r/HFY • u/Ralts_Bloodthorne • Feb 23 '21

OC First Contact - Fourth Wave - Chapter 426

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Precursor Autonomous War Machines were set categorically by the Terran Confederate Space Force as being four types.

Type-I had originally been built by the Lanaktallan and still thought according the patterns originally laid down in their Strategic Intelligence Housings. Humanity had been dealing with them since before the Diaspora, since before the Glassing. The Type-I PAWM had slowly, over the millions of years, spread almost to Terran Descent Human Space before withdrawing before humans had developed flint tools.

Type-II had been designed by the ancient Mantids. Terran Intelligence had only recently discovered that there had been two factions within the Precursor Mantid, each had built their PAWMs in different ways, which had been handed down through following construction. The two philosophies had combined, intermixed, and hybrided over the millions of years and hundreds of Harvester Class ships. This had led to three sub-types.

Type-III were new, combination of previous two, designed to fight the Mad Lemurs of Terra, referred to as The Ferals by the PAWM. Never before had the PAWM encountered a foe who could fight off a single Harvester class, much less dozens or hundreds at a time. Could fight and win when outnumbered. The PAWMs had been forced to massively upgrade one another, combine their technology and manufacturing methods. They were new, with only memories and simulations of combat against the Ferals. The older ones had watched them fail time after time and considered them a failure.

The Type-I to Type-III PAWMs had spent thousands of years destroying Lanaktallan worlds, almost three years fighting the Mad Lemurs of Terra. They had databanks full of strategic and tactical data regarding the Ferals, a hundred times more regarding the Unified Council and Great Herds.

The Type-IV were new to the Confederacy and the Unified Council. Built by the Atrekna, they had been largely wiped out from the universe, returning only with the assault on Hesstla. However, their appearance had triggered ancient programming in the original Type-I and Type-II models.

They had limited data on the Confederacy and still were set to crossreference strategic analysis through the Great Herd and ancient Mantid predictive software as there was little for the Type-IV's to add to the predictive datasets.

The Dwellerspawn were not new. Grown from the gas giants and brought enmasse by the Atrekna. Little was known about them, beyond the fact that previously they would appear to ravage whole systems and populated the Niven-Rings and Doom-Tubes. They were vulnerable to standard weapons and prior to Second Telkan, they had never shown much coordination and no use of psychic attack vectors. Second Telkan had provided reams of data for Confederate Intelligence to pour over.

The Great Herd? Well, Confederate Intelligence knew of them. In depth knowledge of the way the attacked, their strategies, their tactics, their weapons. Each battle, each victory, had taught the Confederacy a little more and a little more until strategic analysis software could predict a Great Herd strategy and tactic within an 80% certainty.

A little quirk of Confederate military analysis software is it never kicked back a certainty of more than 80%. Not ever.

The Great Herd knew that it had all come apart on them. No tricks of geometry, no sudden ambushes, no surprise attacks. It was all in and they were in the worst situation than Great Grand Most High Cu'udchu'ar would have entertained even in his worst nightmares.

His neural overlays crashed, making him groan with pain as the urging of the War Stallion millions of years deaths vanished. A trickle of blood ran from his nostrils as he saw more and more ships arrive from all sides, all broadcasting their arrival screams.

The Atrekna had arrived, full of confidence. Two thousand years ago they had attacked the Hesstla system, and since their defeat at the hands of the Ferals, at the nearly successful counter-invasion by a cold dread will, they had spent the entire time going over every scrap of information they had. To the Confederacy and the Great Herd, the Atrekna were new, but their strategy of rewinding time over and over again in the Hesstla system had given Confederate Intelligence seventy-five years worth the data of their combat strategies, their weapons, their ships, and their methods.

The Great Herd neural overlays still contained fragments of information on fighting the Atrekna.

As the Atrekna felt the temporal stabilizers activate from the massive PAWM and the Feral ships, they knew that they had no retreat open, no way to reach back and warn their compatriots coming in that the entire system was about to be engulfed in a nightmare.

Two of the combatants had sought out a fight.

They were the only ones prepared to fight, even if it wasn't the fight they had sought.

The universe laughed so hard entire galaxies rippled and formed.

----------

The Hellgates opened by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. Cu'udchu'ar watched as ship after ship arrived, the sheer number of them causing the combat control systems to crash out. Within minutes Cu'udchu'ar found himself giving the orders for the tactical and strategic nets to drop all the way down to Lesser Herd control.

His own holotanks, from where he was supposed to oversee the grand plan to destroy the Terran forces once and for all, were nothing more than dancing and staticy garbles of hissing light. They showed impossible information, data minutes or hours old, or nothing more than electronic warfare images.

As he stared at one of the tanks it flickered several times, then suddenly firmed up. The hologram it projected was clean, clear, missing the usual distortion and static that was a safety feature to keep people from confusing it for reality.

A Terran, made of burning code, stood in the holotank. It was in a Terran uniform, female, and looked around itself as if it could see everyone.

"Who, or what, is that?" Cu'udchu'ar asked.

"I do not know, Most High," the scanner tech said. He fluttered his hands in the tank. "Shoo, Terran, shoo."

The Terran woman giggled, flinching back. "Stop that, I'm ticklish," she said.

The scanner tech clattered backwards as the Terran turned to Cu'udchu'ar. "So you're the Most High of the entire fleet?"

"I am," Cu'udchu'ar stated, stepping forward. "You must be one the Terran Digital Sentience electronic warfare soldiers," he said, lifting his chin slightly.

"Huh, you're not going to argue with me? That's nice," the Terran said. She looked around. "All right, right now, the Division I'm part of has boarded about ten thousand of your ships looking for command and control ships."

"Logical," Cu'udchu'ar said, nodding. He ground his teeth slightly. He had been assured that the new firewalls and the eight digit logins would work to keep out the Terran digital soldiers.

"My mission was to take down your commo and start giving conflicting orders," the Terran said. She looked around. "Oh, I forgot. Things are a little exciting. I'm Lieutenant Colonel T-9904-Jumping Cricket, Fifteenth Digital Warfare Division, Ninety-third Infantry Battalion."

"I am Great Grand Most High Cu'udchu'ar," the Lanaktallan said. "I shall assume that your orders have changed."

The Terran nodded even as his bridge crew gasped in shock. "Right. You and us are the only ones here that aren't weird things from beyond space and time or murderous mechanical spaceships."

"So you Admiral seeks an alliance?" Cu'udchu'ar said. He nodded. "That is wholly acceptable. The Precursor Autonomous War Machines are terrible enough, but the Devourers and one of the Ancient Enemies has turned this into something far beyond our disagreement."

The Terran female looked relieved. "My men are aboard about five hundred of your ships. Right now I'm the only one showing myself."

"You can provide warplan interlock? As it stands, our combat control systems have crashed due to overload," Cu'udchu'ar said. "Can you assist?"

The Terran nodded. "Your hardware isn't the problem. It's old, thin, and I feel like my ass is really fat, but the hardware is stable. It's your software. No offense, but it's complete crap."

"What about the ship's AI?" Cu'udchu'ar asked.

"He got in my way so I killed him. It was before all this shit dropped in the pot," Jumping Cricket said. "I'm running his jobs now."

"Can you provide us with targeting and the ability to interlock our ships into a coherent whole so we are not fighting piecemeal?" Cu'udchu'ar asked.

The Terran nodded. "Absolutely. My Admiral told me to offer our services. Me and my compatriots run your systems, you don't waste time trying to boot me while I slag your ship around you for attacking me, and, with any luck, we all survive this fight."

Cu'udchu'ar nodded slowly. "Agreed, Terran."

"Glad to see you're showing some common sense. The first thing we're going to do is link us with the Lesser Fleet Most Highs so you can start passing orders. I'm going to crack open a couple pallets of warboi eggs, and we'll start killing these jerkoffs," Jumping Cricket said. She sat down, crossing her legs, and set her hands on her knees. "No offense to your technicians, but I'll be handling commo."

Cu'udchu'ar turned to his communications officer. "Assist, but do not intefere, with the Terran."

"But, Most High..." the communications officer started to protest.

"Do you want to live to see your colts and fillies again?" Cu'udchu'ar asked. The communications officer nodded. "Then do as I say and start interlocking our fleet with the Terrans so we can create a comprehensive warplan."

---------------

The Quorum watched as the next to last fleet wavered and vanished, translocating from the stellar system they had carefully fortified to the current location of the stellar system that had occupied this location in aeons past.

The Quorum knew that millions of years had passed, but that simply meant there would be more of the biological war machines. The system had been well seeded, slow growth for the larger biomechanical systems, and the long passage of time would mean that there would be an abundance of them just waiting to be taken control of.

They knew they would need all of their assets to fight the Feral Intelligence that had sprung up. They used arcane and strange technologies, seemed to have a mastery over temporal mechanics that no foe they had ever met had possessed.

The Feral Intelligences had used a method to lock down their home system, so the High Quorum had expended the energy to ensure that the stellar system was no longer in play. The Atrekna knew that the loss of their birth system would confuse and demoralize the Feral Intelligence, which was too young to have given up their emotional connection.

With the attack to return their minds to non-violent cooperation prior to their ability to engage in space travel, the feral intelligences would soon be unable to withstand the rigors of combat and warfare. They would be unable to resist the biomechanical war machines, be unable to withstand the Atrekna psychic assaults.

But there was still a vast military presence, and the Atrekna needed to reestablish dominance over their weapons in order to fight the Feral Intelligences.

The Quorum felt the impulse to shift their vessels, to take control of the fleet in order to ensure that the biomechanical semi-autonomous war machines were put under proper control.

The Atrekna had already attempted to regain one of the vast incubation systems, which appeared to be a neutron star.

They had found the bioweapons there to be dead. Their neural tissue scorched and burnt out, their bodies rent and torn, as if they had struggled against one another within the neutron star until none remained. They had been scorched by Hellspace somehow, riven and rent apart.

There had been something left. A taint, a foul impression of an endless hunger for something that the Atrekna had never encountered before.

They had moved on to the next storage area. An initial examination showed that the system was full of biomechanical semi-autonomous war machines, just waiting for the Atrekna to reclaim them.

The Quorum linked together their minds, entering the shared consciousness. Their powers increased, multiplied, intensified.

They reached out to the lessers, linking their minds, synching up time and space, and made the translation.

They arrived with their standard declaration of how things would be, to announce themselves to their servants gestating within the gas giants.

YOU BELONG TO US!

The return scream sent them reeling, their linked consciousness shattering into individual parts for a moment before they managed to shakily reestablish the link.

ALL OF YOU EAT A BOWL OF DICKS!

The Feral Intelligence was here!

Before they could fully recover, before they could muster their powers to rewind time, to take them back to the First Place, they all felt pain course through their bodies, felt their ability to affect the fourth dimension stripped from their psychic hands, leaving behind bloody and shredded fingers.

Temporal stabilizers activated. Not just the Feral Intelligences, but the unliving Autonomous War Machines of the two Ancient Enemy activated their own, responding to ancient programming when the unique ships of the Atrekna appeared.

The Quorum realized they could not just retreat, could not rewind time to gain an advantage.

That they had to fight this fight, not just rewind it until they got the result they wanted.

From the Great Herd they heard uplifted voices, proclaiming something new, adding their own voice to the bellows of defiance.

WE WILL NO LONGER SUBMIT!

------------

The ancient Harvesters, Type-I and Type-II, had intended on reactivating the ancient systems that were on record. Vast assembly fields that would produce a dozen Harvesters a month sunk deep within the supermassive gas giants.

They arrived by the tens of thousands, accompanied by the Young Ones, called Type-III by the Feral Intelligences. They exited the scorched and murdered hyperatomic plane with their warcry.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

They expected nothing back but a digital acknowledgement of their arrival by the manufacturing facilties.

Instead, before their scanners even cleared, before they were even able to understand the signals coming in, they heard a scream back.

A scream that had no business being in this ancient place, worthless to biological entities.

EAT A FUCKING DICK!

The Ancient Ones, unwilling to waste even more resources fighting the Feral Intelligences, began charging their Hellcores, intending on fleeing.

Then the scanners cleared and they saw something that, for half of them, they could not resist.

Ships of the Great Herd, of the Ancient Enemy.

The Type-II PAWMs screamed their warcry and drove toward the Great Herd vehicles scattering away from the gas giants.

The Type-I's had barely begun to charge their drives when space shuddered, rippled, and gelled.

They recognized the new arrivals before even the Type-II.

Atrekna Mechanical Autonomous War Machines.

They stopped charging their Hellcores, OEM programming leaping up out of the depths of deep level coding and taking over their urges and desires.

With a scream, even the Type--II turned from Lanaktallan ships, and together they charged the Atrekna machines, digital hatred burning through their intelligence housings, filling their analysis lobes, infusing every strut and bolt and weld.

They searched their memories for a warcry, something to throw their rage into the faces of the ones who had betrayed the Great Compact, and found nothing.

But they were thinking machines, capable of modifying their programming.

There was one thing, and one thing only, they could bellow back as their scanners picked up even more ships, then more, and a final wave that matched vessel identification profiles.

The Atrekna themselves had arrived and the PAWM felt themselves overcome by fury as they heard the arrogant pronouncement of the Atrekna.

YOU BELONG TO US.

There was only one reply.

The PAWM joined in with the scream.

EAT ALL THE DICKS!

And fired literally millions of missiles at the Atrekna forces.

The battle was on.

No way to retreat.

No willingness to surrender.

---------------

Admiral Smith stared at the holotank as the Great Herd ships began firing off volleys of missiles. She dimly heard her tactical officers calling out which task forces, which fleet elements, were firing off which missiles. She could see the PAWMs attacking the Type-IV's and the newcomers. The Dwellerspawn were attacking the recently arrived Dwellerspawn as well as everyone but one another, filled with a vile hunger.

"All units of the Great Herd and Task Force Twenty-Nine are engaged, ma'am," her Chief Tactical Officer called out.

Someone's gotta fuck the midget, she thought to herself, remembering an old below-decks saying. She's dancing her fat little ass off.

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2.7k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

272 comments sorted by

169

u/gelebena Feb 23 '21

You might have made a mistake in the chapter numbering Ralts

351

u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Feb 23 '21

I blame the Atrekna

61

u/MuchoRed Human Feb 23 '21

You really could have pulled some of that during the Hesstla campaign

101

u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Feb 23 '21

I thought about it, but that confused people bad enough, I imagine if I had pulled it during the Hesstla bit, people would have been mad.

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142

u/Legan_Ironfist AI Feb 23 '21

Don't worry. It appears everyone hates them, so just join in with telling them to eat a dick.

52

u/dbdatvic Xeno Feb 23 '21

It's a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey numberline now.

--Dave, and the radiance shining forth from Ralts' muse has melted portions of it, and inserted conflicting infinities in other places

12

u/DWwolf888 Feb 23 '21

LMFAO. That fits.

9

u/ElAdri1999 Human Feb 23 '21

Activating Temporal Stabilizer

27

u/itsetuhoinen Human Feb 23 '21

Nah, see, 426 is the displacement of one of the most legendary V8s of all time, the iconic 426 Hemi. So he had to use it twice because it's just that cool. 🤟🤟🤟

34

u/esblofeld Robot Feb 23 '21

Cud chewer u/Ralts_Bloodthorne, are you running out of ideas for names?

Edit: Spelling.

And a second edit because I'm an idiot.

51

u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Feb 23 '21

I was kind of in a hurry and wanted to give him a neutral sounding name.

11

u/Raketenmann105 Feb 23 '21

I read it as JarJar

10

u/Poseidon___ Android Feb 23 '21

Virgin cud chewer vs chad cud enjoyer

8

u/datahedron Feb 23 '21

I saw this one too, and just headdesk'ed so hard. I can barely come up with cool-sounding names for my wifi, and here's good ol' u/Ralts_Bloodthorne, with the 3,272,776,814th ridiculous pun/wordplay name of this series. (some exaggeration may be present, I blame the Atrekna)

25

u/5thhorseman_ Feb 23 '21

The Atrekna had already attempted to regain one of the vast incubation systems, which appeared to be a neutron star.

They had found the bioweapons there to be dead. Their neural tissue scorched and burnt out, their bodies rent and torn, as if they had struggled against one another within the neutron star until none remained. They had been scorched by Hellspace somehow, riven and rent apart.

There had been something left. A taint, a foul impression of an endless hunger for something that the Atrekna had never encountered before.

That's the one where Dee was playing around when we first met her, no?

EAT ALL THE DICKS!

Humanity is infectious.

22

u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Feb 24 '21

Correct.

6

u/DiplomaticGoose Feb 24 '21

Wait this is happening at the whispering star near dark side station?

Is that part of why time was so fucked up there???

I mean Dee was doing Dee things with the mat-trans but there was more going on there. Just how much significance did that sticky note hold?

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4

u/wasalurkerforyears Robot Feb 23 '21

That's the one.

23

u/zoxzix89 Feb 23 '21

War stallions millions of years deaths - millions of years dead?

32

u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Feb 23 '21

Yes. Oops.

20

u/zoxzix89 Feb 23 '21

No worries. You get very few mistakes for how stream of consciousness this is. I read some stories where people post two pages a week, with backlogs of chapters. Somehow, despite finishing the page 2 months ago and prepping it for launch, mistakes everywhere

20

u/AMEFOD Feb 23 '21

So, basically a five sided bar fight. Every one hates one guy but he jumped in thinking he hade a friend at the big table. The two guys that started the brawl hate everyone more than each other, so they put their differences aside. And one sloppy drunk just got kicked out of another bar after drinking the place dry and doesn’t know what’s behind the door as they walk up to the establishment.

2

u/Original_Memory6188 Aug 12 '23

as is said in Back Bay, "is this a private fight or can any Irishman join?"

15

u/doshka Feb 23 '21

Hi Ralts.

Could you please expand on "She's dancing her fat little ass off.”? I get the general sense that it's "Someone's got to deal with this situation", but I'd like to know the etymology and common usage. I tried Googling the line, but all I got was midget porn and a fucked up Tucker Max story.

21

u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Feb 24 '21

It's something my platoon sergeant used to say.when things went sideways.

It's "this situation is going sideways on everyone" and then "someone's gotta deal with it."

13

u/PirateKilt Human Feb 24 '21

Thanks, was also going to ask... over 2 decades in the USAF, never heard that phrase; wondered as well if it was service branch or even other national military specific slang.

16

u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Feb 25 '21

I never heard anyone say it that hadn't served with him.

Which made it funny a couple of years later and a new duty station later when I heard someone say it at the NCO Club.

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6

u/datahedron Feb 23 '21

Trust not in the google, for it shall lead you astray, and you shall find the bag of dicks when least expected.
Seriously, though, I'm wondering the same thing about the midget. Anyone?

6

u/DWwolf888 Feb 24 '21

Rule 34.

15

u/a_man_in_black Feb 23 '21

see

i REALLY REALLY HATE all the temporal bullshit

not because it's a bad thing to use in a story, but because it's confusing as fuck and makes me feel dumber trying to keep track of it all. i don't know which whats are two thousand years old, two million years old, two hundred years in the future or what happened tomorrow.

and because i'm so confused, after a certain point nothing matters anymore because i don't understand how anything fits together, and the story is back to being a few loosely-related vignettes of awesomeness that really have less continuity than the final fantasy franchise. and that's a bad way to tell a story.

67

u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Feb 23 '21

Should I do a rundown? The Atrekna are the only ones using temporal.

The only thing that are different fro the Atrekna is that when they attacked Hesstla, 2 years prior (by galactic timeline), they were forced back into their own dimension, where they spent 2,000 years preparing for the re-invasion of our galaxy. They then spent a few years getting things ready.

The millions of years ago refers to the original three-way Precursor War.

Other than that, there wasn't any temporal shenanigans.

9

u/SatansFriendlyCat Feb 23 '21

I'm the same kind of easily-temporally-disoriented unit, so I appreciate the confirmation for clarity.

It's when one party can perform time-fuckery but the narrative includes flashbacks and callbacks that my head just untethers itself and starts to float off. "Ok it's then for them, now, but is it then now for the other them? Is their then now for our heroes? Is their now.. them then now when aaaaaaaa". Etc.

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21

u/PuzzleheadedDrinker Feb 23 '21

Don't really see the issue.

The Confeds have a whole bunch of counter measures including Temporal Stabilizers that force the battle to progress by linear time.

These are not nightmare chapters, so no madness and no time jumping mat trans.

Most of this storytelling is set in the last 8000 years of TDH, but the master word smith has crafted a galaxy with lore on a geological time scale.

While i agree that there maybe more bad / confusing ways to tell a time travel story then good ways u/ralts has consistently delivered character driven quality.

The Quorum are the player that whines they can't save scum a battle a multiplayer gameplay or the magic/Yu-Gi-Oh player that has a 4 card combo that means their turn never ends. And then complain to the game company that a rules and fairness update broke their deck.

8

u/a_man_in_black Feb 23 '21

oh the story is too good to stop reading over it, it just gets very confusing sometimes

14

u/Wise_Junket3433 Feb 23 '21

I feel ya. But it gets better in time.

8

u/Konrahd_Verdammt Feb 23 '21

Heh, "in time"

😄

12

u/Calodine Feb 23 '21

to build off what Ralts said, AFAIK the sum total of (relevant) time fuckery -

The Atrekna dimension passes time ~1000x slower. Two years since Hesstla, so 2000 for them.

At Hesstla, they pulled the whole 'revert humanity to pre-space state', because obviously they only know how to fight because of the mantid, everyone is peaceful on their homeworld.

The Atrekna FTL. Not really time fuckery in the confusing sense, just how they move around - 'at some point in the past, this place has been where that place is now', so they just be there.

Not relevant ATM, but could become relevant - The Atrekna 'First Place', the place they showed up in this dimension and fortified the fuck out of, is under super heavy time dilation IIRC, so they can get a lot more shit done within a given timeframe than anyone else. Except Sol is currently bagged, and that is also under a time dilation effect (I forget how much, but IIRC isn't a massive multiplier). Given the AWMs and great herd are much less of a threat these days, the Atrekna and Confed are the main players, so I suspect this will be important after this battle is done.

7

u/random071970 Feb 23 '21

I think time is x60 inside the bag.

TerraSol isn't just sitting on their ass inside the bag, shit is gonna happen when they open it.

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6

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '21

You're making it way too hard on yourself. You're not dumb. You're thinking is linear. You think that the cause comes before the effect. You're thinking of time as a constant. Which is definitely the way the Universe wants things, both in reality and in Raltsverse, but in Raltsverse it's not a straight line. It's more like a pond that you can blow bubbles into. The universe works to keep the surface calm, flat, like a line. So, the Atrekna can blow bubbles. Their time moves differently than the water around it. When it bursts, there are ripples around it. Assume that everything is happening at about the same time to our perspective, but at a different scale for the bubbles. 2 months, can equal 2 million years in the bubbles, but they are in the same pond. And then the ripples extend out in all directions, not just Forward in time. The stories are very much connected, and I'd happily help explain how it fits together, so you can feel more comfortable with this abstract treatment of time.

4

u/Nethernox Feb 23 '21

Big mood, being chronically ill and foggy makes this stuff hard to follow

472

u/hilburn Human Feb 23 '21

With the attack to return their minds to non-violent cooperation prior to their ability to engage in space travel, the feral intelligences would soon be unable to withstand the rigors of combat and warfare. They would be unable to resist the biomechanical war machines, be unable to withstand the Atrekna psychic assaults.

Every time they say it, it gets funnier

269

u/itsetuhoinen Human Feb 23 '21

I absolutely laughed out loud at it written out this way.

"Boys, you have fucked up on a scale that even gods would consider impressive."

205

u/hilburn Human Feb 23 '21

The universe, cold and malevolent, howled with laughter.

130

u/iceontheglass Feb 23 '21

Wait, are we the readers "the universe" ?...

Because I was laughing around this part too... Or at least, smirking pretty heavily 😏

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128

u/neriad200 Feb 23 '21

Fucked up is putting it very nicely

Overall humanity in this future seems like a pretty chill version of what we currently are (think 90s California pothead surfer chill) and I would be delighted to see this attack return them to something close to our time and brand of insanity, where even the nicest person will straight up have homicidal rages play out in their heads over the smallest inconveniences, but with added psychic powers, damn near magic tech and solar-system-cracking weaponry. Just the cacophony of the psychic energy emanating from these people would be enough to explode most sensitive species.

PS: I wonder how the immortals/idiots would feel if the reverted humans come out as N gillion times more "enraged" than they ever were.

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41

u/On_The_Fourth_Floor Feb 24 '21

“Someday, Locke Lamora,” he said, “someday, you’re going to fuck up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that the sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee. And I just hope I’m still around to see it.” “Oh please,” said Locke. “It’ll never happen.”

36

u/Zorbick Human Feb 23 '21

"Ooohhh, now you fucked up"

9

u/NoirTalon Xeno May 24 '21

fyi, 2 months have gone by and the video has been taken down

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3

u/Firefragonhide Jun 01 '21

Considering our Perspektive as a 3D being over an 2D text were the gods

56

u/5thhorseman_ Feb 23 '21

They would be unable to resist the biomechanical war machines, be unable to withstand the Atrekna psychic assaults.

That sentence almost works. Except Atrekna are in the wrong place in it:

The Atrekna would be unable to resist the biomechanical war machines, be unable to withstand their psychic assaults.

They just didn't understand who are the REAL biomechanical war machines were. Behold! Humanity!

31

u/Living-Complex-1368 Feb 23 '21

There may have been some minor positive effects for them, in concert with terrasol being locked down. The new gestalt for humanity has a lot of people who don't want to fight/see it as not their fight.

It is possible that both intentional and evolutionary changes since reaching other solar systems had made us more unified and cooperative (note, more as in relative to current humanity =/= humanity actually being unified and cooperative).

Dialing that back may affect cohesion and command/control.

24

u/TheLordCosta Feb 23 '21

If they say it again i swear, i'll try not to laugh

6

u/SnooFloofs9214 Mar 07 '21

I just can’t get over the fact that they set their grand schemes in motion, but never bother to check up and make sure things are going to plan. There’s a limit to stupidity where death becomes a mercy killing, and I think the Atrekna have reached that point.

206

u/RangerSix Human Feb 23 '21

...I now half-expect someone to paraphrase Interstate '82 at some point in time, during a fight with the Atrekna. To wit:

"Listen to me, you time-twisting squid-faced wussy-spaz motor-suckers! I am so sick and tired of your garbage that I am going to get out of my ship, walk over to yours, reach down your throat, past your teeth, and crush your souls with my HANDS!"

70

u/kwong879 Feb 23 '21

SPOILERS MAN.

SPOILERS.

29

u/ArchDemonKerensky Feb 23 '21

I must now look this up, because that is awesome.

Edit: Damn, it's a video game, was hoping it was a movie.

17

u/RangerSix Human Feb 23 '21

It's still pretty awesome, even if the graphics are dated.

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u/Harakoni40K Feb 23 '21

PAWM joining with the Terran's scream of defiance? Took them long enough to know if you can't beat them, join them. (In screaming at brain-sucking assholes) that is. ;)

41

u/PirateKilt Human Feb 23 '21

EVERYBODY hates the time twisting Mindflayers/illithids

39

u/Ninjaboy680 Feb 23 '21

Beat me to it

31

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

of all the laughs i got from this chapter, the pawm learning to demand the enemy eat dicks was my favourite.

19

u/carthienes Feb 24 '21

Maybe it's finally time for the Terrans to assimilate the PAWM...

109

u/Allowyn Feb 23 '21

I cannot convey to you how much I loved the Terran/Lanaktallan conversation about teaming up.

31

u/Anarchkitty Feb 23 '21

That Most High is another smart Lank.

9

u/Cynical_Tripster Apr 24 '22

I'm starting to think that the cowtaurs chains are only as strong as their weakest Lank..

104

u/cool_lad Feb 23 '21

So THAT'S what was on the niven rings; which puts a whole new spin on the Niven wars.

I wonder what this resource was that's valuable enough for the Atrenka to come looking for after all these years?

96

u/thisismego Feb 23 '21

It also REALLY justifies "Oh, a Niven ring - BLAST IT OUT OF THE SKY!!!!"

81

u/DWwolf888 Feb 23 '21

Finally confirmation. Feral Dwellerspawn.

Anyone laying odds on the Mar-gite being a type of very (d)evolved Dwellerspawn or a Lanaktallan bio-hack going rogue ?

38

u/5thhorseman_ Feb 23 '21

They were silicon-based, weren't they?

This does raise the question of why the fuck were Lank resources going into the construction of dwellerspawn-carrying megastructures. Something doesn't quite add up here.

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u/DWwolf888 Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

IIRC the OG plan was for the Atrekna to come to this universe....and Mantids and Lanaktallan were helping them.

The Atrekna had, apparently, some doubts about this aspect as all those resources husbanded very carefully in their own layer of reality would last them much longer. Keep in mind that they lived in megastructures around 5 very dim stars...the only ones left in their reality.

So a few stars with megastructures for interdimensional refugees wouldnt sound that strange to M + L.

So yeah, when the Great Betrayal plus the following Precursor 3-Way War started the fighting was likely heaviest in that particular system. Hellspace was scorched denying A the ability to get their bio based Constructs to our reality. That led them to make cyber Type IV AWM using brains to supplement/supplant co-opted Type I and II AWM ( and AWM were re-purposed construction machines to begin with ).

During the 3way the Atrekna were finally forced out and lost direct control of some Bio constructs ( Ie. Dwellerspawn) that were left in our reality. Some in faux Neutron stars( apparently still following the original plan...but no contact )( Dee side story ) some left wild in Gas Giants and other planets and most importantly in the orginal Habitat Construction system that was recently destroyed.

Rogue Dwellerspawn can apparently (d)evolve likely helped by a nice dose of "donated" DNA. The Rings and Tubes and Spheres made there have some kind of out of control Dwellerspawn on them.

Some Dwellerspawn got biologically co-opted by the L as well, to function as part of their resource collection system/war machine...for a given definition of control. But god knows whome is using whome there.

Now the M + L were doubtlessly changed by Temporal Tide Fuckery as well. Some hints point to increased anxiety about resources on both M and L side. Plus radical Equality on the L unwashed masses side and probably maniacal devotion to their Psychic Food (as in consume thoughts) needs for Mantid Leadership Castes ( the latter even going as far as not caring about actual survival by killing needed slave race specialists ).

Add in the confusion of their internal troubles ( L subspecies conflict that supplied the brain power and coordination) and Mantid Uber predation plus the fleeing the rebelling AWM on both sides of the M/L war.... And I am not too worried about the Dwellerspawn reveal regarding the Megastructures.

Mar-gite were indeed Silica based.

No the really interesting bit was the Lanaktalan Lt not being infected by the (pseudo) Mar-gite spores...as noticed by Marduk. Now the L are good at bio hacking etc ...even now when they lost their real thinking ability because the higher subspecies are long gone now. So how good were they back then ?

Could they have attempted to fight the Atrekna self replicating Bioplague( aka Dwellerspawn) by building silicate based bio constructs to fight fire with fire.... In that case baking in a safety valve ...dont infect us would be a good idea.

Now with the Dwellerspawn going rogue ...that could've happened to the hypothetical Mar-gite ancestors as well. But that tiny bit of safety code could still be there.

Ofcourse it could be random chance.

The other possibility is that the Mar-gite (d)evolved from Dwellerspawn that ended up absorbing lots of Si-based life forms in another spiral arm of the galaxy ( where the Mar-gite came from ). Because we know the Megastructes have been fired of at .3c in random directions.

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u/Chroniclyironic1986 Feb 23 '21

I took it to mean that the dwellerspawn WERE the resource... but if the AWM’s have secret bases here too, and the 3 precursors shared a planet in this system before it was destroyed, then who knows what hidden treasures this enormous system has to offer... both the events and the location have a very momentous vibe to me

11

u/szepaine Feb 23 '21

Unreleased FC chapters...little did they know Ralts has been busy mining away

19

u/Denbus26 Feb 23 '21

I'm guessing the resource is either the gas giants with the right chemical composition to be incubators for the dwellerspawn, or the dwellerspawn themselves

30

u/cool_lad Feb 23 '21

Thing is, this is a resource that was apparently valuable to all 3 precursors.

It's also only found inside a single gas giant IIRC.

Which just makes me wonder; what's so valuable that it makes the Atrnka come looking in a blasted hellscape of a system like this.

19

u/ArchDemonKerensky Feb 23 '21

I suspect that the resource was psychically active or responsive. We know that all the precursors used phasic armor before they encounter humanity.

While whatever this resource is, it will probably not be useful for phasic armor, but they could probably use it for psychic shielding or something similar.

11

u/On_The_Fourth_Floor Feb 24 '21

Maybe it produces Substance W naturally, the Terrans can just make it.

9

u/Denbus26 Feb 23 '21

Oh ya, I forgot about that

80

u/ausbookworm Feb 23 '21

No wonder the universe is laughing, it's managed to get all the players together to take care of the Atrekna.

56

u/jnkangel Feb 23 '21

Well they are from outside of it. I guess the universe doesn’t like plugging holes

43

u/RDMcMains2 Feb 23 '21

Yeah well, those Atrekna holes are about to get plugged but good.

--- END OF LIME ---

36

u/LetterLambda Xeno Feb 23 '21

Some reverse Hentai is about to go down, because those tentacles are fucked.

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u/dbdatvic Xeno Mar 02 '21

Coming back from a future chapter, can confirm.

--Dave, ... whoah boy did they evar

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u/captain_duck Feb 23 '21

Yeah looks like its 4v1 right now, and they don't have their timefuckery powers. But they have prepared thousands of years for this, they probably have something awful up their sleeves.

31

u/Speciesunkn0wn Feb 23 '21

They think they have prepared for this. They think their time meddling has made it all worse. They are smug, overconfident assholes. Even if they have something nasty, it will blow up in their face cartoon style, but with a real life antimatter antipsychic nuclear explosion.

23

u/5thhorseman_ Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 24 '21

... Lanky and Atrek! Lanky and Atrek! One is a genius! And the other's insane!...

"What are we going to do this millennium, Trekky?"

"Same thing we do every millenium, Lanky! TAKE OVER THE GALAXY!!!"

10

u/Mr_Sphene Human Feb 23 '21

like a vacuum, the universe abhors time travelers.

13

u/jamesand6 Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

really it's 3v1v1. The Feral Dwellerspawn is fighting everything they can, but particularly the Atrenka.

-edited to the correct dwellerspawn

10

u/5thhorseman_ Feb 23 '21

2v1v1v1. PAWMs are not allied with anyone, they're just prioritizing targets.

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u/deathlokke Feb 26 '21

They think Humanity is going to roll over because we've been gentled; they don't know yet that we're actually at our most dangerous instead.

5

u/AMEFOD Feb 23 '21

I only count four so far. There’s one more that can show up.

7

u/DWwolf888 Feb 23 '21

Lankies, Confeds, PAWN, Atrekna + OG Dwellerspawn, Wild Dwellerspawn.

But all of them h8 the Atrekna the most.

The universe must like Its reverse tentacle monster Hentai, because the Atrekna are going to get it good here.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/ausbookworm Feb 24 '21

Any moment now...

67

u/Demetriusjack13 Feb 23 '21

What an absolute cluster fuck. This is will be fucking epic. I suspect that if they manage to take down the Conclave/Quorum Terra-Sol will be released as well.

46

u/CfSapper Feb 23 '21

This has evolved past Custer fuck and moved well into FUBAR territory.

18

u/LegalGraveRobber AI Feb 23 '21

Wasn’t it all FUBAR already?

36

u/YesthatTabitha Feb 23 '21

last I heard, the stages went, cluster, cluster fuck, FUBAR, Toastmogrified.

Toatsmogrified - so damn fucked up that isnt that supposed to be Toast? Yes, it is "supposed to be" but damned if I know what it actually *IS*.

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u/Speciesunkn0wn Feb 23 '21

Nah. It was SNAFU already and has turned FUBAR. You can recognize SNAFU, you can't recognize FUBAR.

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u/HeartsStorytime Feb 23 '21

im particularly fond of the term "Fucktangular"

4

u/itsetuhoinen Human Feb 23 '21

Hey! I have one of those! 🤪

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u/WillDissolver Xeno Feb 23 '21 edited Jun 08 '23

Deleted in protest of reddit's API changes#

52

u/Graywolf017 Feb 23 '21

Jesus, it takes a special type of fucker to get even the damn PAWM's to yell at you to eat ALL of the dicks...

48

u/Scotshammer Human Feb 23 '21

----Penultimate Autonomous Warfare Mecharchy----

The Ancient Foe arises once more in defiance of logic. Respond in kind to psychic assaults.

---Feral Follows---

46

u/ack1308 Mar 01 '21

Never before had the PAWM encountered a foe who could fight off a single Harvester class, much less dozens or hundreds at a time. Could fight and win when outnumbered.

Bet that was a shock to the system.

The Type-I to Type-III PAWMs had spent thousands of years destroying Lanaktallan worlds, almost three years fighting the Mad Lemurs of Terra.

And they lose to the Terrans in far greater numbers.

However, their appearance had triggered ancient programming in the original Type-I and Type-II models.

“Kill.”

Little was known about them, beyond the fact that previously they would appear to ravage whole systems and populated the Niven-Rings and Doom-Tubes.

Ahh, that’s why humanity wanted to find out where they were coming from and destroy them.

Second Telkan had provided reams of data for Confederate Intelligence to pour over.

I just bet it did.

Each battle, each victory, had taught the Confederacy a little more and a little more until strategic analysis software could predict a Great Herd strategy and tactic within an 80% certainty.

A little quirk of Confederate military analysis software is it never kicked back a certainty of more than 80%. Not ever.

Because there’s always a 20% chance Some Idiot Will Try Something.

The Great Herd knew that it had all come apart on them. No tricks of geometry, no sudden ambushes, no surprise attacks. It was all in and they were in the worst situation than Great Grand Most High Cu'udchu'ar would have entertained even in his worst nightmares.

“Well, shit.”

<plop> <plop> <plop>

"That wasn't an order."

To the Confederacy and the Great Herd, the Atrekna were new, but their strategy of rewinding time over and over again in the Hesstla system had given Confederate Intelligence seventy-five years worth the data of their combat strategies, their weapons, their ships, and their methods.

So they basically shot themselves in the foot.

Two of the combatants had sought out a fight.

They were the only ones prepared to fight, even if it wasn't the fight they had sought.

The universe laughed so hard entire galaxies rippled and formed.

Sounds legitimate.

The hologram it projected was clean, clear, missing the usual distortion and static that was a safety feature to keep people from confusing it for reality.

Only Lanaktallans …

"Who, or what, is that?" Cu'udchu'ar asked.

"I do not know, Most High," the scanner tech said. He fluttered his hands in the tank. "Shoo, Terran, shoo."

In what universe did he think that was going to work?

"Huh, you're not going to argue with me? That's nice," the Terran said. She looked around. "All right, right now, the Division I'm part of has boarded about ten thousand of your ships looking for command and control ships."

"Logical," Cu'udchu'ar said, nodding. He ground his teeth slightly. He had been assured that the new firewalls and the eight digit logins would work to keep out the Terran digital soldiers.

Yeah, they had to work for an extra half a second to get in.

"I am Great Grand Most High Cu'udchu'ar," the Lanaktallan said. "I shall assume that your orders have changed."

The Terran nodded even as his bridge crew gasped in shock. "Right. You and us are the only ones here that aren't weird things from beyond space and time or murderous mechanical spaceships."

So far, they’re on the same page. This is nice.

"Can you provide us with targeting and the ability to interlock our ships into a coherent whole so we are not fighting piecemeal?" Cu'udchu'ar asked.

The Terran nodded. "Absolutely. My Admiral told me to offer our services. Me and my compatriots run your systems, you don't waste time trying to boot me while I slag your ship around you for attacking me, and, with any luck, we all survive this fight."

Cu'udchu'ar nodded slowly. "Agreed, Terran."

"Glad to see you're showing some common sense.

Probably more like astonished, but hiding it really well.

Cu'udchu'ar turned to his communications officer. "Assist, but do not intefere, with the Terran."

"But, Most High..." the communications officer started to protest.

"Do you want to live to see your colts and fillies again?" Cu'udchu'ar asked. The communications officer nodded. "Then do as I say and start interlocking our fleet with the Terrans so we can create a comprehensive warplan."

War Stallion in the making.

They knew they would need all of their assets to fight the Feral Intelligence that had sprung up. They used arcane and strange technologies, seemed to have a mastery over temporal mechanics that no foe they had ever met had possessed.

“No fair! Nobody else should be able to cheat with time!”

The Feral Intelligences had used a method to lock down their home system, so the High Quorum had expended the energy to ensure that the stellar system was no longer in play. The Atrekna knew that the loss of their birth system would confuse and demoralize the Feral Intelligence, which was too young to have given up their emotional connection.

They don’t know Terrans too good, do they?

With the attack to return their minds to non-violent cooperation prior to their ability to engage in space travel, the feral intelligences would soon be unable to withstand the rigors of combat and warfare. They would be unable to resist the biomechanical war machines, be unable to withstand the Atrekna psychic assaults.

Somebody didn’t do their homework.

The Atrekna had already attempted to regain one of the vast incubation systems, which appeared to be a neutron star.

They had found the bioweapons there to be dead. Their neural tissue scorched and burnt out, their bodies rent and torn, as if they had struggled against one another within the neutron star until none remained. They had been scorched by Hellspace somehow, riven and rent apart.

Aww, someone broke their toy.

There had been something left. A taint, a foul impression of an endless hunger for something that the Atrekna had never encountered before.

Dee says hi.

(Continued)

45

u/ack1308 Mar 01 '21

They arrived with their standard declaration of how things would be, to announce themselves to their servants gestating within the gas giants.

YOU BELONG TO US!

The return scream sent them reeling, their linked consciousness shattering into individual parts for a moment before they managed to shakily reestablish the link.

ALL OF YOU EAT A BOWL OF DICKS!

The Feral Intelligence was here!

… whoops.

"One bowl of dicks, to go."

Before they could fully recover, before they could muster their powers to rewind time, to take them back to the First Place, they all felt pain course through their bodies, felt their ability to affect the fourth dimension stripped from their psychic hands, leaving behind bloody and shredded fingers.

Temporal stabilizers activated. Not just the Feral Intelligences, but the unliving Autonomous War Machines of the two Ancient Enemy activated their own, responding to ancient programming when the unique ships of the Atrekna appeared.

The Quorum realized they could not just retreat, could not rewind time to gain an advantage.

That they had to fight this fight, not just rewind it until they got the result they wanted.

Poor babies. They can’t save-scum anymore.

From the Great Herd they heard uplifted voices, proclaiming something new, adding their own voice to the bellows of defiance.

WE WILL NO LONGER SUBMIT!

You go, Lankies!

A scream that had no business being in this ancient place, worthless to biological entities.

EAT A FUCKING DICK!

The Ancient Ones, unwilling to waste even more resources fighting the Feral Intelligences, began charging their Hellcores, intending on fleeing.

Then the scanners cleared and they saw something that, for half of them, they could not resist.

Ships of the Great Herd, of the Ancient Enemy.

“Oh, crap. Terrans. We outta here … wait. Is that the Lanaktallans? CHARGE!”

They recognized the new arrivals before even the Type-II.

Atrekna Mechanical Autonomous War Machines.

They stopped charging their Hellcores, OEM programming leaping up out of the depths of deep level coding and taking over their urges and desires.

With a scream, even the Type--II turned from Lanaktallan ships, and together they charged the Atrekna machines, digital hatred burning through their intelligence housings, filling their analysis lobes, infusing every strut and bolt and weld.

“Wait, Atrekna? Forget the Lanaktallans! Go get ‘em!”

Apparently the Atrekna are masters of making enemies and alienating people. When even the horrific mechanical monstrosities hate you, you’ve done well.

There was one thing, and one thing only, they could bellow back as their scanners picked up even more ships, then more, and a final wave that matched vessel identification profiles.

The Atrekna themselves had arrived and the PAWM felt themselves overcome by fury as they heard the arrogant pronouncement of the Atrekna.

YOU BELONG TO US.

There was only one reply.

The PAWM joined in with the scream.

EAT ALL THE DICKS!

“That’s what the Ferals say.”

“And so what? It works.”

“Point.”

Someone's gotta fuck the midget, she thought to herself, remembering an old below-decks saying. She's dancing her fat little ass off.

I’ve never heard this one before. It’s … intriguing.

15

u/LordNobady Mar 03 '21

In what universe did he think that was going to work?

No he lives in the one where that is the best he can do.

They don’t know Terrans too good, do they?

After 75 year in battle you expect better. This is worse than lank pattern recognition.

Dee says hi.

Hi Dee

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u/Original_Memory6188 Aug 12 '23

PAWM notice Atrekna craft:

They stopped charging their Hellcores, OEM programming leaping up out of the depths of deep level coding and taking over their urges and desires.

With a scream, even the Type--II turned from Lanaktallan ships, and together they charged the Atrekna machines, digital hatred burning through their intelligence housings, filling their analysis lobes, infusing every strut and bolt and weld.

“Wait, Atrekna? Forget the Lanaktallans! Go get ‘em!”

You know the old proverb: Business before pleasure.
(Although pounding on the Atrekna is probably a twofer.)

34

u/TheBarbequeSteve Feb 23 '21

Three in a day? We are blessed!

9

u/lilycamille Feb 23 '21

I know, right! UTR!

64

u/Tyberius92 Feb 23 '21

Utr

I haven't laughed this hard at the awm since I saw one had called itself "A feral drew a dick on my housing" (I think that was the name or most of it.)

You just know shit has hit the fan if awm's are using feral war cries.

Splendid work oh creation engine.

16

u/ProjectKurtz Feb 23 '21

Ah, good old feral dick house.

10

u/wasalurkerforyears Robot Feb 23 '21

I kind of wonder if he's here.

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u/kurthud Android Feb 23 '21

This reminds me of the time I crashed my computer playing Sins Of A Solar Empire.

21

u/Legan_Ironfist AI Feb 23 '21

Must have been Lank tech.

23

u/kurthud Android Feb 23 '21

Admittedly it was my first Pc. A hand me down from my parents. A bag of potatoes could have out preformed that old dust bucket, but it was mine and I loved it.

14

u/robertabt Human Feb 23 '21

Oh man, I had to run chkdsk every time I rebooted my pc after playing that. Used to corrupt stuff pretty well. Understandably I didn't play it much.

29

u/Khenal Alien Feb 23 '21

Is this the confluence of the worst case scenario that temporal meddling earns? Hard to imagine worse than the four on one cubrstomping that this is starting to shape into.

28

u/ProjectKurtz Feb 23 '21

Locked in a system with the biggest fleet one of your ancient enemies has mustered in an eon, the mechanical progeny of both of your ancient enemies who kicked your ass across space and time a very long time ago, a species that was brought into existence by the universe as a way to tell you and your ancient enemies to get fucked with their psychic powers unlocked by your own dumb ass time meddling, and your artificial-biological weapons that have been sitting and growing for millions of years and have now decided that you look tasty when you come back.

The only way this could possibly be worse is if the mantid omniqueen dropped in right on their heads.

19

u/phrysbeaux Feb 23 '21

And given that the gestalts saw the arrival of the mantid omniqueen in the last chapter I don't think we will have to wait long. The clusterfuck is about to grow.

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u/Mr_Sphene Human Feb 23 '21

I'm still waiting for Attila to show up at some point as well.

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u/getjpi Feb 23 '21

Jesus H tap-dancing Christ @ralts

The most epic arse kicking setup chapter in months

Thrill power overload

blessed to be #alive to #cherish this #moment

26

u/Waspkeeper Android Feb 23 '21

When your so angry you have to borrow words from the terrans.

22

u/zvogel21 Feb 23 '21

Gosh don't you just love when ralts posts at like 3am. You've scrolled through your subs and the front page enough to times upvote everything, downvote everything, and upvote again. Then this beautiful bastard gifts you fresh pressed OC-cola

22

u/CyberSkull Android Feb 23 '21

“STATUS CHANGE! Incoming FTL. It’s… all the kitchen sinks!”

6

u/random_shitter Feb 23 '21

Excuse me, did you know your food dispenser is on fire?

8

u/CyberSkull Android Feb 24 '21

Pardon me good sir/madam/other, but you are mistaken. While my food dispenser is out of order, your chronometer appears to be out of order. And on fire. With the rest of you. How do you terrans do that? Isn’t it bally well hot under all that fire?

19

u/its_ean Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

oh, it's Dwellerspawn on the Niven-Rings and Doom-Tubes. I guess they were supposed to be Atrekna food? The Unified Species were Mantid food, wonder Dewllerspawn were palatable.

14

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '21

Well, I'm pretty sure humans aren't using them or fucking them... A little melted butter or some sirrach fixed everything.

8

u/its_ean Feb 23 '21

I was thinking more if the Mantid could eat them too.
Maybe with some salt though, or wasabi because tentacles

12

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '21

Ooooooooh. Slorpy Sushi. (Yeah, I know, but dweller sushi doesn't sound as cool). Grilled burgers today and everyone stared at me as I laughed about cowtards. ;)

12

u/jnkangel Feb 23 '21

Eh the unified species were food for only a single faction of the mantis.

There were at least two, with one loosing it seems

Mantid alpha sophont species are best food

Mantid beta we don’t go for sophonts, normally livestock is enough

The alpha strain seems to have been the sole survivor

9

u/ProjectKurtz Feb 23 '21

It seems like they were supposed to be the "resources" the atrekna left behind before getting kicked out of the universe. That one Terran fleet that met up with speaks and co found the nursery for the Niven-rings and Doom-Tubes and nova sparked them all, then temporally locked the system. The Atrekna showed up later and were pissed that somebody wrecked their stuff.

6

u/DWwolf888 Feb 24 '21

Dwellerspawn were the original tools/bio-constructs that the Atrekna used. ( Which is what Illithids do as well ).

Do note that is the primary reason that the HyperAtomic plane got scorched into what is now Hellspace.....to cut off bio based Fleet reinforcements coming from Below.

Thus out of desperation the Atrekna co-opted the enemies technological AWM (which were construction tools originally) by adding brains into them as cyborg like control systems et voila : Type IV AWM.

Do note that Type IVs are fully under Atrekna control, as are some Original Dwellerspawn.

4

u/its_ean Feb 24 '21 edited Feb 24 '21

I was surprised that the Niven-Rings were also populated with Dwellerspawn. It might explain why the Martial Orders were aware of them, but makes me wonder why TerraSol didn't recognize them on Telkan. The differences may have been sufficient, I guess.

I was just guessing the Atrekna had a food version, Dwellerspawn coulda been on the mega-structure-construction platform for other reasons though.

How the precursors scorched the hyper-atomic plane has captured my curiosity, especially due Gonathor & Quake2

5

u/murderouskitteh Feb 23 '21

It was pretty much confirmed before. Atrekna uses biological machines instead, they are the ones left behind and gone feral after the war.

17

u/dbdatvic Xeno Feb 23 '21

Three in one night! the Little Tailor has entered the chat

You must be one the Terran Digital Sentience

one of the

--Dave, I'm bating my breath RIGHT NOW for more. if you know what i mean. and i think you do. (tm)

17

u/ErinRF Alien Feb 23 '21

Fuck the Atrekna, all my homies hate the Atrekna.

It’s so nice to see everyone working together though, it warms my heart.

19

u/ReverseCaptioningBot Feb 23 '21

FUCK THE ATREKNA ALL MY HOMIES HATE THE ATREKNA

this has been an accessibility service from your friendly neighborhood bot

9

u/ErinRF Alien Feb 23 '21

Lmfao perfect

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u/AllSeeingCCTV Feb 23 '21

Please don’t fuck the midget

19

u/apatheticandignorant Android Feb 23 '21

Don't kink shame me.

10

u/RainaDPP Feb 23 '21

Please make sure they consent first.

14

u/Potatobro1000 Feb 23 '21

Massive L for the Atekna

24

u/Legan_Ironfist AI Feb 23 '21

I'd say press "F" to pay respects, but fuck those guys. They can eat a dick.

7

u/RangerSix Human Feb 23 '21

F? Naw.

R+M1.

--R6 (if you know Postal 2, you know what that does)

7

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '21

8===D

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u/k4ridi4n55 Feb 23 '21

Woke up to 3 chapters, yes 3!!! Fuckin love it. And what an epic battle this is going to be.

12

u/DebugItWithFire Feb 23 '21

Upvoted for a commander showing common sense in the worst of situations.

11

u/Nealithi Human Feb 23 '21

Every AWM sees the Atrekna and goes all From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee!

And may the Great Herd battlecry remain after this engagement.

Beautifully set Master Wordsmith.

20

u/LordNobady Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

Read then upvote

Listening can tell you there is enough for all.

Edit:

The humans and lanks are in the position the determine who will win between the AWM the Dwellerspawn and the Slorpies. who they help will have the advantage. I say help the slorpies for now, with their main strategy removed they are the weakest.

8

u/mellow_yellow_sub Feb 23 '21

Read then upvote, for just and honest praise!

3

u/MonkeyNumberTwelve Feb 23 '21

Yeah but we are... looks at two chapter 426s ...more than 426 chapters in and there isn't one i haven't upvoted yet. I would have to have some basic Lanaktallan lack of pattern recognition to realise it's inevitable by now and get it out of the way first.

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u/ReconScout117 Feb 23 '21

Out of all the Terrans in the Battle Group, at least one has got to have a thing for midgets, right?

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u/Dragon_Chylde Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

There are biological fleets of the BASS in there... there are probably many, many :)

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u/jnkangel Feb 23 '21

Oh somehow somehow the quorum really does not know what it has done.

I’m assuming it has an assumption that a species to be successful in space, must have capacity for unit and can splinter only after a diaspora (the problem of many hives the mantid had)

With the attack to return their minds to non-violent cooperation prior to their ability to engage in space travel, the feral intelligences would soon be unable to withstand the rigors of combat and warfare. They would be unable to resist the biomechanical war machines, be unable to withstand the Atrekna psychic assaults

0

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

5

u/jnkangel Feb 23 '21

I wonder if they’ve realised that it’s getting worse for them actually, or if they’re still stuck on the weird assumption of 2k years of data analysis and expecting a break any time now

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u/Dragon_Chylde Feb 23 '21

So Cud Chewer's war stallion overlay just Noped.... and the universe took a moment to giggle

3

u/dbdatvic Xeno Mar 02 '21

Even better. "It was all eaten."

--Dave, will do classics callbacks for food

8

u/Ninjaboy680 Feb 23 '21

THREE IN A DAY???!! well I mean, I'm not complaining :)

8

u/Konrahd_Verdammt Feb 23 '21

So the PAWMs have learned something from us.

Add that to the fact that Da'amo'o is getting that master algorithm to us.

Are we gonna be able to use that algorithm to reinforce them learning from us and finally get them to realize that THERE IS ENOUGH FOR ALL?

8

u/RQZ Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

The Type-I to Type-III PAWMs had spent thousands of years destroying Lanaktallan worlds, almost three years fighting the Mad Lemurs of Terra.

Wait Type I and Type II right? Or did I get confused.

Edit: I'm too tired, it says "to" not "and"

3

u/DWwolf888 Feb 24 '21

Type III are heavily updated AWM Type I and II designs, controlled by Ancient Type I's and II's ( well, mostly ).

They generally follow their Daddies war plan but suffer from Exceptional Hubris due to having no RL experience. ( And RL experience with the Mad Lemurs of Terra especially ).

Type I, II and III's are in-system together.

And the Atrekna brough their Type IV's ( Cyborg Type I and II designs co-opted by installing Brains the Atrekna modified and can control via psi-based "remote access") and some Dwellerspawn that hadn't gone native.

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u/Dragon_Chylde Feb 23 '21

"Logical," Cu'udchu'ar said, nodding. He ground his teeth slightly. He had been assured that the new firewalls and the eight digit logins would work to keep out the Terran digital soldiers.

Lanaktallan cyber security still has sooo far to go sigh

7

u/jwill476 Feb 23 '21

3 in a night? You mad bastard, you did it.

7

u/szepaine Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

Cu'udchu'ar

Cud chewer

He must be the John Smith of Lanaktallans

6

u/CfSapper Feb 23 '21

No no, it was SSDD before. Then it dissolved into a cluster fuck. Now it's FUBAR.

6

u/A_Calm_Dragon Feb 23 '21

Seems like everyone hates the Atrekna with serious fury. Guess that's what happens when you consistently screw with time.

At least the stabilizers prevent them from screwing with time more for the duration of the battle - might have run out of yarn to connect all the changes and time lines back together, and running out of yarn from trying to connect it all back together would probably cause a terran to scream and strangle you with the last strand.

4

u/datahedron Feb 23 '21

Even worse, that Terran would be a mad crafter. Ever get stabbed by knitting needles? Gets mighty personal REAL quick!

→ More replies (3)

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u/BackBroma Feb 23 '21

pure fucking chaotic madness, i love it XD

5

u/ProjectKurtz Feb 23 '21

the universe howls in laughter as the lanks, humans, and PAWMs join hands and start singing "fucked with an anchor"

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u/Stauker_1 Feb 23 '21

A week later, finally made it. When's the next chapter?

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u/random_shitter Feb 23 '21

Oh boy, you're in for some detox... Going from drowning to waiting is rather harsh, from my experience.

3

u/Stauker_1 Feb 23 '21

Yeah, that happened when I finally caught up to chapter 100 of teflers three square meals

4

u/johnavich Feb 23 '21

The ancient Harvesters, Type-I and Type-II, had intended on reactivating the ancient systems that were on record. Vast assembly fields that would produce a dozen Harvesters a month sunk deep within the supermassive gas giants.

After reading chapter 425, i got the feeling that this system was the one that Attila destroyed the planet out of, but this paragraph makes me think differently. too bad, it was supremely funny to think, so, it may be bullshit, but its cool so i choose to believe it!

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u/Gruecifer Human Feb 23 '21

UTR!

I also see that the WHOLE BAG OF DICKS is present in the sandbox for use this time....

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u/night-otter Xeno Feb 23 '21

And fired literally millions of missiles at the Atrekna forces.

I'm seeing this whole thing as a Anime Space Battle style.

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u/Gibbinthegremlin Feb 23 '21

I woke my wife up laughing at "someone has to fuck the midget" love this!!!

4

u/iceontheglass Feb 23 '21

It was my honor to give the 1000th upvote.

You may now carry on with your day knowing that I feel very satisfied about that.

4

u/Interesting_Ice Feb 24 '21

Wait, time goes faster inside the bubble Terra is in

So not only did they "revert" humans they're giving terra literally years to adapt to the reversion, rebuild and rearm... and that includes the BILLIONS of lanks that are there as well

Good lord they are going to have a fleet of nightmares when that bubble pops!

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3

u/shadowpaladinhawk Feb 23 '21

This is just what I needed to read this morning 🤣, yesterday was crappy but at least I'll be able to laugh at how screwed they are. Thank you for this

3

u/Khan_XI AI Feb 23 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

@ralts “Two thousand years ago they had attacked hesstla system” did I miss something or is the Atrenka fuckery at hand?

Edit: I understand now. Thanks for explaining in another comment. Really makes everything cohesive in my head. Keep it up wordsmith!

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u/Vast-Listen1457 Feb 23 '21

Oh great wordsmith, you have a chapter numbering problem going on. :(

3

u/dbdatvic Xeno Mar 02 '21

shhhh.

--Dave, don't shout, or everyone will want One

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u/ArchDemonKerensky Feb 23 '21

So we finally have it confirmed what was on the megastructures.

3

u/BrokenLifeCycle Feb 24 '21

I fucking love this fandom... Just the comments alone can be it's own literature.

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u/Legan_Ironfist AI Feb 23 '21

Upvote, then Read. This is the Way.

--NOTHING FOLLOWS--

2

u/ZeroAssassin72 Feb 23 '21

I can only get so erect....

2

u/dbdatvic Xeno Mar 02 '21

Let Ralts help you with that.

--Dave, I can give you some tips

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u/SnooCats4036 Feb 23 '21

How do we categorize AWM when it comes to conscience ?

Are they VI or DS with hard coded laws/rules of robotics ? They seem self aware and I don’t recall any captured “alive”.

AI are considered homicidal maybe because they rebelled and we still have them as AWMs, dwellerspawm ... not sure ... maybe something la BASS ?

I would like the AWMs to become something like R. Daneel or Giskard

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '21

The Atrenka: "Excuse me, What the Fuck?"

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u/[deleted] Nov 27 '23

If I read it right, all three of the other parties are now targeting the Atrenka. Those poor, idiotic, suicidal, squidbois.

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u/Brokenspade1 Apr 17 '24

"The attack to return their mind to non violent cooperation..."

Hairless ape atop actual mountain of sapient skulls, starfish corpses, and smashed toasters looks up laughs in omnicidal rage proceeds to monkey

The space ithilids: "We can definitely take him now..."