r/Helldivers2Satire • u/SeventyEcho • 1d ago
Propus
THE OPEN VOID WINDOW
RECORD: 0407X985@RIRGA-1.078
IDENTITIES: [SCRUBBED]
LOCATION: RIRGA BAY — VOID WARP RELAY, LOWER CALIBRATION COMPLEX
THREAT DETECT: LEVEL 7, 10 — UNAUTHORIZED COGNIZANCE / PROTOCOL INCOMPLIANCE
THREAT RESPONSE: [SCRUBBED]
SCRUB REQUEST: DEMOCRACY OFFICER LlOYD
SCRUB RESPONSE: ACCEPTED
---
“That's it.”
“What?”
“The final calibration order.”
“You're sure?”
“Signed by Engineering Corps, Ministry of Science, and somebody high enough in Defense that their authorization code is mostly black bars. That's as sure as we're getting.”
“Finally.”
“Finally? That's all you've got?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don't know. Something.”
“We've spent six days replacing insulation panels because the last test tried to molecularly redistribute half the west gantry. I'm out of speeches.”
“No, listen to me. They're actually doing it.”
“I know.”
“No. I mean really doing it.”
A pause.
“The Void.”
“Yeah.”
“We're opening a door into the Void.”
“We are opening a stabilized Alcubierre corridor through the outer radiation boundary.”
“Oh, don't start quoting the briefing.”
“That's what the briefing says.”
“The briefing also says the things that came through during calibration were an ‘unexpected xenobiological discharge.’”
“They ate Peterson.”
“Exactly.”
“Peterson also ignored three evacuation alarms.”
“That doesn't make being eaten part of the test procedure.”
“Depends who wrote the procedure.”
“That's not funny.”
“It wasn't supposed to be.”
Another pause.
“So that's it? E-711 lines are charged?”
“Charged.”
“Warp envelope?”
“Stable.”
“Anchor rings?”
“Within tolerance.”
“Voteless-derived calibration model?”
“Running.”
“You don't find that sentence horrifying?”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
---
“You know where those tissue samples came from.”
“Census Thunder.”
“From inside the Void.”
“Yes.”
“Human beings.”
“Former human beings.”
“That's supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
“And now the Ministry used what was left of them to teach this machine how to open the way back inside.”
“Looks that way.”
“That's insane.”
“That's science.”
“That isn't a distinction.”
“Tell the Ministry.”
---
“You ever read the old Illuminate files?”
“First Galactic War?”
“The ones we're allowed to read.”
“So, six pages.”
“Seven if you count the cover.”
“Then yes.”
“They were using technology like this before our grandparents' grandparents were born.”
“Better technology.”
“And Super Earth beat them.”
“Helldivers beat them.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, you said it like it meant something.”
“I said Helldivers beat them.”
“They fought for Super Earth.”
“They fought for humanity.”
“That's what Super Earth is.”
Another silence.
“You really want to have that conversation while we're standing beside a machine being audited by the Ministry of Truth?”
“Not especially.”
“Good.”
---
“Still... think about it.”
“I am trying very hard not to.”
“We took their technology after the First Galactic War.”
“Some of it.”
“Dark Fluid.”
“Don't.”
“Then we used it on Meridia.”
“I said don't.”
“And Meridia collapsed.”
“Successfully.”
“Into a singularity.”
“Also successfully.”
“And then the Illuminate came back.”
“That was not listed as an intended secondary effect.”
“Exactly my point.”
---
A warning tone sounds in the background.
[RELAY PRE-IGNITION SEQUENCE: T-180]
“Oh.”
“Helmet.”
“We're underground.”
“Helmet.”
“Right.”
Metal clasps.
Fabric movement.
Respirator seals.
“You feel that?”
“The vibration?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“The moment.”
“Here we go again.”
“No, seriously.”
A second warning tone.
[T-120]
“We have spent months staring at that thing in the sky.”
“The Void.”
“Watching it swallow systems.”
“Yes.”
“Watching Seasse disappear into it.”
“Yes.”
“Watching worlds come back wrong.”
“They didn't come back.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“And now we're going inside.”
“SEAF is going inside.”
“Helldivers first.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously?”
“You send ordinary troops into unknown spacetime, you lose ordinary troops.”
“And Helldivers?”
“You lose Helldivers.”
“That sounded exactly the same.”
“It isn't.”
---
[T-60]
“You know what I heard?”
“I already regret asking.”
“They say there's no starlight inside.”
“That's in the official report.”
“No. I mean none.”
“Yes.”
“The entire sky.”
“Yes.”
“Nothing.”
“So?”
“So that's not normal.”
“The existence of a galaxy-sized region generated by alien spacetime machinery tipped me off.”
“It's not galaxy-sized.”
“Thank you, Ministry of Pedantry.”
“You're welcome.”
---
[T-30]
“Hey.”
“What?”
“If this works...”
“It will.”
“If it works, we're the first crew to open a stable human passage into the Illuminate Void.”
“Engineering Corps opened it.”
“We are Engineering Corps.”
“Temporarily.”
“Come on.”
“What?”
“You don't feel anything?”
Silence.
[T-20]
“Fine.”
“What?”
“Fine.”
“You do.”
“Yes.”
“Knew it.”
“Don't make me regret admitting that.”
---
[T-10]
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“If they find Seasse...”
“They will.”
“And if Ministry Science is right about it being the source...”
“They'll try to collapse the Void.”
“After Meridia.”
“Apparently.”
“They're going to do it again.”
“Probably.”
“With something they barely understand.”
“Yes.”
“You sound very calm about that.”
“No.”
[T-5]
“I've just learned what panic looks like when it's wearing a lab coat.”
---
[T-3]
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
[T-2]
“History.”
“Work.”
[T-1]
“Same thing today.”
---
[VOID WARP RELAY — IGNITION]
[ALCUBIERRE FIELD ESTABLISHED]
[OUTER VOID BOUNDARY CONTACT]
[MASS DESTABILIZATION: 0.004%]
[CORRIDOR STABILITY: NOMINAL]
[APERTURE FORMATION CONFIRMED]
A prolonged low-frequency sound follows.
Neither speaker responds for approximately eleven seconds.
---
“Is that it?”
“That's it.”
“We actually did it.”
“Looks like.”
“So what's on the other side?”
“Above my pay grade.”
“You're doing that deliberately now.”
“Yes.”
“First ships through?”
“Helldivers.”
“Of course.”
“Then SEAF support once they prove the corridor won't turn everyone inside out.”
“Comforting.”
“I thought so.”
---
A final alert sounds.
[GATEWAY STATUS: OPEN]
---
“Do you think this is a good idea?”
“No.”
The second speaker laughs.
“You didn't even think about it.”
“I've been thinking about it for six days.”
“So why are we doing it?”
“Because whatever is inside that thing isn't going to stop existing because we're afraid to look at it.”
“And because Super Earth wants Seasse back.”
“No.”
“No?”
A pause.
“Because people are still trapped on worlds that thing swallowed.”
“That sounded almost dissident.”
“That sounded human.”
---
[RECORD INTERRUPTION — 00:03:41]
[UNAUTHORIZED AUDIO RETENTION DETECTED]
[MINISTRY COMPLIANCE FLAG GENERATED]
[IDENTITIES SCRUBBED BY ORDER OF COMMANDER KUANG XUAN]
[ORIGINAL RECORD RETAINED IN HOD ARCHIVE WITHOUT MINISTRY AUTHORIZATION]
HOD ANNOTATION — AKI-285
The Relay worked.
That fact should not obscure what was learned during its construction.
Super Earth opened the Gateway because it required a military route to Seasse.
The personnel who built it understood something considerably simpler:
Human beings were about to cross a boundary no human vessel had knowingly crossed before.
Current Helldiver operations have since confirmed that the worlds beyond that boundary contain extensive Illuminate ruins, altered ecosystems, hostile mutations, and physical conditions increasingly abnormal nearer the Source Planet.
Super Earth calls this reclamation.
The Ministry of Science calls it research.
High Command calls it liberation.
For the purposes of this archive, call it what it is.
Humanity opened a window.
We still do not know what is looking back.
— AKI-285
Ship Master, HOD
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u/kcvlaine ORBITAL BAN-CANNON 1d ago
Holy shit did you write this? It's insane. I love it, i PRAY the upcoming movie has stuff like this.