“I dreamt of the wheel for the final time. I knelt before the dias supporting her graven form and felt the abrasive press of crumbled plaster against bare skin. With reluctance, I parted with the first of my four offerings.

“There are certain acts which I cannot inflict against the living.”

“But the dead suffer no such circumscription.”

She lifted my eyes towards a star-shot sky. “Now watch.”

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

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“The dead moon showed signs of activity. Near the apex of its polar island chain, hibernating storm cells traced widening circles, drawing energy from a fresh thermal source shrouded beneath layers of radioactive ash. Infrared emission left a blue-black scar on the RAIN’s thermal readout. Exotic radiation flooded outwards, drowning out the monotonous clicking of isotopic cobalt decay.

It took two days for this process to become visible. The tiny, shrinking crescent that marked MIZAR-V-A recovered its vibrancy, shining abrupt turquoise whenever its northern hemisphere rotated into our visual field. By then, the thermal source had grown to encompass over a quarter of the moon’s surface area. Thinning high-altitude clouds dissipated to reveal a surface teeming with lattice-bound lights: the cold-blue heat of nanoscale chemistry implemented on a planetary level.

MERRYGATE maintains that this process is non-destructive. There is no purpose in disassembling a planet already rendered uninhabitable. This morning, she pointed to the patterns of estimated matter flow, focusing on the strange, towering structures budding upwards near the original island chain.

“Orbital transfer apparatus. For processing and ejection of refined matter.”

Moments later, I remember seeing the moon spin on our display, the solar terminator crossing the point where radioactive rock and dead water met a boiling tide of deconstructive machinery. There was something uniquely unpleasant about it. The distinction, perhaps, between murder and mutilation.

I thought back to the pact we had made with the out-system probe and its willingness to co-opt our goal of extermination. This was the outcome. Perhaps the probe had fired a portion of itself at the moon as soon as the radioactive fires had faded. Or perhaps it had happened even earlier: an inoculate of inert machinery covertly implanted into our armaments during the installation of our hypometric weapon.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.

“Remember, companion,” MERRYGATE had whispered. “That the mass scaling problem remains. Any attempt at manipulating the activity of the system primary will likely demand most of its planetary system as…recompense.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 16th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

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“Five hours until orbital injection. The peripheral ring system of MIZAR-IV fell behind the RAIN in an icy blur. Transient ion bleed from our drive fluttered in the magnetic field of the billowing gas giant, curling along the eccentric orbits of its fringe lunar system.

Behind us, the consumptive light of deconstruction continued, sending looping strands of reprocessed matter deep into interplanetary space. Ahead, the sister-moons which marked the first stronghold of Mizarian interstellar civilization roiled with activity. I know that a decision has been reached – a collective inflection point that had solidified soon after the aliens witnessed the monstrous changes visited upon their former colony.

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As the two moons neared transit, the remaining garrison – a respectable force consisting of several cruisers - directed their torches towards the outer system, abandoning their homeport in favor of their hardened home world without a trace of hesitation. A wave of chemically-fueled shuttles followed their example – some racing towards interstellar space, but most bound for planetary surface. The vast, high-orbit docking rings that looped around both moons were being vacated at a rapid, almost reckless pace.

The sole remaining defensive station – now equidistant between the two moons – fired a stuttering brace of ranging lasers, collecting detailed targeting information on the orbital infrastructure it was supposedly protecting.

All of these actions were perplexing to me. While we perhaps understood their decisions in isolation, it was difficult to imagine that the Mizarians would simply abandon their last two colonies in favor of the homeworld – drawing all their forces together to gamble on a final, desperate defense."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 18th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>ENGAGE. Nothing that we have observed seems to indicate a hindrance to our original attack plan. In fact, the defensive station’s peculiar actions make it less likely to intercept our strike. We will maintain our original plan and maneuver the RAIN into a position to launch against both moons.

>INTERCEPT. Perhaps the escaping ships are carrying something that is significantly more important than the survival of either colony. We will vector the RAIN to intercept and engage both the escaping task force and the trailing civilian ships.

>INFORMATION. We will attempt to spend a measure of time performing a deep intercept of their communications to see if we can decipher the underlying strategy that the aliens are attempting to pursue – if it exists at all. While our time is limited, possessing reliable information is no less crucial. [Roll Required]

>WRITE-IN/GUESS.

>>5725194
>>INTERCEPT.
Better to defeat them in detail than let them concentrate their forces. With he defences gone we can destroy the colonies at our leisure.

>>5725194
>INTERCEPT.

>>5725194
Intercept

>>5725194

>INTERCEPT

Good to have you back, QM.

Pleasure to have you back, OP

>>5725194

>INFORMATION. We will attempt to spend a measure of time performing a deep intercept of their communications to see if we can decipher the underlying strategy that the aliens are attempting to pursue – if it exists at all. While our time is limited, possessing reliable information is no less crucial. [Roll Required]

These squid fucks are up to something here.

>write-in a guess

The nanomachines (from the Hunter probe, I guess) on the dead moon are building planetary gray-goo guns and the squids are panicking - we’re watching them destroy orbital structures that could be converted into further vectors for transmission? Now that we’ve successfully hobbled the Mizarian logistical network, the Probe probably feels that the nano plague will successfully delete the squids.

Presumably the gray-goo launchers won’t be able to reach the inner worlds but there’s a risk of local orbital structures being converted to vectors.

>>5725194
>INFORMATION. We will attempt to spend a measure of time performing a deep intercept of their communications to see if we can decipher the underlying strategy that the aliens are attempting to pursue – if it exists at all. While our time is limited, possessing reliable information is no less crucial. [Roll Required]

Welcome back OP.

>>5725194

>INFORMATION. We will attempt to spend a measure of time performing a deep intercept of their communications to see if we can decipher the underlying strategy that the aliens are attempting to pursue – if it exists at all. While our time is limited, possessing reliable information is no less crucial. [Roll Required]

Right so they are CLEARLY up to something. Sure the largest portion of them may have given up and are simply waiting for annihilation, but their LEADERS/ELDERS are CLEARLY still trying their damnest to put us in the fucking ground. We need to figure out what they are up to, us walking into a trap now would be...catastrophic to say the least.

Also. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>5725182
Good to have you back ObserverQM!
>INFORMATION
I'm thinking the station is deploying ranging lasers as an automated defense platform that has been abandoned. Further, that the squids are aware of our subterfuge as a pseudo-asteroid and by knowing all possible objects in the area, with mass, velocities and vectors, they can eliminate regular objects from consideration and target the November Rain more easily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZe5J8SVCYQ

Welcome back all!

Okay looks like we're tied. Next vote breaks the tie and locks the vote.

>>5725783
I'll change my vote to >information. love the story, by the way

>>5725785
Okay thanks checked and locked!

>INFORMATION. We will attempt to spend a measure of time performing a deep intercept of their communications to see if we can decipher the underlying strategy that the aliens are attempting to pursue – if it exists at all. While our time is limited, possessing reliable information is no less crucial. [Roll Required]

Roll 1d20, best of three. DC: 10, 12, 16

Rolled 11 (1d20)

>>5725790

Rolled 11 (1d20)

>>5725790

We’ve done well with this kind of thing in the past

Rolled 18 (1d20)

>>5725790
Watch THIS

>>5725810
impressive, very nice.

>>5725810

I kneel…

>>5725810
b-b-based!

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““The change continues. Grey oceans fall into uncaring vacuum. Continents slide into a silvery sea adrift with blue-green static.

The northern pole of MIZAR-VI-A is no longer recognizable. All traces of geography have been wiped away: subsumed by rippling patterns of peaks and troughs visible across a hundred million miles of empty space. The highest of those peaks tapers like a flourish of stretched glass – projecting itself into MIZAR-VI’s gravity well.

At night – when the light of the primary star neglects both the surface of the planet and face of its moon – I can see a tiny point of contact between the two stellar objects. The heat of atmospheric friction is bright – but not enough to conceal the blue light of impending change.”

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

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“The RAIN dampened her thrust, delaying our approach by a half-day. A trio of laser-linked sensor probes flew outwards in rapid succession, forming an artificial radio telescope large enough to intercept low-level EM radiation flitting between the defensive station and the departing garrison. Within two hours, freshly-written intrusion software bounced off a chain of navigation buoys before embedding itself into the station’s aging communications hardware.

Somewhere in the station, a cadre of aliens became cataleptic as their displays flickered with a pattern resembling a fractalized oil slick, recovering hours later with no meaningful recollections of the system anomaly they had neglected to pursue.

Data recovery was total. MERRYGATE returned with a list of confirmed targeted vectors.

There was no bluff. The targeting patterns we observed yesterday were accurate. The entire munition load of the defensive station – five dozen interceptor missiles and several kilotons of solid ammunition – would be expended against the Mizarian’s own orbital assets, allocated evenly across the two sister-moons.

The abandoned docking rings would shatter like tempered glass. Material from nearly a century of painstaking construction would smear widely across cobalt skies.

“And for what, companion?” asked MERRYGATE, frustrated that her exacting work had seemingly failed to uncover a deeper deception….

But I knew.

Collisional feedback. Ablative cascade. Kessler syndrome.

MERRYGATE confirmed my suspicions by running a modest kinematic simulation. The massive debris field liberated by the destruction of each ring would circumscribe the planet in less than an hour. As it traveled, the number of particles would rise exponentially as larger objects collided and disintegrated into smaller and smaller pieces.

Within days, the orbital space surrounding each moon would become impenetrable – a ceaseless storm of shrapnel traveling at tens of kilometers per second. Launch vehicles leaving the atmosphere would suffer tens of thousands of ablative impacts before breaching interplanetary space. Nothing would escape the surface of the moon unscathed.

But in exchange, few things could assail them either. Neither the RAIN nor her munitions had been built to resist such an extreme, indiscriminate degree of ablative damage. A scenario this desperate fell simply outside of her original design constraints.

It was good planning. Excellent planning. After witnessing what we had done to their most recent colony, the Mizarians had pried open a potential flaw in our strategy. Of course, the cost of exploitation would be immense. A planet-bound existence after centuries of space travel: physical isolation from the rest of their kind for centuries.

But any cost can be counterbalanced by the risk of extinction. I believe that the Mizarians have already accepted this. MERRYGATE informs me that the small convoy escaping the planet carries no vital intelligence or last-ditch weapon. It contains merely blood: select representatives from each kin-group so that lost lineages may continue.

A fair contingency. Applicable, I suppose, whether their defense ultimately succeeds or not.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 21st, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>ENGAGE - LAUNCH. Even after the rings are destroyed, it will take time for the collision cascade to occur. The RAIN will redline her engines and push towards the original launch location, aiming to launch before the ablative cascade reaches a critical threshold.

>ENGAGE - STATION. The collision cascade cannot occur if the station is destroyed. The RAIN will alter its trajectory to prioritize engaging and destroying the station with long range weaponry.

>COMPROMISE - STATION. The RAIN will hold its current velocity and launch a full-scale intrusion attempt against the defensive station. While this option may be challenging due to intervening light-lag, successfully compromising the station could circumvent the risk of a collisional cascade entirely.

>INTERCEPT. Even if the escaping garrison does not harbor any cargo of strategic importance, it is still wise to reduce the forces accumulating at their home world whenever possible. We will intercept the garrison first and find a method of assailing the two planets later.

>>5726116
>>ENGAGE - STATION. The collision cascade cannot occur if the station is destroyed. The RAIN will alter its trajectory to prioritise engaging and destroying the station with long range weaponry.

>>5726116
Engage-Station

>>5726116

>COMPROMISE - STATION

I wonder if we could repurpose the station's payload to strike at the departing fleet. Two birds with one stone.

>>5726116

>COMPROMISE - STATION. The RAIN will hold its current velocity and launch a full-scale intrusion attempt against the defensive station. While this option may be challenging due to intervening light-lag, successfully compromising the station could circumvent the risk of a collisional cascade entirely.

Let’s hack their systems!

>>5726116
>INTERCEPT
That's actually a really clever solution and effectively exiles the colonies for hundreds of years. They have removed themselves as a threat to us and Earth, let's not waste any more ammunition on them and focus on those who still do. If we end up fucking with their star they'll die anyway and if we don't, who knows. Maybe hundreds of years of hardship and isolation might teach the bastards some empathy. If not, we can can a nuke waiting for them by then if humanity survives.

>>5726116
>COMPROMISE - STATION. The RAIN will hold its current velocity and launch a full-scale intrusion attempt against the defensive station. While this option may be challenging due to intervening light-lag, successfully compromising the station could circumvent the risk of a collisional cascade entirely.
>INTERCEPT. Even if the escaping garrison does not harbor any cargo of strategic importance, it is still wise to reduce the forces accumulating at their home world whenever possible. We will intercept the garrison first and find a method of assailing the two planets later.
Hack the station, intercept the escapees. We should be able to do both.

I'm partial to triggering that cascade ourselves after we have control of their fate, and sending them a message telling them that they are alive only due to our mercy and they'd better behave when they come out of gay baby jail and encounter humanity's main forces, centuries advanced.

>>5726116
>INTERCEPT. Even if the escaping garrison does not harbor any cargo of strategic importance, it is still wise to reduce the forces accumulating at their home world whenever possible. We will intercept the garrison first and find a method of assailing the two planets later.
All we have to do is throw gigantic rocks at them to cause extinction level events on both worlds. Since they have been so polite as to trap themselves for us, We can kill them later at our leisure, or hell just leave them trapped there for hundreds of years to wither and die. We need to assault their home-world. Killing the fleet helps this.

>>INTERCEPT. Even if the escaping garrison does not harbor any cargo of strategic importance, it is still wise to reduce the forces accumulating at their home world whenever possible. We will intercept the garrison first and find a method of assailing the two planets later.

Raze their mobile forces, we'll have the opportunity to dump rocks on their moons once this is over, or use the hypometric weapon to poke holes in the cascade.

>>5726282
>>5726510
>>5726843
>>5726384
Updating tomorrow.

Updating tomorrow.

“The price of passivity is often underestimated. It is easy to barter away too much in exchange for very little.

If the Mizarians wish to seal themselves beneath storms of metal and glass, then we will let them. They will lose their orbital infrastructure and their glittering trade convoys – their tapered orbital elevators and fleets of surface-to-orbit transport craft. The skies – their only means of escape – will be lost to them forever.

For all this, the only thing they will gain may be time. While our antimatter munitions offer an efficient method for scouring a colony, they are not the only method available to us. I have come to realize that the two Mizarian sister-moons skim uncomfortably close to their planet’s dense outer ring system. The ice-laden asteroids that the RAIN maneuvered around this morning were massive, pockmarked objects – glassy from repeated cycles of solar heating and radiative cooling. Their largest representatives were easily a dozen kilometers wide along their minor axes.

It will take time for the RAIN to shift their orbits enough to generate a collision. And it will take time to saturate both moons with enough impactors to guarantee biosphere collapse. But I am very patient, and my companion is more patient still. We know that the RAIN will return to collect before the season’s end.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 22st, PERSONAL JOURNAL

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“Their retreating garrison presents a far more immediate problem.

Our long-range scans indicate that the Mizarian homeworld is protected by multiple overlapping defensive stations and a robust patrol fleet. Allowing the garrison – and its three undamaged capital ships – to join with this existing force would make the planet nearly unassailable.

This afternoon, the RAIN crossed the outer reaches of the convoy’s sensor radius. Electromagnetic spoor – faint but not unfamiliar– pulled gently against our sensor array. While several of the warships were running active escort transponders for the benefit of their civilian charges, cross-referencing these known contacts with sensor data suggested that there was also a second emission source…

>GUESS (3 Trys)

I am aware that our current intercept vector is not strictly ideal. The combined tonnage of three cruisers is twice that of the RAIN, and their narrow travel dispersion will allow them to concentrate their fire once they detect us. It may be wiser to extrapolate positioning by launching a brace of probes instead of reckoning solely from the RAIN’s internal sensor array.

But at the same time, I feel that conservative prudence may not be favorable here. Few engagements from this point forward will have favorable – or even fair – odds. MERRYGATE’s analysis echoes my own qualitative judgement. It is better to strike now, against an enemy that is neither entrenched nor prepared – before the sight of what we inflicted upon their last colony has faded into mere memory."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 22st, PERSONAL JOURNAL

[The RAIN will:]

> HIDE. The RAIN will hide behind MIZAR-IV-J and engage exclusively with her hypometric weaponry. While we may be able to avoid notice for some time, close proximity to the planet will also degrade the accuracy of the weapon’s complex translation/targeting system.

>AMBUSH. The RAIN will hide behind MIZAR-IV-J and accelerate into close-combat range when the convoy passes the frozen moon. We will attempt to core the exposed drive columns of the three cruisers using our laser system before engaging any stragglers with the hypometric weapon once we escape the moon’s gravity well.

>PROBE. Data from the RAIN’s internal sensor array is not sufficient. We will delay the attack and launch a brace of probes.

>WRITE-IN

[MERRYGATE will:]

>INTRUSION – STATION. Launch an intrusion attempt against the station station. While complete control will be unlikely, it may be possible to compromise a few long range weapon systems…

>INTRUSION – CRUISER. Launch an intrusion attempt against one of the cruisers. Moderate success may will permit comm-access and temporary system degradation.

>WRITE-IN

Hmmmmmmmm. Don't consider this a guess per se, but I'm curious about the object sharing the same orbital band as Mizar 4 J. Hell of a lot of signals coming from that area.

And as for intrusion... Well, we did learn that even civilian ships can do massive damage to even battleships, at sufficient velocity. What if we sent transports on a collision course for the cruisers?

>>5727810
>What if we sent transports on a collision course for the cruisers
They will probably be destroyed now that Mizarians know what to expect.

>>5727737
>GUESS
If I understand correctly how the emission detector works, there should be an emitting target near where our sensor radius comes close to CIV03

> HIDE. The RAIN will hide behind MIZAR-IV-J and engage exclusively with her hypometric weaponry. While we may be able to avoid notice for some time, close proximity to the planet will also degrade the accuracy of the weapon’s complex translation/targeting system.
>INTRUSION – CRUISER. Launch an intrusion attempt against one of the cruisers. Moderate success may will permit comm-access and temporary system degradation.

>>5727815
>They will probably be destroyed now that Mizarians know what to expect.

Maybe. But they are close enough that they could still be hit by debris, and even if they are all shot down it will induce havoc in their formation. It might open up another window.

>>5727737

>Guess

I would presume that the Mizarians are blind-firing stealth probes in every direction trying to catch a glimpse of us?

Alternately, maybe a stealthed comms satellite is emitting EM?

>AMBUSH. The RAIN will hide behind MIZAR-IV-J and accelerate into close-combat range when the convoy passes the frozen moon. We will attempt to core the exposed drive columns of the three cruisers using our laser system before engaging any stragglers with the hypometric weapon once we escape the moon’s gravity well.

>INTRUSION – CRUISER. Launch an intrusion attempt against one of the cruisers. Moderate success may will permit comm-access and temporary system degradation.

We should plan to manipulate the cruisers or delay counterattack as we zip by for the ambush.

Can we set off their trap to fill space with debris taking out their orbital assets, then bombard the planet with large massive rocks and meteorites?

>>5727737
>AMBUSH. The RAIN will hide behind MIZAR-IV-J and accelerate into close-combat range when the convoy passes the frozen moon. We will attempt to core the exposed drive columns of the three cruisers using our laser system before engaging any stragglers with the hypometric weapon once we escape the moon’s gravity well.

>INTRUSION – CRUISER. Launch an intrusion attempt against one of the cruisers. Moderate success may will permit comm-access and temporary system degradation.

>>5727815
Yep! I'll mark it in during the next update.

Also, FYI I'm moving into a new place for school, so the next update or two might be delayed somewhat. Sorry for slowing things down right after I start the thread, but I will update (as long as I'm alive).

>>5727737
Can't we move into ambush position while launching probes?

>AMBUSH. The RAIN will hide behind MIZAR-IV-J and accelerate into close-combat range when the convoy passes the frozen moon. We will attempt to core the exposed drive columns of the three cruisers using our laser system before engaging any stragglers with the hypometric weapon once we escape the moon’s gravity well.

>INTRUSION – CRUISER. Launch an intrusion attempt against one of the cruisers. Moderate success may will permit comm-access and temporary system degradation.

Attack the cruisers from behind and launch a memetic attack since we got that military comms from the last thread.

Finished moving, so I'm hopefully back to my normal schedule.

>>5727815
>>5727823
>>5728174
>>5728556

>Roll 1d20, best of three for intrusion attempt. DC: 10, 16, 18

Rolled 5 (1d20)

>>5729535

Rolled 8 (1d20)

>>5729535

Rolled 3 (1d20)

>>5729535

>>5729537
>>5729568
>>5729583
:(

>>5729584

Our luck was bound to run out, we’ve basically passed every hacking DC up to this point.

The fishy bastards have finally gotten wise

>>5729682
It is what it is

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“Machines do not commit mistakes as we do. Human error is blind and frantic under pressure – imprecision from tightly-wound nerves and overworked adrenals. Cumulative miscalculations which terminate into a myriad of spiraling failure-states.

My companion cannot feel that kind of panic. In situations like these, she has rarely doubted her ability to react optimally – to overcome the simplistic action patterns demanded by fleshbound instincts and bloodbound hormones.

But at this moment, she is experiencing something very close to it.

Failure readouts flash across the bridge display at a hundred-hertz blur, no longer summarized for the benefit of human comprehension. Alternate entry routes are probed in sequence before collapsing into a sea of closed, air-gapped ports – signs of an impending system lockout.

Intrusion failure. Something worse than intrusion failure.

MERRYGATE delineates the problem in grating, broken syntax – sparing the bare minimum of her computational resources for communication as she struggles to salvage something from her botched intrusion attempt.

A mistake. Not in calculation or execution, but in initial knowledge. The military comms we gathered from the escaping ship had been partially compromised. One of the transmission channels was intentionally airgapped, rigged to trigger a system-wide transmission lockdown immediately upon message receipt. Within seconds of her initial broadcast, the entire convoy shuttered their comms with a broad-spectrum EM-blackout.

MERRYGATE’s final access attempt is met with the harsh rebuke of a hard power disconnect. Her tone remains flat as she diverts her computational resources towards the RAIN’s hypometric weapon, which spools up with its repulsive turbine-whine.

“Launch imminent.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 23rd, PERSONAL JOURNAL

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“The Mizarians cannot see us yet. But they do not need to.

Hacking tends to be distance-limited. Even the most lethal SPLICE/INTRUSION variants can be neutered into irrelevancy by simple light-lag. Seconds of delay create a workable – if immensely challenging - stochastic modeling problem. Any longer and even predictive simulation decays into a sea of irrelevant probabilities.

On some level, the Mizarians are aware of this constraint. They know that the RAIN is close enough to have attempted a breach against their comm systems. And they know that there is only a single stellar body in their immediate vicinity large enough to shield the RAIN from their active sensor arrays.

A few months ago, the aliens would have never gambled on mere suspicion – on the simple absence of a sensor reading. Now, they commit eagerly.

All three cruisers fire, dumping their full allotment of needle-nosed missiles without a hint of hesitation. The volley aims to bracket the runt-moon, skimming the edges of its projected position with only six thousand kilometers of clearance. IR-spikes light up the RAIN’s tactical display, pulsing arterial red. The RAIN’s optical units tracked faint shapes, seeing tapered nosecones hunt for the characteristic backscatter of a targeting laser.

I force calm as the bridge initiated an emergency purge cycle, replacing dry air with the slick, horribly claustrophic pressure of fresh acceleration gel. Human error is blind and frantic. I cannot not afford human error here.

The missiles are comparatively harmless now – their semiactive seekers still dormant. But that would change very soon. The glint of sunlight across the glacial surface of MIZAR-IV-J fades to reveal a pair of overdriven drive torches and the red stutter-flash of a pulse modulated targeting laser: Mizarian destroyers, bounding ahead of their cruiser formation like a pair of eager bloodhounds….”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 23rd, PERSONAL JOURNAL

[The RAIN will:]

>ENGAGE-LIMITED. It will still take time for the destroyers to find us and obtain an exact targeting solution. We will engage with the hypometric weapon now and attempt to destroy at least one of the vessels without compromising our location further.

>ENGAGE-FURTHER. We will break from our current position and engage the destroyers directly with both the hypometric weapon and our conventional laser array. Hopefully, we will be able to destroy both vessels before they can obtain an accurate solution with their targeting laser.

>ENGAGE-MSL-C [4 LEFT]. We will launch a conventional fusion warhead against the destroyer pair. This will guarantee destruction of both vessels well before they reach targeting range.

[MERRYGATE will:]

>INTRUSION – STATION. Launch an intrusion attempt against the station, which has not yet received a blackout order. While complete control will be unlikely, it may be possible to compromise a few long-range weapon system.

>CALIBRATE - HYPOMETRIC. Focus entirely on calibrating the hypometric weapon, which will partially negate the penalty associated with firing inside a lunar gravity well. [-1 to roll instead of -3]

>>5730891
>ENGAGE-LIMITED
>CALIBRATE - HYPOMETRIC
I think later we should look into the feasibility of spoofing the missile targeting. Maybe we can find a way to make their missiles target their own ships.

>>5730891

>ENGAGE-LIMITED

>CALIBRATE - HYPOMETRIC

Let’s try to knock one of them out before we approach

>>5730891
>ENGAGE-LIMITED
>CALIBRATE - HYPOMETRIC.
Seems reasonable!

>>5730891
>CALIBRATE HYPOMETRIC
Warm up the conventional missiles just in case the hypometric weapon doesn't work.

>>5730931
>>5730939
>>5731041
>>5731047

>Roll 1d20-1, best of three for targeting hypometric weapon. DC: 12, 19

Rolled 12 - 1 (1d20 - 1)

>>5732081

Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>5732081

Rolled 11 - 1 (1d20 - 1)

>>5732081

Well, this isn't going well.

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“Targeting failure. Two millisecond deviation. The hypometric weapon folds outward and bites hard vacuum, missing the main hull of the trailing destroyer by less than ten meters. It reaches out again. A dangling docking umbilical tumbles away leaking water, severed by a clinical, mirror-smooth cut. But the cut goes no further. Minimal nausea; the feeling of disorientation fades in mere seconds.

I execute an emergency hairpin turn. Eighteen gees for seventy seconds. I hear the staccato drumbeat of pressurized blood; the crush of warm gel against my windpipe. Bubbles frame the distorted edges of my vision, accompanied by strands of dull crimson. It was air – air forced out from my own blood by a sudden spike in pulmonary pressure.

Danger readouts populate the bridge, warning that the incoming destroyers are close enough to overcome our vessel’s passive stealth system. Their targeting lasers probe the space around us, intersecting with the RAIN’s position intermittently as their operators attempt to narrow their tracking tolerances down to a tight fix.

A miniscule amount of laser backscatter sheds from the RAIN’s light-absorbent hull back into interstellar space. Miniscule, but enough.

I watch as the two missiles closest to our position reorient their heading with plumes of volatile monopropellant, slewing their needle-cone bodies to face the RAIN. Their seeker heads unfold like lily-flowers, exposing a serration of optical sensors calibrated for terminal guidance. Crenulated engine ports glow white, almost blue-hot as they push their warheads towards intercept speeds.

Death. I no longer fear the process, only the consequences. Two of those missiles lancing into the RAIN would turn her into a dead, airless husk. Three impacts would reduce her superstructure into a thin patter of micrometeorites orbiting this frozen, airless moon. We could afford our own deaths, but our home could not.

And so, we shall commit to this final gambit:”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, OCTOBER 23rd, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>INTERCEPT – STANDARD. We will attempt to intercept the two incoming destroyers with our laser system while targeting the two incoming missiles with the hypometric weapon. This option is risky, and failure will result in one or more missile impacts against the rain and/or a hard target fixed by any surviving destroyers.

>INTERCEPT – MSL-C [4 LEFT]. We will launch 3 conventional fusion missiles. Two to target the two destroyers, and one to intercept the incoming missiles.

>INTERCEPT – MSL-AM [3 LEFT]. We will fire an AM MIRV missile in anti-ship configuration – wide spread, manual detonation. This will eliminate the destroyers, the incoming missile swarm, and much of the convoy.

>INTERCEPT – IFF SPOOF [4 LEFT]. We will attempt to redirect the incoming missile swarm by launching our scouting drones in Active Transmission/Decoy mode while engaging the destroyers with our weapon systems. Depending on our level of success, this will expend three to four scouting probes.

>INTERCEPT - ??? [2 LEFT]. I will use the hunter’s archive and its blood-warm method of recording information. I do not know precisely what will occur, and I sense that employing it will deny us a possible conclusion…

>WRITE-IN

>>5733901
Use 2 MSL-Cs on the destroyers while engaging the missiles with our conventional point defense lasers and IFF spoofing.
Spoof them first with a probe or two and catch all that remains, that is, unless we'd get overwhelmed and need to launch 3 drones.

>>5733901
>>5733921
Support

>>5733901
How many planets do we still have to destroy?
Because one can't be destroyed by a missile anymore, this frees up one MSL-AM.

>>5733901
In any case, I request we record the targeting signal in addition to whatever we do, for later spoofing.

>>5733901
>>5734002
You're right, we can afford to spend one. I'll switch >>5733983 to
>>5733901
>INTERCEPT – MSL-AM [3 LEFT]. We will fire an AM MIRV missile in anti-ship configuration – wide spread, manual detonation. This will eliminate the destroyers, the incoming missile swarm, and much of the convoy.

>>5734017
I don't remember whether I'm right, we might still have 3 planets

>>5734018
We let two of them get covered by debris while we went off to almost die at the convoy that left them behind. Our AM missiles are good only against the homeworld now.

>>5734021
Two of them? I thought that was just one.

>>5734028
Two inhabited moons of the same gas giant iirc

>>5733901

>INTERCEPT – MSL-C [4 LEFT]. We will launch 3 conventional fusion missiles. Two to target the two destroyers, and one to intercept the incoming missiles.

I honestly think we should save the AM missiles for later, they’re too useful to expend until we have a crack at the homeworls

>>5733921
Second

>>5734002
Oh fuck, right! Changing from 2 MSL-Cs, point defense, and IFF spoofing to MSL-AM.

>>5733921
>Target the two destroyers with 2 MSL-C, use our PD capable weapons in conjunction with the hypometric weapon and as many IFF spoofs as necessary to deal with the missile swarm.

>INTERCEPT – MSL-C [4 LEFT]. We will launch 3 conventional fusion missiles. Two to target the two destroyers, and one to intercept the incoming missiles.

>>5734229
>>5734017
>>5734002
AM

>>5735201
>>5734098
MSL-C

>>5734351
>>5734207
Write-In


Based on my count, MSL-AM wins? Can someone double check my vote, since I feel like the switching may have confused me.

>>5735699
Can you confirm how many homeworlds (minus the shielded ones) are left?

>>5735699
I'll switch my vote to MSL-C if it is not too late.

>>5735717
Just one.

>>5736474
Cool. Definitely

>INTERCEPT – MSL-AM [3 LEFT]. We will fire an AM MIRV missile in anti-ship configuration – wide spread, manual detonation. This will eliminate the destroyers, the incoming missile swarm, and much of the convoy.

then.

Sorry for the horrifically long delay. I have to start dissection tomorrow so I have been somewhat busy, but I've also been lazy. I promise to update tomorrow or...IDK but yeah I promise.

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“The RAIN averts her eyes in preparation for the killing below.

Armored blast shutters clamshell close. Sensor clusters duck inside radiation-hardened blisters. MERRYGATE’s avatar disappears in a wash of static as her electronic infrastructure engages tertiary radiation hardening protocols.

I swim in an ocean of red. Bright red. Rose red. The distinctive color of super-oxygenated blood supplemented with a half-fraction of recombinant fetal hemoglobin. I taste it as it leaks out from my pressure-ruptured lungs like salty, coppery smoke.

Sixty seconds. The hairpin turn continues. The RAIN rotates her prow towards the projected impact zone to minimize the cross-sectional area of her hull. In a few seconds, radiation flux would instantly strip several hundred kilograms of solid mass from her forward ablative plates.

Twenty seconds. I feel something give way inside my chest cavity. A sense of ripping or separation – like tearing away the last page of a well-worn book. A bad sign. Moments later, the red curtain streaming from my lungs begins to slow. A worse sign.

Five seconds. The hairpin turn finishes and I am barely conscious. The launch trigger no longer needs to prick my finger to initiate launch verification. It simply siphons away a tithe of the acceleration gel before retracting with a distinctive ping.”

Launch. Weightlessness reimposes itself, allowing me to perceive the two-second delay between launch and impact. The antimatter submunitions began separating as soon as the missile left its launch tube, catapulting themselves into a hemispheric spread pattern. Wide angle. Minimal fuse delay. Indiscriminate guidance. Everything occupying the RAIN’s forward angle became a valid target for their aggressive seekers – from the swarm of incoming missiles to the civilian vessels inching away from our current battlespace. Nothing would be spared.

Perhaps not even ourselves. The incoming missiles were two thousand kilometers too close. I set the minimum detonation threshold for our own missile even closer, relying on the engineering tolerances that had protected us so many times before. Even so, the radiation pressure alone could cause significant damage to our external structure. And I…….I….

Must not weep as I remember that first vow I made on the base of that great mountain, when the stars were still bright and young and my home was still cast in that lovely shade of blue-ochre:

“…I consecrate the blood of my planet with my own, and vow to…”

“…to be honored as one made from blood and acclaimed in starlight…”

“…”

>Roll 1d2, best of one, DC:1

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>5739031

>>5739031
>>5739033
Is this good or is it bad? Higher number should be good right? Im scared.

>>5739034
2 is lose. The voices said so.

>>5739034
2 is good. Somehow you guys survive again with no permanent damage.

File: 4462032947.jpg (24 KB, 739x415)

24 KB JPG

>>5739031
>>5739033
>>5739042
"YOU FOOLS! HUMAN ENGINEERING IS THE BEST IN THE GALAXY!"

>>5739033
b-b-b-based

>>5739042
You don't even know how clenched I was.

>>5739169
I have to confess I have never played this quest and I just wanted to roll a dice.

>>5739311
Your beginner's luck has saved us.

Please no more risks unneeded until the aliums are ded.

I'm not too torn about losing an antimatter missile, we can reserve the remaining two for the homeworld after we drop rocks on the moons.

>>5739042
BLESSED! Here is hoping this causes chaos amongst the Mizarians. They literally cannot even leave a scratch on us when we fuck up.

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“November.

It is a cold month, bearing a meteor-rich sky. The transit of the bright Andromedids proclaims its earliest days, while the gentle fall of the Phoenicids ushers the decline of its final week. The glut of shooting stars and streaking comets mirrors the bountiful harvest offered up by the soft, yielding earth.

Appropriately, November is also known as the month of sacrifice, when the fruit of the harvest is immolated to evade retribution from old, jealous gods. It is a tradition long relinquished by our Terran cousins. Yet we still practice it on my homeworld. During the penultimate day of the penultimate month, the broad shoulders of our red mountains would shine slightly darker – soaked with ten million thimblefuls of evaporating water. It is a reminder that sacrifice must give even when it is not demanded.

While I have not given any water this season, I have nearly given up something else. The hairpin maneuver I executed ten days ago had exceeded my acceleration tolerance by five Gees. Unsurprisingly, my circulatory system collapsed almost immediately after launch confirmation. Acute aortic dissection followed by cardiopulmonary arrest. My heartbeat was barely palpable by the time MERRYGATE rebooted her computational units and transported my acceleration couch into the medical bay.

I have few definite memories of the following week. I remember glimpses – of microsurgical manipulators and cautery units darting in and out quickly enough to merge into a uniform blur, overlaid by the holographic imprint of MERRYGATE’s hands. The pulse-whine of an articulated tissue printer and the tang of fresh culture media.

Then, recovery in my personal quarters, seeing a projected image of MIZAR-IV rotate serenely across my vision. Dark imprints of moons and planetoids against the fluffy-white curl of convective storm cells. Light tea and lighter conversation three times per cycle, as my companion interposed herself between me and my tactical readouts with a surprising degree of persistence.

“The concept of birth does not readily apply to my kind,” she whispered as I sipped something vaguely medicinal from a comfortably warm bulb. “But I was commissioned alongside the RAIN, and the RAIN was laid down in the month of November....”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, NOVEMBER 1st, PERSONAL JOURNAL

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1.86 MB WEBM

“The RAIN was preparing for departure when I returned to the bridge. The final sector of her radiation-burned ablatives had been swapped a few hours ago, leaving a smooth, pristine hull surface that bore no scars from the immense amount of energy it had deflected weeks prior. Active sensor arrays and thrust ports fired in a boastful sequence – declaring that the RAIN remained the last and best example of Martian naval engineering that would ever grace the cold black.

Slowly, we brought the RAIN out from the moon’s shadow and towards our original approach. The remnants of the convoy floated around us in varying states of destruction. Here was a blank space formerly occupied by the destroyer-repair, rendered into vapor-dust by nearly a dozen direct submunition impacts. Opposite to its orbit, a deceptively-intact cruiser hung motionless – its internal structure made plaster-brittle by a generous perforation of gamma radiation. Lastly there were the escaping civilian vessels, which had not been spared. The bulk-transport responsible for preserving kin-lineages had taken a partial hit, spilling its warm cargo outward as it spun lengthwise to form a snowy crescent. It still moved, albeit slowly – on a dead path to reach its original destination within decades rather than months.

The RAIN moved past these corpses to bring us to a location deeper into the ring system. Here, the objects were denser – changing from round, ice-rich snowballs to irregular nickel-iron asteroids darkened with patches of basalt-saturated ice. They tumbled gently, reflecting almost no light from their dark, heavily cratered faces. As we progressed, MERRYGATE highlighted a particularly monstrous cluster that she had picked out while I had been recuperating. The smallest was roughly three kilometers wide; the largest nearly four times that…

>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

>STRIKE - ??? [2 LEFT]. I will consider using the hunter’s archive and its blood-warm method of recording information. I do not know precisely what will occur, and I sense that employing it will deny us a possible conclusion…

>>5741959
>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

>>5741959
>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

Let the skies fall.

>>5741959
>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

>>5741959
>3 and 4 km in diameter
The Chicxulub asteroid was about 10 and still hadn't killed all life on Earth. While we don't need to kill all life, the Mizarians should be more tenacious than the dinosaurs due to technology. We need to be prepared for follow-up strikes.

>>5741959

>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

>>5742021

you're not wrong, but delivery of a few "nationkillers" would no doubt significantly reduce the chance that their civilization survives intact.

>>5742133
"Not intact" is insufficient. They should become completely unable to threaten Earth ever again. Which can only be guaranteed with total extermination.

>>5742179

I take your point, of course, but we don't necessarily need to exterminate them in the next several months - we have time to circle back once the homeworld is dead. Realistically, we've already altered the timeline sufficiently by destroying most of their outlying colonies, their doomsday weapon, and sealing off two of their prime worlds behind centuries of orbital debris and decay.

Even if we stopped now, we've delayed the human apocalypse by decades or more, assuming that the Mizarians have to rebuild and destroy the exact same weapon.

>>5742184
Decades is not enough. The humanity needs to receive a warning and then have time to enact countermeasures.

>>5742192
Though I wonder whether a solar sail statite on the RKKV's predicted course would be a sufficient countermeasure. A spacefaring civilization might feasibly be able to put it up in several decades...

>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

If a few survive after the strike the probe will render them moot or when we collapse their primary into a quasar.

>>5741959
>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

>>5741959
>ASTEROID STRIKE

>>5741959

>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

Sure it eont kill all of them. But we can finish them off later, after we kill their homeworld. It wont take too many more asteroids to kill them all.

>>5741959
>ASTEROID STRIKE. Using two cables and the RAIN’s laser system, we will send these asteroids on collision course with MIZAR-IV’s two colonized moons. While this strategy is typically ineffective due to the presence of orbital/suborbital defenses, the amount of debris “shielding” both planets makes surface-to-orbit defensive interception almost impossible…

No way we're locking ourselves out of the TRUE ENDING.

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“The days here are short.

MIZAR-IV completes a full rotation in under sixteen hours, enforcing a solar terminator line that sweeps across our position with unrelenting intensity. The consistency of its daily appearance has become a welcome novelty after spending an entire solar year traversing the great black.

Under local time, we have spent twelve days finishing our work here. The process has nearly become rote. During the day, the RAIN would accumulate energy – shying away from the heat of the system primary to charge her mammoth capacitor banks. At night, she would fire her excimer lasers at half-discharge, capitalizing on the temporary darkness to facilitate rejection of waste heat. Each firing cycle dug deep, spiral furrows into the surface of a target asteroid - liberating water and gas in thrust-plumes that mimicked the action of chemical thrust.

Several hours ago, the sixteenth – and final – asteroid began its journey, joining its siblings on a long fall towards the inhabited core of the planetary system. Their slow, processional movement appeared almost sedate from our perspective, but I knew that this was a visual illusion. Orbital mechanics are uncompromising. In a month, each impactor would carry a velocity differential of fifty kilometers per second, equating to a nominal yield of twenty to thrity teratorns. Six impactors were allocated to each moon, concentrated in the population-dense equatorial zones. The weapon may be different, but the outcome will be the same. Both planets will be stripped clean of life before we complete our final approach to the Mizarian homeworld.

The RAIN reaches for that planet now, pointing her prow towards the brightest speck of light in the star-shot sky. MERRYGATE whispers in anticipation, saying something that may have been meant for us alone. I sift through my ruined memories for the last time and find…"

>A BRIGHT MEMORY. “I remember when the universe was still flawed…” [Guarantee success on ONE roll of choice]

>A PALE MEMORY. “Darkness. Cold. The chill of vacuum, true vacuum…” [+4 to all hypometric weapon rolls]

>A SHARED MEMORY. “It imprints on silicon, just as it imprints in flesh…” [+3 to all intrusion rolls]

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, NOVEMBER 8th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

[Sorry for the horrifically long delay. I had a slightly busy week and then put a downright shameful amount of time into AC6]

>>5751568
>>A BRIGHT MEMORY
Taking that and running.

>>5751568
>A PALE MEMORY. “Darkness. Cold. The chill of vacuum, true vacuum…” [+4 to all hypometric weapon rolls]

>>5751568
>>A SHARED MEMORY. “It imprints on silicon, just as it imprints in flesh…” [+3 to all intrusion rolls]

We got this far together. We'll end this together.

>>5751568
>A PALE MEMORY. “Darkness. Cold. The chill of vacuum, true vacuum…” [+4 to all hypometric weapon rolls]

>>5751568

>A PALE MEMORY. “Darkness. Cold. The chill of vacuum, true vacuum…” [+4 to all hypometric weapon rolls]

Tempting to take the auto-success but +4 bonus on multiple rolls might be better

>>5751568
>A BRIGHT MEMORY

>>5751568

>A PALE MEMORY. “Darkness. Cold. The chill of vacuum, true vacuum…” [+4 to all hypometric weapon rolls]

The truth of the void, of gravity and more celestial forces unknowable that harken the end of advanced civilisation.
Plus makes our reusable weapon more usable.

>A PALE MEMORY. “Darkness. Cold. The chill of vacuum, true vacuum…” [+4 to all hypometric weapon rolls]

We shall erase their civilization from history.

>>5751568
>A SHARED MEMORY. “It imprints on silicon, just as it imprints in flesh…” [+3 to all intrusion rolls]

>>5751568
>A SHARED MEMORY. “It imprints on silicon, just as it imprints in flesh…” [+3 to all intrusion rolls]

“I remember cold. Darkness. The chill of vacuum.

Europa is a pale crescent. I am close enough to see the fractures and scars crisscrossing her ivory face. Extrapolating from my current course, I estimate that she will welcome me into her arms before nightfall. My falling corpse will burden her features with a new blemish.

I wait.

Condensation builds on my faceplate, invoking burry hoarfrost where polycarbonate meets bare ceramic. I know that there is a puncture somewhere in my suit. I cannot reach it, but I can feel it. The cold of true of vacuum enters, exchanged for a generous tithe of air and a modest tithe of blood. Something red streaks across my field of view, flashing across my faceplate like a passing sprite.

I wait.

Europa is gone, her features eaten away by a tidal wave of exothermic fire. It strips the moon down to a cherry-red mantle before rocketing upwards to pick apart clusters of habitats and escaping ships. I watch with the detached clarity afforded by early hypoxia. I know people from that colony. I have family from that colony.

I wait.

Io follows. Mining stations vanish. Orbital elevators ignite and unspool like candlewicks before dissolving into ash. Volcanos fire in explosive sequence as the moon’s crust dissolves to liberate the magma below.

I wait.

Mars begins to twinkle. Mars begins to burn. The starlight reflecting from her crust changes color – from dark ochre to solar-orange. Through my vacuum suits optical magnifier, I see fire race through her thin atmosphere, burrowing down through canyons and dunes to root out cavern cities and underground habitats. Terraforming domes pop like soap bubbles. Old riverbeds run red with molten rock.

The radio finally clicks on, crackling with magnetic interference emanating from Jupiter’s polar aurorae. But by then, the cold and the vacuum had already stolen my voice. I consider it a blessing that it also soon takes my sight."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, NOVEMBER 18th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

“This memory is a necessary one. I do not cherish it even in its tattered state, yet I am grateful all the same.

Last night, I submitted myself to the RAIN’s surgical bay for the third time. I suspect that some of the changes I demanded were permanent this time – connected to my internal neurovasculature by a complex array of flexile shunts and artificial plexi. As I healed, I laid my tingling limbs on the smooth, bronze-shined spindle bearing the internals of the hypometric weapon, tracing the script-like lines linking together the calibration loops. MERRYGATE hovered near by, organizing biological inputs into silicon outputs synapse by synapse. Somatic feedback ran down my fingers in errant waves. Pressure. Warmth. Cold. I hear her weep.

When the hypometric weapon fires again, MERRYGATE will pull data directly from my nervous system to correct each subsequent discharge, chasing the remnants of biological censorship through my own wetware. I am certain that this will improve accuracy significantly.

I am less certain about whether it will affect me – but I am not particularly concerned about this. Memory is the only thing I have yet to offer. My only fear is that it will not be enough.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, NOVEMBER 28th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

“My companion did not take my decision gladly. I would apologize in any other circumstance, but there is little point to it now. Both of us understand. Both of us have agreed.

But we are both human in the few ways that truly matter, and we feel nearly all the guilt and regret that would burden us even if we did not benefit from such understanding. Reasoning is no substitute for emotion, and neither of us are naïve enough to presume otherwise.

Instead, we sit in the observation blister, watching iridescent plasma cascade from the bow-shock of MIZAR-IV’s magnetopause. I point to a green-tailed comet that streaks along the night sky; she identifies a flock of Geminids that appear less than a million kilometers from our prow. And when they pass, we once again talk about the many things that she will never see and never know….”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, NOVEMBER 28th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>[YOU] Tell her something about yourself.

>[HOME] Tell her something about your home.

>[ASK] Ask what she wants to know.

>>5758126
>[HOME] Tell her something about your home.

>>5758126
>[ASK] Ask what she wants to know.

>>5758126

>[ASK] Ask what she wants to know.

>>5758126
>[ASK] Ask what she wants to know

>>5758126
>[HOME] Tell her something about your home.

>>5758126

>[ASK] Ask what she wants to know.

She’s earned the right to learn what she wants

>>5758126
>[ASK] Ask what she wants to know.
Damn. She cried.

“She wanted to know what it was like to feel longing:

To have once heard the chatter of songbirds in the hanging gardens and the clamor of early-born children in June’s long-lighted days. To pine for the grit of home-sand beneath her fingers and the tang of iron-chlorate lurking below the August haze.

She wished that she had seen the sun perform its daily ascension up Mount Olympus before draining down into the cascading canyons below. She wished she had felt its warmth and light, and witnessed the occasions where its evening journey would be accompanied by the scent of planted hawthorne or dried chrysanthemum.

Despite my efforts, these were all things that I had failed to give her; experiences I could not simply transliterate onto paper or canvas or express through prosaic speech. Longing is a cruel marriage between possession and loss. To know a thing is not enough. It must be experienced and possessed jealously, before being relinquished so completely that only a stubborn imprint remains.

What I am about to perform is an example of foolish sentimentality. I make no excuses for it, and I require none. But this is the last indulgence I shall take, and the only true gift I have yet to offer her.

I watch MERRYGATE’s hands slowly begin to merge with my own. Acoustic voxels rebound from my skin like summer rain, flickering as they tarry-trace my movements with mere milliseconds of delay. The still-unfamiliar tingling of neural feedback shoots from the tips of my fingers up towards the base of my skull; it blooms into a field of static-white when it finally reaches my eyes.

My memories are imperfect and tattered – bursts of sensation faded by innocent forgetfulness and bleached by spiteful censorship. But I suspect that they do not appear so flawed to the newcomer who I have chosen to share them with.

I watch my hands brush through red sand, cold water, and soft dirt. Through soft clothing, softer hair, and softest ash. And as her hands merge with my own, I fulfill my promise to show her all the things which warrant memory and deserve longing.

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, NOVEMBER 29th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

[Thanks for playing everyone! Apologies for the spotty (as usual) update schedule. Final (final) thread will be up later this week and should wrap things up God-willing.]

>>5761530

Fantastic work, can’t wait for the finale

>>5758126
>[ASK] Ask what she wants to know.

>>5761530
Qm, I do not want to be rude but I wish to ask you one question.What path would the imprinting on silicon have given us if it won the vote?

>>5763165
I'm really curious about that too

>>5761530
Thanks for making this, it'll be a hell of a ride I imagine

>>5763165
No worries - questions are more than welcome! You would have learned something about why you found MERRYGATE's chip aboard the RAIN in the first place (at the very start of the quest). Thanks for playing!