Once More, With Feeling

[Error]

Commander Korriman sighed as he drummed his fingers on the command chair's armrest. The new exploration patterns, while certainly efficient, were just plain boring after a week, half of it spent at warp.

'Sir, warp exit in two minutes.' the helmsmen reported, checking his screens. Korriman nodded.

'Good. Sound exit alarms and go to ACON 3.' he ordered. A low buzzing rang through the ship, sending crew to their stations. The CIC crew checked and rechecked their systems.

'Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Exit.' reported helm as the inky black void of the warp bubble shattered, bringing the tans and browns of the nearby nebula into a view obscured by the fourth planet. David nodded.

'Set course at two-six-zero, acceleration one-five. Declination zero-zero-five. Engage silent running.

The Prowler went quiet as she turned, lights, antennas, and active sensors blinking off. The crew began the duties of the day, making an effort not to look bored (and failing).

'Uh... Commander, I'm getting a visual of... something. Coming over the horizon now.' Ops reported. David looked at the screens, and disbelieved.

The Sensors operator let out a string of quiet expletives; had Korriman not been staring, slack-jawed, he would have been surprised at the number of languages used. As it was, he was occupied staring at that... thing.

Visible against the nebula as a darker brown, a massive contruct hung in space. Curved and menacing, the Commander's stupefied mind slowly coughed up an explanation.

'Sir.' called the weapons officer. 'That thing... it's damaged. Badly. The weapons required to do- ops, how big is that thing?'

'Visuals and passives indicate that it's... part of... a ringworld, sir.' Ops reported, eyes glued to her screens. 'Best guess from the computers say two hundred ninety-nine million, one hundred ninety-seven thousand klicks in diameter. The material is metallic, I think; best guess puts it at two thousand one hundred klicks thick, five thousand four hundred klicks across.'

There was silence as the CIC crew absorbed this. Korriman broke the silence.

'Diengage silent running. Helm, come right zero-one-five degrees, go to fifty percent thrust. Ops, Sensors, full sweeps. I want to know what the hell that thing is.'

The crew jumped to their tasks, the Prowler rotating and accelerating slowly at the massive object. Sensors glanced up at David.

'Spectroscopic analysis is erroring, sir, so that's unknown. Scans peg it at roughly the dimensions Ops had; EM shows active electronics, comms, and thermal... shows active fusion plants. I think.'

'You think?'

'If it's a fusion plant, sir, it's reading damn strangely. Wait- new contact. Correction, three new contacts. Bearing zero-zero-zero relative, declination zero-zero-one, range... fifteen thousand klicks and closing.'

'Commander, message coming from those contacts... in... binary? Translating.' called comms.

'Helm, reverse thrust, bring us to a halt relative to the fourth planet. Comms?'

'I might have mistranslated, sir. Running it through again... that's... odd.'

'Read the message, Sublieutenant.'

'Message reads as follows: "We awake. We are aware. We understand. We have seen the enemy." End. A tad... ominous, sir.'

Korriman raised an eyebrow. 'Transmit first contact package.'

There was a long pause; he watched the sensor contacts get closer, closer, closer.

'Extreme visual range; putting telescope two onto them.' called Ops. A second later, the unknowns appeared. He stared, again.

A trio of triangular obelisks approached; the same shade of tan as the massive derelict, they displayed no sign of damage or age; the emitters for what could only be energy weapons protruded from the near end.

Activity suddenly went from zero to full as the nearest - thing - fired, a white beam punching effortlessly into - and throuh - the Prowler's hull. Alarms rang and sirens blared as the starboard wing of the ship simply vanished.

Korriman shook himself and started barking orders. 'Helm, reverse course, get us up to entry speed! Comms, transmit a distress call to FLEETCOM! Weapons, put some rounds into them!'

He sat, watching the screens as the ship's twin PD emplacements hammered 25mm rounds into the enemy craft; they didn't appear to notice, or care, at the second craft fired, this time relieving the Apocrypha of her dorsal stabilizer.

'Entry velocity in two, one, entering warp!' Helm cried as the vista of the system - and ships - vanished, replaced again by tue warp bubble.

David sagged with relief. 'Damage and losses?'

'No losses. Starboard wing and dorsaa stabilizer destroyed; comms antennas damaged, PD-2 is dead, but we're okay for now. Can't land, though.' reported Ops, her voice astonishingly calm.

'Comms, call FLEETCOM. Send our sensor logs, images, and status. Then tell them to get a probe spread out here; I want to know why the locals decided to shoot at my ship.'

'Aye, sir.'

[Professor Fenway]

A short time after Apocrypha left the system, a ship deactivated its cloaking system, reappearing in space silently. The architecture was sleek and angular; the design completely foreign. The silvery-grey metal reflected off of the distant neutron star. Bars of red light lined the side, pulsing ever so slightly. The ring-world turned under it.

It began approaching the world, and beamed a message. -Prime Savlu, Containment failure-

The communications pulsed. -Psi Regal, locali?-

-Do not use the voice of the gods, Savlu- The ship made a slight turn. -The location must be cleansed-

-We cannot risk Neandrus discovering us-

-They have already seen Faazon. It is too late-

-Menten formali zafan- A pause. -Zafan arrives-

Just behind the ship, space bent and collapsed upon itself. A massive vortex swirled as a ship of gigantic proportions entered the system. Regal picked up multiple contacts. Binary transmissions. -We have been seen, Zafan-

-Faazon, no? Preparing to cleanse- Energy signatures on the massive ship increased as the contacts descended around them.

When the Novan probe arrived a few days later, there was nothing there. Nothing but pieces of debris.

[Shadowcatbot]

Oh great hyper advanced aliens with a vendetta against life.
How original.

[Vinyl]

Seems like a good a time as any to jump ship, unless you're having second thoughts...?

[Error]

Nope. Hyper-advanced, yes. Hates you? Heh, you're just peanuts to them. They really couldn't care less about you.

[Professor Fenway]

RP's are dying anyway. And it's different; not aliens, not hyper-advanced.

[Shadowcatbot]

RP isn't dying, If you look out into the real world you'll notice its December, Two weeks or so left for the school semester, Finals and six weeks are coming up. Oh and the two week break that only lands on like the biggest American holiday. People might just be a tad bit busy. Hell the only reason I'm here is because I have no life whatsoever.

Nope. Hyper-advanced, yes. Hates you? Heh, you're just peanuts to them. They really couldn't care less about you.

>Couldn't care less
>Vendetta against life
What's the difference? Ether way they'll shoot you and be better then you.

Seems like a good a time as any to jump ship, unless you're having second thoughts...?

Who said I was jumping ship? Go open the windows around the place you write bad fiction, The hexaguthian paint has clearly addled your mind.

[Vinyl]

Seems like a good a time as any to jump ship, unless you're having second thoughts...?

Who said I was jumping ship? Go open the windows around the place you write bad fiction, The hexaguthian paint has clearly addled your mind.

I'm the one planning to jump ship unless Fen/Error decided they had second thoughts.

[Error]

Re: Shadow, put it this way. You don't get in their way, you're fine - if they hated life, you'd be screwed regardless. So try not to die? Or do die. I'm an RPer, not a cop.

@Fen given what your mystery ships just destroyed, yes, they are hyper advanced (or suicidal?).

[Professor Fenway]

They are advanced, but not terribly so. And they aren't inherently hostile (either of them) unless you tick them off or get in their way.

And I DID say the ARK stations are still around (with a different purpose). That purpose? Containment. You'll see.

[Archduke Daynel, PhD]

Right, fuck it, I should pay more attention to this thing, I gotta make TechTron the #1 multipurpose company in the galaxy god dammit.
Let's see what projects I were working on...

BIC:
TechTron scientists have come with great improvements to 3D printing technology. Multimaterial objects at a microscopic scale can be printed efficiently, thanks to the advances in graphene computing and the new advances in AI technology, which also resulted from the graphene computers. These new 3D printers will be installed in factories, making factories require less space and work quicker and cheaper.

TechTron Industries have offered to build hyperpulse relays for all nations and planets that are not connected to the communications grid, for a greatly reduced price this month only.

Thanks to many new scientists and research facilities, research is spreading out to several all-new branches like, for example, genetics and biotechnology. Current main researches are improving robotics, as well as genetically manipulated food that could easily adapt to new environments to allow for possible colonization of other planets in the future.

[Ivan2006]

@Dayn you missed the ME scout that's currently in orbit around Technoma, waiting for a response to its attempts of contact.

The ME has contacted the NA with the request for exchange of information on flora and fauna of their respective homeworlds, with scientific goals listed as the reason. [meta]In reality, the ME are planning to roll out a new generation of warships and are considering to use animals as inspiration. Of course, they want to know about as many animals as possible for this purpose.[/meta]

[meta]Design work on the assault ship has been largely completed and some components for the prototype are being fabricated already.[/meta]

[Error]

Sigma Antares' hyperpulse relay is active; communications with Inner Rim systems have confirmed it's functionality.

The diplomatic cruiser has remained in Batiss space, awaiting formal contact; the battlecarrier and area-defense cruiser have begun the trip back to Novus.

An FTL specialist on Novus has made a possible discovery: the 'hyperspace' windows and systems of a hyperpulse relay can be scaled up to ship-sized. While this does not appear possible given current technology levels, he estimates it will be commonplace in a century; nay-sayers have loudly decried his work, but the government is taking an interest.

[ACH0225]

Strigiforme scouts deployed after the war to search for additional planets have begun stumbling upon some faint signs of intelligent life. Additional investigation is scheduled.

The Strigiforme have begun work on a new passive shield model(regular kind of shield), supposedly the M-55 shield unit. It will have have an increase in power from the M-39s in standard current use, and will have an emergency power surge feature, making redlining ship reactors to prolong shield life a viable option.

[Archduke Daynel, PhD]

@Dayn you missed the ME scout that's currently in orbit around Technoma, waiting for a response to its attempts of contact.

Could've sworn I responded to that in some way or another...
BIC: The ME scout has been contacted and welcomed. Faulty sensors are blamed for not noticing it earlier.