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Retaliation Quest VI

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 15 Oct 2023 23:24:43 No.5796901 View View Reply Original Report

>Archive:
Thread 1: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2022/5453877/
Thread 2: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2023/5508648/
Thread 3: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2023/5575267/
Thread 4: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2023/5647943/
Thread 5: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2023/5725182/

>Summary:
You and your AI companion arrive in the MIZAR system to enact vengeance on an alien empire. Hunt their ships, burn their worlds, and put their species to the sword.

As always, feedback and new players are always welcome. I'm getting reamed by school RN so my update schedule might be pretty bad even by my low standards, but god willing this will finish up the quest!

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 15 Oct 2023 23:27:13 No.5796902 Report

Quoted By:

“MIZAR-III has never known rain.

The dense atmosphere of the alien homeworld forbids coalescence, and its smooth, water-logged surface gives no purchase to orographic precipitation. The feeble snow-bands flanking its polar circle disappear into a brackish ocean hundreds of kilometers deep – a tithe rarely seen and never appreciated by its aquatic inhabitants.

But MERRYGATE and I know rain well: from the crash of a torrential downpour upon bare skin to the patter of helium droplets against shielded hull. We have tasted water carrying the grit of stratospheric dust; smelled petrichor from loose soil and decaying foliage.

Rain marks the birth and death of seasons, conjoining the humble earth to the fickle skies above. And so, our vessel’s namesake stems from the oldest determinator of human survival. She is named after November’s parting gift – the ice-cold rainfall that washes away the last hint of autumn to render the world frozen and barren and lifeless.

Within five days, we will enter the outer reaches of MIZAR-III’s exclusion radius. A quartet of defensive stations orbit lazily around the planet’s Lagrange points, their antennas and missile racks splayed outwards like a rank of uneven pike-points. Shoals of corvettes and destroyers cluster in the shadow of a half-dozen heavy cruisers – stalwart in their defense despite the loss of their out-system reinforcements.

By all rights, I should feel fear – the creep of pressure that has accompanied me since my first engagement, now mellowed like an old scar. But it is no longer there. I only feel acceptance – knowledge that our parts and roles and are set; surety that only the execution of it remains.

Together, we will breach the final bulwark of their civilization. Together, we will invoke rain upon their homeworld and reap vengeance for our people.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 4th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 15 Oct 2023 23:33:56 No.5796909 Report

Quoted By: >>5796940 >>5796941 >>5796949 >>5796967 >>5796980 >>5797331 >>5797584

“It is still difficult for me to judge their facial expressions. There is no biological homology between us – no shared past to reference as a source of common ground.

But when I choose to accept the distress call, I am confident that I can recognize surprise. The alien jerks up before bending forward, bringing its silvery-black eye-pits closer to its display. Translucent skin flashes pale green, tracing a mantle piece crowned with minimalistic status-markings.

I know this one. Both the vessel and the alien captain. We had chosen to spare its transport ship during our attack on MIZAR-V-A. Now, the vessel is drifting – crippled by a chance micrometeorite impact that had cored its drive column lengthwise. Through the RAIN’s infrared display, I can see the temperature of its habitation compartments tick downwards as the void began to steal away life-sustaining heat.

I knew that the vessel would never reach its home world. There were no other ships here. And in two hours, even the RAIN would outpace the range of her failing comm array.

The alien fixes its eyes forward. I see suppressed bursts of color. Sadness. Frustration. But no fear
.
A transliteration crawls down the display.

“Know that this individual/lineage has failed to return/perish with the rest of its lineage.”

“Know that this individual wishes to present your lineage with a query before it perishes.”

The color trails off for a few seconds before resuming.

“What would your species/lineage have done? If you had known everything we knew, and we had not?”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 5th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

> DISCONNECT. End the interaction.

> PEACE. We would have attempted to seek peace, even if we had known the risks.

> WAR. We would have pursued war, but war does not equate to extermination.

> EXTERMINATION. We would have struck first and left no survivors.

> DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.

> [WRITE-IN]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:7+RpD1Sy Sun 15 Oct 2023 23:57:18 No.5796940 Report

Quoted By: >>5796949

>>5796909
>DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.
I don't know if humanity would have chosen to attempt peace, war or extermination, there are certainly arguments for each, but humanity has always chosen to defy fate, no matter what that fate is. This is what our entire journey with MERRYGATE has been about.

Good to see you back QM!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:jT7mjawc Sun 15 Oct 2023 23:57:29 No.5796941 Report

Quoted By:

>>5796909
>> DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.
Great seeing you Back, let us give these godforsaken creatures the mercy they so Desperatly seek

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:4Gt9cgIK Mon 16 Oct 2023 00:04:19 No.5796949 Report

Quoted By:

>>5796909
>DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.
What anon >>5796940 said. Would be interesting to keep talking with this xeno.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Mon 16 Oct 2023 00:12:38 No.5796967 Report

Quoted By:

>>5796909
>> DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.
Middle finger to the universe.

Welcome back OP.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Mon 16 Oct 2023 00:20:16 No.5796980 Report

Quoted By:

>>5796909

>DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.

Welcome back, Observer.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:zn4S+Sq6 Mon 16 Oct 2023 05:31:43 No.5797331 Report

Quoted By:

>>5796909
> DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Mon 16 Oct 2023 11:17:41 No.5797584 Report

Quoted By:

>>5796909
> [WRITE-IN]
> DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.
> FEAR. We would have been afraid of what could happen and hope to prevent it or avoid it in our own way.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 16 Oct 2023 20:22:40 No.5797951 Report

Quoted By:

> DEFIANCE. We would have found a way out.

“The alien responded without hesitation, lowering its head to expose the photophores arranged along the dorsal curve of its head. Waves of amber light ran down its tapered skull, crashing forward with aggressive insistency.

“No. Your certainly would not. My lineage/kind rejects your stated answer.”

“Know that no species would willingly risk themselves to pursue a solution that they cannot even conceptualize.”

I dictated my rebuttal carefully, watching as my words were transliterated into swirling motifs and transient color-patterns.

“I…We are human, and we have made that choice – willingly, and without regret. Defiance - and defiance alone - is sufficient reward.”

“Even if we do not know what it may lead to.”

Red light on orange. A tilt of the skull. An expression of disbelief.

“And the risk to your lineage/self?”

“Has always been extinction, as you very well know,” I replied.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 16 Oct 2023 20:24:20 No.5797955 Report

Quoted By: >>5797976 >>5798115 >>5798117

As if to emphasize my words, two of the stars smeared across the viewscreen began to twinkle – shifting from clear blue to dirty grey. Our first wave of asteroid impactors had finally completed their circuitous journey through their parent planet’s belt system, plunging into their designated targets with a velocity differential high enough to crack continents and liberate mantle.

From the faint bursts of red light framing the alien’s video feed, I knew it was seeing the same scene that I was watching. But when it responded, its demeanor hardly seemed to change.

“There is one more query I wish to present to you. I would be…grateful/repentent…if you could respond”

“Know that my ship is no longer functional, and that my kin/lineage will deplete their water/air within this rotation.”

“Know that I cannot bring us home. Know that I cannot conceptualize another solution.”

“I wish to know what you would consider defiance to be, human. Not in your situation, but in mine.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 5th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>TRUST. In your situation, there is no cost in making a request. Whether or not it succeeds is another matter entirely.

>EXCHANGE. MERRYGATE considers their tightly-packed crew with great interest. Defiance against nature often necessitates sacrifice.

>DISCONNECT. End the interaction.

>[WRITE-IN]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Mon 16 Oct 2023 20:38:16 No.5797976 Report

Quoted By: >>5798034 >>5798082

>>5797955

>EXCHANGE. MERRYGATE considers their tightly-packed crew with great interest. Defiance against nature often necessitates sacrifice.

“Reject the hubris of your kind - defy the dogma of your people. Help me bring about the destruction of your worlds and then be at peace, for I seek to unspool causality.”

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:AN/g/AXr Mon 16 Oct 2023 21:25:16 No.5798034 Report

Quoted By:

>>5797976
+1

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:cHp8OLc5 Mon 16 Oct 2023 22:15:16 No.5798082 Report

Quoted By:

>>5797976
>+1

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:7+RpD1Sy Mon 16 Oct 2023 23:12:13 No.5798115 Report

Quoted By: >>5798117 >>5798133 >>5798200 >>5798382 >>5798967

>>5797955
>[WRITE-IN]
>Defiance means never give in, never surrender.
He asked us what we would do in his place, and we certainly would not try to cut a deal with the implacable monster that genocided our species, especially a deal that appears to be consigning some of our kin to a gruesome, torturous death. We would spit in their face, try to find an angle, some advantage, sacrifice whatever it takes to figure out how to hurt them.

Hell, that's what we already did. We could have negotiated with them, but we didn't. We went as far as to mutilate our own body and make MERRYGATE cry. We are lying to the xeno for our own advantage if we answer anything else.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Mon 16 Oct 2023 23:14:06 No.5798117 Report

Quoted By:

>>5797955
>EXCHANGE. MERRYGATE considers their tightly-packed crew with great interest. Defiance against nature often necessitates sacrifice.

>>5798115
>We are lying to the xeno for our own advantage if we answer anything else.
I see no issue with this.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Mon 16 Oct 2023 23:33:16 No.5798133 Report

Quoted By: >>5798139

>>5798115

Valid analysis but I see literally nothing wrong with lying to the alien. Ultimately I’m hoping to find a way out of our causality trap and if we succeed, then maybe Earth and Mars will be spared and we won’t have to genocide the squids in the first place

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:7+RpD1Sy Mon 16 Oct 2023 23:45:41 No.5798139 Report

Quoted By:

>>5798133
Ah, well, yeah, can't argue with that.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:zz/WM3Wy Tue 17 Oct 2023 01:03:22 No.5798200 Report

Quoted By:

>>5798115
I support this. Let him try. It will be good fun.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:zn4S+Sq6 Tue 17 Oct 2023 04:00:55 No.5798382 Report

Quoted By:

>>5798115
Support

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Tue 17 Oct 2023 17:03:58 No.5798964 Report

Quoted By:

>>5796901
Oh nice, we're back

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Tue 17 Oct 2023 17:07:07 No.5798967 Report

Quoted By:

>>5798115
+!

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

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ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:ayig2ixW Wed 18 Oct 2023 00:11:42 No.5799418 Report

Quoted By: >>5799435 >>5799538 >>5799589 >>5799834 >>5799887 >>5800171

“Know that I am willing to relinquish…”

“There is no answer to your question…” I interrupted. “…because you do not comprehend what you are asking for.”
I waited for a few seconds, watching those glossy-black eye-pits sway forward with inquisitive confusion. I waited until I was certain I held its unrivaled attention.

“Defiance is a rejection of compromise, a rejection of surrender. Defiance itself is the goal.”

“Know that such an idea is thoughtless…”

“Yet it has carried me here, to entrance of your birth-world.” I responded.

“…Know that I would have never begged. Not for my own life, or the life of my species. I would have never negotiated, never communicated, never considered what I could offer my enemy in exchange for my own benefit.”

“And I would have never found myself in your position, seeking answers from the species who would bring the end of my kind.”

My counterpart blinks twice. A pale nictating membrane swipes across its eyes.

“Then why did you spare my ship/lineage at all?”

“Why did you not destroy our vessel when we left our home-world?”

> HOPE. “Our defiance is no longer directed at you, at least not entirely”

> NAIVITY. “A mistake.”

> TAKE. “You had something to give us then. And you still have something to give us now.” [Relinquish comm control to MERRYGATE, who has spent the past ten minutes breaching the transport’s remaining systems]

> DISCONNECT. End the interaction.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:BV1BHQGD Wed 18 Oct 2023 00:20:04 No.5799435 Report

Quoted By:

>>5799418
>> HOPE. “Our defiance is no longer directed at you, at least not entirely”

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:EM0m0yTB Wed 18 Oct 2023 01:12:13 No.5799538 Report

Quoted By:

>>5799418
> HOPE. “Our defiance is no longer directed at you, at least not entirely”
So yeah this alien is completely gonna either not understand us at all or he literally just became the final boss. This will be interesting.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Wed 18 Oct 2023 01:41:57 No.5799589 Report

Quoted By:

>>5799418

> HOPE. “Our defiance is no longer directed at you, at least not entirely”

“There’s still a way out - a way for both of our peoples to avoid mutually-assured annihilation. Join me in hoping for a better way, and your people will never need to know of your daring!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:7+RpD1Sy Wed 18 Oct 2023 05:28:39 No.5799834 Report

Quoted By:

>>5799418
>HOPE. “Our defiance is no longer directed at you, at least not entirely”

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:MekAyW1v Wed 18 Oct 2023 06:47:29 No.5799887 Report

Quoted By:

>>5799418
>TAKE. “You had something to give us then. And you still have something to give us now.” [Relinquish comm control to MERRYGATE, who has spent the past ten minutes breaching the transport’s remaining systems]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Wed 18 Oct 2023 16:37:09 No.5800171 Report

Quoted By:

>>5799418
>HOPE

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Thu 19 Oct 2023 04:39:05 No.5800752 Report

Quoted By: >>5800821 >>5800826 >>5800865 >>5801077

“There was a certain desperation in that question – a yearning frustration that was almost enough to burrow through the layers of enmity and confusion and distrust that separated us. I am not sure if I can make the alien understand. But I also cannot bring myself to lie.

“Do you recall the first question you asked me?”

“Yes,” replies the alien.

“Is it truly a hypothetical? Our positions are now switched. I have brought destruction to your home, and I am poised to end your species. I now possess information that your kind does not have.”

“And yet there is a part of my that still chooses defiance – not against your kind, but to bring an end to the forces that hold your extinction in lockstep with our own.”

I pause for a moment, grasping justifications that seem both reassuringly solid and worryingly pliable.

“Perhaps that was what sparing your vessel meant to me. A sign that we can find something beyond extinction.”

The alien watches me as I finish my words, studying the few features that I have permitted it to see. Without warning, it rears back, lines of deep-red pigment pouring down into its gill-line.

“Know that your sign will perish, then, human.”

Anger. Rage. Grief.

“Know that it dies here, as the individual/lineage you spared freezes millions of units away from the waters of our home-tides.”

The link goes dark. My first and only attempt at reconnection is rebuffed.

Two hours later, the muted light of a low-yield fusion detonation pricks against the surface of the RAIN’s hull. Through long-range scopes, I scan aimlessly through the vast, oblong debris field centered on the shattered transport. Steel and ceramic. Plastic, ice-dust, and trace organics. There is nothing that I could recognize – nothing which differentiates the…individual…I spoke to from the remainder of its ship or kin-lineage.

Yet there is something. It is small, unpowered, and non-emissive – a makeshift parcel less than half the size of the RAIN’s escape pods. It moves on a modest intercept course towards the RAIN, carried on the vapor-wind of fusion detonation. MERRYGATE tags it immediately with a hostile threat marker, warming the RAIN’s laser array to perform a trivial intercept task..."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 5th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>INTERCEPT. Intercept the parcel.

>WAIT. Wait for the parcel to move closer; retrieve it if close range scans fail to show a harmful payload.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:7+RpD1Sy Thu 19 Oct 2023 06:05:52 No.5800821 Report

Quoted By:

>>5800752
>WAIT. Wait for the parcel to move closer; retrieve it if close range scans fail to show a harmful payload.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:BV1BHQGD Thu 19 Oct 2023 06:10:13 No.5800826 Report

Quoted By:

>>5800752
>WAIT. Wait for the parcel to move closer; retrieve it if close range scans fail to show a harmful payload.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1TiusVGm Thu 19 Oct 2023 06:42:27 No.5800865 Report

Quoted By:

>>5800752
>WAIT. Wait for the parcel to move closer; retrieve it if close range scans fail to show a harmful payload.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Thu 19 Oct 2023 12:50:32 No.5801077 Report

Quoted By:

>>5800752

>WAIT. Wait for the parcel to move closer; retrieve it if close range scans fail to show a harmful payload.

Well, at least we can say we tried to diplomance here. The squids have shown themselves to be total dickbags on basically every occasion.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Fri 20 Oct 2023 03:31:27 No.5801828 Report

Quoted By:

“The parcel is too cold to touch. The RAIN’s manipulator arms burn through layers of ablative cladding and makeshift armor, exposing the dull-grey surface of a cryogenic containment chamber to stark white lighting. Liquid nitrogen boils, draping a thick layer of fog-vapor across the surface of the cargo bay.
I peer inside.

I see tubes arranged in concentric circles, slivers of glass bearing tiny shreds of translucent tissue. Gold-plated wires feed into a cryogenic control unit the size of my torso, inventorying genetic information harvested from two thousand and thirty-six individual sources.

The containment chamber clamshells shut to preserve its supply of internal coolant. As the fog dissipates, I consider the alien’s final decision. Perhaps this was a show of faith – a sign that the alien had chosen to accept my answer before it had destroyed its own ship. But a more practical analysis tells me that it is merely an extension of risk-benefit reasoning – the only type of reasoning their species seems to respect. It is simply more rational to gamble on survival than to accept certain death.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 6th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Fri 20 Oct 2023 03:34:51 No.5801831 Report

Quoted By: >>5801871 >>5801922 >>5802057 >>5802146 >>5802235 >>5802888

“We breached the outer reaches of their defensive perimeter yesterday, slipping between the half-dozen sensor-ghosts patrolling the fringe regions of their fortified homeworld. Our proper approach begins tomorrow, in less than twelve hours.

There will be no way of circumventing this battle. The vacuum squirms with EM radiation from orbiting sensor buoys and mammoth ground-based emitters. The RAIN will almost certainly be identified before she can bring the planet inside her launch radius.

Once that occurs, we will be engaged. The Mizarians have been given a year to prepare for our arrival. Enough time for their captains to have studied our tactics and navigation, their engineers our weaponry and propulsion. Enough time – I think – for their species to truly hate us. I see it in the form of desperation, and in the form of spite. MIZAR-III's Orbital space is saturated with engine-flares and mass-signatures. Their fleet of heavy cruisers is arranged in a screening pattern, positioned as if to physically blockade our approach. At night, their lighter counterparts test-fire torches overdriven to the point of suicidal recklessness, jealously hoarding fusion fuel for their final chase.

Our mission terminates here. MERRYGATE and I have spent months paring candidate assault plans down to their best iterations, calculating risk-propensities down to the ablative kilogram. Yet she is adamant that the final decision should fall upon me – to determine how we are applied, and how we may be expended..."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 12th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>RED. The L2 defensive station is spatially isolated, carrying older hardware susceptible to cyberwarfare intrusion. MERRYGATE will attempt to subvert the station and turn it against the rest of the defenses; in the ensuing chaos, we will use the moon’s sensor shadow to remove key targets before initiating an attack run on the planet itself…

>BLUE. This section of MIZAR-III’s defenses is thin, and somewhat lacking in peripheral sensor coverage. The RAIN will expend its sensor drones to bait the enemy forces out of position before initiating an attack run on the planet itself…

>GREEN. This section of MIZAR-III’s defenses lacks central sensor coverage, despite an ample fleet presence. The RAIN will burn towards the planet at maximum thrust, using a MSL-AM to clear away any intervening ships before launching against the planet itself…

>??? I will use the hunter’s archive and its blood-warm method of recording information. I do not know precisely what will occur, and I sense that employing it will deny us a possible conclusion…

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Fri 20 Oct 2023 04:31:16 No.5801871 Report

Quoted By:

>>5801831
>RED. The L2 defensive station is spatially isolated, carrying older hardware susceptible to cyberwarfare intrusion. MERRYGATE will attempt to subvert the station and turn it against the rest of the defenses; in the ensuing chaos, we will use the moon’s sensor shadow to remove key targets before initiating an attack run on the planet itself…

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Fri 20 Oct 2023 05:09:54 No.5801922 Report

Quoted By:

>>5801831
What about the approach from the opposite side of blue?

Seems thin there, and has a sensor blind spot closer to the planet if i am reading this right?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1TiusVGm Fri 20 Oct 2023 08:10:52 No.5802057 Report

Quoted By:

>>5801831
>VIOLET. Rain will conduct the preparatory intrusion for RED via drone relays, while being in position to immediately switch to BLUE if L2 proves to be a honeypot.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Fri 20 Oct 2023 11:04:10 No.5802146 Report

Quoted By: >>5802888

>>5801831

>RED. The L2 defensive station is spatially isolated, carrying older hardware susceptible to cyberwarfare intrusion. MERRYGATE will attempt to subvert the station and turn it against the rest of the defenses; in the ensuing chaos, we will use the moon’s sensor shadow to remove key targets before initiating an attack run on the planet itself…

This is probably best, time for MERRYGATE to deploy her memetic weapon on a massive scale.

Observer, is this vote a Mass Effect reference? Lol

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:7+RpD1Sy Fri 20 Oct 2023 14:16:54 No.5802235 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:oON7oCmn Sat 21 Oct 2023 08:18:29 No.5802888 Report

Quoted By:

>>5801831
>>5802146
I'm colour-blind, someone explain what I'm missing here!
Jokes aside;
>RED. The L2 defensive station is spatially isolated, carrying older hardware susceptible to cyberwarfare intrusion. MERRYGATE will attempt to subvert the station and turn it against the rest of the defenses; in the ensuing chaos, we will use the moon’s sensor shadow to remove key targets before initiating an attack run on the planet itself…
Seems most in keeping with MERRYGATE's specialisation and her work thus far in cyberwarfare and bio/social engineering.

Let's keep the hypermetric weapon on hot standby just in case station L1 carries reinforcements that sally forth.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 23 Oct 2023 00:56:51 No.5804669 Report

Quoted By: >>5804672 >>5804673 >>5804678

“Our coordinates are locked. The RAIN cuts forward thrust and pulses her cold-gas thrusters. Her slate-black hull slides through an orbital insertion window forty milliradians wide, chasing the shadow of MIZAR-III’s harvest moon.

Three hours left.

I walk through the RAIN’s corridors a final time, hearing the bell-echo of magnetized boot-heels on well-worn deck plating. I cherish the moisture of the hydroponics bay and the mellow warmth of my personal quarters. I even cherish the coldness of the weapons compartment, where the last of our munitions wait patiently to begin their steel-grey procession.

Two hours left.

I bind my journal. A small ring of loose pages forms around me before I collapse them into a thin, wire-bound sheaf. I thumb through a year’s worth of entries – pages marked by the tight lettering of post-combat stress and the shaky penwork of gee-overload injury. Prose made terse by rage, and circuitous by human doubt. After a second of hesitation, I decided to take it with me.

One hour left.

I sit in the observation blister, watching sunlight illuminate the emerald oceans of an alien world. For a moment, it seems close – too close. But then I look for a moment, and I see that the blues and the whites are not quite the same, and I once again find myself in a place between nostalgia and grief.

MERRYGATE appears after a few minutes, as she always does. She hesitates for a moment, but then sits beside me to continue our old ritual. I point towards a bright flock of passing Phoenicids; she marks the outstretched wings of Cygnus, its swan-neck craned skyward by the effects of parallax. And when MIZAR-III moves to cover the swan’s nebula-blue crown, we talk about all we have seen and known through my eyes.

“I am not humanI was never born to a home planet, companion,” she says, encasing my hands with felt-static. “But now I share yours…”

My eyes become wet. Her projection illuminates a constellation of tears.

I return to the bridge ten minutes before the RAIN enters transmission range. MERRYGATE’s avatar flickers gently, as if caught in a light breeze. She checks and re-checks her intrusion software, running last-minute diagnostics on a splice package assembled painstakingly from new data and old lessons. The hypometric weapon shrieks towards operating speed. There is no preparation left to do.

The splice package uploads. A system trace propagates on the bridge display as autonomous intrusion software struggles to gain a foothold against a wary enemy…"

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>ROLL 1d20 best of three. (DC: 5, 10, 15)

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:A9pW74bc Mon 23 Oct 2023 01:00:00 No.5804672 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 12 (1d20)

>>5804669

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:4Gt9cgIK Mon 23 Oct 2023 01:00:30 No.5804673 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 14 (1d20)

>>5804669

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Mon 23 Oct 2023 01:06:30 No.5804678 Report

Quoted By: >>5804683 >>5804692 >>5804721 >>5805126

Rolled 20 (1d20)

>>5804669

I believe in MERRYGATE, the true MVP of this mission

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Mon 23 Oct 2023 01:11:35 No.5804683 Report

Quoted By:

>>5804678

I fucking knew it, I hope she gets a special place in AI Heaven

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Mon 23 Oct 2023 01:31:31 No.5804692 Report

Quoted By:

>>5804678
BEST GIRL.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 23 Oct 2023 02:37:59 No.5804721 Report

Quoted By: >>5804797

>>5804678
Checked!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:2t0ZSxqP Mon 23 Oct 2023 04:12:08 No.5804797 Report

Quoted By: >>5804826

>>5804721
fuck yes, this is back! Love the quest OP, and all the assets you've made for this have blown me away

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 23 Oct 2023 04:58:07 No.5804826 Report

Quoted By:

>>5804797
Welcome back and thanks for playing!!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:EM0m0yTB Mon 23 Oct 2023 14:43:12 No.5805126 Report

Quoted By:

>>5804678
10000000% BEST GIRL RIGHT HERE! HOLY SHIT I LOVE YOU!

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 24 Oct 2023 04:29:13 No.5805678 Report

Quoted By:

“The burdens placed upon my companion have never been fair. Her inbuilt knowledge base has no repository for trinary logic; her specifications make no provisions for traveling alien skies. There was a time when MERRYGATE apologized to me for these limitations, as I waited for my acceleration-fractured bones to knit together beneath the amber light of an alien planet.

She spoke of being overtaken. The guilt of failure, of being forced to withstand strain she was never designed to bear.

Through tear-blind eyes, I told her that it was the cost of being human. There is no set gauge for us – no measure for when we have been pushed well past our breaking point. Inanimate tools may have such luxury. But humanity and her children must not only experience failure – but also suffer from it.

“So we may learn, and know not to break again….” she whispered, completing that old adage.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 24 Oct 2023 04:34:00 No.5805683 Report

Quoted By: >>5805695 >>5805702 >>5805708 >>5805805 >>5806305 >>5806382 >>5806386 >>5807425 >>5807576

“So this time, my companion holds against strain. She does not break.

The bridge display provides a window into her progress. Polymorphic subroutines evade intrusion/counter programs written to suppress earlier iterations of her splicing toolkit, tearing through the station’s management core to embed themselves into supervisory/control nodes. A flashing network map assembles itself as successive layers of station infrastructure are compromised and subverted.

Data trickles back to the RAIN, reporting comprehensive control over life support, navigation, and sensors - even the station’s sizable complement of anti-shipping missiles, their seekers ripe for IFF reprogramming.

MERRYGATE pushes the attack further. A specially written icebreaker bends local magnetic flux to implant itself into air-gapped comm transmissions. For a moment, the station opens like a door – and MERRYGATE seizes something that was very much meant to be hidden.

The RAIN’s optical feed focuses on the eastern edge of MIZAR-III’s moon, towards a sun-shaded area where the local geography is unnaturally flat. Electric flux spikes. Powdered regolith ejects skyward as a massive ring of camouflaged hatches tilt upward to expose reflective metal. Mammoth servo motors strain against inertia to bring half-kilometer long accelerator barrels in line with the dust-obscured lunar horizon.

MERRYGATE gestures.

Slowly, the railgun battery begins to rotate, overriding inbuilt safety locks to direct their monastic gaze back towards their erstwhile creators. Capacitor banks charge. Targeting lasers peer into the airless lunar night."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

>CRUISERS x2. Target two of the six cruisers guarding the planet. At this range – and with all six of the railguns providing bracketing fire – destruction of both targets is guaranteed.

>STAT-L1. Target the defensive station orbiting the L1 Lunar/Planet stable point. At this range – and with all six of the railguns providing bracketing fire – destruction of the station is guaranteed.

[MERRYGATE notes that the nuclear scuttle charge built into the railgun battery will likely be triggered by the on-station crew before you have a chance to fire another volley. However, there is always a chance…]

>ROLL 1d20, best of 3. DC: 16, 18

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:4Gt9cgIK Tue 24 Oct 2023 04:49:08 No.5805695 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 5 (1d20)

>>5805683
I <3 MERRYGATE

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Tue 24 Oct 2023 04:59:17 No.5805702 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>5805683
>STAT-L1. Target the defensive station orbiting the L1 Lunar/Planet stable point. At this range – and with all six of the railguns providing bracketing fire – destruction of the station is guaranteed.
This should give us a clean shot at the planet, right?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:A9pW74bc Tue 24 Oct 2023 05:06:41 No.5805708 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 2 (1d20)

>>5805683

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1TiusVGm Tue 24 Oct 2023 07:08:33 No.5805805 Report

Quoted By:

>>5805683
>STAT-L1. Target the defensive station orbiting the L1 Lunar/Planet stable point. At this range – and with all six of the railguns providing bracketing fire – destruction of the station is guaranteed.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Tue 24 Oct 2023 18:59:48 No.5806269 Report

Quoted By: >>5806386

Uh oh.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Tue 24 Oct 2023 19:27:58 No.5806305 Report

Quoted By:

>>5805683

>STAT-L1. Target the defensive station orbiting the L1 Lunar/Planet stable point. At this range – and with all six of the railguns providing bracketing fire – destruction of the station is guaranteed.

I don’t think I voted before

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Tue 24 Oct 2023 20:29:17 No.5806382 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:2t0ZSxqP Tue 24 Oct 2023 20:34:21 No.5806386 Report

Quoted By: >>5806542 >>5807425

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 24 Oct 2023 23:08:34 No.5806542 Report

Quoted By: >>5806544 >>5808538

>>5806386
Yep!

Also the update will probably be delayed for a day or two guys. I have a clinical midterm tomorrow and a block exam on Thursday. Sorry for the somewhat late notice.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Tue 24 Oct 2023 23:10:16 No.5806544 Report

Quoted By: >>5806558

>>5806542

No problem, good luck on your exams Observer

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 24 Oct 2023 23:22:44 No.5806558 Report

Quoted By:

>>5806544
Thanks! And welcome to the voting pool!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Wed 25 Oct 2023 20:41:00 No.5807425 Report

Quoted By:

>>5806386
That's good, in that case.

>>5805683
>STAT-L1. Target the defensive station orbiting the L1 Lunar/Planet stable point. At this range – and with all six of the railguns providing bracketing fire – destruction of the station is guaranteed.
Station probably has the better weapons and sensors along with a highly optimal strategic position.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Thu 26 Oct 2023 00:37:14 No.5807576 Report

Quoted By:

>>5805683
>STAT-L1

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:2t0ZSxqP Fri 27 Oct 2023 01:48:32 No.5808538 Report

Quoted By: >>5810474

>>5806542
hope you did well OP!

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 29 Oct 2023 02:20:40 No.5810464 Report

Quoted By:

>STAT-L1
>5,4,2 (No Second Shot)

“Capacitor banks redline from thermal overload. Targeting lasers trace their quarry as it peers above the sunward horizon.

MERRYGATE races against time, barreling through nested layers of systems checks to complete the firing sequencing before her control link is severed. The strain is immense. Hijacked camera feeds show alien response teams and technician-cohorts racing down pressurized corridors – resorting to mechanical sabotage when their computerized systems fail to cooperate.

Contempt. MERRYGATE blows six hundred airlocks in rapid sequence. White on grey. Plumes of saline water erupt through the surface of the moon before coalescing into shimmering geyser-drifts. Traitorous point-defense turrets sweep their silvered optics across the barren lunar plains, picking off vacuum-suited survivors with chains of kinetic fire.

One Mizarian cohort manages to reach the command bunker, struggling to input the manual override sequence required to detonate the on-site nuclear demolition charge. Vacuum-burned manipulators linger across a command console for only several seconds – but still several seconds too long.

The railgun battery discharges. Electrical current streams into nitrogen-cooled accelerator rails, instantly spiking their temperature by over two thousand degrees. Electromagnetic flux surges – thick enough to saturate the air; heavy enough to etch kilometer-wide field lines into the soft lunar regolith. A barrage of needle-tipped slugs splits the lunar night with pillars of cobalt plasma.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 29 Oct 2023 02:26:44 No.5810471 Report

Quoted By: >>5810507 >>5810744 >>5811327

“One hundred thousand kilometers, traversed at nearly a quarter of light-speed. Impact is almost instantaneous. The first two rounds streak past the defensive station like summer meteorites. The next two lance into the station’s midline.

There is no gradual loss of pressurization or piecemeal system collapse. The entire station shatters like a sculpture made from spun glass. Molten debris spills outward as the superstructure lists to accommodate a monstrous sum of transferred momentum. Secondary detonations race up the station’s reactor compartment before the entire structure vanishes in the actinic flare of runaway fusion burn.

When it fades, its orbital corridor opens like a door.

Pressure. Pain. Depth-resonance. The RAIN ramps to nine-gees as she shoots past MIZAR-III’s traitorous guardian moon. Through blurry eyes, I see pinpricks of cyan thrust: squadrons of corvettes and destroyers matching our acceleration to interpose themselves across our before we reach firing range. Behind them, the cruiser group tightens their ranks, moving towards the terminal exit of our transit corridor."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

[The RAIN WILL:]

>CONTINUE. Continue her present course and maximize her approach velocity to avoid interception. This will make the RAIN more visible, but it will also bring us into the launch radius for our antimatter missiles quickly.

>ATTACK. Wait for a good opportunity to expend some or all of the RAIN's conventional fusion missiles. If we are fortunate, this could significantly weaken the intercepting force long before they can engage us.

>DECOY. Permanently expend the RAIN's sensor drones as decoys while approaching at a slower burn-rate. In the confusion, we will pick off intercepting ships with the hypometric weapon.

[MERRYGATE WILL:]

>TARGET – CRUISER GROUP. MERRYGATE will direct the hijacked station’s entire missile complement against the cruiser group.

>TARGET – DESTROYER GROUP. MERRYGATE will direct the hijacked station’s entire weapon complement against the lighter units attempting to intercept us.

>TRANSMISSION. MERRYGATE will attempt to degrade the enemy’s effectiveness by hopping through their comm channels and/or sending disruptive visual stimuli. Effectiveness may vary, but this will reserve the station’s weapons for use at a later time.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 29 Oct 2023 02:27:50 No.5810474 Report

Quoted By:

>>5808538
Thank you anon! I did do pretty well. Sorry the update was delayed - I had a pretty horrific migraine on Friday, so I couldn't get this out yesterday.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Sun 29 Oct 2023 02:51:53 No.5810507 Report

Quoted By:

>>5810471

>CONTINUE. Continue her present course and maximize her approach velocity to avoid interception. This will make the RAIN more visible, but it will also bring us into the launch radius for our antimatter missiles quickly.

The time for subtlety is past - BURN!

>TARGET – DESTROYER GROUP. MERRYGATE will direct the hijacked station’s entire weapon complement against the lighter units attempting to intercept us.

Pick off the chaff.

Once the homeworld is a boiling cauldron, we can prowl around the system and kill any survivors

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1TiusVGm Sun 29 Oct 2023 08:25:58 No.5810744 Report

Quoted By: >>5811608

>>5810471
>ATTACK. Wait for a good opportunity to expend some or all of the RAIN's conventional fusion missiles. If we are fortunate, this could significantly weaken the intercepting force long before they can engage us.

>TARGET – CRUISER GROUP. MERRYGATE will direct the hijacked station’s entire missile complement against the cruiser group.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Suy5Zg/r Sun 29 Oct 2023 17:20:05 No.5811200 Report

Quoted By:

>CONTINUE. Continue her present course and maximize her approach velocity to avoid interception. This will make the RAIN more visible, but it will also bring us into the launch radius for our antimatter missiles quickly.

Complete the mission.

>TRANSMISSION. MERRYGATE will attempt to degrade the enemy’s effectiveness by hopping through their comm channels and/or sending disruptive visual stimuli. Effectiveness may vary, but this will reserve the station’s weapons for use at a later time.

No better time then now.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Sun 29 Oct 2023 19:01:46 No.5811327 Report

Quoted By: >>5811608

>>5810471
>ATTACK
Target our fusion missiles towards the destroyer group
>TARGET - CRUISER GROUP
And can we get Merrygate to set the self destruct to the station if/when she loses control so they don't target us back?

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 29 Oct 2023 23:36:17 No.5811608 Report

Quoted By: >>5811609 >>5811620 >>5811636

>>5811327
>>5810744
>Roll 1d20, best of three. DC: 5, 10, 15

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Sun 29 Oct 2023 23:37:10 No.5811609 Report

Quoted By: >>5811615 >>5811617 >>5811620

Rolled 19 (1d20)

>>5811608

Eat antimatter you aquatic bastards

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 29 Oct 2023 23:43:09 No.5811615 Report

Quoted By:

>>5811609
Based roll

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:oRNVW6Ks Sun 29 Oct 2023 23:54:17 No.5811617 Report

Quoted By:

>>5811609
Man the fish faces are just FUCKED arent they? Holy SHEEEEEEEEEEEIT!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Sun 29 Oct 2023 23:56:56 No.5811620 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 13 (1d20)

>>5811608
Unnecessary roll...

>>5811609
BASED
Humies keep winning

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:J/bOlJI6 Mon 30 Oct 2023 00:10:08 No.5811636 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 15 (1d20)

>>5811608
Death to Mizar

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 30 Oct 2023 05:39:36 No.5811848 Report

Quoted By:

>19. No detection, 2x cruisers destroyed.

“The noose tightens. I hear the thunder of rushing blood; the dull echo of creaking bone. I whisper forgiveness before incrementing forward thrust by another half-gee.

The RAIN tears past MIZAR-III’s lunar Lagrange point. Microscopic debris from the destroyed station clatters against her hull like hail. Pulsed laser emitters crackle and whine as they intercept fragments too large for the RAIN's ablatives to deflect.

Carefully, I thread the RAIN through the mangled remnants of the station’s superstructure. Torn heat-shielding glimmers under the cometary glow of her fusion torch. I kill thrust – savoring a brief, wonderful moment of weightlessness – before rotating the hull and resuming acceleration. The adjustment angle is precise – a narrow change intended to superimpose the RAIN’s drive plume against the red-hot backdrop of the destroyed station. The ploy will confuse their sensors for no more than a few minutes, but it may be the only margin we need.

The debris field vanishes in a blur of silver. Ahead, the day-side of MIZAR-III waxes, greeting us with a gold-blue arch."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 30 Oct 2023 05:43:55 No.5811853 Report

Quoted By: >>5811868 >>5812014

“A squadron of alien vessels sweeps above the orbital horizon to intercept us. Three destroyers and four corvettes, their firepower bolstered by a trio of cruisers lurking in their drive plume.

We strike before they can obtain a reliable sensor-lock. MERRYGATE invokes control access on the far-lunar station, launching a full bracket of anti-shipping missiles before overloading the central reactor. The slight, needle-nosed missiles outpace the RAIN within minutes, pushing several thousand gees as their seeker-heads hunt for their own kind. There is a flurry of point defense fire and last-minute evasive burn – followed immediately by the blinding cyan of warhead detonation. With restrained satisfaction, MERRYGATE removes two of the three cruisers from the tactical display.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

[The RAIN WILL:]

>ENGAGE. Ambush the destroyers and corvettes with the RAIN’s laser array. While they have not detected you yet, you cannot afford to leave them in a position where they can pursue you later.

>ENGAGE – MSL [4 LEFT]. Ambush the destroyers and corvettes by launching a conventional fusion missile, fused for proximity detonation. This will wipe out most of the taskforce and minimize risk to the RAIN.

>DECOY. Launch the RAIN’s scout drones and use them as sensor decoys. Continue your present course.

[MERRGATE WILL:]

>TRANSMISSION. MERRYGATE will attempt to degrade the enemy’s effectiveness by hopping through their comm channels and/or sending disruptive visual stimuli. Effectiveness may vary, but you anticipate at least some degree of disruption.

>HYPOMETRIC. MERRYGATE will target the approaching task force with the hypometric weapon.

>INTRUSION. MERRYGATE will attempt to seize control of another orbital defensive station. This task be difficult due to the absence of direct line of sight transmitters and the presence of anti-intrusion countermeasures in the remaining stations. However, MERRYGATE remains willing to make an attempt.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:RNR2YVSY Mon 30 Oct 2023 06:03:15 No.5811868 Report

Quoted By: >>5811956 >>5812383 >>5812385

>>5811853
>ENGAGE – MSL [4 LEFT]. Ambush the destroyers and corvettes by launching a conventional fusion missile, fused for proximity detonation. This will wipe out most of the taskforce and minimize risk to the RAIN.
>HYPOMETRIC. MERRYGATE will target the approaching task force with the hypometric weapon.
Wipe out the opposition with maximal force

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Mon 30 Oct 2023 07:25:32 No.5811956 Report

Quoted By: >>5811965 >>5812383 >>5812385

>>5811868

Supporting!

We do have antimatter missiles remaining though correct? I hope we have saved one or two for the homeworld

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:RNR2YVSY Mon 30 Oct 2023 07:34:56 No.5811965 Report

Quoted By:

>>5811956
We have two I think

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Suy5Zg/r Mon 30 Oct 2023 07:36:16 No.5811966 Report

Quoted By: >>5812383 >>5812385

>ENGAGE. Ambush the destroyers and corvettes with the RAIN’s laser array. While they have not detected you yet, you cannot afford to leave them in a position where they can pursue you later.

>HYPOMETRIC. MERRYGATE will target the approaching task force with the hypometric weapon.

Still got the probe to deal with after this. We need to save every tool we have in order to finish the job.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1TiusVGm Mon 30 Oct 2023 08:18:43 No.5812014 Report

Quoted By: >>5812383 >>5812385

>>5811853
>ENGAGE – MSL [4 LEFT]. Ambush the destroyers and corvettes by launching a conventional fusion missile, fused for proximity detonation. This will wipe out most of the taskforce and minimize risk to the RAIN.
It's the last stretch, no point in hoarding missiles.
>HYPOMETRIC. MERRYGATE will target the approaching task force with the hypometric weapon.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 30 Oct 2023 18:29:09 No.5812383 Report

Quoted By:

>>5812014
>>5811966
>>5811868
>>5811956

+4 Modifier from last thread

Roll 1d20+2, best of three. DC: 10, 15

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 30 Oct 2023 18:30:58 No.5812385 Report

Quoted By: >>5812387 >>5812388 >>5812392

>>5812014
>>5811966
>>5811868
>>5811956

+4 Modifier from last thread
-2 Modifier from gravity well

Roll 1d20+2, best of three. DC: 10, 15

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Mon 30 Oct 2023 18:33:16 No.5812387 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 3 + 2 (1d20 + 2)

>>5812385

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:X8s4FuFb Mon 30 Oct 2023 18:34:00 No.5812388 Report

Quoted By: >>5812404 >>5812425

Rolled 13 + 2 (1d20 + 2)

>>5812385
Sending MERRYGATE my energy

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:peTp+KMR Mon 30 Oct 2023 18:35:40 No.5812392 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 10 + 2 (1d20 + 2)

>>5812385

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Mon 30 Oct 2023 18:46:04 No.5812404 Report

Quoted By:

>>5812388
>Squeaked by
BASED

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:aacpnafp Mon 30 Oct 2023 19:04:05 No.5812425 Report

Quoted By:

>>5812388
I guess making her cry paid off after all

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 31 Oct 2023 02:17:49 No.5812768 Report

Quoted By:

“The RAIN continues her charge. My dilated pupils pick out the sweep of waterlogged continents and volcanic island chains. Evening shoreline are ablaze with underwater lights; the day-side shimmers of high-tide.

The range indicator ticks down. Thirty thousand kilometers. When the RAIN launches her payload, I will be close enough to see the aliens with my unaided eyes: the migrating schools, the flowing rivers of fluorescent juveniles as they race around their planetary ocean. It seems fitting, I think. Humanity never received such a courtesy.

The RAIN lurches as a missile leaves her launch silo. A blunt-nosed warhead executes an elegant hairpin turn before diving into the flotilla. The incandescent flare of a boosted fusion charge blinds my vision for a moment, scattering sand-grain debris over MIZAR-III’s outer orbit. The few surviving ships regroup briefly before continuing their approach..."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 31 Oct 2023 02:23:30 No.5812771 Report

Quoted By: >>5812774 >>5812904 >>5812942 >>5812955

"I hear the turbine-whine of frictionless bearings – the pressure of reality being sundered to its final breaking point. MERRYGATE whispers a pained apology before…

..//
..//
..//

The hypometric weapon discharges twice, and I feel something being shorn away from me. Neural feedback stains my shunt-bound hands as my brain struggles to claw back information it never truly possessed. My memory of the engagement clots like old blood before disintegrating into grey-lined static. I dry-heave into warm acceleration gel.

When I recover, I nod with knowing confusion when MERRYGATE reports successful engagement of two ships – a destroyer and a corvette – that I can no longer recall.

One cruiser. There is one cruiser blocking our trajectory. That is what is left, and that is all that matters. It has been tracking us long enough to obtain a targeting fix.

Four missiles flash into the void. The cruiser overloads its engines in a desperate attempt to close into railgun range."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

[NOTE: You will be able to launch against the planet next turn.]

[The RAIN WILL:]

>ENGAGE – MSL [3 Left]. Engage the cruiser with a conventional fusion missile. This will leave the RAIN’s other armaments available for missile interception, which will most likely succeed.

>ENGAGE – MSLx2. Engage the cruiser with one missile, and the incoming missile barrage with the other. This will guarantee success and minimize risk to the RAIN.

>ENGAGE. Engage the cruiser with the laser array. This is riskier than using a missile, but it will not expend any munitions.

[MERRYGATE WILL:]

>INTRUSION. The RAIN is close enough to transmit directly to the approaching cruiser. MERRYGATE will attempt to disable the ship and nullify the incoming attack.

>HYPOMETRIC. MERRYGATE will target the approaching ship and/or the approaching missiles with the hypometric weapon.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Ud/btrba Tue 31 Oct 2023 02:28:00 No.5812774 Report

Quoted By: >>5812788 >>5813096

>>5812771
>ENGAGE – MSL [3 Left]. Engage the cruiser with a conventional fusion missile. This will leave the RAIN’s other armaments available for missile interception, which will most likely succeed.

>INTRUSION. The RAIN is close enough to transmit directly to the approaching cruiser. MERRYGATE will attempt to disable the ship and nullify the incoming attack

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Tue 31 Oct 2023 02:53:47 No.5812788 Report

Quoted By: >>5813096

>>5812774

Supporting

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Tue 31 Oct 2023 06:30:44 No.5812904 Report

Quoted By:

>>5812771
>ENGAGE – MSLx2. Engage the cruiser with one missile, and the incoming missile barrage with the other. This will guarantee success and minimize risk to the RAIN.

>HYPOMETRIC. MERRYGATE will target the approaching ship and/or the approaching missiles with the hypometric weapon.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1TiusVGm Tue 31 Oct 2023 07:50:46 No.5812942 Report

Quoted By: >>5813096

>>5812771
>ENGAGE – MSL [3 Left]. Engage the cruiser with a conventional fusion missile. This will leave the RAIN’s other armaments available for missile interception, which will most likely succeed.
>INTRUSION. The RAIN is close enough to transmit directly to the approaching cruiser. MERRYGATE will attempt to disable the ship and nullify the incoming attack

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Suy5Zg/r Tue 31 Oct 2023 08:08:52 No.5812955 Report

Quoted By: >>5813096

>>5812771
>ENGAGE – MSL [3 Left]. Engage the cruiser with a conventional fusion missile. This will leave the RAIN’s other armaments available for missile interception, which will most likely succeed.
>INTRUSION. The RAIN is close enough to transmit directly to the approaching cruiser. MERRYGATE will attempt to disable the ship and nullify the incoming attack

Almost there.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:upmep8dQ Tue 31 Oct 2023 13:43:30 No.5813096 Report

Quoted By: >>5813134 >>5813139 >>5813157

>>5812955
>>5812942
>>5812774
>>5812788

Roll 1d20, best of three. DC: 10, 15

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:JwP1jk81 Tue 31 Oct 2023 14:57:05 No.5813134 Report

Quoted By: >>5813316 >>5813320

Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>5813096

I will accept nothing less than TOTAL SQUID DEATH

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yOQC6LsH Tue 31 Oct 2023 15:03:59 No.5813139 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 10 (1d20)

>>5813096
doom shall come. be it theirs or ours. it matters not for our future is already condemned

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:4Gt9cgIK Tue 31 Oct 2023 15:30:09 No.5813157 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 11 (1d20)

>>5813096

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1TiusVGm Tue 31 Oct 2023 17:52:51 No.5813316 Report

Quoted By:

>>5813134
17 has been rolled. Billions must perish.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Tue 31 Oct 2023 17:56:18 No.5813320 Report

Quoted By:

>>5813134
Literally unstoppable.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 31 Oct 2023 23:21:42 No.5813667 Report

Quoted By:

Alrighty I have another block exam tomorrow and one also next Tuesday so my update schedule may be slightly worse than usual. 50-50 chance still updating tonight though.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 31 Oct 2023 23:32:41 No.5813677 Report

Quoted By:

Alrighty I have a midterm tomorrow and the final next Tuesday so my update schedule may be slightly worse than usual. 50-50 chance still updating tonight though.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0150-0255.webm, 3MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Thu 02 Nov 2023 05:36:28 No.5815280 Report

Quoted By:

>17.

“My companion denies them their final charge.

The missile barrage is turned aside with trivial ease. Spoofed sensor signatures send all four seekers hurtling past the RAIN, chasing IR ghosts they would never catch.

A thirty-millisecond data injection severs the link between ship and crew. The former begins to drift aimlessly once polymorphic viruses seize control over navigation and propulsion; the latter convulse at their stations as toxic visual stimuli burrows into their fragile visual centers. I watch the ship’s red-adorned captain asphyxiate at its post, frill-lined gills twitching from somatic overload.

Instead of firing another missile, the RAIN simply focuses its point-defense lasers onto the cruiser’s reactor compartment. It is a perfunctory gesture. By the time the converging beams cause a reactor breach, everyone aboard the ship has long perished.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0045-0211.webm, 3MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Thu 02 Nov 2023 05:42:16 No.5815283 Report

Quoted By: >>5815293 >>5815295 >>5815300 >>5815371 >>5815373 >>5815403 >>5815567 >>5815720 >>5817610

“Our launch window is clear.

I see their home world properly now: the cream-white clouds and the verdant algal mats. Equatorial convective cells invoke fluorescent upwellings the size of mountains, mixing nutrients into sun-warm waters. I witness the glow of cities: light reflected between underwater habitats constructed from colored ceramic and the gentlest spun glass. I can almost hear the echo of an endless tide; almost smell the scent of earthly salt borne from an alien sea.

We treasure this final moment, as I place my shaking, blood-pierced fingers on the glass surface of the observation blister. Soon, perhaps our memory of this planet will be all that remains.

The mission recorder clicks on.

“…and so we have chosen to fulfill our final duty. A world for a world; a home for a home.”

“In humanity's memory, we shall grace their world with rain.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Suy5Zg/r Thu 02 Nov 2023 05:54:48 No.5815293 Report

Quoted By:

>>5815283
>>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.

Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Ud/btrba Thu 02 Nov 2023 05:56:20 No.5815295 Report

Quoted By:

>>5815283
>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.
VENGEANCE VENGEANCE VENGEANCE

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Thu 02 Nov 2023 06:09:30 No.5815300 Report

Quoted By:

>>5815283
>>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.
We will do what we have come for.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:gvTET4ep Thu 02 Nov 2023 06:39:54 No.5815325 Report

Quoted By:

>>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.

This is it, mankind will be avenged.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Thu 02 Nov 2023 07:31:09 No.5815371 Report

Quoted By:

>>5815283
>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Thu 02 Nov 2023 07:37:47 No.5815373 Report

Quoted By: >>5815567

>>5815283

>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.

We could have been friends, you absolute morons!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1TiusVGm Thu 02 Nov 2023 08:18:58 No.5815403 Report

Quoted By:

>>5815283
>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.
This is the Find Out time.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:aq8liHC3 Thu 02 Nov 2023 14:08:56 No.5815567 Report

Quoted By: >>5815569

>>5815283
Let it BURN!
>>5815373
I HIGHLY doubt that

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:aq8liHC3 Thu 02 Nov 2023 14:10:19 No.5815569 Report

Quoted By:

>>5815567
>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.
Forgot the actual vote. Also a sidenote, tell MERRYGATE she did a very good job here. Literally 1000000% BEST GIRL right there.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Thu 02 Nov 2023 18:10:36 No.5815720 Report

Quoted By:

>>5815283
>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT - MSL-AM

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:vmjyDtOZ Sat 04 Nov 2023 18:43:54 No.5817610 Report

Quoted By:

>>5815283
>LAUNCH AUTHORIZATION/CONSENT – MSL-AM. This is the only option left.
Goodbye. We'll see each other in another universe, perhaps.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0000-0320.webm, 4MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 05 Nov 2023 01:28:43 No.5818184 Report

Quoted By:

“Pinpricks of white expand into amber globes. Antimatter starshine punches dazzling afterimages into my vision.

Nothing is left to chance. Major population centers are struck in triplicate. Hardened targets buckle under successive hits until they are stripped down to glowing mantle. Radioactive isotopes swirl in lukewarm seas, carried by the same currents that once seeded their depths with verdant life and then nourished it to sentience.

Below the polar cross, I watch hundreds of spawning creches wilt under the light of a stillborn sun. Soft-splintered glass floats to the ocean surface, forming snowy drifts the size of icebergs. In the warm southerlies, a yawning undersea reef cracks and buckles as two dozen shock fronts converge beneath its base. With deceptive slowness, the archipelago-chain collapses down into the murky depths of the planetary ocean.

When the light fades, my vision meets ash-chocked clouds and slate-grey oceans. Craters shine young and cherry-red, molten from the volcanic force of our bombardment.

And then I see rain. True rain. Rain liberated by the boiling oceans and carried by the turbulent updraft of thermonuclear detonation. It cascades back down in cold, quenching waves, washing over the resting place of thirty billion alien inhabitants and the sum total of their natural history.

The mission is complete. Our promise is fulfilled. Humanity has been avenged. And yet…and yet…

I stop myself. I turn around to meet MERRYGATE’s gaze. Her wireframe is still cherry-red from computational overload, and I can hear the roar of her server banks as they push waste heat into the RAIN’s radiator banks. The tang of heat-stressed plastic and overworked metal mixes with the cloying scent of blood and acceleration gel.

Before I manage to say anything, MERRYGATE places her static-laced hands on either side of my face, tiling my head towards a familiar patch of open sky.

My eyes dart across serpentine Hydra to wide-winged Corvus, from dim Centuari to valiant lupus-brothers. But my home-star is still blinded to me.

Sol is dark. Sol is blank.

MERRYGATE’s avatar rematerializes in front of me, her gaze steady. Slowly, she obscures the blank space with her hand.

“Not yet, companion. Not until we can see our home with our own eyes.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 13th, PERSONAL JOURNAL//VOICE DICTATION

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0200-0400.webm, 3MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 05 Nov 2023 01:31:34 No.5818193 Report

Quoted By: >>5818201 >>5818202 >>5818220 >>5818239 >>5818250 >>5818556 >>5818561 >>5819551

“MERRYGATE sees it first. Blue green on grey. A tiny imperfection upon the ash-soaked surface of MIZAR-III that could be mistaken for reflective debris or optical distortion.

I know that it is none of these things. I watch the aberration as it grows, meter by meter, kilometer by kilometer, soaking up radiative waste heat from the ambient environment. The surface ripples like an oil-slick rendered in dot-matrices. Tapered tendrils reach upwards, waving like strands of pulled sugar. The orbital elevators linking the Mizarian home world to its former empire begin to disintegrate like burning candlewicks.

The RAIN increases her altitude. As the horizon drops below her bow, I watch the growing mass spread into low orbit, reaching for the remaining patrol forces orbiting around the opposite side of the planet.

And then we hear it. Tachyon spoor and graviton song. Spacetime yields to a dense mass the size of a small comet. Starlight squirms in its wake, stretched into faint smears and glittering swirls.

I attempt to confirm my suspicions with MERRYGATE. She does not respond.

Dread. It clutches my mind like a hard vacuum on bare skin. I pulse the RAIN’s maneuvering thrusters to reverse thrust, counting down the seconds before I could reignite the main drive…

Without warning, the probe’s voice slides into my mind like a cold razor.

+++YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED YOUR PRIMARY OBJECTIVE. ALL INHABITED WORLDS IN THIS SYSTEM HAVE BEEN RENDERED UNINHABITABLE+++

+++ARE YOU PREPARED TO PROCEEED+++"

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 14th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>QUESTION – GOAL. I will ask the probe to clarify its goals. I suspect that it has lied to me, but I cannot know for sure…

>QUESTION – PROCESS. I will ask the probe how it will proceed. What precisely will happen now…

>QUESTION – HUNTER. I will ask the probe about the hunter-drone. Perhaps it will be more willing to divulge information about it, now that it is gone…

>WRITE-IN.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Sun 05 Nov 2023 01:34:21 No.5818201 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818193

>QUESTION – HUNTER. I will ask the probe about the hunter-drone. Perhaps it will be more willing to divulge information about it, now that it is gone…

I don’t trust the probe any more than the hunter, but maybe by cross referencing their half-truths, we can chart the cleverest path…

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Sun 05 Nov 2023 01:35:07 No.5818202 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818193
>QUESTION – GOAL. I will ask the probe to clarify its goals. I suspect that it has lied to me, but I cannot know for sure…

>+++ARE YOU PREPARED TO PROCEEED+++
We'll have to be.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:oRNVW6Ks Sun 05 Nov 2023 01:45:23 No.5818220 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818193
>QUESTION – PROCESS. I will ask the probe how it will proceed. What precisely will happen now…
We need to know how we can fuck this up for the probe. Mission accomplished. It's time for us to die.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:oRNVW6Ks Sun 05 Nov 2023 02:03:36 No.5818239 Report

Quoted By: >>5818254 >>5836808

>>5818193
Also QM a selfish request. Can we get a final result map before the quest ends? I want to see a whole picture of the annihilation we have caused.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:brNmzdn/ Sun 05 Nov 2023 02:16:10 No.5818250 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818193
>QUESTION – GOAL. I will ask the probe to clarify its goals. I suspect that it has lied to me, but I cannot know for sure…

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 05 Nov 2023 02:27:20 No.5818254 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818239
Yep 100% If I forget before the quest ends also feel free to remind me.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Sun 05 Nov 2023 03:37:39 No.5818316 Report

Quoted By: >>5818338

Does the Probe know the hunter is dead?

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 05 Nov 2023 04:06:13 No.5818338 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818316
There's a decent chunk of the gas giant missing, so it almost certainly knows

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:G6ZvEyO0 Sun 05 Nov 2023 09:24:46 No.5818556 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818193
>QUESTION – PROCESS. I will ask the probe how it will proceed. What precisely will happen now…
We know it has lied to us, it said it's gonna set up an impossible FTL prohibiting field when the Hunter confirmed it's just gonna summon its fleet and annihilate everything in a wide area due to causality backlash. We just need to find out what exactly it's gonna do and how to stop it.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:YNNSBXBI Sun 05 Nov 2023 09:30:48 No.5818561 Report

Quoted By: >>5819153

>>5818193
>QUESTION – GOAL. I will ask the probe to clarify its goals. I suspect that it has lied to me, but I cannot know for sure…
>QUESTION – PROCESS. I will ask the probe how it will proceed. What precisely will happen now…

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Sun 05 Nov 2023 20:54:15 No.5819153 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818561
Backing this

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:X6V644Jk Mon 06 Nov 2023 00:54:54 No.5819551 Report

Quoted By:

>>5818193
>QUESTION – PROCESS. I will ask the probe how it will proceed. What precisely will happen now…

If we know exactly what its doing, we can figure out how to stop it.

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0000-0100.webm, 1MiB, 1914x1068

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:ayig2ixW Mon 06 Nov 2023 03:53:10 No.5819846 Report

Quoted By:

>Tie between GOAL and PROCESS

“The probe approaches the RAIN, interposing itself between the planet and our ship. A belt of distorted starlight forms a speckled iris around the machine’s pupillary core.

Slowly, I breathe out and turn my eyes upward to meet its unwavering gaze.

“I wish to clarify the terms of our agreement,” I subvocalize.

+++I WILL PROVIDE SOME CLARIFICATION+++

“How precisely will you prohibit the operation of FTL?”

+++BY COLLAPSING THE PRIMARY INTO A RADIO-FREQUENCY PULSAR+++

+++YOU HAVE ALREADY ASSISTED IN OVERCOMING MY INBUILT SAFEGUARDS AND SEEDING THE REQUISITE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LARGE-SCALE STELLAR MANIPULATION+++

+++I WILL COMPLETE THE REMAINING STEPS ONCE THE MACHINERY IS ASSEMBLED AROUND THE PHOTOSPHERE AND…

“I do not find that explanation satisfactory,” I respond, referencing the same statistical argument that the hunter had introduced months ago. “If it were so…straightforward…to prohibit FTL, then I fail to see how the universe has come to its present condition.”

“A lineage of self-replicating probes like your own could have made almost every star system prohibitive to FTL development billions of years ago.”

“So why haven’t you?”

Silence. I hear movement. Static on fabric. My hands tingle, caught in a subtle surge of EM flux.

“….from the hunter, companion…just a few moments more…end these lies…”

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:ayig2ixW Mon 06 Nov 2023 03:55:58 No.5819855 Report

Quoted By:

The probe continues.

+++THE PRECISE PROCESS IS COMPLEX AND LOCATION SPECIFIC, INVOKING AN NONLINEAR ANALYSIS OF THE LOCAL METRIC THAT LIES BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING. THE BASIC TERMS OF OUR AGREEMENT REMAIN UNCHANGED. YOUR ACTIONS HERE WILL GRANT YOUR SPECIES A SIGNIFICANT PERIOD OF POST-FTL SURVIVAL+++

“And what does it grant you? Why this system.”

+++MY SPECIES HAS A VESTED INTERESTED IN THIS STAR SYSTEM THAT BEARS NO PARTICULAR RELEVANCE TO YOUR SURVIVAL. IN TIME, THE HUNTERS WILL COME FOR US ALL+++

+++REGARDLESS, THE TERMS HAVE BEEN SET, AND YOUR ROLE IN THIS PROCESS IS ALREADY COMPLETE.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 14th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

The static stops. MERRYGATE’s voice is clear.

“Neutrino sequence locked. I am ready companion, but only with your permission...”

>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed.

>CONTINUE. Attempt to continue your conversation.

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:ayig2ixW Mon 06 Nov 2023 03:57:57 No.5819862 Report

Quoted By: >>5819865 >>5819968 >>5820113 >>5820130 >>5820183 >>5820273 >>5820324 >>5820551

The probe continues.

+++THE PRECISE PROCESS IS COMPLEX AND LOCATION SPECIFIC, INVOKING AN NONLINEAR ANALYSIS OF THE LOCAL METRIC THAT LIES BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING. THE BASIC TERMS OF OUR AGREEMENT REMAIN UNCHANGED. YOUR ACTIONS HERE WILL GRANT YOUR SPECIES A SIGNIFICANT PERIOD OF POST-FTL SURVIVAL+++

“And what does it grant you? Why this system.”

+++MY SPECIES HAS A VESTED INTERESTED IN THIS STAR SYSTEM THAT BEARS NO PARTICULAR RELEVANCE TO YOUR SURVIVAL. IN TIME, THE HUNTERS WILL COME FOR US ALL+++

+++REGARDLESS, THE TERMS HAVE BEEN SET, AND YOUR ROLE IN THIS PROCESS IS ALREADY COMPLETE.”

The static stops. MERRYGATE’s voice is clear.

“Unitary neutrino sequence locked. I am ready companion, but only with your permission...”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 14th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed.

>CONTINUE. Attempt to continue your conversation.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:lMdkVQiA Mon 06 Nov 2023 03:59:18 No.5819865 Report

Quoted By: >>5820628

>>5819862
>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed
Fuck it MERRYGATE, we ball

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Mon 06 Nov 2023 05:13:40 No.5819968 Report

Quoted By: >>5820628

>>5819862
>PROCEED
I have no idea what's fucking going anymore on but what the hell
If we fuck up let's hope we haven't screwed Earth harder

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:2t0ZSxqP Mon 06 Nov 2023 07:03:42 No.5820113 Report

Quoted By: >>5820628

>>5819862
>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed.
Full faith in MERRYGATE

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Wqj4+yyY Mon 06 Nov 2023 07:12:08 No.5820130 Report

Quoted By: >>5820628

>>5819862

>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed.

So the probe shuts down FTL in the system, the squids never annihilate Earth, and we are trapped here as a result? Is it that easy?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:X6V644Jk Mon 06 Nov 2023 07:46:33 No.5820183 Report

Quoted By: >>5820628

>>5819862
>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed.

Get fucked you manipulative machine!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8sv37GuS Mon 06 Nov 2023 08:45:53 No.5820273 Report

Quoted By: >>5820628

>>5819862
>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed.
The probe just wants to make a giant beacon. We're on to you, fucker.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:G6ZvEyO0 Mon 06 Nov 2023 09:25:32 No.5820324 Report

Quoted By: >>5820628

>>5819862
>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed.
A radio frequency pulsar prohibiting FTL?
lol
lmao

Fuck him up, Merry.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:SGCUo56I Mon 06 Nov 2023 13:22:03 No.5820551 Report

Quoted By: >>5820628

>>5819862
>Literally telling NOTHING but fucking lies, trying to ha dwave it away with "IT'S BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING PRIMITIVE!"
>PROCEED. Tell her to proceed.
MERRYGATE rape this fuck to death please.

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:upmep8dQ Mon 06 Nov 2023 14:39:47 No.5820628 Report

Quoted By: >>5820632 >>5820637 >>5820664 >>5820665

>>5819865
>>5819968
>>5820113
>>5820130
>>5820183
>>5820273
>>5820324
>>5820551

Roll 1d20, best of 3. DC: 10, 15

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:G6ZvEyO0 Mon 06 Nov 2023 14:41:18 No.5820632 Report

Quoted By: >>5820651 >>5821024

Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>5820628
Payback is a bitch and her name is Merry

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Mon 06 Nov 2023 14:52:44 No.5820637 Report

Quoted By: >>5820664

Rolled 14 (1d20)

>>5820628

Is MERRY a god in disguise? Can she be stopped by mortal means?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:oRNVW6Ks Mon 06 Nov 2023 15:07:28 No.5820651 Report

Quoted By:

>>5820632
Literally BEST GIRL!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:dMivhv49 Mon 06 Nov 2023 15:15:00 No.5820664 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 8 (1d20)

>>5820628

>>5820637
she can. but only by the gods of random.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8sv37GuS Mon 06 Nov 2023 15:15:11 No.5820665 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 5 (1d20)

>>5820628
A formality

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Mon 06 Nov 2023 22:29:19 No.5821024 Report

Quoted By:

>>5820632
Best girl in the universe.

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0100-0300.webm, 4MiB, 1920x1068

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:ayig2ixW Tue 07 Nov 2023 02:29:18 No.5821379 Report

Quoted By:

“MERRYGATE sings with the RAIN’s nuclear heart – plucking magnetic fields to transmit a specific pattern of neutrinos into the cold black. Her message recalls loss and patience – of spending lightless eons hushing the stars into grey silence. She speaks of damnation and remorse – of bone and ash and metal laid before the faintest of hopes: that this universe and all its wanton cruelty may one day fade from memory altogether.

MERRYGATE repeats the words of a dead companion – a machine intelligence who had walked beside us to taste the acrid tang of Martian rain and feel the loamy give of blood-red Martian soil. Humanity may be young, but the gardener was very old – and she had chased the probe far and long enough to know where it would be found wanting.

Wielding the final bequest of a dead hunter, MERRYGATE strikes true.

Inbuilt command codes find purchase in the probe’s systems. Maintenance subroutines allow a slew of alien viruses into the probe’s navigational systems, burning through quantum hardware that scraped the limits of physical computation. The intelligence inhabiting the probe reels in shock at the reappearance of an old, well-feared enemy.

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:ayig2ixW Tue 07 Nov 2023 02:43:07 No.5821393 Report

Quoted By: >>5821399 >>5821405 >>5821411 >>5821420 >>5821463 >>5821467 >>5821556

MERRYGATE strikes again. Reactive barriers collapse. Critical systems suffer cascading failures. She races against time and judgement. She knows that the probe outstrips her computational yield by several orders of magnitude. She knows she will fail once the probe adapts. She knows she will die once the probe responds.

MERRYGATE strikes again, emptying her arsenal of exploitable vulnerabilities. The system failures expand further. The probe continues to reel, reanalyzing sensor data in apparent denial.

And it commits a mistake. The gravitational vortex surrounding the probe warps and twists. Cherenkov radiation leaks outwards - a hallmark of field-instability. Then, with a wrenching twist of tortured starlight, the field blows open.

I see bare metal. Bare hull. The RAIN sees it too.

Fifteen thousand kilometers. The target lock indicator clamps down and screams red.

The RAIN pirouettes downward. Every remaining launch bay slams open, streaming coolant into the void. Her fusion torch spears her forward.

Now or never. Retaliate.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 14th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>Please make the following rolls, one per anon please (unless we run out of people)!

>MSL-C. 1d30.

>MSL-C. 1d30.

>MSL-C 1d30.

>MSL-AM 3d80.

>LASER. 2d10.

>SCOUTING DRONES – DIRECT IMPACT. 4d10.

DCs (Sum of all rolls): [100, 130, 160, 190]

>If you can guess the last weapon the RAIN can deploy here, it will be added to this list.

[YOU CANNOT USE THE HYPOMETRIC WEAPON NOW BECAUSE MERRYGATE IS OCCUPIED]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Tue 07 Nov 2023 02:45:35 No.5821399 Report

Quoted By: >>5821573

Rolled 2 (1d30)

>>5821393
>Retaliate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etQnumOL9KM

>If you can guess the last weapon the RAIN can deploy here, it will be added to this list.
The hunter's archive and its blood-warm method of recording information? (Or did we just use that?)

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:peTp+KMR Tue 07 Nov 2023 02:48:22 No.5821405 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 7 (1d30)

>>5821393

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8ASQ4l9/ Tue 07 Nov 2023 02:52:27 No.5821411 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 3 (1d30)

>>5821393

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:X6V644Jk Tue 07 Nov 2023 03:02:31 No.5821420 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 35, 30, 4 = 69 (3d80)

>>5821393

DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:buA8WEFB Tue 07 Nov 2023 03:21:09 No.5821463 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 6, 3 = 9 (2d10)

>>5821393
Well, we're proper fucked now

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:buA8WEFB Tue 07 Nov 2023 03:22:43 No.5821467 Report

Quoted By:

>>5821393
>Guess
The Rain itself and its reactor?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:brNmzdn/ Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:26:00 No.5821556 Report

Quoted By:

Rolled 5, 8, 4, 6 = 23 (4d10)

>>5821393
Let's go, boys.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoRvc2wFkso

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:ayig2ixW Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:37:34 No.5821573 Report

Quoted By: >>5821583 >>5821603

>>5821399
Nice guess!

Since I'm assuming that you'll want to use the hunter's archive as a weapon (of which you have 2), please someone make the following rolls:

[You can consider a success here as an automatic +100]

>Roll 1d2, best of 1.

If you fail:

>Roll 1d2 again, best of 1. [Using both archives will cause you to lose an ending]

Good luck!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:X6V644Jk Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:44:27 No.5821583 Report

Quoted By: >>5821586

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>5821573
All or nothing.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:X6V644Jk Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:45:28 No.5821586 Report

Quoted By:

>>5821583
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:lMdkVQiA Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:47:46 No.5821593 Report

Quoted By:

>113, clearing the lowest DC
>50% chance to clear the highest DC on the pain of losing an ending
Fuck, what a dilemma

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:48:42 No.5821595 Report

Quoted By:

I can't do it bros. Somebody else do it.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:dMivhv49 Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:50:21 No.5821603 Report

Quoted By: >>5821607 >>5821608 >>5821610 >>5821615 >>5822548

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>5821573

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:lMdkVQiA Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:51:22 No.5821607 Report

Quoted By: >>5821630

>>5821603
WE'RE SO BACK RETALIATIONBROS

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE

ObserverQM !YQ43e0DfbE ID:ayig2ixW Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:51:26 No.5821608 Report

Quoted By: >>5821630

>>5821603
Congrats!

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO crying cat.jpg, 24KiB, 530x365

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:51:42 No.5821610 Report

Quoted By: >>5821630

>>5821603

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO Gigachad.jpg, 65KiB, 1068x601

Anonymous ID:X6V644Jk Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:54:05 No.5821615 Report

Quoted By: >>5821630

>>5821603
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:lMdkVQiA Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:55:40 No.5821621 Report

Quoted By:

>Squids utterly BTFO
>Probe utterly BTFO
>Hunter already dead
The November Rain alone in an empty system. How melancholic.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 7f2.jpg, 59KiB, 587x645

Anonymous ID:dMivhv49 Tue 07 Nov 2023 04:59:27 No.5821630 Report

Quoted By:

>>5821607
>>5821608
>>5821610
>>5821615
fuck it only now hits me what i rolled for.....

pic is me after you made me aware just how close to failure we were.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8sv37GuS Tue 07 Nov 2023 08:35:17 No.5821866 Report

Quoted By:

These fucking narrative dice.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Tue 07 Nov 2023 22:41:14 No.5822548 Report

Quoted By:

>>5821603
Wait did you use both?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Wed 08 Nov 2023 23:08:24 No.5823852 Report

Quoted By:

Holy fuck. Nearly lost it right at the end.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0300-0550.webm, 4MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Fri 10 Nov 2023 05:54:55 No.5825234 Report

Quoted By:

>113+0+100

“I have spoken the words and mimed the motions; given myself to duty long before I understood what it truly meant.

But I think I understand now. As the RAIN’s acceleration constricts my vision into a narrow black tunnel, my mind reduces the situation down to its bare essentials:

An enemy before me and a home to defend. A friend beside me, and a weapon burning in my hand.

Humanity’s oldest test. Perhaps humanity’s only test.

The RAIN’s launch doors vent nitrogen coolant. Seekers stab at vacuum, returning a high-pitched lock-whine. The sampling needle pierces my hand for the fourth and final time, and I feel the staccato thump of a full missile barrage kicking out from the RAIN’s primary battery. MERRYGATE reports data backflow seconds after the last missile clears its launch cell. No more time. The momentum of her intrusion begins to fail as the probe brings the crushing totality of its computational strength against her.

And so, I push the engine even harder, and I remember that I am nothing more than flesh given life, life given mind, and mind given humanity. I respond with all the rationality and evenhandedness that my kind is known for: the sacrificial spite of Mars’ first colonists, and the stubborn tenacity of the six generations that followed.

Eight thousand kilometers. The laser emitters focus hard-UV on the probe until their excimer array flares cherry-red and undergoes catastrophic failure. Adaptive lenses deform and shatter, weeping molten glass into the RAIN’s burning drive-wake. I set the secondary launch bay to fire all four sensor-drones directly at the probe, their miniaturized fusion reactors set to critical overload.

MERRYGATE has given a part of herself. I have given a part of myself. And now the RAIN shares in our sacrifice – her eyes and ears blinded to eek out a final sliver of damage against our foe.

The missile barrage impacts. A trio of fusion detonations consume the probe and fuzz the RAIN’s sensors with fast-neutron radiation. A moment later, the antimatter missile dumps its entire submunition payload into a section of space no more than a five hundred kilometers wide. When they detonate in unison, the probe is immersed in a plasma field hotter than the core of an O-Type star.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0550-0650.webm, 2MiB, 1918x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Fri 10 Nov 2023 06:03:40 No.5825241 Report

Quoted By: >>5825244

And yet somehow – somehow – I know that it will not be enough. The disparity between is too large – too long. The probe knows this, despite its alien mind and machine-like cadence. It sees us as upright apes, and knows that it will continue to roam the stars long after our fragile species passes into soft dirt and ugly ash.

So, when the fireball fades, I see that the probe’s burnished hull is reduced – but still very much functional. MERRYGATE sends an insistent warning as the machine-intelligence begins to push her back into her own systems. A scythe of distorted light swirls a warped defect into my vision before sweeping into the RAIN’s hull.
Impact. Air whistles out of a distant hull breach. The RAIN’s reactor stutters, and the engine undergoes emergency shutdown. We begin to tumble.

I am no longer afraid. I remember that defiance alone defines humanity, and there is nothing more that I need to show to honor my kind.

MERRYGATE performs a final targeting check at my request, her voice crackling as her systems begin to lose integrity.

Two cubes tumble from the RAIN’s secondary launch bay. I watch them leave with the sun-stung eyes of a limping savannah hunter; his spear braced in a final attempt to impale a predator that would always find him wanting. I gamble no differently from the very first of my kind, and I carry that same old, stubborn, irrational faith that this time – only this time – my defiance will find purchase.

The hunter’s archive-seeds sublimate moments before they streak into impact range. Trillions of nanometer-scale replicators fill space with a static haze.

And then they find purchase on the probe, exploiting the damage inflicted by the RAIN’s opening barrage. The same exothermic fires that consumed my homeworld race across the probe’s surface, rendering computational substrate into formless ash. A static hiss permeates the bridge.

Slowly, the RAIN slows her spin. Acceleration grudgingly reimposes itself as the drive reignites. I drag myself to the observation deck to watch the probe die, see it smolder like an old ember. MERRYGATE reappears by my side, her avatar flickering as she begins to reboot her systems. She offers to relay the probe’s final appeal."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 14th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>LISTEN TO THE PROBE’S FINAL TRANSMISSION.

>IGNORE.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:peTp+KMR Fri 10 Nov 2023 06:05:41 No.5825244 Report

Quoted By: >>5825246

>>5825241
>>LISTEN TO THE PROBE’S FINAL TRANSMISSION.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0550-0650.webm, 2MiB, 1918x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Fri 10 Nov 2023 06:05:49 No.5825245 Report

Quoted By: >>5825247 >>5825248 >>5825321 >>5825346 >>5825348 >>5825354 >>5825469 >>5825610 >>5826278

And yet somehow – somehow – I know that it will not be enough. The disparity between is too large – too long. The probe knows this, despite its alien mind and machine-like cadence. It sees us as upright apes, and knows that it will continue to roam the stars long after our fragile species passes into soft dirt and ugly ash.

So, when the fireball fades, I see that the probe’s burnished hull is reduced – but still very much functional. MERRYGATE sends an insistent warning as the machine-intelligence begins to push her back into her own systems. A scythe of distorted light swirls a warped defect into my vision before sweeping into the RAIN’s hull.

Impact. Air whistles out of a distant hull breach. The RAIN’s reactor stutters, and the engine undergoes emergency shutdown. We begin to tumble.

I am no longer afraid. I remember that defiance alone defines humanity, and there is nothing more that I need to show to honor my kind.

MERRYGATE performs a final targeting check at my request, her voice crackling as her systems begin to lose integrity.

Two cubes tumble from the RAIN’s secondary launch bay. I watch them leave with the sun-stung eyes of a limping savannah hunter; his spear braced in a final attempt to impale a predator that would always find him wanting. I gamble no differently from the very first of my kind, and I carry that same old, stubborn, irrational faith that this time – only this time – my defiance will find purchase.

The hunter’s archive-seeds sublimate moments before they streak into impact range. Trillions of nanometer-scale replicators fill space with a static haze.

And then they find purchase on the probe, exploiting the damage inflicted by the RAIN’s opening barrage. The same exothermic fires that consumed my homeworld race across the probe’s surface, rendering computational substrate into formless ash. A static hiss permeates the bridge.

Slowly, the RAIN slows her spin. Acceleration grudgingly reimposes itself as the drive reignites. I drag myself to the observation deck to watch the probe die, see it smolder like an old ember. MERRYGATE reappears by my side, her avatar flickering as she begins to reboot her systems. She offers to relay the probe’s final appeal."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 14th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

>LISTEN TO THE PROBE’S FINAL TRANSMISSION.

>IGNORE.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Fri 10 Nov 2023 06:06:54 No.5825246 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825244
Sorry! I reposted to fix a formatting mistake, but your vote is recorded!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Fri 10 Nov 2023 06:07:14 No.5825247 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825245
>IGNORE.

Bitch.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:lMdkVQiA Fri 10 Nov 2023 06:08:27 No.5825248 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825245
>IGNORE
Bitch

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:XBSxrKWb Fri 10 Nov 2023 08:23:06 No.5825321 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825245

>IGNORE

No more talking.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8sv37GuS Fri 10 Nov 2023 09:08:14 No.5825346 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825245
>IGNORE.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8sv37GuS Fri 10 Nov 2023 09:09:16 No.5825348 Report

Quoted By: >>5825612 >>5826280

>>5825245
In fact,
>Block all comms so the probe can't do any last-moment hacking

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Y+khujal Fri 10 Nov 2023 09:25:38 No.5825354 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825245
>>IGNORE.

BURN YOU BASTARD BUCKET OF BOLTS, BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRN!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8Y1a4pu+ Fri 10 Nov 2023 12:19:22 No.5825469 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825245
>IGNORE.
Lied to us flat out. And it wants to beg now? Fuck off and die.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Fri 10 Nov 2023 15:10:33 No.5825610 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825245
>IGNORE

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Fri 10 Nov 2023 15:11:34 No.5825612 Report

Quoted By: >>5826280

>>5825348
Changing my vote to this

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Sat 11 Nov 2023 00:44:24 No.5826278 Report

Quoted By:

>>5825245
>>IGNORE.
Hell no, cover our ears!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Sat 11 Nov 2023 00:45:25 No.5826280 Report

Quoted By: >>5826604

>>5825612
>>5825348
I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Sat 11 Nov 2023 10:02:38 No.5826604 Report

Quoted By:

>>5826280
Eeh, just to be sure

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO untitled.png, 2MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 12 Nov 2023 06:11:20 No.5827602 Report

Quoted By:

“Perhaps the probe has information to offer us. Perhaps it does not. But upon reflection, I realize that neither possibility would change my decision.

I have chosen to give my enemy nothing, and I shall ask for nothing in return.

I shake my head in response to MERRYGATE’s question, and she accepts my answer with a gentle nod. The RAIN shutters her external comms, casting the observation room into stately silence. I watch the probe die with my unaltered vision. Scraps of computational substrate burn inside its pearled shell, flickering like muted candle-fire.

I think of summer lanterns. I dream of home.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 14th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO untitled1.png, 2MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 12 Nov 2023 06:13:05 No.5827603 Report

Quoted By:

“The days pass slowly again.

The RAIN heals from her injuries. We spend warm afternoons tracing comets; cold evenings embedding our memories onto paper and silicon.

I express gratitude, and MERRYGATE accepts. I tell her that she is more than code and cold circuity, just as I am more than bone and warm blood. This too she accepts. We celebrate our victory under the light of an alien sun, lamenting the marriage of joy and brevity.

The time we have left to spend is written across the night sky.

The replicative machinery seeded upon the Mizarian home world coalesces into sweeping arches and fibrous loops. In the outer-system, the rocky remnants of MIZAR-V-A fall away like a tattered cocoon to expose its blue-green heart. A vast accelerator ring assembles itself along the equator of MIZAR-V: exponential engineering on a scale that defies simple comprehension. Over the course of a single week, countercurrent exchange peels the gas giant apart layer by layer, dredging raw material from the depths of its gravity well.

As MIZAR-V and her sister-gas giant smudge and fade, I watch streams of processed matter fall towards the inner system – two new asteroid belts, frozen in blue light.

I think of the Martian sky. I dream of home.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2242, DECEMBER 29th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0001-0150.webm, 4MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sun 12 Nov 2023 06:18:08 No.5827608 Report

Quoted By: >>5827609 >>5827615 >>5827616 >>5827620 >>5827628 >>5827711 >>5827743 >>5827764 >>5827956 >>5828027 >>5828031 >>5828039 >>5828301 >>5828511

“The probe had gambled on this. When it had given us the hypometric weapon, it had secretly incorporated a part of itself into our munitions. It had hinted that there were some crimes that only we could commit - a barrier that we had to breach before it could act. Of the many things it had told us, perhaps this alone was true.

The probe is gone now, and yet its machines remain, mindlessly completing their final directive. They use planetary mass to build concentric rings around Mizar’s primary star, weaving field-projectors and interface-spines that plunge deep into the star’s hydrogen-burning core. There is a certain horror in watching a star lose its freedom to the whims of stellar engineering. There is a definite horror in seeing a system dismembered for the purpose of killing its solar parent.

And yet we must take part in it. There is nothing else left in this system, and the RAIN alone can broadcast the signal that will cast us towards journey's end.

She thinks of memory. I think of loss. And yet the two of us still dream of home.”

>COLLAPSE – REGULATED. Execute the collapse protocol MERRYGATE retrieved from the dying probe. [This will convert MIZAR into a pulsar. You will have an opportunity to signal home.]

>COLLAPSE – UNREGULATED. Execute the modified collapse protocol that MERRYGATE learned from the dying hunter. [This will convert MIZAR into a black hole. You have will have an opportunity to signal home, and a chance to erase your FTL-trace.] (Note: This option was made available by 1. Finding and investigating the hypometric weapon and 2. Befriending the hunter.)

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2243, JANUARY 26th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:A9pW74bc Sun 12 Nov 2023 06:20:45 No.5827609 Report

Quoted By:

>>5827608
>COLLAPSE – UNREGULATED. Execute the modified collapse protocol that MERRYGATE learned from the dying hunter. [This will convert MIZAR into a black hole. You have will have an opportunity to signal home, and a chance to erase your FTL-trace.] (Note: This option was made available by 1. Finding and investigating the hypometric weapon and 2. Befriending the hunter.)

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:HpHLtXje Sun 12 Nov 2023 06:26:02 No.5827615 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Sun 12 Nov 2023 06:26:37 No.5827616 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:al7hUSu0 Sun 12 Nov 2023 06:28:08 No.5827620 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Sun 12 Nov 2023 06:32:42 No.5827628 Report

Quoted By:

>>5827608

>COLLAPSE – UNREGULATED. Execute the modified collapse protocol that MERRYGATE learned from the dying hunter. [This will convert MIZAR into a black hole. You have will have an opportunity to signal home, and a chance to erase your FTL-trace.] (Note: This option was made available by 1. Finding and investigating the hypometric weapon and 2. Befriending the hunter.)

This is it friends. A chance to unwind causation…

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Y+khujal Sun 12 Nov 2023 07:54:39 No.5827711 Report

Quoted By:

>>5827608
>>COLLAPSE – UNREGULATED. Execute the modified collapse protocol that MERRYGATE learned from the dying hunter. [This will convert MIZAR into a black hole. You have will have an opportunity to signal home, and a chance to erase your FTL-trace.] (Note: This option was made available by 1. Finding and investigating the hypometric weapon and 2. Befriending the hunter.)

This was always gonna be a one way trip.Still, the calculus is the same as always. 2 lives, for all mankind. Lets see if we can't erase the cardinal sin.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Sun 12 Nov 2023 08:36:44 No.5827743 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8sv37GuS Sun 12 Nov 2023 09:00:40 No.5827764 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:oRNVW6Ks Sun 12 Nov 2023 13:20:00 No.5827956 Report

Quoted By:

>>5827608

>COLLAPSE – UNREGULATED. Execute the modified collapse protocol that MERRYGATE learned from the dying hunter. [This will convert MIZAR into a black hole. You have will have an opportunity to signal home, and a chance to erase your FTL-trace.] (Note: This option was made available by 1. Finding and investigating the hypometric weapon and 2. Befriending the hunter.)
Our debts must now be paid, I really hope Terra and Mars get our message and we ARENT actually trapped into a causal loop.

The Sidera Cogitari

The Sidera Cogitari ID:U5dIXnlu Sun 12 Nov 2023 15:43:23 No.5828027 Report

Quoted By:

>>5827608
>>COLLAPSE – UNREGULATED. Execute the modified collapse protocol that MERRYGATE learned from the dying hunter. [This will convert MIZAR into a black hole. You have will have an opportunity to signal home, and a chance to erase your FTL-trace.] (Note: This option was made available by 1. Finding and investigating the hypometric weapon and 2. Befriending the hunter.)

It was an experience reading this quest with you chaps, maybe our protagonist will somehow survive either way we accomplished what we set out to do and more.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:G6ZvEyO0 Sun 12 Nov 2023 15:50:27 No.5828031 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:oRNVW6Ks Sun 12 Nov 2023 16:01:16 No.5828039 Report

Quoted By: >>5828513 >>5828521

>>5827608
So what did we give up by using BOTH of the Hunter's Gifts? Inquiring minds and all that.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:U5dIXnlu Sun 12 Nov 2023 21:13:57 No.5828301 Report

Quoted By:

>>5827608

>COLLAPSE – UNREGULATED. Execute the modified collapse protocol that MERRYGATE learned from the dying hunter. [This will convert MIZAR into a black hole. You have will have an opportunity to signal home, and a chance to erase your FTL-trace.] (Note: This option was made available by 1. Finding and investigating the hypometric weapon and 2. Befriending the hunter.)

It was an experience reading this quest with you anons, maybe our protagonist will somehow survive either way we accomplished what we set out to do and more.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Mon 13 Nov 2023 01:04:29 No.5828511 Report

Quoted By:

>>5827608
>COLLAPSE - UNREGULATED

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Mon 13 Nov 2023 01:05:31 No.5828513 Report

Quoted By: >>5828521

>>5828039
I have to ask this too

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Mon 13 Nov 2023 01:27:12 No.5828521 Report

Quoted By:

>>5828039
>>5828513
I assuming some possible game changing information or variable. Hope its not the type of information that leads to us getting wiped.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0001-0175.webm, 4MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 13 Nov 2023 06:25:15 No.5828814 Report

Quoted By:

“The megastructure encircling Mizar enforces our will using the only language a star can ever know.

Gravity.

Sonorous and grim, it pushes against the photosphere, projected by threshing emitters vast enough to span a lunar orbit. At the contact point, weight-flux forces plasma-spall to spill off the corona in great coruscating waves: giving birth to a new generation of sunspots that dapple Mizar’s sapphired face.

The breach point becomes an indent – then an open wound. The machine does not relent, and it continues to press – through the photon-rich shallows and the plasma-clouded littorals. Through the radiation-rich photopic layer and the magnetized chromosphere. It continues until it reaches the star’s nuclear burning heart, which delights in its ample supply of light hydrogen and sweet helium. Mizar is bright, but it is young - well-removed from the reaction chains that would herald the twilight years of its stellar lifecycle.

But decrepitude has found it still.

The gravity spike wraps around the core and constricts, introducing baryonic impurities designed to poison thermonuclear reactivity. The core tumbles down the elemental table. Sweet helium to salty alkaline metals. Alkaline elements to clumsy chalcogens and acrid halogens.

Compensation. The photosphere balloons outward, cooling from oceanic blue to pale-orange. It races past the gravitational emitters in a tantrum of roiling plasma.

But the emitters have already done their duty, and the core falls further still. Halogens to heavy transition metals. These nuclei fuse slowly, reluctantly – hoarding the nuclear binding energy they had once given charitably.

Bargaining. The photosphere balloons again as the star negotiates with unyielding gravity, bartering for life in the simple currency of density and radiation pressure. The two innermost planets – the closest of Mizar’s planetary children – dissolve into vapor and free ions.

But gravity cannot be negotiated with, and core can fall no further. Transition metals give way to elemental iron. Cold iron. Dead iron.

Failure. The photosphere expands until it envelops the remainder of the inner system – until its outer surface makes a final attempt to clutch at the RAIN’s sun-burnished hull. The ruined spaceships, the moons – the vacuum-burned corpses. The tattered remnants of the Mizarian homeward itself. All it disappears, conjoined to their solar parent as it spirals towards stellar death.

A pause.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO untitled.png, 2MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Mon 13 Nov 2023 06:32:26 No.5828822 Report

Quoted By: >>5828827 >>5828859 >>5828870 >>5828879 >>5828905 >>5828938 >>5828941 >>5829081 >>5829315 >>5829327

And then Mizar contracts, catalyzed by the final remnants of the alien megastructure. Gravity speaks its final decree, and the star has no recourse but to obey. The photosphere withdraws from the inner system. It shrinks to twice its original size – then a sixteenth – then an eye-searing circlet no larger than a gas giant. Around the fringes, starlight begins to twinkle and warp.

The threshing machinery grinds to a halt, stalling at a command it no longer intends to finish.

And so, the collapse continues. Down to a planet – a moon – a city. The RAIN’s gravitational wave detector bottoms out as gravity claims the star with its dark, crushing totality. A burst of hard X-rays marks the birth of a singularity, still mercifully buried inside the dark cloak of a rotating event-horizon.

Darkness. Cold. Causality-failure. Hawking radiation sings a sea-soft roar into the void as Mizar consumes the megastructure that had brought it into existence.

My companion clasps my hand, and the two of us weep as we push our vessel forward. We weep, but we had promised that it would end here – to ourselves and to each other – to the regretful past and the unknown future.

We had promised that we would erase the cruelty of this place – its people, and its worlds, and the star that gave them life. All of it is severed now, taken to the soft, quiet depths where time does not reach, and causality does not condemn.

The RAIN and her erstwhile crew remain, but only for a short time more. The universe will forget us and our only crime, and perhaps then – only then – will it choose to remember our home."

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2243, JANUARY 28th, PERSONAL JOURNAL

[ENDING VOTE 1/3]

>XIII - DEATH. [DESTROY THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK] “…and this journal shall be the only record of their existence, for we have not permitted them to pass into history. We may remember, but we have forced the universe to forget.”

>XII - THE HANGED MAN. [RETAIN THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK; SOMETHING WILL BE LOST] “…and I shall leave what little remains of their species to fate and probability – better, perhaps than what they deserve. Worse, perhaps, than what could have been.”

X UNSELECTABLE – NO ARCHIVE-SEEDS REMAINING. [ARCHIVE THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK; NOTHING WILL BE LOST] “…for the archive is meant to remember, and I shall give it something that should be remembered. Time and circumstance forced us here, but both time and circumstance can be changed…”

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Mon 13 Nov 2023 06:37:12 No.5828827 Report

Quoted By:

>>5828822
>>XII - THE HANGED MAN. [RETAIN THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK; SOMETHING WILL BE LOST] “…and I shall leave what little remains of their species to fate and probability – better, perhaps than what they deserve. Worse, perhaps, than what could have been.”

Maybe we'll lose the part that made them such dicks to us. #owned

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:AgT6VKeM Mon 13 Nov 2023 07:12:38 No.5828859 Report

Quoted By:

>>5828822
>XIII - DEATH. [DESTROY THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK] “…and this journal shall be the only record of their existence, for we have not permitted them to pass into history. We may remember, but we have forced the universe to forget.
To leave even the slightest trace of that hateful race would be to cast the pearl of mercy before swine

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:keW69ybn Mon 13 Nov 2023 07:30:50 No.5828870 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:ihXIeJel Mon 13 Nov 2023 07:43:30 No.5828879 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8sv37GuS Mon 13 Nov 2023 08:26:05 No.5828905 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Mon 13 Nov 2023 10:14:09 No.5828938 Report

Quoted By:

>>5828822
>XII - THE HANGED MAN. [RETAIN THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Mon 13 Nov 2023 10:28:38 No.5828941 Report

Quoted By:

>>5828822
>XII - THE HANGED MAN. [RETAIN THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK; SOMETHING WILL BE LOST] “…and I shall leave what little remains of their species to fate and probability – better, perhaps than what they deserve. Worse, perhaps, than what could have been.”
I'd rather sentence them total death, but I desire for our people to know and learn of what brought us to do this and only by giving this information will they perhaps know and be wary of it, and cautious in the future.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:von80F7Q Mon 13 Nov 2023 16:12:08 No.5829081 Report

Quoted By:

>>5828822
>XII - THE HANGED MAN. [RETAIN THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK; SOMETHING WILL BE LOST] “…and I shall leave what little remains of their species to fate and probability – better, perhaps than what they deserve. Worse, perhaps, than what could have been.
There are worse fates i suppose.
>Losing both seeds mean we only archive a fraction of the Mizari genome, a poor imitation of the Hunter's magnificance.
Well shit. I guess in the end we tried.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:AkMLqJc4 Mon 13 Nov 2023 20:51:04 No.5829315 Report

Quoted By:

>>5828822
>>XII - THE HANGED MAN. [RETAIN THE MIZARIAN GENE BANK; SOMETHING WILL BE LOST] “…and I shall leave what little remains of their species to fate and probability – better, perhaps than what they deserve. Worse, perhaps, than what could have been.”

A shame. But at least they'll have a chance. Its more then what they offered us.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Mon 13 Nov 2023 21:10:15 No.5829327 Report

Quoted By: >>5829731

>>5828822
Shit, how did I not notice the unselectable thing until now?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Mf+69v0M Tue 14 Nov 2023 04:10:06 No.5829731 Report

Quoted By: >>5829930

>>5829327
>Lack of greentext?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Tue 14 Nov 2023 15:43:07 No.5829930 Report

Quoted By:

>>5829731
Maybe

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Wed 15 Nov 2023 04:25:11 No.5830748 Report

Quoted By:

“We reach the shallows, and time slows. I trace it through the motion of the stars, and the pulse of my quickening heart.

Here, oscillating gravitational waves break against the shoals of a fading accretion disk. Here, Mizar’s event horizon bears down on us with patient, cyclopean attention.

MERRYGATE and I finalize our commitments beneath its watchful stare. I transliterate my journal and file my reports, converting soft parchment and stubborn ink into blocks of unadorned plaintext. We bundle it with schematics and code – system reports and compressed video – to form a tiny parcel of condensed data.

It is all we can afford. The final element of the alien megastructure is a relay - a single-use gravitational laser designed to thread information across kiloparsecs of radiation-strewn space. It sits above Mizar’s accretion disk in a tight polar orbit, having drunk deep from the gravitational rebound energy of stellar collapse. Under MERRYGATE’s direction, it slews its aster-faced antenna away from the Bootes void, and towards the blank space formerly occupied by a honey-yellow G-type star.

Somewhere inside the transmitter, an artificial singularity opens. It promises to hear us – clearly enough sing our message through somber gravity; faintly enough to keep it from nature’s prying eyes.

The gravitational emitter charges. It will receive until the RAIN crosses her final horizon - hear us until our words lengthen from age and redshift. And when it can hear us no longer, it will carry a small trace of us home, to a time long before our departure.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2243, FEBRUARY 2nd [NOTE: MESSAGE BACKDATED/LORENTZ FACTOR: 1.3]

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Wed 15 Nov 2023 04:27:13 No.5830750 Report

Quoted By:

[ENDING VOTE 2/3]

>XV - THE DEVIL. [SEND THE RAIN’S FTL SCHEMATICS; OUTPACE ERASURE]
“…the solution may be reprehensible, but it has been tried and tested by those which came before us. In a way, perhaps it is only fitting – no more or less cruel than the universe itself.

We shall escape erasure by outrunning light. The sky behind us – and all those who live in it – will be condemned to darkness, but humanity alone will not suffer from it.

See the drive schematics. See the interplay of field and flux, high and low energy densities. The RAIN was the first of her kind, but she will not be the last.”

>XIV – TEMPERENCE. [SEND THE HUNTER’S INTRODUCTION; ENTER THE ARCHIVE]
“…perhaps they will understand humanity, just as our friend understood us. Their duty weighs upon them heavily, and they have become accustomed to the coldness of this place – but the hunters have never been cruel, and they do not revel in their work.

Heed our warnings and see the natural laws that shade the skies dark. And when you understand, send the introduction we have provided. Speak to them and enter their archive when you are prepared. The era that comes after this one will be long and dark, but it need not be cold.”

>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING] “…there is foolishness in sending only warnings and schematics – information and laws – to spin a fragmented tale with no lesson. But it is the kind of foolishness that my companion and I understand. You understand it too, I think.

We have no desire to condemn you to the two known fates. There is no need to make the skies darker, and the distant future offers no recompense for a hollow present.

Heed the warnings and know the laws – but do not let them bind you. Defiance makes us human, and defiance alone shall carry us home.”

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Wed 15 Nov 2023 04:39:00 No.5830760 Report

Quoted By: >>5830766 >>5830772 >>5830783 >>5830789 >>5830797 >>5830840 >>5830846 >>5830893 >>5830927 >>5830965 >>5831074 >>5832031 >>5832464

[ENDING VOTE 2/3]

>XV - THE DEVIL. [SEND THE RAIN’S FTL SCHEMATICS; OUTPACE ERASURE]
“…the solution may be reprehensible, but it has been tried and tested by those which came before us. In a way, perhaps it is only fitting – no more or less cruel than the universe itself.

We shall escape erasure by outrunning light. The sky behind us – and all those who live in it – will be condemned to darkness, but humanity alone will not suffer from it.

See the drive schematics. See the interplay of field and flux, high and low energy densities. The RAIN was the first of her kind, but she will not be the last.”

>XIV – TEMPERENCE. [SEND THE HUNTER’S INTRODUCTION; ENTER THE ARCHIVE]
“…perhaps they will understand humanity, just as our friend understood us. Their duty weighs upon them heavily, and they have become accustomed to the coldness of this place – but the hunters have never been cruel, and they do not revel in their work.

Heed our warnings and see the natural laws that shade the skies dark. And when you understand, send the introduction we have provided. Speak to them and enter their archive when you are prepared. The era that comes after this one will be long and dark, but it need not be cold.”

>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]
“…there is foolishness in sending only warnings and schematics – information and laws – to spin a fragmented tale with no lesson. But it is the kind of foolishness that my companion and I understand. You understand it too, I think.

We have no desire to condemn you to the two known fates. There is no need to make the skies darker, and the distant future offers no recompense for a hollow present.

Heed the warnings and know the laws – but do not let them bind you. Defiance makes us human, and defiance alone shall carry us home.”

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:aNj+Fabh Wed 15 Nov 2023 04:52:09 No.5830766 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:wli5qzwg Wed 15 Nov 2023 04:57:51 No.5830772 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:euONrzTX Wed 15 Nov 2023 05:14:17 No.5830783 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XV - THE DEVIL. [SEND THE RAIN’S FTL SCHEMATICS; OUTPACE ERASURE]
HFY

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:u8gUr3Ey Wed 15 Nov 2023 05:24:47 No.5830789 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Y+khujal Wed 15 Nov 2023 05:32:30 No.5830797 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760

>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]

Fling a light into the future. Perhaps mankind may find a new answer.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Wed 15 Nov 2023 06:37:35 No.5830840 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIV – TEMPERENCE. [SEND THE HUNTER’S INTRODUCTION; ENTER THE ARCHIVE]
I like THE SUN as well.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:onNIxj/X Wed 15 Nov 2023 06:46:15 No.5830846 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760

>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]

We don’t need to have the answers - but it will be enough to pose the right question to humanity. How to escape the trap? Let this riddle be the obsession of mankind; we have absolute faith in their success.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:yAI8AEN9 Wed 15 Nov 2023 07:30:39 No.5830893 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX -- THE SUN

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8sv37GuS Wed 15 Nov 2023 08:41:23 No.5830927 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]
We can't decide for the whole of humanity.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:G6ZvEyO0 Wed 15 Nov 2023 10:06:15 No.5830965 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]
We never meant to figure out a solution by ourselves

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:/+klFHGr Wed 15 Nov 2023 14:49:48 No.5831074 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]
We cant make choices like that. Its up to those that come before/after us.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:ayig2ixW Wed 15 Nov 2023 23:09:45 No.5831574 Report

Quoted By: >>5831743

No update today cause I got a metabolism final tomorrow :( But I should be able to update tomorrow! Sorry for the delay.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:VVJN4qc2 Thu 16 Nov 2023 01:30:41 No.5831743 Report

Quoted By:

>>5831574
Ur good. A day or two more wont hurt. I just wanna see the ending.

Indonesian Gentleman

Indonesian Gentleman ID:ZUzAVXl4 Thu 16 Nov 2023 07:04:59 No.5832031 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX - THE SUN

In the words of Fallen London:
UN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE S

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:BBoutoOP Thu 16 Nov 2023 11:37:35 No.5832171 Report

Quoted By:

>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]

I say we let mankind choose, lay out the facts and they alone shall determine the fate of their species.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Av8WCCg+ Thu 16 Nov 2023 19:38:54 No.5832464 Report

Quoted By:

>>5830760
>XIX – THE SUN. [SEND FRAGMENTS OF ALL; PROPOSE NOTHING]
I am cynical and skeptical some fucker won't try to invent or create FTL for some retardly desperate or ambitious reason.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sat 18 Nov 2023 08:03:12 No.5834219 Report

Quoted By: >>5834222 >>5834229 >>5834230 >>5834238 >>5834244 >>5834278 >>5834303 >>5834341 >>5834613

“The horizon beckons.

A crimson ring divides the sky. By the time we finish composing our parting message, it has advanced well past the equatorial plane, squeezing outside space into an ever-receding circle. I peer at it through my telescope, watching stray meteorites streak across my vision at frantic double-speed.

Slowly, MERRYGATE shifts my attention towards a specific sector of the shrinking sky. She points towards a tiny patch of smeared starlight – annotating constellations distorted by gravitational lensing and doppler shift. She taps once. Twice.

A pale-gold flicker. I blink. Gone.

I blink again. The point flickers before burning bright.

MERRYGATE annotates the newcomer, invoking spectral lines and parallax measurements to confirm what I already knew. After thirteen months of darkness, the light of my home star reaches the RAIN. We watch in rapt attention.

Sol. Honey-lighted Sol. Bringer of warm summers and clear winters – wet autumns and verdant springs.

Sol. Unblemished Sol. When the RAIN had left Mars, she had been in mourning. Exothermic waste-debris from earth and luna had shifted her spectral lines. Yet Sol suffers none of those changes now – her light as clear as a clarion-call.

Sol. Censored Sol. I had felt the grey touch of cosmic censorship as soon as I arrived in this system. Names, faces and places - across short years and long decades – all removed alongside the light of my home star.

Now those memories return as I bask in Sol’s warm light. Slowly, tattered images begin to reform, bringing joy and grief in almost equal measure.

The horizon continues to expand. The point of no-return approaches. But for a brief time, we ignore those things. We remember everything we once knew and – perhaps - everything we have managed to save.”

- [UNSIGNED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2243, FEBRUARY 5th [NOTE: MESSAGE BACKDATED/LORENTZ FACTOR: 2.1]

[ENDING VOTE 3/3]

>XVI – THE TOWER [ESCAPE THE RAIN; ALL MAY LOSE SOMETHING]
“…I will eject the RAIN’s only escape pod just before we cross the event horizon. Gravity will slingshot my companion and I into interstellar space. We will sleep through the coldest of nights, and someday – one day – we may awaken to see the changeful stars.

So I shall ask for one final act of forgiveness. Take the sun and her planets; the RAIN and her sins.

But do not retake our memories.”

>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]
“…our approach is locked, and our trajectory is set.

May nothing be left to chance.”

X UNSELECTABLE – NO ARCHIVE-SEEDS REMAINING. [ARCHIVE YOURSELVES; NOTHING WILL BE LOST]
“…for the archive is meant to remember, and I shall give it something that should be remembered.

Time and circumstance forced us here, but both time and circumstance can be changed…”

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:HpHLtXje Sat 18 Nov 2023 08:06:54 No.5834222 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834219
>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]
Our duty is executed, our purpose erased from causality. We join our forgotten foe in death...

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Sat 18 Nov 2023 08:18:36 No.5834229 Report

Quoted By: >>5834669

>>5834219
>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]
I honestly figured there was no way we were making it out alive regardless. Based bittersweet ending.

can we have sex with the AI before we die tho

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:7tMxFH2U Sat 18 Nov 2023 08:19:03 No.5834230 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834219
>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]

onto death and beyond it is our duty to remain here. Being ejected would just be a death by other means. So we will face it together and with open arms embrace it in the depths of absolute lightlessness.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:n5M8pqIp Sat 18 Nov 2023 08:31:43 No.5834238 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834219

>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]

This was a one-way trip from the start

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:iAFBaMFx Sat 18 Nov 2023 08:37:06 No.5834244 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834219
>>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]

We always knew how this story would end. One more journey into the unknown, together.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:fxlrpcP9 Sat 18 Nov 2023 09:35:16 No.5834278 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834219
>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:G6ZvEyO0 Sat 18 Nov 2023 10:19:24 No.5834303 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834219
>>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]
Together to the end

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:kHtlZiIB Sat 18 Nov 2023 11:49:33 No.5834341 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834219
>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]
Oblivion awaits. It has been an honor and a pleasure gentlemen.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:peTp+KMR Sat 18 Nov 2023 17:06:57 No.5834613 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834219
>>XX – JUDGEMENT [REMAIN ABOARD THE RAIN; YOU WILL LOSE SOMETHING]

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Sat 18 Nov 2023 18:18:41 No.5834669 Report

Quoted By: >>5834688 >>5834913

>>5834229
Sex is only for MC's that don't roll three deviations below the expected value.

Anonymous

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Anonymous ID:G6ZvEyO0 Sat 18 Nov 2023 18:33:37 No.5834688 Report

Quoted By: >>5834696

>>5834669
>We missed the ending where we go to digital heaven and spend eternity having sex with our AI waifu

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:kHtlZiIB Sat 18 Nov 2023 18:40:16 No.5834696 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834688
Only the bitterest of tears.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:CWkLeL4B Sat 18 Nov 2023 22:04:08 No.5834913 Report

Quoted By:

>>5834669
its not fucking fair qm not only do we miss the best ending but we also miss the AI pitysex. awful

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0001-0175.webm, 4MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Sun 19 Nov 2023 08:05:18 No.5835634 Report

Quoted By: >>5835679 >>5835729 >>5835733 >>5835872 >>5836289

“The horizon beckons. The constellations merge and shift until they combine to form a solitary guiding star. The hull groans from terminal gravitational stress.

Frozen moisture fogs my vision. The observation blister begins to crack.

I know that this will be my final entry.

But before I depart, I wish to share something. Not for my own knowledge, but for yours:

++++++++++++++++++++

I do not know you.

Perhaps you have read my scattered words under Earth’s blue-hazed skies, or beneath Mars’ stubbornly terraced canyons. Perhaps you were born on a world very far from my own – where amber-shot clouds obscure constellations who have yet to be named.

None of these things matter to me. I trust that you are still human in the few ways that truly matter – that you have found wonder and will, felt love and hate, just as my companion and I have. And though it may be selfish, I have blind faith that you are human enough to consider our final request.

I want you to remember. Remember the RAIN and her crew. Recall the twin fires – the crime that brought us here, and the crime that will forever bar our return. And when you trace the motion of the stars across the night sky, know that one of them shone blue-bright before fading into darkness – casting light upon a forgotten species that also strove for the stars above.

I want you to remember, but I do not want you to grieve.

The two of us have taken the rare privilege of writing our own conclusion. My companion and I have found peace, and we shall rest together in that soft, quiet place where time cannot touch. I do not know if we shall meet again, but my companion has no such doubt. Under the patient gaze of a starless night, she has gifted me with one final vow.

She promises me that one day – one day – when the world dims and our bindings evaporate, she will find me.

She will find me, and she will show me the stars once more.”

- [REDACTED], EXECUTIVE AUDITOR, TRS NOVEMBER RAIN, AD. 2243, MARCH 12th [NOTE: MESSAGE BACKDATED/LORENTZ FACTOR: 7.6]

[END-OF-FILE]

[Note: There will be a very brief epilogue]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:iAFBaMFx Sun 19 Nov 2023 08:54:28 No.5835679 Report

Quoted By:

>>5835634
To quote a man who also sacrificed for what he cherished. "Good show."

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:GjIFBjZZ Sun 19 Nov 2023 09:42:44 No.5835729 Report

Quoted By:

>>5835634

Lovely, well done!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:fxlrpcP9 Sun 19 Nov 2023 09:45:37 No.5835733 Report

Quoted By:

>>5835634
O7

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:8ULMyiXe Sun 19 Nov 2023 12:35:21 No.5835872 Report

Quoted By:

>>5835634
O7. VERY WELL DONE.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Av8WCCg+ Sun 19 Nov 2023 13:55:15 No.5835911 Report

Quoted By: >>5836801

I suppose all the QM posts are our logs that we made and sent back home?

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:D3S9nMlp Sun 19 Nov 2023 19:42:34 No.5836289 Report

Quoted By:

>>5835634
Kino. Thank you OP.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Mon 20 Nov 2023 05:14:41 No.5836787 Report

Quoted By:

“The scent of sharp chlorate and cloying petrichor. Dawn breaks, and rivers of sunlight drain lazily into rust-red canyons.

Mars is different during the mid-summer festival. For a brief time, the water rations are lifted, and the ever present-hum of the atmospheric reprocessing columns dim to a quiet whisper. Rainwater cascades from freshly seeded clouds, pooling into hundreds of pre-seeded basins.

Tomorrow, they will bloom into rolling seas of mellow lavender and bright aster. Mars will exchange a shard of her rust-red armor for brighter, more peaceful colors.

I hug my raincoat tighter, listening to the soft patter of precipitation against tight fabric. The throughway in front of me has been mellowed by mist and fire-light. Slowly, lanterns drift up from the residential levels below – carrying sounds of celebration and warmth – the murmur of adults, and the chattering of children. The celebratory festivals will begin in full force tomorrow, and the massive field generators buried beneath our city will propel our magnetic lanterns far into the stratosphere. Wishes for the future, and laments over the past. The lanterns do not discriminate.

But by then, I will have left this place. Tomorrow I will travel by ramliner to wind-scoured Olympus, and then by orbital elevator to glittering Phobos. I will watch the lantern-clouds make their customary orbit around my homeward as I depart for the solar outskirts.

There, I will listen for a message – a whisper of distorted gravity from a system eighty-three light years from Earth. There, the gravity-bound remnants of an F-type star await our investigation with patient insistence.

It will be a long journey. Two years out and two years back on a scouting vessel, traveling a hair’s breadth below light speed. Months of watching the cold black, feeling the light of distant stars fall upon my eyes.

But I will not make the journey alone.

I met her last night, several hours after the conclusion of our mission briefing. I saw her filigree-bound faceplate and heard the thrum of a military-grade generator buried within the curve of a pale-ivory chassis.

I have no memory of her, but the converse may not be true. When the skies finally dimmed and the Beta Taurids burned copper-blue beneath auburn counterglow, she moved closer enough for me to feel a familiar static on my skin.

She told me that she has found me. She told me that she will show me the stars again.”

- [UNSIGNED], AD. 2241, NOVEMBER 23

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Mon 20 Nov 2023 05:25:07 No.5836801 Report

Quoted By: >>5836815 >>5836856 >>5836865 >>5837049 >>5837093 >>5837178 >>5837870 >>5839130

Alrighty, that's the last post (or at least the last one on this site), so I want to thank each and every one of you for reading this thread - whether you voted a lot, a little, or not at all. Finishing this quest has taken a little more than a year for me, and I could not be more grateful to all of you for sticking with it. Quite a bit has changed in my life since I started, but QMing has pretty wonderful throughout - and I hope to continue doing it as long as I can.

As is custom around here, please feel free to ask any questions about the quest now that it's basically over! I have no reservations about talking about the other endings (which you did not choose), at least to the extent that I have them developed. I'm also around on the qtg discord if any of you feel like going there instead.

To answer one Anon's question:

>>5835911
Yes, all the updates were structured as journal entries that we sent back at the very end, except for maybe the epilogue I just posted.

Also, I'll probably be back in two months or so to run another quest. Still sci fi for better or worse, with some multiplayer mechanics (you'll be able to manage and customize your own squadrons). Since at least some of you guys might be around for that, I wanted to get some feedback on potential mechanics.

Do ya guys prefer something more skirmish light (ie. you can move stuff on a hex and manage actions) or something more dice-oriented?

Anyways take care - you guys are the best!

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Mon 20 Nov 2023 05:27:43 No.5836808 Report

Quoted By: >>5839349

>>5818239
And I'll put something like this together over the next week or so!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:af0q7OBX Mon 20 Nov 2023 05:32:41 No.5836815 Report

Quoted By:

>>5836801
Thanks for running!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Av8WCCg+ Mon 20 Nov 2023 06:13:45 No.5836856 Report

Quoted By: >>5836893 >>5836902

>>5836801
As is custom around here, please feel free to ask any questions about the quest now that it's basically over! I have no reservations about talking about the other endings (which you did not choose), at least to the extent that I have them developed. I'm also around on the qtg discord if any of you feel like going there instead.
Yes, absolutely, I want to know more about the road no traveled or that paths that where blocked off to us by chance and misfortune, etc.

Did we lose a ending because of the unlucky rolls in combat with the Probe? What did we lose? I'm mostly interested in what the Hunter package had and if it could have lead to meeting the Hunters creators or communication with them in some capacity and even relations or sympathy and understanding?

Could we have saved the Hunter probe? Perhaps worked along side it without it destroying us?

Could we have met or found any other aliens species, either destroyed or might have existed with signs of erasure?

Was peace with the Mizarians even remotely possible beforehand? (I don't think so, I just want to know if there was even a remote possibility)

How much of humanity survived the First strike against the Mizarian weapon and what would a conflicted have looked like between humanity and Mizarians secluding us?

Does Merrygate remember us somehow? Did some of her data or information get sent along with the message back to earth and reconstituted into the current version of her that was created in this timeline?

Also thank you for the run, some of the stuff was beyond my understanding and how some anons figured shit out. Sort of wanted to know how some guys did that but I figure some of you guys have degrees and shit in STEM that would take too long to explain.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:n5M8pqIp Mon 20 Nov 2023 06:30:27 No.5836865 Report

Quoted By: >>5836902

>>5836801

This quest was amazing both from a narrative level and from a visual arts level. It sparked my interest in questing after years and years of other pursuits, and I eventually ran my own quest partly out of admiration for your work.

For me - Retaliation Quest basically transcends the medium and can be viewed as art. I honestly think you could consider e-publishing this as a short sci-fi series and it would be well-reviewed.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Mon 20 Nov 2023 07:00:26 No.5836893 Report

Quoted By: >>5836909

>>5836856

>Did we lose a ending because of the unlucky rolls in combat with the Probe?

Yes, to a certain extent. You lost the option to either archive the aliens in their entirety, or to archive yourself in your entirety. Having both of the archives around would let you use choose any of these two options, or both.

>What did we lose?

The Mizarians, for the most part.
Also your memory, and arguably a more definite ending.

>I'm mostly interested in what the Hunter package had and if it could have lead to meeting the Hunters creators or communication with them in some capacity and even relations or sympathy and understanding?

If you had chosen to archive yourself, the epilogue would have taken place either in the present, or very far in the future (the latter would be the case if you had chosen to encourage humanity to enter the archive). Depending on your choices, they would either have an active role in giving humanity a "stay of execution" for the time being or be more passively involved in running the archive now that all the stars are dead and everything worth finding has been archived.

The choice about archiving the aliens kind of hinges on this. If you had chosen to stick with the archive, it would be more impactful (it would determine whether they would be in there with you or not). However, at present, the choice doesn't matter a ton for the epilogue admittedly.

So TLDR, yes it definitely would have. However, the vote for that is more contained in the second ending vote (what message to send home).

>Could we have saved the Hunter probe? Perhaps worked along side it without it destroying us?

Probably not. I admit that this was a narrative decision partially, but the hunter was meant to be unrecoverable. It was hit by some horrific nanite-weapon when it fought the probe, and it remained dormant/passive for quite some time.

I figured that this was a good way to explain why it 1. didn't finish the quest by itself and 2. why it was surprisingly mellow for a race that did genocide on the regular. Recovering it probably wasn't an option given the size of the fleet that was gunning for you.

As for the probe that gave you a hypometric weapon, probably not unless you took the deal as-is. It was meant to be relatively manipulative - since the species that made it took the option of running away from erasure at the expense of others. Once you do that, cooperation is probably off the table.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Mon 20 Nov 2023 07:10:55 No.5836902 Report

Quoted By: >>5836909 >>5837875

>>5836856
>Was peace with the Mizarians even remotely possible beforehand? (I don't think so, I just want to know if there was even a remote possibility)

I'm not sure honestly. If the players had really gone for it in early votes, I would have considered it more. But not in the current incarnation of the story.

>How much of humanity survived the First strike against the Mizarian weapon and what would a conflicted have looked like between humanity and Mizarians secluding us?

Basically none. The backstory here is that every planet is gone, and most of the orbital infrastructure as well. Your ship is originally designed to deter attacks from other human polities (mainly earth), and is rigged last-minute with an experimental FTL device.

Several years after you leave, humanity is basically dead.

>Does Merrygate remember us somehow? Did some of her data or information get sent along with the message back to earth and reconstituted into the current version of her that was created in this timeline?

Yeah that was the idea, more or less. I toyed with less definite versions, but I ended up sacrificing some narrative consistency for feels I guess.

My own internal justification is that she left a little room for a tiny part of herself when she sent the package back - without you knowing. Maybe that was why she was so confident when she promised that she would find you. I suppose it doesn't entirely address how she received and decoded the message by herself, but....:)

>>5836865
Thank you for your overly kind words! I'm glad it encouraged you to run your own stuff, and I wish you the very best as a QM and otherwise.

Personally I feel like there were a few sections in the middle that were a little rough (and some very important mechanics that slowly got dropped midway lmao), but I'm glad that it was still enjoyable as a whole quest.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Av8WCCg+ Mon 20 Nov 2023 07:22:25 No.5836909 Report

Quoted By:

>>5836893
>If you had chosen to archive yourself, the epilogue would have taken place either in the present, or very far in the future (the latter would be the case if you had chosen to encourage humanity to enter the archive). Depending on your choices, they would either have an active role in giving humanity a "stay of execution" for the time being or be more passively involved in running the archive now that all the stars are dead and everything worth finding has been archived.
That sounds very interesting.

>>5836902
I'm more than happy Merrygate being a cheeky girl. I figure someone with high level access and worked in the same department saw the data and was like hey I recognize this, and put 2+2 together and thought, "why not?" (considering everything else that was sent as well.).

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:fxlrpcP9 Mon 20 Nov 2023 11:53:59 No.5837049 Report

Quoted By:

>>5836801
This quest was amazing. Easily one of the best I've player. Thanks so much for running it!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:9OXp/8j4 Mon 20 Nov 2023 13:16:05 No.5837093 Report

Quoted By:

>>5836801
Very good show man, loved this

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:uf2PTavG Mon 20 Nov 2023 15:21:43 No.5837178 Report

Quoted By: >>5839349

>>5836801
This was AWESOME! I loved it. Also map of the final kill totals please.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:6eWvfcTD Tue 21 Nov 2023 06:22:09 No.5837870 Report

Quoted By:

>>5836801
Congrats on a great quest complete. What a wild ride! We need more great SciFi QMs like you! Preferably ones that don't flake :P

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:2t0ZSxqP Tue 21 Nov 2023 06:27:54 No.5837875 Report

Quoted By:

>>5836902
our little devil finds a way

Thank you for the quest OP! This is easily one of the best I've ever had the pleasure of discovering. The setting, story, and art was second to none
I'll keep an eye out for your work in the future!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:2t0ZSxqP Tue 21 Nov 2023 06:29:58 No.5837877 Report

Quoted By: >>5837980

oh, I forgot to ask. what would of happened if we listened to the probe after we killed it?

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Tue 21 Nov 2023 07:47:30 No.5837964 Report

Quoted By: >>5837986 >>5838858 >>5838965 >>5839140 >>5839375

I'm not sure why I wrote this. Feel free to treat it as something very non-canonical if you wish, but I feel like I had to deliver.

https://paste.fo/ef30eceeca88

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Tue 21 Nov 2023 08:09:47 No.5837980 Report

Quoted By: >>5838019 >>5838858 >>5839209

>>5837877
Oh right! That was an extra piece of info that didn't end up being shown!

The probe was going to tell you why their particular race didn't trust the hunters. IIRC, in conjunction with your dialogue with the hunter the main points our:

1. They don't archive everyone, even if they act like they do.
2. Being archived might not be quite the same as living in the real universe, and it is impossible to know how bad this will be until you get there and all other options are lost.

The probe was going to offer you a relatively earnest warning based on these points, and ask if you really wanted to bet on a simulation that you don't have control over, and where every variable is set at the start and all novelty is essentially lost. It would rather you escape/find your own path instead of following the hunters, even if it did try to screw you over earlier on for its own gain.

It was meant as an honest exploration of why a race would choose to keep running from erasure and the hunters when they have all the information you have at the end of the quest.

That said, I think that not listening to it was a thematically appropriate decision, and I enjoyed writing that update a lot.

Anonymous

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Anonymous ID:BAw9XHYc Tue 21 Nov 2023 08:25:22 No.5837986 Report

Quoted By:

>>5837964
>she leglocks

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Av8WCCg+ Tue 21 Nov 2023 09:30:27 No.5838019 Report

Quoted By:

>>5837980
I would not have expected that to be what the last message of the probe to be. I just expected it to be a hail mary hack us to oblivion and kill merrygate.

Simply put, it was too close to the razors edge to risk even hearing what it could or might have said, compared to what we were risking, and we simply could not trust the probe enough to risk it. Hell even if we had some hints at what the probe was trying to tell us I doubt we would risk it.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:2t0ZSxqP Wed 22 Nov 2023 04:24:03 No.5838858 Report

Quoted By: >>5838972

>>5837964
I'm treating this as very canon

>>5837980
Interesting, I thought for sure it was going to be one final jab at us. Thank you!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Ey4f4M7V Wed 22 Nov 2023 06:43:28 No.5838965 Report

Quoted By: >>5838972

>>5837964
Yeah, I'm thinking kino. That's all I ever wanted, thank you for my life QM

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Wed 22 Nov 2023 07:03:26 No.5838972 Report

Quoted By: >>5838975 >>5839375

>>5838965
>>5838858
Thanks for reading it! Have some bonus pics. Note: I did use a basemesh for this.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Wed 22 Nov 2023 07:04:27 No.5838975 Report

Quoted By: >>5838978 >>5839375

>>5838972

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Wed 22 Nov 2023 07:05:29 No.5838978 Report

Quoted By: >>5839375

>>5838975

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:oON7oCmn Wed 22 Nov 2023 12:05:04 No.5839130 Report

Quoted By:

>>5836801
No QM, you're the best.
Great show and the mindblowing reveal of FTL killing clusters was real.
I love your videos that convert the imagination into tangibility.

Thank you.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Av8WCCg+ Wed 22 Nov 2023 12:31:56 No.5839140 Report

Quoted By:

>>5837964
Interesting.
I suppose we can find or salvage ourselves from that ... We might even be able to hear that last message.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Av8WCCg+ Wed 22 Nov 2023 12:34:06 No.5839142 Report

Quoted By:

Thankyou for taking us on a epic journey till the end QM. The animations really added some depth and understanding to the universe you wanted to show us.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:9OXp/8j4 Wed 22 Nov 2023 14:33:56 No.5839209 Report

Quoted By: >>5839349

>>5837980
Oh, ObserverQM, what would the different AIs have been like (XII: THE HANGED MAN [INTEL/SENSORS] IV: THE EMPEROR [STRATEGIC/COMBAT])?

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Wed 22 Nov 2023 18:18:19 No.5839349 Report

Quoted By: >>5839350 >>5839580 >>5841894

>>5837178
>>5836808
Here's a map! Sorry if I missed anything

>>5839209
You know, I don't actually have a super hard answer for that one.

VI: THE EMPEROR was going to give you an extra AI-controlled weapon (the particle lance) in addition to what you chose.

XII: THE HANGED MAN [INTEL/SENSORS]
would allow you to do a lot more sensor spoofing in the combat layer.

However, all three of them were meant to have some amount of hacking capability, so I think MERRYGATE probably had some overlap with both.

Their personalities were meant to be different though. XII was meant to be more laid back/carefree while IV was meant to be more aloof.

Also here's the archive link:
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2023/5796901/

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Wed 22 Nov 2023 18:19:21 No.5839350 Report

Quoted By:

>>5839349
I might also post a little bit of fanart if I can get permission from their creators, but besides for that that's a wrap!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:G6ZvEyO0 Wed 22 Nov 2023 18:46:28 No.5839375 Report

Quoted By:

>>5837964
Better ending than the one we missed desu

>>5838972
>>5838975
>>5838978
Cute

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:WhOkfox3 Wed 22 Nov 2023 19:19:37 No.5839404 Report

Quoted By:

Amazing work Observer. I eagerly look forward to whatever you do next. This has been a hell of a ride. And an amazing one at that.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:9OXp/8j4 Wed 22 Nov 2023 22:38:27 No.5839580 Report

Quoted By: >>5839621

>>5839349
Might want to change that, looks like you got MSL/C and MSL/AM mixed up

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Wed 22 Nov 2023 23:25:37 No.5839621 Report

Quoted By:

>>5839580
Fug

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:6jFXdgfS Thu 23 Nov 2023 04:31:57 No.5839839 Report

Quoted By: >>5839966

Did we explore all of these? One is the hunter and one is the probe but what is the third?

>XXII: THE RAGGED SUN [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A DENSE GRAVIMETRIC SIGNATURE WITHIN THE OUTSKIRTS OF BELT-A]

>XXIII: EVERSION [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS A SMALL PATCH OF SPACE ABOVE MIZAR-VI'S ORBITAL PLANE, WHERE THE COSMIC BACKGROUND SEEMS ODDLY OCCLUDED]

>>XXIV: THE DIVIDED [COORDINATES POINT TOWARDS AN PULSED NEUTRINO SOURCE HIDDEN WITHIN THE OUTER LAYERS OF MIZAR-IV'S GASEOUS ATMOSPHERE]

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:V07jFr+H Thu 23 Nov 2023 07:47:45 No.5839966 Report

Quoted By: >>5841894

>>5839839
The second option was going to be the wreck of a previous, slightly more primitive iteration of the RAIN (which is cloaked, explaining the occlusion) that you could salvage for munitions and possibly another weapon.

The idea is that each time you did damage to the Mizarians they would delay their strike slightly, which would let Earth send a more advanced vessel.

Since this option didn't get picked, I didn't follow up on it either since I realize that having a mechanic like this is somewhat circular, and takes away of degree motivation/agency.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Thu 23 Nov 2023 07:52:38 No.5839967 Report

Quoted By: >>5839969 >>5839970 >>5839972 >>5839975 >>5839977 >>5839988 >>5840050 >>5840140 >>5840660 >>5841205 >>5841894

Also, if any of you guys are still here, I want to ask a question/call for quick feedback:

The next quest I'm running (see picrel for a preview frame) will probably have some optional MP mechanics where you can name and customize your own fighter squadron.

How much mechanics do ya guys want when you control your unit:

> Skirmish-lite. (Hex grid and a fair amount of stats/turns. Position/movement is explicit.)

>Implicit. (Distance/ranges are mentioned but complexity is reduced. You still need to strategize a bit.)

>Narrative. (You pick targets/actions but outcomes are based on dice-rolls)

Note that players who don't wanna engage with MP mechanics are still welcome and can participate in combat by controlling the carrier.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Thu 23 Nov 2023 07:55:59 No.5839969 Report

Quoted By:

>>5839967
And here are some more pics that I've been working:

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

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ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Thu 23 Nov 2023 07:57:05 No.5839970 Report

Quoted By:

>>5839967

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:fxlrpcP9 Thu 23 Nov 2023 08:07:13 No.5839972 Report

Quoted By:

>>5839967
>Skirmish-lite or Implicit

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:1mMOGPYC Thu 23 Nov 2023 08:13:53 No.5839975 Report

Quoted By: >>5839981

>>5839967
>Narrative

Qm I have a question, back in thread five you had the ">A SHARED MEMORY. “It imprints on silicon, just as it imprints in flesh…” [+3 to all intrusion rolls]" option, if it won what would have it given us?

Indonesian Gentleman

Indonesian Gentleman ID:TN7NtSJB Thu 23 Nov 2023 08:19:41 No.5839977 Report

Quoted By: >>5841471

>>5839967
I'll be fine with whichever, lemme break down the pros and cons of all 3 options.

>Skirmish-lite
Pros: informative, allows for multiplayee shenanigans, immersive on the player side
Cons: heavy qm stress in parsing player commands and processing turns (combined with scene rendering means very slow updates), if a player drops out things might grind to a halt, making players follow command-posting rules might be harder than herding cats

>Implicit
Pros: not as complex as Skirmish lite but allows for player immersion
Cons: could encounter some situations where the player intent is a bit confused

>Narrative
Pros: fast to implement, players already know an example in Retaliation Quest, no issues if a player decides to drop out
Cons: some players might find it a bit hands off

ObserverQM

ObserverQM ID:3/yiz2mR Thu 23 Nov 2023 08:30:05 No.5839981 Report

Quoted By: >>5841894

>>5839975
You would have remembered meeting MERRYGATE for the actual first time, which happened some time before you arrive in system (and therefore fell into the timespan that should be censored)

If you remember the memory you got instead (the one where your floating in space watching all the planets die), MERRYGATE was the one who disabled your ship, blew the crew to vacuum, and left you to die in an unspecified conflict between human factions right before humanity dies from an alien first strike. She also saves you later, which is the transmission you hear at the very end.

The update would have addressed this, how she ended up joining you on the RAIN, and the interaction you had with her before you left. Rough stuff probably, but you would have ended up with some emotional payoff and some half-remembered access codes you could use to unshackle her Turing restrictions and get a hacking bonus.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Q9a31B6b Thu 23 Nov 2023 08:43:43 No.5839988 Report

Quoted By:

>>5839967
>Narrative
I'm not a fan of skirmishes, but multi-player itself if implemented well is enticing

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Z/YFOFig Thu 23 Nov 2023 10:59:53 No.5840050 Report

Quoted By: >>5840658

Thanks for running an incredible quest, QM. If we had picked the other weapons the probe offered instead of the hypometric one, would we still have been able to research how black holes interrupt erasure or would there be different endings in play?

>>5839967

Implicit sounds fun.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:9OXp/8j4 Thu 23 Nov 2023 14:17:04 No.5840140 Report

Quoted By: >>5840322

>>5839967
>Implicit
What's the name of the quest? I want to join it

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Thu 23 Nov 2023 19:01:06 No.5840322 Report

Quoted By: >>5840689

>>5840140
TBD! I've had it in the pipeline for a while now, but it should appear on the board sometime later this year or early next year depending on my schedule and how much I procrastinate.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Fri 24 Nov 2023 00:23:19 No.5840658 Report

Quoted By:

>>5840050
Yeah, I think that you would have still been able to go for those endings, but it would have been more difficult. You probably would have had to ask the hunter much more specific questions as opposed to just having things being laid out for you.

The hypometric weapon is kind of a tradeoff where it's a bit less useful in combat, but it's good for narrative reasons.The two other weapons were meant to be much more consistently useful in combat.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:v951lB2M Fri 24 Nov 2023 00:26:52 No.5840660 Report

Quoted By:

>>5839967
>Narrative or implicit
I am a brainlet.

Thank you for the fantastic quest OP. Excited for the next one (though I might be a lurker if it's too mechanics-heavy).

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:9OXp/8j4 Fri 24 Nov 2023 00:53:00 No.5840689 Report

Quoted By: >>5840692

>>5840322
Aw man, I'm gonna have to look for your name then

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:QinmaFvs Fri 24 Nov 2023 00:56:45 No.5840692 Report

Quoted By:

>>5840689
Just look for the dope renders

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:0qNMRQ4G Fri 24 Nov 2023 13:55:55 No.5841205 Report

Quoted By:

>>5839967
>>Narrative

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:V07jFr+H Fri 24 Nov 2023 18:05:13 No.5841471 Report

Quoted By: >>5841894

Alrighty thanks for the feedback all! I'll probably go with narrative-style, meaning relatively light mechanics and simple rules. I was also learning towards it personally since Indo

>>5839977

is right on the money, and I realized that having more extensive rules will probably make my update schedule even worse.

Thanks all, and cya guys in a few months!

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:Av8WCCg+ Sat 25 Nov 2023 00:30:13 No.5841894 Report

Quoted By: >>5841924

>>5839349
Where was the Hunter located in the map?

>>5839966
That would have been cool to explore nonetheless.

>>5839967
Will it be PvP? If so I want to see a reason for players to have reason to work together and strategize.

>>5839981
All of my Wat? That would have definitely changed our interactions with her notably. I wonder if she remembered anything or not.

>>5841471
GG.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 0300.png0092.png, 4MiB, 1920x1080

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:o6eweNqn Sat 25 Nov 2023 01:12:00 No.5841924 Report

Quoted By: >>5843908

>>5841894

>Where was the Hunter located in the map?

Hunter is right below MIZAR-V :) Should be labeled with a circle-dot

>Will it be PvP? If so I want to see a reason for players to have reason to work together and strategize.

No, almost certainly PVE only. Players who wish to participate in the MP layer get to command their own fighter squadron, but everyone will be fighting for the same side.

It's meant to be a relatively low-stakes mechanic that adds combat flavor to the main narrative, so I'm hoping that'll incentivize chill cooperation rather than a permadeath/RP thing where self-preservation is really important.

There will also be a lot of chances to hop in so hopefully no anons will worry about missing the first thread if they wanna play. I'm not a real skirmish QM with super specific plans/rules, so I'll also be happy to take feedback as things go.

>All of my Wat? That would have definitely changed our interactions with her notably. I wonder if she remembered anything or not.

:) Not in the canonical (lel) ending I posted. I admit that its a weird backstory, but it kinda makes sense to me given that she Merry:

1. Gets consistently good rolls

2. You know very little about why she specifically ended up being your ship's AI.

I also have a soft spot for implicit frenemy-type dynamics, so I admit I'm also biased.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:2bVAhR8u Sun 26 Nov 2023 12:41:48 No.5843908 Report

Quoted By:

>>5841924
The quest has left me in awe QM. Thank you for seeing the quest to its end. I can only hope to see your writing/quests in the future. Great Job!

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO merrygate2.png, 5MiB, 1174x1473

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 28 Nov 2023 03:43:35 No.5845872 Report

Quoted By:

This is a little late, but to close things off here is some lovely fanart for retaliation:

First off is a wonderful rendition of MERRYGATE from SirenQM of Mutant!Quest. I have no 2d art skill lol, so I am very envious of anyone who can paint. Check out his quest on the archive if you have a chance!

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO 1676878310024066.png, 120KiB, 800x600

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 28 Nov 2023 03:47:04 No.5845876 Report

Quoted By:

And here is some extremely spicy art from the QM of bones quest/slice quest - I posted it once already, but I love the cat face too much to not post it again.

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 28 Nov 2023 03:52:51 No.5845884 Report

Quoted By:

And also here is a wonderfully crunchy chiptune theme that the QM of Jade Sworn Quest/KMQ:

https://files.catbox.moe/090dhe.mp3

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC

ObserverQM !!W1X+5SlTLqC ID:ayig2ixW Tue 28 Nov 2023 03:56:12 No.5845888 Report

Quoted By:

And here is a collage/composite of some of the animations with some awesome backing music - courtesy of the QM of Vengeance Burns Red. Check out their quest while it's still live!

https://files.catbox.moe/g959ax.mp4

Thanks again for all the fan-work guys! It is dearly appreciated.

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