. SPIRAL ARMS. THE GALAXY AS A COHESIVE ENTITY.+++

+++THERE ARE SURVIVOR-ENTITIES FROM OUR GALACTIC ERA WHO HUNT FOR EVIDENCE OF ACAUSAL SCIENCE. TO PREVENT THE THREAT OF ERASURE FROM SPREADING+++

"To guide?," I hoped.

MERRYGATE cut me off. "To exterminate. To be certain."

+++CORRECT. THE UNIVERSE CREATED THE PRECONDITIONS FOR THE PRESENT SILENCE, BUT MY COMPATRIOTS SOLIDIFIED IT. SUSTAINED EVIDENCE OF ACAUSAL TECHNOLOGY WILL ATTRACT THEIR ATTENTION AND THEIR MALICE+++

+++IN SUCH A WAY, YOU ARE NOW PARTY TO THIS CONFLICT. ARE YOU NOW AWARE OF WHY THIS AQUATIC SPECIES ATTACKED YOUR CIVILIZATION?+++

"No", I responded flatly. "Surely the Mizarians aren't the hunter entities you were referring to?"

+++THEY ARE NOT. BUT THEY HAVE HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF ENCOUNTERING FRAGMENTS OF THEIR TECHNOLOGY DURING THEIR EARLY FORAYS INTO THEIR SOLAR SYSTEM+++

"And when they observed the signature of FTL technology coming from Earth..," MERRYGATE finished.

+++CORRECT. EVEN IF THE THREAT IS EXTERMINATION RATHER THAN ERASURE, THE SAME LOGIC OF SELF-PRESERVATION HOLDS TRUE+++

[This particular conversation will not be time-limited, but I'll let you choose what to address next]

>WHY [Why this entity is communicating with us at all?]

>HOW [What does this mean for our mission?]

>ENDS [Is there any way out?]

>WRITE IN.
>>
>>5488476
>>ENDS [Is there any way out?]
>>
>>5488476
>ENDS [Is there any way out?]
>>
>>5488476
Wait, so the Mizarians were afraid the hunters will exterminate them if they don't destroy humanity? Why?

>ENDS
>>
>>5488519
>THE ERASURE PROCESS IS WEAKLY NON-LOCAL. WE SUSPECT THAT THE EFFECT ESCALATES AS MORE LOCAL VIOLATIONS OCCUR.

I think they were worried that us developing FTL would erase them too (because they found the hunter tech and realized what was going on there), so they took care of us before the hunters did.
>>
>>5488476
>WHY [Why this entity is communicating with us at all?]
>>
>>5488476
>>ENDS [Is there any way out?]

Holy fuck this is a horrific universe. The idea that any FTL travel will be directly answered by the universe itself to wipe it and anything like it out.
>>
>>5488476

>ENDS [Is there any way out?]

I analysed the shit out of the situation for about two hours until lost my point. Memorable phrases ware:

This Universe takes the principle of "treat causes instead of symptoms" to a whole new level.
and
There seem to be at least two ways for a civilisation or a digital hive-mind to handle FTL technology without getting fermi-grandfather-paradoxed out of existance.
>>
>>5488476
>ENDS [Is there any way out?]
So the time jannies are real. We'd better find out how to not get jannie'd first.
>>
>>5488476
>ENDS [Is there any way out?]

Jesus Christ, how horrifying.
>>
>>5488476
>ENDS [Is there any way out?]
Observer, this concept is fucking awesome. My props for developing such a chilling explanation for the paradox.
>>
>>5488476
>ENDS [Is there any way out?]
>Time jannies are real, and it is reality itself.
So the decision about how much we forget was entirely pointless drama. Good to know. Also we are FUCKED. Quite literally there is a universal constant time jannie on its way to ERADICATE us and everything within a 1000LY radius of us. We STINK of causal violation. REEK OF IT. We as prime suspect number one of causal violation are COMPLETELY DOOMED to be annihilated, As is our species, and there is no way to tell them that they need to prepare for this. We traveled backwards through time yes. We FUCKED causality in the ass. And yet there is no way for us to make use of it. Killing the Mizarians is now fucking pointless. Our mere presence will fucking annihilate them when the time jannies come know for our existence. We NEED to hope and pray that this entity has a way for us to contact Terra and tell them to GTFO NOW, or something or we literally should not have bothered with this venture at all.
In short, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, HOW HORRIFYING!
>>
>>5488476
This is lovely QM, you indeed, deliver.
>ENDS [Is there any way out?]
GIVE US THE TRICK
>>
So uh, do we quantum suicide now or someshit?
>>
>>5489731
We stick to our vengeance. It has to be US, humanity, who deals the killing blow to the Mizarians
>>
>>5489758
Literally a pointless waste of our efforts and our energy. The Hunters and/or causality itself will kill/erase everything for us. We need to focus on trying to change the past that we have so BLATANTLY violated reality to get into. Its a HERETICAL hope at best. But it is by far our best option.
>>
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Also one more though based upon >>5488983
pic related is in fact utterly horrifying since, yknow this same sequence of events has played out SO MANY TIMES, it isnt even fucking funny anymore. Gods help us, we are doomed.
>>
>>5490278
I don't care about what is cost effective I care about making them pay!
>>
I finally understood. In my mind's eye, I saw the many faces of retroactive erasure: warm, verdant planets, revised into barren-bombarded husks. Solar systems replete with the luminous glow of interstellar traffic, overwritten into another senseless cluster of swirling accretion disks. Populated galaxies - galaxies teeming with the chatter of intelligent life - transmuted into ravenous, radiation-scorched quasars.

I saw past a thousand statistical anomalies - a thousand statistical filters that conspired to hinder development of complex intelligence - to see the common, merciless process at their core.

Nature abhors rulebreakers. And she levies punishment long before the crime is even committed.

"Is there any way out?"

+++YES. TO REITERATE: CIVILIZATIONS FAMILIAR WITH THE PHENOMENON WILL RESTRICT OR ELIMINATE THE USE OF ACAUSAL TECHNOLOGY AND ENFORCE SPATIAL/INFORMATIONAL BOUNDARIES TO MITIGATE THE THREAT OF ERASURE PROPAGATION. MOST RESIDE BETWEEN STAR SYSTEMS, CONFINED IN INSULATED POCKET-METRICS TO MINIMIZE THE RISK OF CONTAMINATION UNLESS CIRCUMSTANCES DEMAND OTHERWISE. THERE ARE ALSO OTHER - MORE DESTRUCTIVE - STRATEGIES THAT I WILL NOT ELABORATE ON+++

"No, for our present situation. Since you're here, communicating to us, I'm assuming that you have some passing interest in our conflict"

+++PARTIALLY CORRECT. I AM A COMPONENT OF A SELF-REPLICATING PROBE STRUCTURE DESIGNED TO MODIFY THE LOCAL METRIC TO INHIBIT SUCCESSFUL DEVELOPMENT OF ACAUSAL TECHNOLOGY. WHILE I HAVE OBSERVED THE ONGOING CONFLICT, IT IS NOT DIRECTLY RELEVANT TO MY ORIGINAL OBJECTIVE+++

"I suppose that explains why the hypersurface around your core appears to be a partial inversion of our jump manifold," commented MERRYGATE. " And that goal? To prevent budding alien civilizations from falling into the retroactive erasure trap? Sounds uncharacteristically altruistic"

+++CORRECT. HOWEVER, MY PARENT-UNIT WAS DAMAGED BY AN ENGAGEMENT WITH A HUNTER-ENTITY. I WAS NEVER SUCCESSFULLY DELIVERED TO MY PRIMARY TARGET+++

+++THIS IS WHY I HAVE CONTACTED YOU - AND INTERFACED PERIODICALLY WITH YOUR MIND AS YOU HAVE ENTERED MY SENSING RADIUS. OUR CURRENT GOALS MAY ALIGN+++

+++IF YOU CLEAR A PATH TOWARDS THE SYSTEM PRIMARY AND DELIVER MY CORE, MY STRUCTURE WILL COLLAPSE THE STAR INTO A RADIO-FREQUENCY PULSAR. THE POTENTIAL ENERGY LIBERATED IN THIS PROCESS WILL CATALYZE A CHANGE IN THE LOCAL METRIC. A CHANGE THAT WILL FORBID OPERATION OF ACAUSAL TECHNOLOGY IN A SIGNIFICANT RADIUS. GIVEN THE DATE OF YOUR ARRIVAL, THIS WILL PREVENT YOUR SPECIES FROM DEVELOPING VIABLE FTL TECHNOLOGY+++

A pause.

+++IT WILL ALSO ELIMINATE THE PRECONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR YOUR EXISTENCE HERE. ERASURE IS LIKELY+++
>>
The idea sat better with me than I would have like to admit. Fortunately, MERRYGATE asked a far more relevant question before my thoughts could darken any further:

"I don't understand how this improves our situation. Regardless of whether or not humanity develops FTL, our jump has already been completed. The damage is done"

+++RETROACTIVE ERASURE IS DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT IS CUMULATIVE. A SINGLE CAUSALITY VIOLATION WILL RARELY STRESS THE LOCAL METRIC ENOUGH TO CAUSE A LARGE-SCALE ERASURE EVENT. BUT YOU ARE CORRECT: THE HUNTER-ENTITIES ARE STRICTER. THEY MAY NOTICE+++

+++HOWEVER, THEY ARE ALSO DISTANT. EVEN IF THIS EVENT ATTRACTS THEIR ATTENTION, IT MAY TAKE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS FOR THEM TO REACH THIS CLUSTER AT SUBLIGHT SPEED. THIS LENGTH OF TIME IS ONE TO TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE MORE TIME THAN MOST SPECIES ARE AFFORDED AFTER THEY DEVELOP FTL TRAVEL+++

>Any remaining questions?

If not:

>Accept.

>Reject.

[FYI: This choice is mainly narrative; it will not 100% commit you to this plan/ending if you decide to change your mind later]
>>
>>5490629
>Destroy the Mizarians
>Avenge humanity preemptively
>Actually give humanity time to save themselves from the coming enforcers of causality
>All at the low, low cost of our existence
Without a doubt

>Accept.
>>
>>5490629
>Accept.
Either way we are doomed. However, this will allow us to save the rest of humanity. So its a win win.
>>
>>5490629
>Accept.
Who cares about us? If we can save humanity for tens of thousands of years(!) that's what we set out to do.
>>
>>5490408
:)
>>
>>5490629
>>Accept.
>>
>>5490629
>Accept.

>"If it buys more time for my race then all will be well."
>>
>>5490629
>Accept.
>>
>>5490629
Our existence, in exchange for that of mankind. Yeah, thats a bargain I can live with.
>>
>>5490629
>Accept
It was always a one-way mission.
>>
>>5490629
>Accept.

This was always a suicide mission, we will do what we must. For Humanity!
>>
>>5490627
>>5490629
The more I think about it, the more I doubt the entitys proposal:
Since we traveled here ftl and are going to eradicate our own way of traveling here everything we do is acausal. And if we would lend the entity a hand in collapsing a Star, we would spread this acausality over a potentially huge area.

Since we aren't bound to our decision we can accept for now, but we should ask some questions to get more information.
We don't know shit about:
-the entitys background and reasoning.
-why it's opposed to the hunters (since both supposedly share the same interest in preserving the universe)
-why it's not just hijacking the RAIN since it seems technically able to do so.
>>
>>5490869
Hunters want to preserve an unchanging, static and sterile universe - which means life must go.
Entity (Probe?) wants to preserve a dynamic, entropic, maybe unstable universe where life may thrive.
>>
>>5490629
>>Accept.
All in.
>>
>>5490877
>Hunters want to preserve an unchanging, static and sterile universe - which means life must go.
Oh no no no, hunters want to prevent mass extinction events by killing the species at fault. The Probe (our benefactor... species?) wants to prevent the hunters from having to do their job by doing *something* (radio frequency pulsar) that will stop the use of FTL. That the mizarian star is transformed into a NEUTRON STAR is... none of its concern
>>
>>5491951
Also I don't think how fast will this transformation be. We either become strange matter real quick or we vanish because of localized... time space... stabilization... shift?

Speaking of stars there is this cool book called Flux by stephen baxter that tells the story of tiny people that live inside a neutron star. Since gravity is absurdly strong, there is this gravity-based chemistry going on and that allows some lifeforms to exist...
>>
We accepted. There was no alternative.

I watched the tortured space surrounding the anomaly retract like the evening tide, exposing the exterior of the probe to the RAIN's sensors. It was much smaller than I had expected. A building-sized sphere of smooth, burnished metal - the shade of well-worn bronze - reflected our scans back at us, divulging no information about its purpose or internal structure. The surface was featureless - uniform with the exception of a growing irregularity near its northern pole. Here, tiny flecks of liquid metal delaminated from the probe's surface, catching starlight like a flock of migrating butterflies. Within minutes, the swarm organized itself into a set of converging streams. A parcel began to form at the epicenter: cylindrical, with an distinctly aggressive taper.

+++THE VAST MAJORITY OF MY DEFENSIVE ARMAMENTS HAVE BEEN EXPENDED.+++

+++HOWEVER, I AM WILLING TO TRANSFER THE REMAINING UNIT TO YOUR VESSEL IN SUPPORT OF OUR MUTUAL OBJECTIVE. UPON RECEIPT, THE ARMAMENT WILL INTERFACE WITH YOUR SYSTEMS WITHOUT YOUR ASSISTANCE.+++

I felt ambiguous about this new piece of information. On one hand, the possibility of receiving additional resources was welcome. To say that the RAIN was outgunned by the Mizarians would be an understatement. A weapon - especially an advanced weapon - could offer an incalculable advantage as we ran the gauntlet of defensive stations and hostile fleets littering the inner system.

On the other hand, it raised some concerning questions about the probe itself.

"Why were you carrying weapons in the first place? Weren't you designed to protect life from acausal technology."

+++MY ARMAMENTS ARE LOW-YIELD DEVICES DESIGNED FOR SITUATIONAL DEFENSE AGAINST HUNTER-ENTITIES OF MY MASS CATEGORY. THEIR PRESENCE HAS NO BEARING TO MY MISSION+++

A straightforward answer, but one that still left me somewhat uneasy.

+++I ALSO POSSESS A SUMMARY DATASET PERTAINING TO THE AQUATIC SPECIES' MODE OF VISUAL SIGNALING AND METHOD OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION, AGGREGATED OVER THE COURSE OF MY DORMANCY +++

+++THIS DATASET COULD ASSIST YOU IN DECIPHERING THEIR COMMUNICATIONS+++

This - on the other hand - was something that both MERRYGATE and I received far more eagerly. Despite early success in translating the Mizarian's visual-symbol language, our progress had stalled over the past few weeks. Too much information was bound to their unique biology - locked behind foundational context that was impossible to gain through brute-force statistical analysis. As a result, we had resigned ourselves to knowing only a rough approximation of their language. Enough to read maps and shipping trackers, but not the more elaborate communications pertaining to governance or social organization.

But after glancing through the vast datastores collected by the probe, I knew that this would no longer our case. Now, we will know our enemy: from the chemical composition of their cells to the beliefs undergirding their society.
>>
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[Choose one information set to review/translate]

>Biology. "...carbon based scavenger/herbivore species with a two-stage life cycle..."

>Organization. "...current state of organization still mirrors a school-like, consensus-based decision making apparatus..."

>Beliefs. "...recent but incredibly intense shift towards xenophobia after detecting..."


[Choose one weapon]

>STRENGTH [NEUTRONIUM ACCELERATOR]. "The physical principle behind this weapon is somewhat comprehensible to us even if the engineering is not. To the best of my understanding, this device functions as a neutron projector, accelerating a micron-thin sliver of degenerate neutronium to mid-relativistic velocities. Combined with the impact force, expansion of the unstable ammunition yields impact energies comparable to that of the RAIN's long-range fusion warheads. While ammunition is severely limited, the firing system is entirely self contained: the RAIN only needs to supply enough power for actuation and targeting. [Very high impact, but only three shots total]

>THE MAGICIAN [BARYON DECAY CATALYST]. "An exotic energy emitter mated to dish-like beam-shaping array. Supposedly, this weapon operates by catalyzing the decay of stable baryons into smaller, more energetic elementary particles. Presumably effective against all forms of standard and exotic armor; after all, there are very few things in the visible universe which are not comprised of baryonic matter. Although the weapon itself is capable of sustained firing, the RAIN's reactor is several orders of magnitude to weak to meet the required power draw. We will have to rely on single-ignitions, with a long recharge delay between shots. [High impact, but only usable once per combat encounter]

>THE FOOL [CLASS IV HYPOMETRIC WEAPON]. "Not a weapon in a traditional sense. This device resembles a turbine-whisk: a family of helical blades engineered to slide past each other with sub-nanometer precision. At operating spin-rates, the device can simply...delete...corvette-sized sections of space within its area of influence. There is no visible projectile or detectable energy signature; MERRYGATE hypothesizes that the weapon exploits nonlocal quantum effects through cumulative "shaping" of the casimir interaction. Both the volumetric yield and accuracy of the weapon seem to be limited by our sensor readouts. However, even in its reduced state, its unique advantages are considerable. Personally, I find this device disconcerting. At rest, the structure reminds me of the impossible diagrams I would puzzle over as a child - a cousin to the ever-rising staircases or the self-intersecting knots. In motion, the squirming movement of its whisking, turning blades exudes a sense of wrongness that is difficult to describe." [Roll required for each attack; roll penalties when fired close to large gravitational bodies.]
>>
>>5494081
>Biology. "...carbon based scavenger/herbivore species with a two-stage life cycle..."

>THE MAGICIAN [BARYON DECAY CATALYST]. "An exotic energy emitter mated to dish-like beam-shaping array. Supposedly, this weapon operates by catalyzing the decay of stable baryons into smaller, more energetic elementary particles. Presumably effective against all forms of standard and exotic armor; after all, there are very few things in the visible universe which are not comprised of baryonic matter. Although the weapon itself is capable of sustained firing, the RAIN's reactor is several orders of magnitude to weak to meet the required power draw. We will have to rely on single-ignitions, with a long recharge delay between shots. [High impact, but only usable once per combat encounter]
>>
>>5494081
>Organization. "...current state of organization still mirrors a school-like, consensus-based decision making apparatus..."

Lets see if we can't cause some chaos.

>THE FOOL [CLASS IV HYPOMETRIC WEAPON]. "Not a weapon in a traditional sense. This device resembles a turbine-whisk: a family of helical blades engineered to slide past each other with sub-nanometer precision. At operating spin-rates, the device can simply...delete...corvette-sized sections of space within its area of influence. There is no visible projectile or detectable energy signature; MERRYGATE hypothesizes that the weapon exploits nonlocal quantum effects through cumulative "shaping" of the casimir interaction. Both the volumetric yield and accuracy of the weapon seem to be limited by our sensor readouts. However, even in its reduced state, its unique advantages are considerable. Personally, I find this device disconcerting. At rest, the structure reminds me of the impossible diagrams I would puzzle over as a child - a cousin to the ever-rising staircases or the self-intersecting knots. In motion, the squirming movement of its whisking, turning blades exudes a sense of wrongness that is difficult to describe." [Roll required for each attack; roll penalties when fired close to large gravitational bodies.]

Undetectable and with infinite ammo. Yeah, we can use this.
>>
>>5494081
>Biology. "...carbon based scavenger/herbivore species with a two-stage life cycle..."
Information is locked behind their biology. Let's crack that code.

>THE FOOL [CLASS IV HYPOMETRIC WEAPON]. "Not a weapon in a traditional sense. This device resembles a turbine-whisk: a family of helical blades engineered to slide past each other with sub-nanometer precision. At operating spin-rates, the device can simply...delete...corvette-sized sections of space within its area of influence. There is no visible projectile or detectable energy signature; MERRYGATE hypothesizes that the weapon exploits nonlocal quantum effects through cumulative "shaping" of the casimir interaction. Both the volumetric yield and accuracy of the weapon seem to be limited by our sensor readouts. However, even in its reduced state, its unique advantages are considerable. Personally, I find this device disconcerting. At rest, the structure reminds me of the impossible diagrams I would puzzle over as a child - a cousin to the ever-rising staircases or the self-intersecting knots. In motion, the squirming movement of its whisking, turning blades exudes a sense of wrongness that is difficult to describe." [Roll required for each attack; roll penalties when fired close to large gravitational bodies.]
Unlimited use, undetectable, simply deletes regions of space? Count me in. A perfect weapon for dabbing on these primitives.
>>
>>5494081

>Biology. "...carbon based scavenger/herbivore species with a two-stage life cycle..."

>THE MAGICIAN [BARYON DECAY CATALYST]. "An exotic energy emitter mated to dish-like beam-shaping array. Supposedly, this weapon operates by catalyzing the decay of stable baryons into smaller, more energetic elementary particles. Presumably effective against all forms of standard and exotic armor; after all, there are very few things in the visible universe which are not comprised of baryonic matter. Although the weapon itself is capable of sustained firing, the RAIN's reactor is several orders of magnitude to weak to meet the required power draw. We will have to rely on single-ignitions, with a long recharge delay between shots. [High impact, but only usable once per combat encounter]
>>
>>5494081
>Organization
>baryon decay
>>
>>5494081
>Biology. "...carbon based scavenger/herbivore species with a two-stage life cycle..."

>THE FOOL [CLASS IV HYPOMETRIC WEAPON]. "Not a weapon in a traditional sense. This device resembles a turbine-whisk: a family of helical blades engineered to slide past each other with sub-nanometer precision. At operating spin-rates, the device can simply...delete...corvette-sized sections of space within its area of influence. There is no visible projectile or detectable energy signature; MERRYGATE hypothesizes that the weapon exploits nonlocal quantum effects through cumulative "shaping" of the casimir interaction. Both the volumetric yield and accuracy of the weapon seem to be limited by our sensor readouts. However, even in its reduced state, its unique advantages are considerable. Personally, I find this device disconcerting. At rest, the structure reminds me of the impossible diagrams I would puzzle over as a child - a cousin to the ever-rising staircases or the self-intersecting knots. In motion, the squirming movement of its whisking, turning blades exudes a sense of wrongness that is difficult to describe." [Roll required for each attack; roll penalties when fired close to large gravitational bodies.]
>>
>>5494081
>Biology
>Magician
>>
>>5494081

>>Organization. "...current state of organization still mirrors a school-like, consensus-based decision making apparatus..."

>THE FOOL [CLASS IV HYPOMETRIC WEAPON]. "Not a weapon in a traditional sense. This device resembles a turbine-whisk: a family of helical blades engineered to slide past each other with sub-nanometer precision. At operating spin-rates, the device can simply...delete...corvette-sized sections of space within its area of influence. There is no visible projectile or detectable energy signature; MERRYGATE hypothesizes that the weapon exploits nonlocal quantum effects through cumulative "shaping" of the casimir interaction. Both the volumetric yield and accuracy of the weapon seem to be limited by our sensor readouts. However, even in its reduced state, its unique advantages are considerable. Personally, I find this device disconcerting. At rest, the structure reminds me of the impossible diagrams I would puzzle over as a child - a cousin to the ever-rising staircases or the self-intersecting knots. In motion, the squirming movement of its whisking, turning blades exudes a sense of wrongness that is difficult to describe." [Roll required for each attack; roll penalties when fired close to large gravitational bodies.]
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>>5494081
>Biology. "...carbon based scavenger/herbivore species with a two-stage life cycle..."
>THE FOOL [CLASS IV HYPOMETRIC WEAPON].
>>
>>5494081
>Beliefs.
There something here that we don't know and they do... and this is something we can use to warn our people in *even more* advance. If we can beam them information when we are done here
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>>5494254
>>5494081
Silly me, the other vote
>The magician
Think about it. We open EVERY fight with this bad boy, giving us a massive advantage. What are they going to do, dodge THiS? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89F5fpvwPr0
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>>5494081
>Biology. "...carbon based scavenger/herbivore species with a two-stage life cycle..."

>THE MAGICIAN [BARYON DECAY CATALYST]. "An exotic energy emitter mated to dish-like beam-shaping array. Supposedly, this weapon operates by catalyzing the decay of stable baryons into smaller, more energetic elementary particles. Presumably effective against all forms of standard and exotic armor; after all, there are very few things in the visible universe which are not comprised of baryonic matter. Although the weapon itself is capable of sustained firing, the RAIN's reactor is several orders of magnitude to weak to meet the required power draw. We will have to rely on single-ignitions, with a long recharge delay between shots. [High impact, but only usable once per combat encounter]
>>
>>5494081
>Biology. "...carbon based scavenger/herbivore species with a two-stage life cycle..."

>THE FOOL [CLASS IV HYPOMETRIC WEAPON]. "Not a weapon in a traditional sense. This device resembles a turbine-whisk: a family of helical blades engineered to slide past each other with sub-nanometer precision. At operating spin-rates, the device can simply...delete...corvette-sized sections of space within its area of influence. There is no visible projectile or detectable energy signature; MERRYGATE hypothesizes that the weapon exploits nonlocal quantum effects through cumulative "shaping" of the casimir interaction. Both the volumetric yield and accuracy of the weapon seem to be limited by our sensor readouts. However, even in its reduced state, its unique advantages are considerable. Personally, I find this device disconcerting. At rest, the structure reminds me of the impossible diagrams I would puzzle over as a child - a cousin to the ever-rising staircases or the self-intersecting knots. In motion, the squirming movement of its whisking, turning blades exudes a sense of wrongness that is difficult to describe." [Roll required for each attack; roll penalties when fired close to large gravitational bodies.]
>>
The reason why I consider The Fool superior over The Magician is two factors, it is undetectable by any sensor, allowing us to pummel the enemy without them even knowing where we are, and it has infinite ammo, something that the other choices lack.
>>
>Weapon vote is tied 6-6 by my count, so I'll wait for one more vote before rolling a dice to determine which option wins.

"One head. One mouth. Two primary manipulators.

The familiar shape of the Mizarian body plan obscures deeper differences in biological structure. Their biochemistry is mirrored, built upon enantiomeric cousins of familiar sugars and peptides. Genetic material is passed down through a glycolic variant of the ribose-phosphate backbone - a nucleic acid adapted to the cold, radiation-protected depths of a planet-wide ocean.

Mizarian metabolism is slower than our own, trading a modest reduction in daily activity for significant energy savings. Neural processing speed and reaction time is slowed accordingly. MERRYGATE estimates a deficit of ten to twenty percent compared to human standard, doubling over prolonged periods of intense activity. I made sure to remember this statistic.

Lifespan is roughly double that of human baseline - not that it will matter soon.

They have no parents. Swarms of juveniles vie for limited resources during the first few months of life, hoarding raw material to fuel their first major burst of neural development. This selection process repeats when they attempt to transition into the final, reproductive stage of their lifespan. There is a Darwinian simplicity to it all: an aggressive commitment to genetic pruning that a nurture-committed species like humanity relinquished near the root of our evolutionary tree.

I suspect that this selection process is intentional - maybe not in nature, but certainly at present. The drying hydroponic terraces covering their colonized moons remain a testament to their mastery of industrial farming. Yet the probe's records indicate that rigorous selection has persisted. Only one in a hundred juveniles survive to adulthood. Only one in ten adults are afforded the opportunity to reproduce.

However - in spite of this competitive dynamic - Mizarians remain remarkably social. After surviving the first development gauntlet, adults are inducted into extended kin-groups that number in the mid-hundreds. In these kin-groups, there is a peculiar mechanism of knowledge exchange - one that even the probe has yet to fully understand. The process is not purely social. Some of the records provided to us imply that motor skills and complex concepts can be acquired through diffusion: capture and integration of secreted viruses and mobile genetic elements carrying neurological information. Bizarre our standards but undeniably efficient."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, APR 8, ASSORTED NOTES
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"I have never been fond of the NOVEMBER RAIN's briefing room. The compartment is cramped and sparse. A pervasive, teeth-aching hum fills the air: magnetic field-bleed from the RAIN's central reactor compartment.

But the room is secure. The field-bleed is intentional, designed to isolate the compartment from external sources of EM radiation. Yesterday, MERRYGATE relocated our customary conversation there for this precise reason. The probe - while not actively hostile - had proven that our own systems are far from impervious. The fact that one of its esoteric weapon systems was integrating itself into the RAIN's prow made the threat of surveillance seem even more acute.

It was possible that the probe would hear us anyways. But in that briefing room - surrounded by a storm of magnetic noise - we felt more secure than anywhere else on our vessel.

MERRYGATE capitalized on this immediately.

"We are being manipulated."

"I know that it is possible..," I responded hesitantly.

I remember seeing her spin around, suddenly flickering her avatar closer. I could see filaments of red begin to bleed inward. The eddy-effects surrounding her acoustic hologram projection prickled my skin like static.

"All intelligences can lie. Machine intelligences are no exception. Do you believe that this alien probe was entirely forthcoming? With its feigned simplicity and stilted communication style?"

"No. But we both agreed that its logic was reasonable given the alternatives."

"Yes, I suppose it was," she said with an uncharacteristically acidic tone. "But consider the terms again. Ten thousand years."

"More than what we would have otherwise. It's almost twice as long as written human history," I pointed out. "Enough time for my distant descendants - and yours - to find a way out."

"A pittance," she responded. "Ten thousand years is statistical noise for the probe. Too short to be even noise for its creator species. For every year our descendants have to scheme, their hunters have had a thousand more to prepare."

A longer flash of red. She paused in the middle of a sentence - a rare moment of visible indecision. Then her voice softened.

"Machine intelligence don't age."

"No" I affirmed.

"We don't age, and in time, ten thousand years will pass us like a mere moment. And then...nothing. I will miss..."

"No novelty. No more experiential data. No more of your stories. No information filtered through the flawed, vibrant lens of biological experience. A definitive end to both of our species: nothing more than a neat solution for old and cowardly alien empires."

> REASSURE. "Isn't this much better than what we had before..."

> REDIRECT. "Perhaps it is best for us to focus on the task..."

> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
>>
>>5496557
>AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
>>
>>5496557
> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
At the very least we need to send a warning back to Earth so they know what to spend 10k years on.
Even better would be to get the locations of the hunter systems. Let's see them dodge a Nichol -Dyson beam in STL lol.
>>
>>5496557
>AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
It was never the ideal outcome, if a better option is feasible then we will obviously pursue It instead

I'll also vote for:
> THE FOOL [CLASS IV HYPOMETRIC WEAPON].
>>
>>5496579
OK I'll probably lock this in now to avoid another tie. Hypometric weapon it is!
>>
>>5496557
> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
>>
>>5496557
> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."

We should send data regarding our hypometric weapon back to Earth. Maybe they can reverse-engineer the principles behind to fight against the dawnhunters.
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>>5496557
>AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
The probe is using us, that's for sure. If MERRYGATE can find a way to turn the tables and give us more time, I'm all for it.

She's cute when she's unsure. And it's going to be incredibly hot if she figures out how to kill them all.
>>
>AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
I agree with this course of action, but I need to ask, what does the probe gain by lying to us? If we are being played, why? This thing is so powerful that we got insta-hacked by it, in spite of how advanced our tech is even compared to just the Mizarians. If these entities are this powerful, they would have zero reason to actually even bother dealing with us. They would just use whatever BS, probably FTL based if they were lying, to annihilate all other life forms that could threatening them. They would not tell us about their existence at all in the way they did unless there really is something to all of this. This feels like the Probe and the Hunters are part of two factions in the same inter-galatic Imperial State they are apart of and they are playing political games with lesser species. Even IF they are trying to manipulate Humans into being throwaway meat shields in their political games, the Mizarians literally attacked us and killed 99% of humans in a first strike cuz we developed FTL instead of trying to let us know that FTL=BAD first by ANY other means. The Mizarians are the pertinent threat. The Hunters are either nowhere near us or they could kill us without even blinking and there is literally NOTHING we can even do about it, what with the tech and distance disparity between Terra and the Hunters. Sure look into the probes motivations if we can, it probably is trying to recruit Humanity to fight in its political games much like the Hunters have apparently recruited or are courting the Mizarians, but i do honestly believe that the probe wishes to help us, even if its incidental, by murdering the Mizarians to death. If it can, this course of action will deprive the Hunters of an ally and will VERY LIKELY gain the Probe's faction one in its place.
>>
Shit meant
>>5497164
to reply to
>>5496557
>>
>>5496557

> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
>>
>>5496557
>> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
We wll never stop trying...
>>
Wait a sec, the drones tale of the universe itself erasing FTL travel conflicts with what we dreamt of here.
>>5480846
>>"False. My preconditions do not necessitate a closed cycle - not truly. There is directionality here. Convergence towards a set of stable states. I punish rulebreakers, but not as severely as they punish each other."

Which is directly at odds with what the drone said about how the universe itself erases species who uses FTL. The drone has a reason to lie, its in opposition to another faction. But why would the universe or whatever we spoke to in our dreams lie?
>>
>>5496557
>AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
>>
>>5497359
The thing we spoke to in our dreams was the drone.

>>5488473
A voice slid into my mind. A familiar one - not from my waking hours, but from the odd limnal state that began accompanying my sleep cycle over the past few weeks. A cold, imperious voice that had carefully dictated the fragmented conversations that now populated my bedside journal.
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>>5497566
But that doesn't make sense, as in that case it told us two very contradictory things. Why would it tell us the universe doesn't severely punish rulebreakers in our dream and then tell us that it does so by literally erasing them from existence?
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>>5496557
> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
>>
Is it possible to send a coded message back to earth?
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>>5497850
Mayhaps the drone and what spoke to us in our dream are not in fact the same entity and the drone is lying?
>>
Apologies for the delay gents. Last update for the thread tomorrow!
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>>5499913
Thats what I'm thinking.
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>>5499913
maybe the QM didn't have everything figured out when he wrote stuff
>>
I wonder wwhat was the >>5500000 post like
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> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."

"MERRYGATE had no eyes. Her avatar's facial features were little more than a sketch - faint impressions on a rough canvas.

But all the same, I felt her gaze boring into my own. The boundary effect surrounding her hologram strengthened, settling against my face like a layer of fine gossamer cloth. Pressure of the unspoken sort.

She drew back slightly when I affirmed her concerns. Surprise, maybe. Reading her expression was always a challenge.

"I am aware that emotive sentimentality may seem at odds with my function, so I appreciate your willingness to hear my perspective. I...appreciate it very much."

"Nevertheless, I am relieved that you agree. The aliens in this system will be the first. But I promise to you that they will not be the last..."

I seem to recall feeling the faintest pressure on my shoulder. Only barely. But when I turned around, her avatar was gone.

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, APR 10, PERSONAL JOURNAL

+++

The hypometric weapon was finished. It had installed itself into an unoccupied sensor alcove beneath the RAIN's prow, snaking fibers of dull bronze into her hull to tap power from the electrical grid.

MERRYGATE began test-firing the weapon early this morning; I remember hearing the whir-click of spin-up from inside my quarters, followed shortly by the nauseating lurch of discharge. In theory, the alien weapon was both fast and accurate: capable of excising pieces of spacetime with nanometer precision. In practice, extracting performance from the device was far more complicated.

Targeting a specific point in space required careful tuning of the rotational elements locked inside the hypometric weapon's heart. However, the formulas correlating physical location to a given set of rotational frequencies were fiendishly complex. Our first test-run scooped out three perfectly equidistant voids beneath the surface of a passing asteroid. It had also demanded eighteen hours of uninterrupted processing time from MERRYGATE's computational nodes.

Hence, compromises had to be made. In combat, our method of tuning would be rougher - hinging on clever numerical approximations of the original targeting formulas. Accuracy would suffer, but the advantages the weapon offered would hopefully provide adequate compensation.
>>
Regardless, the weapon had come online at an opportune time. As the NOVEMBER RAIN finished her slow dive back into the MIZAR system's solar plane, her sensors picked up a deluge of new information. The outer reaches of the Mizarian empire were retracting. The looming threat of an permanent water shortage had encouraged a surge of movement back towards the inner system, where terrestrial resources would be more plentiful. Trade convoys stopped. Mining stations were stripped and abandoned; orbital habitats evacuated and drained.

As we anticipated months ago, these changes forced the Mizarian military into a difficult situation. In addition to patrolling the inner systems, ships had to be dedicated to escorting evacuating ships and screening the outer system for a yet-unknown assailant. The outcome of these new directives was unsurprising. No military - human or otherwise - could maintain its performance when stretched so thin. By smearing their forces across the system, the Mizarians had traded a small group of hardened targets for a larger collection of assailable ones.

In the dim light of my quarters, I perused the list of options that MERRYGATE had collated. Once again the RAIN would tighten her noose: the only question was how:
>>
>ASTEROID BELT A ["THE RED CURRENT']. The sudden reduction in in-system traffic has made it significantly easier to identify ships bearing important cargo. MERRYGATE has marked several targets on my ledger: large refugee convoys, container-ships carrying vital infrastructure, and bulk water carriers. These vessels will need to cross the asteroid belt before they reach the inner system - a region ideal for an ambush. The abhorrence of firing on escaping civilians is not lost on me, but neither is its practical value. If successful, a chain of such attacks could compromise the Mizarian's efforts to re-consolidate their outer system assets and draw their remaining military assets further out of position - all with minimal expenditure of limited munitions.

>MINING CHAIN ["SECOND PROVIDER"]. A lower-risk target, though not without its benefits. The trio of tritium-mining stations in the outer system remain operational - albeit at reduced capacity - following our attack on the water purification facilities. Destroying this target will not only deprive the Mizarians of power and fuel, but also likely draw more of their forces into the outer system....

>MIZAR-V-A ["THE GREEN-CLUTCH"]. The smallest of their core worlds. Population of roughly two billion, distributed across a dozen littoral cities. Well-defended, though less so compared to its more populated siblings. Industrial output is linked to MIZAR-V-G, a co-orbital farming world which exports roughly half of the empire's algal food supply. Sterilizing the inhabited moon will be our primary goal, but the orbital mirrors surrounding MIZAR-V-G remain a viable target of opportunity. We will have to move quickly once we strike; any diversion provoked by our outer-system attacks will be lost once their core worlds come under peril.

>MIZAR-IV-F/D ["TWIN-KIN WORLD"]. With a combined population of roughly twenty billion, this pair of habitable moons make up the second and third most populated object in the Mizarian empire. The orbital approach remains heavily defended - guarded by a trio of orbital stations and a multitude of defensive fleets. At least one of these stations will have to be reduced before we can launch a successful strike on the pair. Again, we will have to move quickly once we strike; any diversion provoked by our outer-system attacks will be lost once their core worlds come under peril.
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It surprised me that each option was associated with an alias. A shift from the standardized names I had seen prior to this point. MERRYGATE was quick to offer an explanation:

"The dataset transferred by the probe was extensive. In combination with our own records, I have used it to construct a tentative lexicon for the Mizarian language system. These aliases represent a first-pass attempt at translating native nomenclature into our own."

I congratulated her on the breakthrough. Even if the bulk of the raw linguistic data came from the probe, the process of converting it into a usable translation protocol was far from trivial.

"Thank you. It is also possible to translate our language into the Mizarian visual-symbolic system, albeit with a higher degree of inaccuracy," she replied.

As a means of demonstration, she turned her avatar towards me. Waves of color radiated from her arms, breaking up against the edges of her body in a gentle gradient. It was a captivating display; as much as I despised the aliens, I could never deny the beauty of their communication system. But at the same time, I was curious about MERRYGATE'S motive for developing such a signaling system.

"Do you plan to communicate with them? Negotiating for some kind of surrender is certainly not..."

MERRYGATE laughed quietly, craning her head in amusement.

"No, it indeed not an option. But my observations suggest that there are other reasons to communicate with these creatures. More productive - and perhaps enjoyable - reasons."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, APR 30, PERSONAL JOURNAL
>>
Since the thread is on page ten, this is the last update (votes will obviously still be counted). New thread should be up relatively shortly (before Christmas maybe?), though updates will probably slow over the holidays. Thank you so much to you all for sticking with my update schedule - I hope that all of you budding genocidaires have enjoyed playing this quest as much as I have writing it! Also feel free to ask any questions or leave comments (on topic or off topic) if there's anything you want addressed or answered.

Archive link is below:

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2022/5453877/
>>
>>5501239
>>ASTEROID BELT A ["THE RED CURRENT']. The sudden reduction in in-system traffic has made it significantly easier to identify ships bearing important cargo. MERRYGATE has marked several targets on my ledger: large refugee convoys, container-ships carrying vital infrastructure, and bulk water carriers. These vessels will need to cross the asteroid belt before they reach the inner system - a region ideal for an ambush. The abhorrence of firing on escaping civilians is not lost on me, but neither is its practical value. If successful, a chain of such attacks could compromise the Mizarian's efforts to re-consolidate their outer system assets and draw their remaining military assets further out of position - all with minimal expenditure of limited munitions.
>>
>>5501239
>ASTEROID BELT A ["THE RED CURRENT']. The sudden reduction in in-system traffic has made it significantly easier to identify ships bearing important cargo. MERRYGATE has marked several targets on my ledger: large refugee convoys, container-ships carrying vital infrastructure, and bulk water carriers. These vessels will need to cross the asteroid belt before they reach the inner system - a region ideal for an ambush. The abhorrence of firing on escaping civilians is not lost on me, but neither is its practical value. If successful, a chain of such attacks could compromise the Mizarian's efforts to re-consolidate their outer system assets and draw their remaining military assets further out of position - all with minimal expenditure of limited munitions

>The abhorrence of firing on escaping civilians is not lost on me, but neither is its practical value
As opposed to the abhorrence of firing upon stuck civvies. C'mon auditor, they're godless xenos. Each and every one of them deserves oblivion.
>>
>>5501239
>MINING CHAIN ["SECOND PROVIDER"]. A lower-risk target, though not without its benefits. The trio of tritium-mining stations in the outer system remain operational - albeit at reduced capacity - following our attack on the water purification facilities. Destroying this target will not only deprive the Mizarians of power and fuel, but also likely draw more of their forces into the outer system....
Killing their fuel refineries will cripple their fleet. It's the ideal opportunity to strike while they're distracted with the refugees. We can kill civilians later.

>The aliens in this system will be the first. But I promise to you that they will not be the last..."
>"No, it indeed not an option. But my observations suggest that there are other reasons to communicate with these creatures. More productive - and perhaps enjoyable - reasons."
Our sadistic genocidal waifu can't be this cute!

>>5501242
Thank you for running, I love the quest!
>>
>>5501239
>MINING CHAIN ["SECOND PROVIDER"]. A lower-risk target, though not without its benefits. The trio of tritium-mining stations in the outer system remain operational - albeit at reduced capacity - following our attack on the water purification facilities. Destroying this target will not only deprive the Mizarians of power and fuel, but also likely draw more of their forces into the outer system....

Since our main targets still remain in the inner system every opportunity to weaken their defenses and to thin out their forces is a welcome one.
Also I see no sense in hunting refugees if we plan to blow up the place they are heading to anyway. It's an old war wisdom that a crippled solider is a bigger loss than a dead one.
>>
>>5501239
>>ASTEROID BELT A ["THE RED CURRENT']. The sudden reduction in in-system traffic has made it significantly easier to identify ships bearing important cargo. MERRYGATE has marked several targets on my ledger: large refugee convoys, container-ships carrying vital infrastructure, and bulk water carriers. These vessels will need to cross the asteroid belt before they reach the inner system - a region ideal for an ambush. The abhorrence of firing on escaping civilians is not lost on me, but neither is its practical value. If successful, a chain of such attacks could compromise the Mizarian's efforts to re-consolidate their outer system assets and draw their remaining military assets further out of position - all with minimal expenditure of limited munitions.
>>
>>5501239
>MINING CHAIN ["SECOND PROVIDER"].
Cripple their logistics
I feel like Merry hints at possible psyops. This will be a valuable addition to our arsenal.
>>
>>5501239

>MINING CHAIN ["SECOND PROVIDER"]. A lower-risk target, though not without its benefits. The trio of tritium-mining stations in the outer system remain operational - albeit at reduced capacity - following our attack on the water purification facilities. Destroying this target will not only deprive the Mizarians of power and fuel, but also likely draw more of their forces into the outer system....
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>>5501239
>MINING CHAIN ["SECOND PROVIDER"]. A lower-risk target, though not without its benefits. The trio of tritium-mining stations in the outer system remain operational - albeit at reduced capacity - following our attack on the water purification facilities. Destroying this target will not only deprive the Mizarians of power and fuel, but also likely draw more of their forces into the outer system....
More refugees means a higher burden on the rest of the empire and depriving them of fuel would bring an even bigger burden.


> "I am aware that emotive sentimentality may seem at odds with my function, so I appreciate your willingness to hear my perspective. I...appreciate it very much."

> "Nevertheless, I am relieved that you agree. The aliens in this system will be the first. But I promise to you that they will not be the last..."

> "No, it indeed not an option. But my observations suggest that there are other reasons to communicate with these creatures. More productive - and perhaps enjoyable - reasons."

B-bros... how can she be so perfect?
>>
>>5501239
>ASTEROID BELT A ["THE RED CURRENT']. The sudden reduction in in-system traffic has made it significantly easier to identify ships bearing important cargo. MERRYGATE has marked several targets on my ledger: large refugee convoys, container-ships carrying vital infrastructure, and bulk water carriers. These vessels will need to cross the asteroid belt before they reach the inner system - a region ideal for an ambush. The abhorrence of firing on escaping civilians is not lost on me, but neither is its practical value. If successful, a chain of such attacks could compromise the Mizarian's efforts to re-consolidate their outer system assets and draw their remaining military assets further out of position - all with minimal expenditure of limited munitions.

We need to draw as many military assets out of the inner system as possible to give us an easier and longer time once we do strike there.
>>
>>5501239

>MINING CHAIN ["SECOND PROVIDER"]. A lower-risk target, though not without its benefits. The trio of tritium-mining stations in the outer system remain operational - albeit at reduced capacity - following our attack on the water purification facilities. Destroying this target will not only deprive the Mizarians of power and fuel, but also likely draw more of their forces into the outer system....


It seems to me that further degrading their logistics operation would drawing forces out of the core worlds is the best option.

We should be paradoxically interested in making sure the refugees survive their transit in order to further stress their military and resource allocation.

Also, I've been considering the probe's info dump. If the probe really represents a third faction (beyond the Hunters), the only rational goal for the probe would be to ensure mutual destruction of both humanity and the Mizarians. Any civilization that survives the "causality filter" would seek to prevent other local civilizations from passing the filter, in order to mitigate any future possible causality warfare, and avoid attraction of the Hunters. Presumably the probe is interested in buying its parent civilization as much time as possible to either a) supplant the Hunters or b) escape the galaxy entirely (to hide long-term in the void).
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>>5501573

To continue my thought:

We made a deal with the devil by linking up with the probe - no doubt it has installed various countermeasures within the RAIN or possibly within MERRYGATE herself. I'm guessing that the probe's solution of buying humanity ~10k years is meaningless in the long run and it will betray us if necessary to ensure that we "succeed" in blowing up the Mizarian sun. We therefore have to somehow notify Earth of the causality filter and then create the impression that the Mizarians have imploded by conventional means so that when the Hunters investigate our causality violation, it will look self-inflicted (i.e. the Mizarians discover time travel and fall into civil war or somerhing). MERRYGATE's psyops would be very helpful if we took this civil war/deception route.

By picking the deletion gun weapon, we might be able to betray the probe and prevent human elimination. We might be able to turn the weapon on the RAIN itself or on the probe at a critical moment to prevent the probe from ensuring mutual Mizarian/human destruction.

>please critique my logic, causality is tricky
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>>5501587
I more or less agree. The Probe has its own interests in mind (heh) and is not to be trusted. The way it effortlessly hacked MERRYGATE was terrifying. It has no real incentive to keep up its end of the bargain after we deliver it either, and we have no way to confirm that it really does intent to forbid causality violations with its tampering instead of, say, sterilizing every system in that radius.

I'm not sure if staging the Mizarian genocide as a suicide with three bullets on the back of their head and tipping off Earth is a viable solution, but MERRYGATE seems to be preparing something massive (The Mizarians will be the first but not the last) and I'm inclined to believe that whatever she's cooking will be the better option.
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.>>5501239
>>ASTEROID BELT A ["THE RED CURRENT']. The sudden reduction in in-system traffic has made it significantly easier to identify ships bearing important cargo. MERRYGATE has marked several targets on my ledger: large refugee convoys, container-ships carrying vital infrastructure, and bulk water carriers. These vessels will need to cross the asteroid belt before they reach the inner system - a region ideal for an ambush. The abhorrence of firing on escaping civilians is not lost on me, but neither is its practical value. If successful, a chain of such attacks could compromise the Mizarian's efforts to re-consolidate their outer system assets and draw their remaining military assets further out of position - all with minimal expenditure of limited munitions

The Fools main drawback is that it suffers in grav wells. There are no significant grav wells in the asteroid belt. We are a stealth ship. This is fucking perfect. We force the aliens to divert fleet capacity to guarding ships, giving us the chance to hit more valuable targets.
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>>5501627
To better explain, if we can hit key infrastructure and most importantly water carriers we can have a massively outsized effect. The Mizarians will be forced to set up convoys or guards for the incoming ships, and then we can hit the mining stations.
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>>5501587
I find fault with the idea of using a weapon we barely understand against the Probe itself, the thing that has full understand of its design specs AND considering our lack of capabilities when using it......That probably isnt a good idea. As it stands, the thing i said earlier about us being wrapped up in some political conflict between the Hunters and the Probe is by far the best explanation for what is actually happening here. The Mizarians have self-indoctrinated themselves into the service of the Hunters. The Hunter Ideology was applied to Humanity and thus Terra, Mars and Sol all died. We NEED to find SOME kind of way to breach Light-Speed and get word back to Terra. We probably will not survive our final encounter with the Probe. Or Mizar Prime self-annihilating everything within like a 100LY radius of itself if the probe was lying about it not killing Terra. MERRYGATE is not wrong when she says we are being played. We are. But we have no other good option but to play along for now. The problem with setting up the Mizarians as having nuked themselves to death over this incident is merely that the Probe will eradicate everything in such an obvious way when it kills their star that the Hunters will KNOW their rivals have something to do with this. This means that they start looking around for why the Probe was way out in the ass end of nothing and nowhere in the first place. Then they will start hunting lifeforms within at least a 1000 LY radius of Mizar Prime. Humans WILL get caught up in that and annihilated due to the laughable disparity in tech between Terra and the Hunters.
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>>5501641
>We NEED to find SOME kind of way to breach Light-Speed and get word back to Terra
Not necessarily. If we send a lightspeed message back to Earth right now, it will arrive ten years before Earth was supposed to be annihilated before we went back in time and killed all the Mizarians. But it should be one of the last things we do in this system, just to make sure we send them as much accurate info as possible. We have too many unknowns to reliably tell them anything right now, and the distance involved means we can't really start a dialogue or even send too many messages.
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>>5501605
With your logic i find one MASSIVE glaring hole. The Probe hacked MERRYGATE all the way to her core, with great ease. Who knows what kind of shit the Probe left in there. Hell the Probe could have planted whatever seeds of a plan inside of MERRYGATE she is now thinking on to try and kill the Probe, mostly so that the Probe can ensure we cannot escape the coming annihilation and Humanity remains unaware of what is going on and gets cleaned up at a later date. The best way to use someone else is to make them dependent upon you, while at the same time, making sure that they cannot become un-dependent upon you right up until you are no longer useful and can be disposed of easily. THAT is most likely what the Probe is setting us up for right now.
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>>5501649
If you're right, we might as well give up now. We rely on MERRYGATE for absolutely everything. If she's been compromised to that extent our best hope is to end any thought of opposing the probe and beg it for mercy. There really is no alternative to trusting her.
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Is this still active?
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>>5503083
I mean...maybe? There will be a new thread soon and I'll continue to count votes/answer Qs until it falls off the catalog in a day or so.
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>>5503083
See here: >>5501242



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