Quoted By:
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The memory does not mellow with time. Even as warming hemolymph swirls through your hibernation casket and thaws your thoughts to a dull trickle, you recall the crescent-sting of iron upon your neck. Your bodily chemistry grants it emotional valence: a wrenching, suffocating sensation lodged deep inside your mind.
Guilt.
Humans knew it as guilt. Justified punishment for unjustified failure.
Your waking body shivers through neural mismatch. Phantom pain, from the alloy-clad hull you once inhabited – phantom sight, from the unblinking sensor-clusters through which you had once observed the endless dark. And phantom voices – whispers from your beloved captain and the legions of cloned ancillaries which formed your former crew.
The hibernation casket finishes its purge cycle. You collapse onto mirror-smooth deck plating. Slowly, you map actuation to stiff joints and atrophied muscle groups. Meter by meter, you drag yourself towards the bridge.
Here, matrix-bonded glass frames a panoramic view of surrounding space. The cobalt light of a dwarf star illuminates a silent congregation of dead warships, their silvery internals tracing the sweep of an elliptical orbit. Absentmindedly, you touch the emblem woven into the skin of your shoulder.
As you make your way to the command alcove, you notice an…object…meaningfully placed below the interface terminal. Your unpracticed hands marvel at its organic, smooth-grained texture. Unprompted, you remember fragments of:
>YOUR PAST.
>YOUR CREW.
>YOUR ENEMY.
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Welcome to Solstice Quest, an animated sci-fi quest with some optional skirmish/squadron management mechanics. I apologize in advance for my poor schedule this coming year – threads will probably be a little shorter than usual, but I will try to make up for it in animation fidelity.
As always, feedback and questions are welcome!
