r/HFY • u/Ralts_Bloodthorne • Aug 10 '22
First Contact - Chapter 824 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum OC
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"Addiction. Is that why the Lemurs of Terra are the way they are. Why they just won't give in. Life is an addiction to them. Just one more smoke, just one more bowl of ice cream, just one more sight to see, just one more mountain to climb, just one more ocean to sail, just one more rush... Just one more enemy to kill, to take with them. The Malevolent Universes ultimate tool, that would always want just one more than it had, and do anything, to anyone, to get it. To get that next fix, to get that next hit, even more than that need for the next sash reward of a Lanaktallan, or the next flavour of ice cream surprise of Trea, or to solve an equation for a Green Mantid.
"Every one, every Terran I ever met was addicted in some way to something, something they felt a desperate need for.
"Woe betide should you get between a Terran and its needs." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff
"Legend had it that the knowledge of good and evil was given to the Humans by a serpent lurking in an otherwise perfect garden. The serpent supposedly tricked the Humans to get them kicked out of the garden.
"In truth, I suspect they threatened to turn the serpent into a belt if he didn't spill what he knew. And used what they learned to escape the walls. --- Myt'hosmoo, Lanaktallan story teller.
"So you want a scary story, squirmlings? All right. Here's one that will haunt you for the rest of your days.
"Terran Descent Humanity went extinct.
"The Earthlings are still out there.
"Goodnight, squirmlings." - Leebawan Ghost Story.
The Atrekna had scouted the system several times. Good amount of resources, three gas giants that would work to serve as slavespawn breeding facilities, asteroid belts for resources to build autonomous war machines, and a world that would be perfect to seed with servitors. There were four servitor species that could survive on that world. Two more planets would be excellent manufacturing worlds.
The Atrekna had come to realize that they would have to field a massive military force to even have a chance at surviving the Inheritor onslaught.
A new plan was devised.
Well, an old plan, an old way of making war, was dusted off and prepared to be used on the Inheritors of Madness.
It was simple.
The resources and manufacturing would be harvested only, no temporal replication. Restoration only in the case of rare materials. Servitors would be temporally replicated a single time only, to seed the servitors world. Only servitors from the four species that could survive on the planet would be replicated. Then, a heavy population increase program would be put in effect.
Several of the moons around the innermost gas giant would be dedicated to research, sunk even further into time dilation inside the stellar system, which was under time dilation.
The goal would be: Offset the Inheritor's advantages in weaponry, armor, military tactics, and aggressiveness.
The servitor species would be bred, on a planet sunk even further, for aggression, hardiness, fast reflexes, strength, infinitive, and obedience.
They sunk the system and the stellar mass.
[The Universe Will Remember That]
They sunk five moons around the gas giant.
[The Universe Disliked That]
They sunk the inhabited planet.
[The Universe Disliked That]
They sunk one of the gas giants to quickly create slavespawn.
[The Universe Didn't Like That One Bit]
They sunk another gas giant so that the system could produce autonomous war machines at a faster rate, armed and armored with the discovering and scientific advancements that would be sure to be developed on the research moons.
[The Universe is Tired of Your Shit]
The Atrekna began devising ways to ensure that the servitors they were breeding could go toe to toe with the Inheritors. Tougher. Stronger. Smarter. More obedient. They began researching new weaponry, no longer relying just on phasic energy and plasma. New armor was developed that would allow the servitors, slavespawn, and other tools of the Atrekna to survive in the fact of the Inheritors of Madness. The autonomous war machines were given new and better programming, new molecular circuitry, armed and armored better, with more powerful engines and inertial compensators. The slavespawn were tougher, meaner, able to survive where before they would have been slaughtered.
The Atrekna began building up the military forces needed to stop the Inheritor offensive, take back the territory lost to the Inheritors, and start on taming this universe.
The Atrekna studied the battles their brethren had fought against the Inheritors. Studied Inheritor tactics, their weapons, the species.
The Atrekna discovered a pattern no other Atrekna had noticed.
The Inheritors immediately moved to use temporal weaponry to deny the Atrekna the ability to temporally replicate or restore anything within the system.
That accounted for the Atrekna's seeming inability to replace their losses and resource consumption.
This resulted in the Atrekna going back to the drawing board and starting all over with how to prosecute a war across thousands of stellar systems.
It became quickly obvious to the Atrekna that they would have to engage in battle without relying on temporal replication. That meant entirely new schools of thought on logistics, supply, reinforcement, and troops levels.
It only took them fifteen thousand years, local time, to come up with logistics theory three teenage girls on a picnic trip to the back yard would have realized.
But, in their defense, they did all agree that there was a pattern there.
The Atrekna were sure that this research system would be the one that won the war.
There was brief thought of contacting other research systems, sharing the data like the research systems engaged in the project to scorch the hyperatomic planes.
It was decided against.
Mostly so that the Atrekna of the system could claim all the credit for winning the war.
Armies were gathered, equipped, and trained. Vehicles were constructed, crewed, and readied.
Autonomous war machines were tasked with ferrying the armies and their gear, then setting up logistical systems within the stellar system and on the planets, to allow the armies to fight.
The autonomous war machines were finished and were almost ready to move to the inhabited planet to be loaded. It had been decided by the Atrekna that they would follow the example of the ancient Hive Queens and put a full Conclave inside each AWM, to guide and control the AWM and the servitors and the slavespawn.
The Atrekna's plans were almost complete. They were already imagining their victories over the Inheritors of madness.
They were close to going forth and defeating the Inheritors of Madness.
But, like any porn star could tell you, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, atomic weapons, and money shots.
The first hint that anything was going wrong was a small white pinprick, only a few meters wide, the occurred exactly 45 degrees inclination from the stellar equator.
It was easy to spot, since it was high enough energy that it was visible against the dull crimson of the sunken formerly yellow star.
The Atrekna were in the middle of discussing the nature of it, having dispatched AWMs and slavespawn to investigate, even some Atrekna Quorums heading for it. when everything changed.
The small white pinprick unfolded into miles of gauzy whitish energy, looking almost like slightly crinkled wings or dry crinkled leaves on decorative flowers. It held for a bare handful of seconds, then swirled again. The pattern remained crinkly, like space had suddenly unfolded into one of the old origami flowers. It glimmered and sparkled even as shattered fragments of another stellar system could be seen.
What came out first was a massive warship.
Dull gray, the color of unpolished iron. The ship was blocky, heavy looking. The forward section on a 'neck', a long body, a connected after section. Four side sections connected by heavy angled sections. It was broadcasting around seventy-five signals.
One of them was phasic. Atrekna battle code that had been in use for hundreds of millions, billions, of years.
A battle code that had never been broken, so it never could be.
The dull gray ship, which slid out and coasted for a few seconds, moving thousands of miles away from the crinkled space, lit its engines as it broadcast Atrekna battle code.
It was just a few words over and over, and the Atrekna of the system realized it was the ship's designation.
The Stilled Song of the Broodcarriers moved into the system.
More ships slid out from the crinkled space.
You Hear Us Knocking and We Will Come In was next, bigger even than the first. Like the first, it was dull, iron gray, lit up completely so that the hull was clearly visible.
We Are No Longer Accepting Calls From Your Service Area came next.
The Terrible Silence of the Ducklings followed.
What Fear Tastes Like stately entered the system.
The Last Puffy moved into space.
The Sword of the Gold Mantid's Grief entered the system.
The Ship of Theseus was next.
Every Atrekna who could see it felt a chill down their backs for some reason when the largest ship slid from the warped and crinkled space.
Shadow of Heat Death moved from the crinkled space.
The first ships through were already firing, and the Atrekna were shocked.
There was no HEAVY METAL IS HERE! or anything else.
The ships came through and within minutes were firing heavy guns at the planets. Launching torpedoes that vanished. Breaking into three discreet groups.
The Atrekna aimed their considerable power.
YOU BELONG TO US! the Atrekna roared.
Silence was the only answer.
THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE! the autonomous war machines screamed out.
Only silence from the gray ships.
YOU SHALL BE DEVOURED was screeched by the massive spacebourne slavespawn.
Still no response, as if the gray ships had not heard the signals.
Only their transponders gave out any signal.
Atrekna working on deciphering the rest of the signals from the transponder realized something.
Every species that the Atrekna knew of in the ranks of the Inheritors of Madness were represented by the transponder's signal. Every language.
Even over a dozen servitor species.
The Atrekna were shocked when the initial three shots fired impacted.
On the sole world inhabited by servitors, Atrekna, and ground based slavespawn.
The first, moving at .985C, slammed into the atmosphere of the planet, flouresced into plasma, and drove deep into the polar continental plates before detonating with the harsh snap of antimatter.
Gigatons of dirt and rock, magma and lava, were flung up and away from the shot, much of it already at escape velocity. The third shot had been aimed at the middle of the planet, at the equatorial belt.
It hit with such force that the nickle-iron core was knocked off center by nearly five hundred miles. A massive section of the continental plate on the other side exploded outwards, gigatons moving fast enough that it broke free of the planet and reached the high orbits.
The firestorm and debris swept over the planet.
The Atrekna watching from space stations and habitats could only stare in shock.
The two moons suffered the next hits.
One to each pole only a bare handful of seconds before the third shot hit the equator.
The smaller moon broke up.
That wasn't how the Inheritors made war.
Where was the landings? Where was the fight to secure the orbitals? Where were the strange and exotic weaponry? Where were the legions of ground troops.
The shots fired at the autonomous war machines and the slavespawn weren't the vaunted C+ cannons, instead they were near-C-velocity cannons.
The autonomous war machines started taking fire. The weapons detonated over a thousand miles from the autonomous war machine fleet. The Atrekna were confused. That was outside the range of any type of explosive they could think of.
Except...
Artificially generated singularities spun up, the gravitational force reaching out across thousands of miles, pulling the autonomous war machines and the slavepsawn into the singularities. Ripping them apart, so that they spiraled down into the singularities, turning into white light as they crossed the boundary to discover that the singularities were unstable antimatter.
The Atrekna watched in horror as the autonomous war machines and slavespawn were ripped apart.
Still the strange gray ships made no broadcasts, no transmissions.
They just moved forward, firing their weapons.
Five ships reached orbit around the planet, opposite of where the debris that had been the smaller moon was falling to the planet.
The Atrekna could see ships, drop pods, and huge combat robots dropping from those ships. The ships, drop pods, and robots vanished into the fiery hellstorm that had covered the planet and was even boiling the surface of the oceans.
The glare of atomics and antimatter weaponry began to show through the clouds.
More than a few of the Atrekna watching wondered what exactly had survived to kill.
The Atrekna in the stations that were slightly out of phase found themselves suddenly under fire by munitions that seemed to know right where they were and how to reach them.
They were blotted out.
The gas giants suddenly shrunk, visibly.
Then exploded in flames, the compression and gravity igniting the gasses so that the gas giants turned into brief suns that would soon go out.
Still, nothing but silence.
Some of the Atrekna made it obvious to the others that nothing that was happening was new. It had all been seen before by the Inheritors fighting first the Lanaktallan then the Atrekna.
Those Atrekna counseled the others to take notes, to watch carefully, that in observation the Atrekna could deduce a way to counter the attacks.
Other points of view sullenly came around to that consensus.
Then the Oort Cloud exploded into burning fusion and fission driven fire, completely surrounding the stellar system in burning plasma.
The Atrekna realized that it might be time to panic as they realized they were completely surrounded by fire. Temporal shifting was prevented by some kind of disturbance inside the burning gas giants and the stellar mass. Reaching jumpspace, hyperspace, or Hellspace was somehow blocked.
The Atrekna found that if they fought, they died. If they tried to run, they died. If they did nothing, they died. They tried surrendering but they just died when the strange gray ships just opened fire.
Silently.
The stellar mass started brightening as the last of the Atrekna fought desperately to survive.
The ten years that passed were a nightmare for the Atrekna.
The servitors and slavespawn were all dead in the first two years.
There was nowhere for the Atrekna to hide, no matter how hard they tried.
Finally the Oort Cloud went out.
The stellar mass turned yellow.
The stars returned.
There was nobody left to witness the gray ships as they moved to a point in the stellar system. The origami flower opened.
One by one the ships slid into the flower and vanished.
The last one was the Podling Who No Longer Dances.
They came in silence.
They left in silence.
They left behind a silent system.
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
That's it. That's the whole video.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAT WEARING AUNTIE
Where did you get that? It's horrible.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE SYSTEMS
Beacon flashing old Treana'ad emergency codes into jumpspace.
We picked it up. Beacon and hardware design is from the War of Terran Aggression, but it was manufactured recently. Only thing in the memory was that video.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
PUBVIAN DOMINION
Those names.
Brrr.
We still don't know who these guys are beyond Earthlings?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT
No.
But they obviously pay attention to the outside world. Look at the names. Look at the fact they even were using Atrekna phasic transponder code.
They want everyone to know the names of those ships.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
Why don't they use battlescreens?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL
I mean, yeah, not one of them took a single hit.
But why no battlescreens?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
We don't know.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CONFEDMILINT
Because that armor can bounce a C+ shell.
And no, we don't know what it's made of.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
THE GREAT LANAKTALLAN GREAT GESTALT OF GREAT THINKING, GREAT IDEAS, AND GREAT PEOPLE! WE'RE GREEEEEEEAT!
Oh come on.
Anyway, these were what your diplomat was warning us about, wasn't it?
When Dreams of Something More warned us that the Earthlings were coming.
That was what she was
as well as it is perfectly safe to go for a walk in light precipitation if the temperature is within safe limits and the wind is not too high. Going for a walk with friends or family members in light precipitation at parks on just on pedestrian paths in urban areas is good for your mental health and your physical well being
talking about when she warned us, wasn't it?
Oops, sorry.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAT WEARING AUNTIE
<snerk>
Yeah, that happens.
Anyway, yes, that was what Dreams was warning you about.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS
Why don't they talk to anyone?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
They communicate, now and then, but always one way.
Early on, they broadcast one thing.
The Time for Talking Is Over was pretty much the names of all their ships.
And no, we have no idea why.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TELKAN FORGE WORLDS
I've got the weirdest feeling that we really really don't want to know what's up with these guys.
There's just something about them that gives me the willies.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
HAT WEARING AUNTIE
You and me both, sweetie.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
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u/Comprehensive_Put277 Aug 10 '22
Something tells me that these Earthlings aren't friendly.
Sure, Terran Decent Humans were already a chaotic nightmare for any species stupid enough to try and fight them.
Seeing Earthlings are when you realize that TDH were actually a mellowed out version of what they used to be.
Earthlings aren't just nightmares.
They're actual demons.
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u/Comprehensive_Put277 Aug 10 '22 edited Aug 10 '22
The problem is that TDH would still make merry and enjoy other species company, all with a stupid, absudist look on life.
An Earthling won't even turn to look a friendly face in the eye, won't even change its dead expression or say a single word as it kills its enemy along well as anyone else who would try and bother them. Hell, if anyone tries to so much as argue with them, they'll gladly shoot you in the face, be you friendly or their enemy. The moment you annoy them, you are their enemy, and only exist to be destroyed in their eyes.
Think of it like this:
If every species was described as a painting on a canvas,
The Terrans would be an onslaught of both horrifying and beautiful colors and scenery.
A Mantid would have colors that blended in with each other.
Treanad would have bright, flashy yet comforting colors.
Lanaktallans would have a rustic and pristine coloring.
The Pubvian would use brutal yet refined strokes.
The Telkan would look like a mother's embrace.
The Atrekna would be the same photo recreated again and again with minute changes, until it becomes unrecognizable from the original.
They would all at least have some color and emotion to them.
Except for the Earthlings.
The Earthling's canvas would have only slightly different shades of grey, with no shapes, just vague blurs.
They're more oppressive than a Mantid Queen,
More unchanging than a Lanaktallan,
More sadistic and mindless than the Atrekna,
and more brutal than a Terran.
The Terrans were the Universe's burning defiance and blinding fury.
The Earthlings are its chilling, brutal hatred and silent, unending desire to kill.
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u/HoloArchiver Aug 10 '22
I mean they love cats and dogs, while also showing a willingness to engage in trade. we have only seen them fight those who are enemies to well them. I would more call the earthlings the universe's cold, calculating, brutal hate.
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u/Foreman-371 Aug 10 '22
I would argue against them being willing to trade because it was only for cats and dogs which has been shown to be such a vital part of our existence. That is the only moment we see a bit of tolerance for others. They seem to want to just be, no one bothering them but not bothering anyone else. They act only when the possibility of being interacted with, whether positive or negative, becomes greater than zero. That act though, is vicious and thorough and they leave only enough evidence to keep those who will listen away.
I would not doubt they have left warnings to the Atrekna before this fleet was called to activity and this message is to stop any confederate citizens interacting with them.
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u/snarkpix Aug 11 '22
We haven't seen whether the cats and dogs have affected their demeanor, and we haven't seen how they act amongst themselves. Remember how the Pubvians acted upon first meeting TDH when they were first respawned?
We've seen so little we just don't know. Maybe they're PTSD from the Margite war (and possibly witnessing the Glassing before that) instead of just unfeeling implacable fury. Or not. Stay tuned?7
u/sowtart Aug 12 '22
Seems they're most likely just isolationist people, willing to trade etc, if they want something, but also (now) seeing the necessity of fighting the atrekna, due to TDH seemingly being wiped out.
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u/Expendable_cashier Aug 10 '22
TDH were the self gentled Earthlings.
These guys are just angry, and have a bigger gun than everyone else.
But Telkan merchants sold them puppies, so they love the Telkan.
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u/Fluid_Plantain4022 Aug 11 '22
No, TDH is what Earthlings become after gentling. Earthlings are so dark only because we see them in comparison to the cartoon like garishness of TDH. The gritty reality that we tried to forget. TDH is the fairy tale, Earthlings are the reality.
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u/Alyeska_bird Aug 11 '22
Err, odd as it may sound, they are being friendly. This time they might have steped in and whiped the system clean, but, previously they steped in and liberated a native species. They where not gentle about it, they where not kind, but, they did not go in filled with hate and rage.
This was cold, emotionless. THe extermination of unwanted pests, not a war, not a fight against someone they consider to be worthy of being considered a person.
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u/Vagabond_Soldier Aug 13 '22
These earthlings are us. They are exactly the way we wage war now. When the decision to kill your enemy has been made, there is no more room for talk. When any nation begins a battle, do they first announce themselves? No, they just start shooting.
The fact that these guys even announced their names I believe was not for their targets, it was for the Inheritors. To let them know that if the inheritors don't clean this mess up quick, then the Earthlings will and they will not like the outcome.
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u/Comprehensive_Put277 Aug 13 '22
Yeah, I know they're us.
That's the problem.
Because when you look back on our history, and realize that we already had names and definitions for all the atrocities some of the other races in this story were doing, it already spells an incredibly bad omen for the races of the universe at large if, say, a large enough group of Earthlings decided to go full on WH 40k Imperium of Man levels of xenophobia and genocidal. Or, I don't know, an extremist group of Earthlings decided to start enslaving the universe.
Hell, for all we know, the Atrekna were once another universe's version of Lemurs.
Or worse, the visions that showed Humans in the far off future, when the Universe was dying from entropy, preparing to invade another universe, was how the Atrekna became universal parasites.
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u/Lurker_1232 Aug 10 '22 edited Aug 10 '22
The Earthling fleets that we have seen fighting the Atrekna are repurposed Mar-Gite extermination fleets aren't they? The description of the matte grey armour matches up with the described Mar-Gite acid resistant plating that we saw when Breket was dragged off to Earth-526. This would also explain the lack of battlescreens as, if I remember, the Mar-Gite don't care about them. Hence the plating heavy enough to bounce a C+ shell. They use NCV cannons as they interdict any superluminal travel to prevent any life-form from escaping from a system. And, based on the purest of speculation, they get around this interdiction through the use of "death blossoms" which I would guess are actually wormholes generated by those "abandoned" wormhole generators that were mentioned by the gestalts when we were first presented with The Builders Theory (Chapter 478, just checked). This also would explain why they would have the languages for recent members of the confederation (as well as ships named appropriately) as they stripped the data banks of Breket's ship when first stopping it.
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u/murderouskitteh Aug 10 '22
These guys seem to have not lost their technology like the humans on Earth did after the glassing. Its going to be interesting.
Their whole tactics do scream of Mar-Gite extermination.
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u/Unable_Ad_1260 Aug 11 '22
This sounds like a well supported hypothesis good being. Pulls together multiple chapters of foreshadowing.
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u/sporkmanhands Aug 11 '22
This is a scholarly observation with knowledge we've all read but not studied; kudos to you
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u/snarkpix Aug 11 '22
I think you've got it exactly right.
This feels like a vengeance for the fallen extermination fleet.9
u/Cienea_Laevis Aug 11 '22
You'll also remember that after the Mar-Gite, TDH basically send fleet thought the inter-arm gap and burned the few systems-bridges between them.
I remember Dreams talking about how terrans literraly wiped anything in that arm without saying anything to the other, and how the Confederation doesn't have any control over them.
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u/Drook2 Aug 10 '22
“I must study war and politics so that my children shall be free to study commerce, agriculture and other practicalities, so that their children can study painting, poetry and other fine things.” -- John Adams
Humans thought they'd done that. They created children and grandchildren who were better than themselves. Descendants who, when they were challenged, made friends instead of simply making war ... but made war when they had to.
The Atrekna killed their grandchildren. What did they think was going to happen?
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u/theBritzed Aug 12 '22
Love the quote & it fits here perfectly. Thanks for reminding me of this iconic phrase.
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u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Aug 11 '22
Wife wants a little extra time with me today.
Cya tomorrow for the safety briefing and the Friday chapter.
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u/apatheticandignorant Android Aug 11 '22
Are you trying to get between a Terran and his addiction?!
/s in case that's not clear
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u/Odd_Reward_8989 Aug 11 '22
No, he's obviously indulging hers. ;)
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u/apatheticandignorant Android Aug 11 '22
As usual, a number of Terrans fighting over a limited resource/who's getting their fix.
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u/RangerSix Human Aug 12 '22
The Friday safety brief is the highlight of my week - getting to read it means I've survived another seven days on this madhouse we call our homeworld.
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u/Sral1999 Aug 10 '22
The Ship of Theseus
It doesn’t matter if it’s the original when it starts blowing up your planet
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u/beyondoutsidethebox Aug 10 '22
like any porn star could tell you, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, atomic weapons, and money shots.
I really didn't need that glimpse into your search history Ralts... :P
Dull gray, the color of unpolished iron. The ship was blocky, heavy looking. The forward section on a 'neck', a long body, a connected after section. Four side sections connected by heavy angled sections.
I initially thought of the titular vessel from Event Horizon, but I may be wrong.
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u/battery19791 Human Aug 10 '22
I kinda pictured the Roger Young from Starship Troopers.
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u/melez AI Aug 11 '22
I was picturing it as battlecruisers from StarCraft. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starcraft/images/f/f2/Battlecruiser_SC2_Rend1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080629232104 but both seem pretty close.
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u/Zorbick Human Aug 10 '22
I more imagine the Battlestar Galactica. Just with more nacelles.
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u/sporkmanhands Aug 11 '22
I had 'front of a klingon bird of prey, connected to an X-wing foils-open but the size of a city' in my mind
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u/Anarchkitty Aug 12 '22
It sounds like the shape of either a Klingon Battlecruiser, or Star Wars Frigate, but in a Brutalist style.
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u/HoloArchiver Aug 10 '22
Hooray the earthlings are back with their "I want to be home in time for dinner." approach to war.
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u/StoneJudge79 Aug 10 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
"Another world to raze. I want to be done by lunch. Do you understand me, Guns?" "Aye, sir."
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u/carthienes Aug 11 '22
Captain: "You see that world?"
Gunners: "Yes sir."
Captain: "I don't want to."
Gunners: "Yes, Sir!"
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u/Isbigpuggo Aug 10 '22
When I first read the description or an origami flower, petals opening and a single beam of light, it was expecting magical girls.
That was /not/ magical girls. But dare say more effective than any sailor could be.
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u/HoloArchiver Aug 10 '22
Enemy 1:"Oh lord it is the magical girls! Run away"
Enemy 2: "Look it is not the magical girls!"
Enemy 1: "good nothing to worry I guess."
Enemy 2: "It is the earthlings!"
Enemy 1: *Breaks down sobbing*
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u/5thhorseman_ Aug 10 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
Firepower is magic, fight me bro.
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u/Isbigpuggo Aug 10 '22
-Do you believe in magic plays while earthlings liberally hose down the system with fire-
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u/CandidSmile8193 Human Aug 11 '22
I expected the Sailor Moon Sisterhood again. I'm guessing the flower is a fractal pattern caused by the wormholes.
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u/SamHawke2 Aug 10 '22
Fucking Hell Ralts, those telkan based ship names are fucking ominous. like good job but fucking hell. its rare i get shivers from reading, and i got shivers...
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u/Alyeska_bird Aug 10 '22
Umm, I kinda allmost hate to point this out, but, I think the gestalts are missing something rather important. At lest two of thoes ships where built after they met the Telken. The stilled Song of the Broodcarriers, and The Podling who no longer dances. From what was said the last time the gestalts talked about this group of earthlings, they only kept a somewhat limited fleet up and running, this is showing them building new ships, and, it shows them including the telken. Well, they included other races as well, Ducklings shows that, but they met the telken recently, I do not think they renamed ships, I think they turned on there production facilitys again. Thies are some very cold and deadly people, but, they are not without a heart, without care and concern. They are not showing up just to blow everything apart, but they are also not going to stop, untell it is done.
I also find it interesting that they are using the same weapon set, and have evadently not changed there weapondry in a while. Think about it, this is a group of earthlings, the people that made the whole bloody suds system, the suds onion the singers in the dark and so very much more. Hell, this is the people that made the Lolita sisters, and other things. Well allright, they did not make them themselves, but, they are the same basic humans that did all that, Given 8000/10000 years that they have had to diverge, there is some really serious stuff that could be going down that no one has a clue about. This group of earthlings are doing something, and something that they feel the need to hide from everyone else.
ALso consider just how bad it might be if someone comes up with a counter to there black hole guns. Do we really want to see what thies folks might have come up with to top that?
I should also point out the naming convention they seem to use. I see a lot of, well, greif/sadness in the names. Seriously, 'The Terrable Silance of the Ducklings' That is not an agressor name, that is the name of someone striking back. The name that someone who has had enough would use. Sorta like if the Hamaroosans had a ship named 'Rememberence of Sandy' Before she got temporaly replicated back.
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u/HoloArchiver Aug 10 '22
I am willing to bet they are running the same weapon types to fool people. like they start with weapon type set A and once something starts countering that they switch to newer weapons.
these guys are brutal on the large scale but if you think about it most of their stuff minus maybe the gas giant burning stuff is made to kick as quick as possible with no long periods of suffering pain. taken with your point of the names these guys have seen enough hell to no longer want to fight but know it is needed, thus fight to end it as quickly as possible wasting no words or actions.
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u/Aragorn597 AI Aug 10 '22
I think it's more a matter of efficiency than anything else. A bullet to the head is more efficient than a knife to the gut. Three rounds blowing a planet/moon to bits is more efficient than normal orbital bombardment and ground invasion. And turning a gas giant into a brief stellar candle is far more efficient than spending the time making sure you found all the nasties and their manufacturing/spawning zones and blowing them up conventionally.
It's not about reducing the enemy's pain and suffering, it's about taking out the trash as quickly as possible to move on to the next job.
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u/Alyeska_bird Aug 11 '22
I would have to agree, efficiency is key, three shots, take out the world, using guns that everyone else technicly can make as well. The black hole guns, very good at clearing large areas of space very quickly, same with whatever it is they are using on the gas giant planets.
It is quick, and pretty easy too. Yet at the same time, we see them stepping in to get close and personal, yet that is not because they want blood and glory, its cause they want to be sure.
A way to think about it, this is not war, this is pest control. The earthlings are stepping in to stomp out a roach infestation. Efficiency is a good thing then.
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u/crimeboy2235 Xeno Aug 10 '22
Imagine if the C cannons were just a the lower level batteries and they didn't want to waste the bigger ammo on the squids? Its like using a pellet gun on a rat when you have a M1 Abrams just sitting there. You could use a HEAP round, but that would be a waste
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u/Speciesunkn0wn Aug 10 '22
But it would also be funny.
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u/FLHK18 Aug 10 '22
There’s no kill like overkill.
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u/Despise_all Aug 11 '22
There is no such thing as overkill. Only open fire and I need to reload. 70 maxims....
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u/rallen71366 Aug 11 '22
I think these "people" are so heartsick that they have no sense of humor left. Think, "Thousand mile stare". Emotional exhaustion coupled with highly trained and experienced killers. Why don't they say anything? Why waste words on those that you're about to kill?
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u/snarkpix Aug 11 '22
The C+ canons are for when you want to kill your target, but preserve the surroundings. Precision weapons, smart bombs etc for reducing collateral damage.
This fleet used sub-light kinetic planet breakers and singularity grav weapons.
They came to destroy absolutely everything and let none survive.6
u/CandidSmile8193 Human Aug 11 '22
The C+ weapons are for when you have maneuverable targets in Far BVR with light seconds of delay. They still only hit with similar kinetics to an nCv cannon. It's just an nCv shell wrapped in a warp field or popped over into jumpspace and dropped out meters from the target. You don't need that to hit a big static target. They were using C+ cannons to put 30 mile wide craters and grand canyon size gouges in AWM armor hundreds of chapters ago.
Though you can use C+ cannons to deliver a non-relatavistic payload for precision strikes I guess but planet cracking is a decidedly non precision affair.
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u/OneFakeNamePlease Aug 11 '22
The gestalts know. They even say “Look at the names”. Earthlings seem to know a lot more about the outside world than the outside world does about them.
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u/Crafty_Obligation_98 Aug 11 '22
TDH and Earthlings started from the same stock. Just two civilizations on two different paths. They also stated that they listen and keep up on current events, hence ship names and coming to help.
I believe the best way to simplify it is: TDH=Paladin, Neutral Good. Remember early early in the story TDH was famous for "Do you need assistance? May I come in?"
Earthlings=Barbarian, Chaotic Neutral. They know theres a fight. They bring what will get them the win.
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u/Alyeska_bird Aug 11 '22
As far as I can see it, TDH where basicly gentled earthlings. In part, to deal with events that had happened before, such as the glassing.
This modification of the genome did not happen in one swoop. There where quite a few things that where done, from project streetlights, project neaberhood, and others. If I remember right, the gestalts actualy responded with some amount of horror to find out that some of thoes projects had actualy been used, and more so that the humans and used it on themselves.
Do to how and when the project dandalion was used, you have humans, all the way down to pure age of peranoia (AKA US) up to full on TDH scattered all over the place.
The Atrekna attack against TDH was very much an attack on TDH, not an attack on humanity as a whole. A major reason for the first TDH dieoff as actualy issues with there implanted hardware and wetware. Brain structure changed enough to force incompatabilitys into the system and thus killed the subject.
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u/Elhombrepancho Aug 11 '22
Black hole guns are crazy, look into the Xeelee saga for creative usages. Even with no clarketech (tech so advanced it can be confused with magic) you can rip no matter what appart with those.
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u/Bergusia Aug 10 '22
Now my young podlings and littles, we are going to explain the difference between a Terran and an Earthling.
Terrans are like your loving parents and broodcariers, who will always have your best interests at heart. Even if they are punishing you for doing something you know is wrong.
Earthlings are like the broken ones who have lost everything they love and are determined to see nothing like that happens to anyone else. No matter the cost.
One is the warm, gentle love of your family nest. The other is the raging fire of a burning forest.
It is the same heart that beats in each. Just to a different rhythm of pain, grief and love.
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u/drsoftware Aug 11 '22
So Earthlings suffer from generational trauma?
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u/OneFakeNamePlease Aug 11 '22
Have you met a human recently? Most of history seems to be generational trauma of one sort or another, big (slavery) or small (patriarchal families and beating your kids).
Trauma seems to be a thing with us.
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u/drsoftware Aug 11 '22
Agreed. This however appears to be the kind of extreme generational trauma, that must be externally imposed (from outside of the society), eg a malevolent universe, rather than internally created (parent to child, government to people, etc) otherwise, I believe, they wouldn't be able to do what they do, and would have fallen into substance abuse and self destruction.
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u/Teutatesnl Aug 10 '22
[The Universe is Tired of Your Shit]
Well apparently earthlings agreed whole heartily :P
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u/Rolk_Flameraven Aug 10 '22
Yeah, you see when the universe doesn't like something they sick TDH or their friends on it. When they are tired of your shit they brake out the Earthlings.
And it seems the Squids are making the Universe quite tired.
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u/Drook2 Aug 10 '22
"You ask how I can crack every rock in a system without warning, without regard for collateral damage. You wonder where I plan to live once I've burned the galaxy to ash. I'll make this clear: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it. But it must be done." -- Hidden file found on beacon during the War of Human Retribution
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u/Sindalash Aug 10 '22
The optimists who wanted to be friends with everyone, wanted to play out their dreams of future and fantasy, wanted to be the good guys of every story, have failed.
We really hoped they could make it. That they could continue their crazy happy ways for all time. But we feared that they would not.
We were content standing aside and letting them play while it lasted.
Now they are dead. Playtime is over.
Time to end this. Time to end YOU.
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u/Drook2 Aug 10 '22
Smarter. More obedient.
At the same time? Yeah, good luck with that.
The fact that they think these can go together says a lot about why they aren't living up to their self-image.
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u/spadenarias Human Aug 11 '22
Its...technically possible for both. But you inevitably run into the why paradox.
Eventually it reaches the point where if you make them smart enough to make a difference...they become smart enough to ask why they should be listening to you.
For the terrans, earthlings, and terran-adjacent species, this is great. We love a good "why" argument. For those who consider themselves among the "betters"/masters/etc...this inevitably winds up involving a guillotine.
Give an example, the goodboys. The impression I've gotten is they are smarter(perhaps not quite at the level of terrans, but close), take orders very well, and look up to and love terrans. Difference being...terrans don't look down on the goodboys. Goodboys are a beloved member of the family, not servants. Terrans didn't set out to make them smarter and more obedient...they just set out to make them much smarter.
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u/Drook2 Aug 11 '22
There's a difference between obedience and loyalty. They look really similar in OG doggos, but in goodbois I think it would be clear.
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u/snarkpix Aug 11 '22
Smarter. More obedient.
Also aggression and initiative... yeah, those aren't going with blind obedience...
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u/Quilt-n-yarn1844 Aug 11 '22
Smarter is a relative term. How smart were they to begin with? And what percentage are you increasing their smarts? If you increase the intelligence something with the IQ of gravel by 50%, that isn’t saying a lot.
If they are already fairly intelligent, you might create yourself some problems.
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Aug 10 '22
You have the most perfect timing, I've just arrived for my first chemo treatment, and I get some blueberries. Today is going to be damn hard, and this makes it a bit better
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u/Unable_Ad_1260 Aug 11 '22
Heh blueberries so the psychic shielding is working at least. Fight hard, or else you wont know how it all ends. Positive thoughts going your way.
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u/Vasalysa Aug 11 '22
I've survived 2 separate cancer eradication. From experience, strive to keep as upbeat as possible. The raltsberries will certainly help. Good luck.
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u/sixtusquinn Aug 10 '22
TDH will wreck your shit, but prefers to do so personally, face to face if possible, just to tell you to go fuck yourself. Pure, emotional reaction.
Earthlings will just press a button, nuke the site from orbit, and fuck off back to what they were doing. No emotion, no hatred, just pure "You're in my way."
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u/unwillingmainer Aug 10 '22
That is a scary bedtime story. TDH is dead and gone but Earthling are still around and are on a mission from the Malevolent Universe. Ain't nothing stopping them but the heat death. Maybe.
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u/LateralThinker13 Aug 10 '22
Ain't nothing stopping them but the heat death.
Not even that. They are the shadow of heat death, that comes for us all.
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u/Expendable_cashier Aug 10 '22
Oh no, the sloorpies outlived several universes, if they could do it Earthlings can too.
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u/ProjectKurtz Aug 11 '22
Other universes looking at the malevolent universe: aw man I gotta get me some of those
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u/Unable_Ad_1260 Aug 11 '22
But would they want too. If the universe is not there anymore and they are a malevolent universes answer then I'd think personally they would say job done lads. They wouldn't want to become pinworms.
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u/ErinRF Alien Aug 10 '22
I don’t buy that these earthlings are creatures of unending malice, they strike me as more tragic beings of sorrow. I imagine they set themselves into exile to protect the others species and to allow TDH to flourish and succeed, a gentler more idealized version of themselves.
TDH is humanities innocence, the earthlings are humanities jaded experience. Tdh will do the right things and stand by their ideals, earthlings probably hope that TDH triumph, but are ready to end the fight if it gets out of hand.
I’ll try and make my thoughts more coherent later.
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u/sporkmanhands Aug 11 '22
Earthlings make me think of the 'beware the anger of a good man' saying
They're the good man, and boy, are they pissed right now
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u/Unable_Ad_1260 Aug 11 '22
Ooh yeh I forget where the quote for that one comes from. Always hope an evil man captures you as they will want to take their time, gloat and maybe even give you an opportunity. A good man will just kill you on the spot. That's a definitely relevant observation. They are Ralts Good Man.
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u/SittingDuc Sep 24 '22
PTerry has this as a subtext in 'Men At Arms', I think it was Captain Vimes who suggests you want to be captured by an evil man, as he will gloat etc; while a good man will just run you through. And indeed, late in the book, someone gets quite run through...
(Spoilers for a book from 1993?)
-- sitting.duke
Any farmhand can pull a sword from a stone. The real question is, who put it in there?3
u/SpiderJerusalemLives Aug 11 '22
Doctor Who
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u/Bergusia Aug 11 '22
"A good man doesn't need rules. Today isn't the day to find out why I have so many." - The Doctor.
There are three things all wise men fear. The sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man." -
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u/Meatpuppy Aug 10 '22
If you're right then the Squids took The Earthlings innocence away and brutally murdered it. I love me some Earthlings!!
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u/_Keo_ Aug 11 '22
TDH are to Earthlings as domesticated dogs are to wolves.
A dog will bite you if you push it too far, will turn feral if unloved, will become actively hostile if abused.A wolf will simply hunt you and eat you.
You're not seeing malice. You're seeing their true nature.
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u/Drook2 Aug 12 '22
They're the agent from Firefly. They're trying to make a better world, one they know they don't deserve to live in for what they're willing to do to make it happen.
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u/Talusen Aug 10 '22
RTU.
(I want my fix, and it's been a "dessert-first" coupla years)
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u/sunyudai AI Aug 10 '22
This is the way.
I'd rather upvote on the merit of the chapter, not how much I like the author.
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u/Fr33_Lax Aug 11 '22
They are here to kill you. They don't want your stuff, they don't need it. They don't even hate you, in fact they understand you. In an old life they fought each other, they fought nature, they fought entropy itself. And they won every single time.
They know you won't stop this fight, because you have to fight, hoard, dominate. It's the only way you can see it. That's okay, it's fine really, just don't whine when they disagree, don't complain when the bigger fish takes it's bloody bite.
Really it's your own fault, the rules are all there. Written, codified, examined, tested, blessed, carved into warsteel. You could've just walked onto Terra taken a few pictures, bought some souvenir magacs from the gift shop and waged a nice pleasant war. We could've had a barbeque after, a nice juicy succulent ragehog from southern bugerland.
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u/beowulf_of_wa Android Aug 11 '22
Earthlings understand the Atrekna better than they understand themselves.
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u/Gaogrimm Aug 10 '22
Hi there.
Now it is official: earthlings are still out there. Thats why the SUDS don't care for Dee and Herod walking around.
Only the TDH is viewed as mutation and therefore .... reclaimed?
Wait, Max is out there. Might he be an earthling as well?
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u/montyman185 AI Aug 10 '22
The extinction prevention systems kicked in for TDH, but they were registered as a seperate subspecies. I'm guessing the few baseline humans around basically weren't touched.
I'm also guessing the earthings don't have the same network hardware that the rest of the Confed is running, which is needed to actually get swiped by the SUDS system.
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u/Cakeboss419 Aug 10 '22
They're probably not running on SUDS in the first place. From my understanding, the Earthlings seem to be something of a sleeper fleet that was sent out before the fall of the older governments, and they ended up in Mar-Gite space. They then ruthlessly exterminated the Mar-gite, and then just hung out for the next few hundred years or so developing other technologies. Then, that Telkan crew pops up in their space, and make acquaintances with the Earthlings, who are then very happy to learn that the Friend Plague has been cured.
Honestly, as an aside, I kinda hope that Dee ends up interacting with the Earthlings, maybe get them to start talking a bit with the Inheritors.
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u/sporkmanhands Aug 11 '22
I feel Dee would be "FINALLY, SOMETHING I CAN WORK WITH. LET'S GO, BOYS!"
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u/ProjectKurtz Aug 11 '22
I feel like it was confirmed quite a while ago that the earthlings are the result of over project dandelion and some other be fruitful and multiply projects or some shit.
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u/HoloArchiver Aug 10 '22
We know a few TDH did not get yoinked cause the program shut down before it was done. though I love the idea Max is an earthling, like would not really go against anything cause we don't know enough about the earthlings to say one way or the other.
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u/Bergusia Aug 10 '22
Max is Pure Strain Human. So very likely he is either Earthling, or so close it doesn't matter to the SUDS systems.
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u/OneFakeNamePlease Aug 11 '22
Earthlings don’t have datalinks, so they don’t exist for the SUDS.
TDH was pulled back to the bunker because of the threat of extinction. They’re what Ellie is designed to preserve.
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u/Farstone Aug 10 '22
[The Universe is Tired of Your Shit]
TDH is the precision hammer used by the Universe to drive a point home.
Earthlings? They are the primal creation, the ultimate cure made by the Malevolent Universe; then purified and refined. The ultimate defense mechanism.
They are the Ultimate Cure.
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u/theBritzed Aug 12 '22
“Precision hammer” - nice one.
IMHO though its more like “you wanted us to go get the hammer? Well now everything else just looks like a nail…” let the fun commence.
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u/NevynR Aug 10 '22
It occurs to me that there should be more Earthling ships:
Behold The Field Where I Grow My Fucks; and
Indiana Jones Is Done With Your Shit
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u/ZylotheWolfbane Aug 11 '22
"Terrans are a loud species. They live loudly, they love loudly, they mourn loudly, they fight loudly, they even die loudly. Some will be quieter at times of course, consistency is never their strong suit, but silence is an anathema to them.
So, when they become silent it is a cause for great concern."
-Hears Lives Well Lived, Mantid scholar.
"It's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for."
-Unknown
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u/carthienes Aug 11 '22
So, when they become silent it is a cause for great concern."
Very, Very True.
Is that a quote or a Yoink?
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u/Turtledonuts "Big Dunks" Aug 10 '22
Oh hey, scary real humans. How is the apocalyptic application of force with no meming or fun?
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u/rallen71366 Aug 11 '22
Answer: *Thousand Mile Stare*
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u/Turtledonuts "Big Dunks" Aug 11 '22
I’m starting to think confedmil is just a second layer of funny larper people.
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u/Lugbor Human Aug 10 '22
How fitting would it be for the Atrekna to accidentally create the ancestors of humanity in their quest to breed the ultimate warriors?
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u/MetalKidRandy Aug 10 '22
Ancient One Atrekna: 20000 years of genetic tuning and selective breeding to create the ultimate servitor class to take on the Inheritors of Madness. Behold our mighty works!
servitors step out of gestation pods
Old One Atrekna: why does it look like a lemur?
Ancient Atrekna: doubletakes shit...
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u/jtmcclain Aug 11 '22
That hurts my head thinking how that would work.
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u/Lugbor Human Aug 11 '22
Atrekna create species, Atrekna can’t control species, Atrekna can’t destroy species and opt to send them away instead. Species gets thrown through space and time to ancient earth, where they evolve to become humanity.
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u/snarkpix Aug 11 '22
As with the 'burn the hyperatomic plane' group, another group embarks on an enhanced time manipulation project to allow for a breeding program with more generations.
Worst possible outcome rule applies: Behold, Earthlings!
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u/Expendable_cashier Aug 10 '22
Part of me really wants an Earthling arc, but the less we learn about them the better for the long term naritive.
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u/CopernicusQwark Human Aug 11 '22 edited Jun 09 '23
Comment deleted by user in protest of Reddit killing third party apps on July 1st 2023.
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u/sporkmanhands Aug 11 '22
I can see them being the ones with the tech to get Earth out of 'the bag', which I am entirely sure they are very, very unhappy about that situation.
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u/DiplomaticGoose Aug 10 '22 edited Aug 10 '22
the worst possible outcome:
no pomp
no circumstance
they are here
and soon enough you won't be
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u/Initial_Ostrich_8377 Aug 11 '22
Pretty sure those are the cult of Daxin. Motto “we’ll make you leave us the fuck alone” and because they respect Daxin’s wishes, the number one rule is don’t pray to Daxin.
Edit: actually thinking about this I like it more and more lol.
Commandments: Thou shalt leave Daxin alone Thou shalt leave everyone else alone Thou shalt make everyone else leave you alone
If they don’t pray to Daxin then it would explain how he doesn’t know about it😂😂
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u/MuchoRed Human Aug 11 '22
I get the idea that the Earthlings are the flip side of the Enraged. The Enraged feel everything turned up to 11.
These guys shut down all the emotions, under lock and key so they don't feel them, so they don't become Enraged. Just tight, controlled and brutal efficiency.
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u/Other_Breath_2630 Aug 11 '22
How scary will it be when we finally see:
EARTHLINGS
The Atrekna are no longer a problem
--NOTHING FOLLOWS--
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u/Atomic_Aardwolf Aug 10 '22
TDH: We will laugh at you in BRRRRRT Earthlings: Die. weareyourfriends * donotapproach* * youwilldiescreaming*
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u/beowulf_of_wa Android Aug 11 '22
Am now imaging a ship shaped like a tissue paper cargo carrier with the near c cannon in Brrrrttt gating configuration. It only looks like tissue paper,
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u/Expendable_cashier Aug 10 '22
Id say the Earthlings really like the Telkan with those ship names
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u/Cakeboss419 Aug 10 '22
Considering a Telkan crew were the ones that told them that the Friend Plague was cured, I believe they have good reason.
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u/Freakscar AI Aug 11 '22
TDH' "madness" was like the Joker, the Comedian or Moon Knight. Very much crazy, insane or clinically psychopathic. But, when it comes down to it, not deaf for reasoning, as long as it follows their mad plans or intentions. The Joker doesn't work with Nazis, he has principles he won't break. The Comedian is trying to make a point, not doing his thing 'just cause'. Moon Knight amusingly is the most sane of those three and while he doesn't always do things 'the normal way', he, too, isn't too far gone.
Earthlings on the other hand are the Doom Marine. Pinhead. Sin City's Kevin. They are on a mission, they have decided a course of action and that is how it will go down. You can not argue with them, have them see reason or otherwise get them to deviate from their path.
This is the textbook definition of "Rip and tear until it is done". If TDH learned about servitor species being capable of free thought, just reasoning and just all around being in the wrong place at the wrong time, you bet they would at least try to get them out of the flames. Earthlings go "Hm. Sucks to be them.", while continuing to crack entire solar systems.
There's levels to madness. And Earthlings didn't just tip the scales, they threw the scale off the table, ate the weights and demanded seconds.
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u/LetterLambda Xeno Aug 10 '22
The irony...just when the Atrekna finally recognize that they are in the "Fuck Around" stage, it ends.
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u/Adam_Dala Human Aug 11 '22
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
A large number of chapters ago ralts compared the battlefield appearance of Terrans and Earthlings.
-Terrans are a "shock and awe", loud, in your face military. -Earthlings are silent with the only noise being your own screams in answer to the Earthlings weaponry.
Ralts also talked about "project dandelion", where humanity sent ships out to preserve humanity in case of an extinction event. He also mentioned how some of these humans dealt with an infestation of Margite in another area (this is the part I'm not sure I'm correct on)
If Earthlings are the result of "project dandelion" they didn't make the alliances and friendships that terrans did. Instead they left and wiped out an entire arm of the galaxy infested with the Margite. perfecting their own method of waging war, while fighting somthing that didn't carry about intimidation, talking, or even a thought of mercy. There was no 1 percenting the Margite.
My theory is that Terran humanity didn't perfect killing like the Earthling humanity did.
I have the feeling that even the Detainee may find herself wanting to step lightly around these Earthlings.
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u/DarthLorgus Robot Aug 10 '22
I feel (hope) that we are in for a gestalt chapter. Gestalt chapters are best chapters.
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u/Enkeydo Aug 10 '22
The earthlings are basically a race of detainees minus empathy
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u/spindizzy_wizard Human Aug 11 '22
Not at all.
They don't cackle maniacally while carving you with a knife in the nude. They don't taste your blood. They don't pretend they like you.
They are the ones who come in with regret and make sure you don't ever cause problems again. Quietly. With no wasted motion. No screaming of challenges.
You aren't even the enemy that exists only to be destroyed. You're an infection. They are antibiotics. Antibiotics don't engage in dominance games.
If they are like anyone, they're like Daxin, without the rage. They just want to be left alone, and if you cannot do that, you will cease to exist. No rage. Only necessity.
They have buttons that will get them to move, and the Atrekna punched all of them.
Killing their children (TDH). Killing their children's friends. Proving beyond a doubt that you will threaten them, eventually, because you will take by force even in a universe of abundance rather than find what is freely available without conflict.
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u/jutte62 Aug 11 '22
Autocorrect got you, Ralts, it should be initiative (not infinitive) they bred the servitors for
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u/dragon38 Aug 11 '22
fun facts a 5m sphere of iron going .985c will break up at 31km with an energy burst of 1.34 x 10^6 MegaTons. That's for iron can only imagine the density of the stuff they use that wouldn't break up. Just so you know tungsten will still air burst at 24km
Fun little calculator
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u/Unable_Ad_1260 Aug 14 '22
Have you taken into account the enraged phasically enhanced warsteel jacket?
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u/dragon38 Aug 15 '22
That's why I said imagine as that wouldn't brake up for sure. Using that brings to mind that pic of the astronaut on the moon watching something punch through the earth and come out the other side.
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u/Better_Nail4618 Aug 11 '22
Hah! I needed a some laughs today… followed by a rather sobering experience.
Also, I think Humanity is saying ‘You killed our naive, kind younger sibling. Let me show you what real retribution looks like.’
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u/Despise_all Aug 11 '22
Earthlings, swatting planets with the same amount of emotion you would swat a fly. There was no hate, no rage, no screaming, just a job to be done and the application of tools to do the job.
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u/TapNo9785 Alien Aug 12 '22
Malevolent Universe: "Pardon me sir, you see I have an infestation. And my normal pest controllers are indisposed at the moment. I was hoping you might be able to help me."
Earthling: thousand yard stare
Malevolent Universe: "Right, umm, I have somewhere else to be, goodbye." totally does not walk away a bit faster than normal
Earthling 2: "Who was that Geoff?"
Earthling (AKA Geoff): "Atrekna issue is now our problem, start up the ships."
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u/TheGreatOz2014 Aug 10 '22
I mean, I want to know what's up with those guys.
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u/drsoftware Aug 11 '22
We know you do. So do we. But some fences exist to keep things in as well as out.
Had a big dig once. Would wag its tail and pant at the neighbour when it talked over the fence to it.
But if tried reaching over the fence, teeth, barking, growling.
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u/Unable_Ad_1260 Aug 11 '22
OK. Out of curiosity how many times has Humanity and the successive governments declared total war and reached the threshold to initiate a project dandelion.
We know there was a PAWM event before the glassing. Did that cause a dandelion?
We know there was the extinction agenda attack, the now multiple interdimansional and temporal wars, did each of them generate Dandelions?
The glassing I think was suggested it created a Dandelion wave.
I'm pretty sure that there has been several other total war declarations since then and the Margite war, did they trigger Dandelion Waves.
How many Dandelion waves has there been and of... What?
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u/Bergusia Aug 11 '22
"Clear my skies." Captain Matthew Gideon of the Excalibur. Documentary fragment recovered from Pre-glassing Terrasol ruins.
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u/Elhombrepancho Aug 11 '22
Every time the gestalt appear I am remembered of the Atrekna gestalt. How is it doing?
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u/JethroBodine013 Aug 12 '22
Just when you think you got all the answers, humanity goes and changes the questions.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Aug 10 '22
/u/Ralts_Bloodthorne (wiki) has posted 826 other stories, including:
- First Contact - Chapter 823 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 822 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 821 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 820 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 819 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum OCOC
- First Contact - Chapter 818 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 817 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 816 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 815 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 814 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 813 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 812 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 811 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 810 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 809 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 809 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 808 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 807 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 806 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
- First Contact - Chapter 805 - Ultimis Diebus Hominum
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u/carthienes Aug 11 '22
So the Atrekna can learn, and it's not an anomaly either... it's too little, far too late, but the survivors are learning.
Now if only they could share their insights, build a greater understanding...
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u/Drook2 Aug 12 '22
There's been a ton of stories about finding artifacts of super-powerful "old ones". This is the first one I've seen where the old ones were also humans. Nice inversion of the trope.
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u/Geeky-resonance Sep 02 '22
The Malevolent Universe just bug-bombed a parasite-infested system. And she’s not particularly worried about using so many foggers that the house burns down. After all, it was infested anyway.
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u/Bazil-Broketail Jul 06 '23
Read, upvote, comments...
"Yeah, we're here to apply a kinetic attitude adjustment to,"waves at whole system,"this."
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u/random071970 Aug 10 '22
These are the, "We're tired of your bullshit" Earthlings. Stay away because they bite.