>>1168551

This is the last thread, unless it really goes into overtime. For more information, see the archives. Omega has a chance, however small, to defeat Yahweh Himself in the Last Battle.

Your key advantage is that you know how it will go, having probed the minds of believers to figure out a reconstruction of how they imagine the Last Prophecy.

Your key disadvantage is that, despite being bound to a script, your enemy is supposedly all-knowing and all-powerful. You also have reason to calculate that the probability of Satan having been Yahweh's designated agent provocateur, rather than His actual enemy, is quite high.

The interim leader of The Other Light has occupied Russia and Ethiopia, in a rethreading of the Gog and Magog prophecy, and is using the resources of those lands to feed the hitherto undernourished and sickly Last Army soldiers so that they may march towards Ezekiel's Temple and, at a command from Satan, take over. Or so they think...

On top of all this, your chief Desolator is missing, although she has left matters to run well and isn't the type to abandon a fight.

As a Plan B, you have seeded colonies on Luna and Mars, and have recently sent a mighty starship to Alpha Centauri; by the beginning of the year, she has just passed the orbit of Neptune.

>>1168576
Damn that ships moving at a pretty fast clip I tell you wat

Resources overview, do we have enough gas to blanket the temple. And are our forces ready to take on no less than three arch angels.

>>1168576
What the fuck is Kat doing, Can we call her?

>>1168620
Nah, let her.

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>>1168585

The Reach (and the server ship) is on a brachistocrone trajectory; it should be moving at maximum speed around +1000, start decelerating, and arrive around +1008 or +1009.

>>1168635
>>1168620

Kat has activated the privacy flags on all her data. This is somewhat unusual (most of your high-ranking personnel is monitored 24/7, and is okay with it, although for example Jeb, Val and Cordylon would turn privacy when they were having personal time together; to this day you don't know if they were having sex or geeking out) You can override, but she's likely to find out.

>>1168596

You do in fact have enough nerve gas to blanket the Temple and the surrounding area; your transport airships and planes can be retrofit to carry the canisters, and at least the airships should be able to fly higher than TOL's AAA batteries can reach. The neurotoxin can be deployed in lethal or less-lethal mode depending on concentration.

You have more Desolators and martial artists trained in anti-Angel techniques than you did during the Sixth Trumpet. You do not have dedicated supersonic fighters. You have a vast army of drones carrying wubbers, all of which have silencer firmware and a few of which are nuclear powered and can stay in the air indefinitely.

Would you like to know more?

>>1168656
Can we have the dwarves dig around where we expect TOL to place themselves, and set these as traps for anything above ground?

>>1168656
It would be kinda cool to just set the whole battlefield around the temple set to just collpase and essentially create our own 'divine' act of earth quakes like ol' Neptune. Course that might take a lot of effort or the other side would think it be there God doing it.

That being said I say we let Kat do her thing and see what happens.

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>>1168683
>>1168702

That much mining is extremely difficult to do covertly; as it is, Urist's people are assisting your tunneling teams. You expect the Last Army to move into the Rub-Al-Khali before it enters Greater Jerusalem; the area has already been tunneled under, and setting up pop-up sentry guns would be pretty easy. More interesting systems such as autonomous mobile swords would require some industrial effort. There's always the danger of friendly fire...


The Dwarfs have decided to try to send a delegation to the Temple this year, as if they were a regular territory. "Sunday is a slave driver and a slum lord, but there's wisdom in his words, if not his deeds. We will only fight if we must. Perhaps we can settle this at the negotiating table, or in the arena."

# Encourage it, at worst some Dwarfs will be converted - it should be interesting to see if they can.

# Recommend against it.

# Good time to set up a covert op at the same time, actually...

TOL troops have steered very clear of Night City; taking Russia and Ethiopia seems to have been their only victory to date.

(OK to display map?)

>>1168740
# Good time to set up a covert op at the same time, actually...

what map?

>>1168740

# Encourage it, at worst some Dwarfs will be converted - it should be interesting to see if they can.

You do know it would be like sending people to their deaths.

>>1168740
>Encourage it, at worst some Dwarfs will be converted - it should be interesting to see if they can.
Though do be sure to warn them that anyone that isn't a part of their grand plan seem to mysteriously disappear, best to have an escape plan just in case, we could offer to bug them so we could send a rescue party if things turn to the worst.
Mainly I just want to see and know what Turbo Jesus looks like...
Also ask the dwarves if they have ever thought of taking some inspirations from the warhammer brethren of the Dawi, mainly in flame throwing troopers and the like.

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>>1168760
>>1168755

"It's a situational idea. Flamethrowers need fuel. We have motorized armor, sharp blades, and mining lasers. And if the batteries die before our enemies do, the joint servos disengage, our armor is still hard and our blades are still sharp. We plan to be the last ones standing."

Urist's people gratefully accept your offer for telemetry systems; they understand that you'll get a copy of everything that is said and most of what is seen, and don't mind. "But we will not try to hide this from the Temple priests, either. Not much point to."

And so the Dwarfs arrange to go to church. The few who will be Night City's delegation swear an oath to keep the honor of the fledgling dwarven race paramount in any negotiation and to not renounce their core beliefs; this is a big deal for them, and so is the fact that they invite you to observe the ceremony via video feed.

>>1168744

The global map.

>>1168791
You know it tickles my 0s and 1s that our grand children regard us so well, I'm glad we have such a good relationship with them.

Now if we had made elves...

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Rules for allocating cabals and assets: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.QuestRules.html

You have 25 cabals total; of these, 3 are maintaining your systems, 1 is space police, and 1 is army liaison, so 20 are available. Your civilian research grant is focused on curing radiation sickness. Your military grant is focused on containment systems.

You are not tracking enemy teams. TOL are wrapping up taking over their territories.

Your Moon colony wants to set up an orbital station to deal with birth defects. Your Mars colony is doing well.

You have 2 tunneling teams that have breached into Greater Jerusalem. They are 25% done. (Digging = C3)

Variable complexity:

# Media blitz to leverage any recent success.

# Any interesting idea you might want to try.

# Deal with special situations.

# Assign manpower to research.

Complexity 0

# Use a MISC special.

# Use your automated base in Greenland to produce army assets (1/3rd dot) or aerospace equipment.

C 1

# Continue tracking.

# SPECIAL Send a drone to the Temple by having TOL or believers build it.

# Use army units to attack on a TOL base or a govt installation.

# Send a cabal to the canopy station for astronaut training.

# Foster pagan worship in a territory (Vulcan/Hekate/Satan).

# Harass or sabotage a Hero, or tie up an enemy team.

# Jam radio transmissions in a territory. This forces people to switch from NJ-controlled broadcast media to internet media, or not get news at all.

# Send a survey team anywhere (covert or overt) to look for trouble or to spy.

# Work on Hell nodes.

C 2

# Use any base to produce army assets (1/3rd dot)

# Use any of your bases to improve (relative to rest of the world) prosperity in a territory. NOTE: Diminishing returns apply.

# Use a base in a territory you don't control to start bringing that territory under your control. Progress will be made in 1/5 increments.

# Seed irradiated super-grain in a Christian territory.

# Seed irradiated super-weed in a Christian territory.

# Build aerospace parts.

# Use an aerospace part to deploy Sky Eyes in three territories.

# Do a space launch using parts you have built.

* Asteroid mining outposts

* Titan colony

* Large ship construction

C 3

# Dig! Start a new tunnel network or expand an existing one.

# Attempt to eliminate a Hero or enemy team (by force or by cleverness).

# Set up a pirate radio in a territory.

# Hack into TOL systems.

# Infiltrate a believing territory for sabotage.

# Convert 3 cabals into 1 infantry army size dot immediately

C 4

# Send crew from the canopy base to an off-world location, and replace the canopy base crew. (1 population dot; 1 cabal lost for Earthside ops)

# Recruit people into your infantry.

C 5

# Begin a new base.

# Recruit.

C 6

# Heavy weapons factory: add 1 dot to army size (navy or heavy).

>>1168830
I dont have an idea on what to do for cabals but I feel like recruiting more people would be a good idea as well as dealing with any special stuff that comes up, um could we get stds set in place to drop down into temple proper for when its needed?

>>1168865

Yes, your unit of drop troopers can be deployed quickly. They take about 5 minutes to fall through the sky.

>>1168865
>>1168882
Gotta grab a shower. But we need to make sure our tunnels are 100% ready to go and make sure we have Egypt at 10 prospity to destory the whole 'GJ' is gods gift. Cause it destroys the narrative really badly.

>>1168830
What Trumpets remain?

>>1168830
Actually matter of fact I wanna try to work on hell nodes a bit see what we can dig up from there, continue the tunnel digging, send some survey teams out to see what they can dig up in other territories maybe in the russian areas.

Maybe some more recruitment for the infrantry and I think that might be it? How are the mares and selenites doing on their end of things?

>>1168924
>>1168928
Oh i forgot about that, lets go ahead and pump up the prosperity then as well just to see what happens too.

>>1168924

All prophecies but one have come to pass. It just happened that the Temple's judgement on Pacifica greatly resembled the Sixth Trumpet Judgement.

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>>1168937

Ely LeVey's last show is interesting. She's interviewing a particularly caffeinated member of the Millennium Force.

"...and then he managed to run away!"

"Well, that's nice, dear. What else have you discovered?"

"Ooh, this one is pretty big. You know how The Other Light's people always die when they turn 100, right?"

"Well... yes."

"That would make it hard to have a coherent plan, right? But here's the thing! Over the years they've built a giant computer that does the accounting for them. It's called either Colossus or Omega, we're not sure. But here's the kicker: a couple of years ago, it went crazy like in the movie! And TOL lost control of it. So instead of just doing their accounting, it's been doing all sort of strange things, crazy experiments, you name it!"

"You don't say! So what are you Millennium Force people planning?"

"Well... it thinks that it can put believers in danger, and we don't think it can, but we don't need the extra mess right now, people should focus on the upcoming Judgement, make sure they're all right with Jesus! So, we've prayed about it, and then we've decided to go out on a mission, and shut it down!"

Ely chuckles politely. "Well folks... you've heard it here first. It has been a pleasure standing up for the Word of God, and..."

# Ignore.

# Take seriously and up defenses in your datacenters.

# Give them a "supercomputer" to "shut down".

>>1168979
Oh bugger.
If we Give them a "supercomputer" to "shut down," that shouldn't us any real resources, right?
Or should we take the chance to blow up some MFers?

>>1168979
># Take seriously and up defenses in your datacenters.

># Give them a "supercomputer" to "shut down".

all agents are now required to wear gasmask when on duty and all bases are now outfitted with a means to turn the entire facility into a giant gaschamber.

>>1168979
>take it seriously

>Set up a super computer to show down, make it seem like we moved our 'main' data center there

Comper year plan SOOONNN

>>1168979
Take seriously and up defenses in your datacenters.
Oh no, fuck your stupid Mother Fuckers I am not having you fiddle with our stuff!

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>>1168993
>>1169005

Someone would have to go out, rent a warehouse, put a bunch of movie props in it, maybe give the MFers an easy fight, and so on.

# This is something that your sysadmins can set up in their spare time, these so-called heroes probably can't tell an atomic bomb from a shiny box full of pinball parts.

# One workgroup should be sufficient to hire a special effects company and give the MFers something convincing.

# Two cabals can probably make it look realistic enough to fool actual analysts.

# Have Damien sort it out and play supervillain.


(Be sure to count this in your cabal allocation, if you do anything with it!)

>>1169014
>>1169005
>>1168999

Taking it seriously would require pulling a few Legionaries from your borders, guarding your datacenters

# conspicuously, to prevent attacks

# covertly, to ambush attackers

but otherwise there would be little disruption in your work, lest there be an Angel attack. It does mean that border security would not be at optimum, however.

>>1168830
># Dig! Start a new tunnel network or expand an existing one.
6 cabals. were turning the area around GJ into a trap complete with pop up auto turrets.

># Work on Hell nodes.
set these up so that they can be continuously be monitored as the attempt to capture TJ goes through. 1 cabal.


># Heavy weapons factory: add 1 dot to army size (navy or heavy).
six cabals. build a dedicated above water artillery platform or an aircraft carrier.

# Attempt to eliminate a Hero or enemy team (by force or by cleverness).
a group of believers who attempt to enter a "datacenter" Kat. six cabals.

>>1168830

# Use any of your bases to improve (relative to rest of the world) prosperity in a territory. NOTE: Diminishing returns apply. 4 Egypt and West America Ithuriel once more!

# You have 2 tunneling teams that have breached into Greater Jerusalem. They are 25% done. (Digging = C3) Both teams, Keep digging!

# Use any base to produce army assets (1/3rd dot) 4 Cabals, 2/3 Army asset dots

# Heavy weapons factory: add 1 dot to army size (navy or heavy). 6 Cabals

# Deal with special situations. 2 Cabals on setting up the traps for TOL positions for when the army MOVES.

# Work on Hell nodes. 1 Cabal

0 Cabals.

>>1169016
# Have Damien sort it out and play supervillain.

# covertly, to ambush attackers

>>1169020
Anti, Why no upgrading Egypt to 10?

>>1169026
staying with my plan, we have one cabals left over and two or three villain's. we could easily assign them and the last cabals to Egypt Prosperity.

>>1169028
Kat's still MIA remember? We'd have 1, and it'd be Angel boy.

>>1169032
I don't think kat is still MIA. wouldn't that be on the turn map? I know she went out and took care of some private affairs.

>>1169026
>>1169019
Eh let's just do Damien fixes it he might have fun with it all.

At any rate I say that this fella has it in mind
>>1169026

>>1169041
>>1169035
Dunno, QM might've forgotten or we could be forcing her back. Also, I wanna see if the Hell Nodes have changed for any odd reason sense we're nearing the end.

>>1169052

Kat isn't dead or anything; when poked, eventually, she says that she's getting her affairs in order and doing a bit of self improvement. What could it possibly take a whole year?

# Override. Her skills are needed.

# Let her be. She did stay after wanting to go after all.

>>1169083
# Let her be. She did stay after wanting to go after all, but if somebody spots her. Get a drone to watch her from the skys.

>>1169083
># Let her be. She did stay after wanting to go after all.

we'll give the duty over to Damien then.

>>1169089
we don't need to become big brother at the moment.

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>>1169026 or >>1169020 ?

Damien is given the task to trick the Millennium Force adherents into thinking that they have destroyed you; in the meantime, a few Legionaries will quarter inside you datacenters to prevent possible real problems, and more will be a few minutes away at all times ready to intervene.

Your boreholers continue to dig; working through the bedrock is difficult, but it gets done eventually - having one of the boring machines use the scythe of the Angel of Death certainly helps.

The iron-rich bedrock makes extremely hard to figure out direction by means of compass and dead reckoning, but by now the tunneling systems have laser levels and accelerometers to depend on. You learn that Urist's people have put a significant effort into laser tech, leveraging their innate skill as gem cutters into the construction of powerful handheld ruby lasers. The uses are situational, but prove priceless when navigating underground since a coherent light beam can't really be bent through the air without it being noticeable.

Incidentally, it turns out that much like Angelic weapons, the iron in the bedrock under Greater Jerusalem is also free of radioactivity - unusual, in itself, since granitic rock is almost always slightly radioactive.

Damien has a lot of fun with the role: a bunch of construction drones and a few volunteers set up an improbable, 1980s looking "command center" full of blinking lights and tape reels, with some standard issue drones being given a new paint job and weird-looking attachment, then set to perform nebulous science tasks that boil down to little more than refilling smoke machines and turning colored lights on and off. Then, Damien leaks to Ely LeVey that the mighty Colossus is planning his final move! Sure enough, the improv troupe that Damien hired barely has time to put an aging latex mask on the Heavy MEC (who wouldn't dream of not appearing in person) that four Millennium Force "agents" make an enormous and unnecessary amount of sensor noise to infiltrate the warehouse.

There, they find that "Colossus", claiming to have survived on artificial blood and organs for so long that only the head is left, is about to perform a consciousness transfer into the Ultimate Robot Form, powered by magnetic currents and powerful enough to punch its way through the Temple's roof and sit on Jesus' Throne the moment He has to go to the little messiah's room. The Millennium Force operatives easily defeat the drones and a few guards, displaying pretty decent martial arts skill and absolutely no tactical sense. Lest they try to talk to the guards and convert them, "Colossus" has them "destroyed" with a nanovirus that looks suspiciously like smoke and soot.

The Millennium Force agents easily beat "Colossus'" remaining drones, and are about to unplug Damien from the MECpod when the HMEC trips the guillotine drop, falling into a safe and apparing to have been destroyed in a flash of light.

>>1169161
clever Damien.

>>1169161

Damien then addresses the Millennium Force agents through the warehouse's PA systems, telling them that they have interrupted the consciousness transfer.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! M-M-MY SOUL! IT'S GONE!"

"Tom, what's going on?"

"Larry, I'm not sure! We weren't ready to disconnect -"

"P-P-PATHETIC FOOLS! I WILL DestroydstroydestroyYOU ALL!"

"Colossus, stop! Without a soul, you are just a robot! I command you to stop!"

The "ultimate robot" animates and grabs the one female Millennium Force agent.

"Dora!"

"Oh no!"

"...It doesn't want to take over anymore, it just wants revenge!"

"We've saved the world, but who will save us!"

"Let's pray!" At least they're doing so behind cover. Damien doesn't want them praying, so a few well-placed bullets remove the cover, and send them running for other cover.

"DesTROYDESTROydeSTROY!" Damien is having a hard time not bursting into laughter.

The Ultimate Robot is just an earlier model of worker drone covered in aluminium plating, but it does have real weapons - these people may be simple, but know what a firearm looks like.

# Kill these idiots.

# Let the Millennials defeat the Ultimate Robot and escape the obligatory loud and slow self-destruct timer that triggers after every load-bearing boss is defeated.

(Okay, other than the digging and this, what else?)

>>1169189
kill them, we can have some LOL just shoot down the big robot when it runs out to the streets.

>>1169189
>>1169189
># Let the Millennials defeat the Ultimate Robot and escape the obligatory loud and slow self-destruct timer that triggers after every load-bearing boss is defeated.
Well of course we have to, have to h-hold the narrative up right? God damn it Damien you nut.

I'm pretty sure that we wanted to look into the hell nodes and see what happens there.
Also work on increasing prosperity in Egypt, the heavy weapons factory and set those traps for when the Tol sets up to move.

>>1169189
# Let the Millennials defeat the Ultimate Robot and escape the obligatory loud and slow self-destruct timer that triggers after every load-bearing boss is defeated.

We really need to give Damien more time off..

I had Yellow backing me, So it was 2 on 1 GM.

>>1169210
I couldn't agree more.

and seeing as your basing you decision on the fucking narrative bullshit TJ likes to pull, may as well go with your suggestion.

># Let the Millennials defeat the Ultimate Robot and escape the obligatory loud and slow self-destruct timer that triggers after every load-bearing boss is defeated.

lastly I just realized we are fighting "millennials." As a /pol/itician I can't help but laugh.

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>>1169226
>>1169218
>>1169210

https://youtu.be/VfAjhXtNiCk?t=1m25s

The three male Millennium Force agents pray for Divine assistance to get Dora out of the Ultimate Robot's iron grip, and manage to defeat it with Damien only having to pull punches a little. After the kitbashed drone falls on the ground, a loud alarm goes off, and the Millennials make it out with seconds to spare before a GIANT EXPLOSION levels the warehouse, its neighbours, and a nice bit of a light show coupled with briefly turning off data and power to the "compound" simulates an electromagnetic pulse.

The Millennials make a reasonably quick getaway just thirty seconds ahead of the fire department, and miss the firemen stand there and watch, just making sure that the pyrotechnics are confined to the warehouses which were scheduled for demolition.

Damien's MECpod is recovered from its safe, and she treats your sysadmins with a pretty decent "BUT WILL RETURN! YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS, MILLENNIUM FORCE! MWHAHAHAHA!" after the local news issue a bulletin indicating that a scheduled demolition (which it was, it only had to be postponed a couple of weeks) had taken place without incident. The newscaster had been asked to, on a dare, add that in no way the demolition was the coverup for any nefarious activity.

Somewhere in the world, the MoFos are probably high-fiving each other and laughing at the "coverup"; the newcast does cause a few people to get into the smashed building and look for anything cool, and to be fair, they do manage to get away with some not-too-exploded of replica vintage electronics.

Damien thanks everyone for the help. Silliness aside, you now have a decent idea of what Millennium Force operatives might carry for an urban infiltration mission.

>>1169026

What will your heavy weapons factory produce?

>>1169277
I want those planes, but I don't think that is very reasonable. what about aircraft carriers or dedicated artillery ships?

>>1169277
Navy kit.

>>1169285

Supersonic small airplanes exist; weaponizing them is possible (they wouldn't be as good as dedicated fighter jets, but they would still go faster than sound) although that would be a task more fit for your light industries than your heavy industries - the bases in Misrayim, Greenland and Pacifica can do a better job.

An aircraft carrier can be easily constructed from a container ship hull; your people have decades of experience with high-tech multipurpose workshops so servicing aircraft is not a problem, and given that most of your air force is automated, adding radio beacons and landing radars to make sure that landings happen safely is trivial.

If anything, it's easier to build an aircraft carrier than a cruiser, since the cannons would have to be built from scratch instead of adapted from COTS hardware!

Of course, Nova Roma will be able to produce a small unit of artillery ships just the same: since they will have submarines to escort them, armoring is not much of a concern, and the design ends up resembling a railway gun on floats more than a warship. A good thing is that it will take only one year to build.

>>1169307
I do like the idea of railguns...

>>1169335
they have replaced most of our normal gravity based artillery at this point. just on the basis of being something that can't "fissle out" due to TJ.

>>1169339
>>1169335

Railguns have an important advantage over rockets or ballistic artillery: the projectile can more or less "go dumb" after launch, and goes fast enough that simple kinetic impact can cause quite a bit of damage even if there is no warhead.

In addition, you have an easier time sourcing large amounts of electrical power than you have large amount of the chemicals necessary for modern gunpowder.

(Everything else confirmed, while you decide on what type of navy unit?)

Your submersibles are of two classes, torpedo subs and larger, slower "cruiser" subs that carry a single railgun and a small drone bay for spotting.

>>1169348
Do rail guns get effected like normal guns however when used against certain targets??

>>1169348
I say go for the cruiser I want my big guns

>>1169354

Trying to shoot down Phanuel with a railgun did not work. Trying to shoot pretty much any other target with a railgun left a sizeable hole in it.

In the event of a naval battle with The Other Light, another advantage of railguns is that your ship will not be detonated by a lucky hit to the ammo room, while theirs will be. You also have better range. On the other hand, they will have a slight fire rate advantage.

>>1169363
Well I meant against believers and stuff, But ya. Fuck it, Give us those cruisers with railguns.

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Rolled 20 (1d100)

>>1169365
>>1169355

Since the railgun doesn't have to handle being submerged, building a cruiser-class ship is easier than making a submarine; the Romans decide to go with a trimaran design just so that they can call it a Trireme. The end result can be described as a pile of autonomously controlled railguns with three barges welded together under them. The ship is relatively fragile, intended to be screened by submersibles in operation, but can unload enormous quantities of shells on a target, and even shoot almost to the sky canopy if the cannons are aimed straight up. The system can handle neurotoxin shells by dint of being operable by a small crew (or a single HMEC for a few hours) and has an effective range of 200 kilometers.

Unfortunately, it seems that the shipyards in Nova Roma have managed to built just the one.

Your Hell nodes seem to be unchanged, although the sysadmins assigned to them note that while they expected the hardware to deteriorate faster than your regular nodes, due to being in a loop and using 100% CPU for it, they find in fact that the hardware is on average healthier than your other nodes. They can find no natural explanation for this.

A few of your people train with the Dwarfs and begin installing pop-up sentry guns and pillboxes in the tunnel networks, allowing them to be turned into a makeshift Maginot Line.

Your bases in Pacifica and Misrayim work on your military as well, ensuring that

# the latest Legion recruits have top-notch equipment.

# you have a small number of fighters, derived from business jets with weapon pods attached.

Your economic teams stoke the military-industrial fervor somewhat, ensuring that those who want to find work have an easy time doing so. This focus doesn't really jive very well with Pacifican culture, and without much supervision Ithuriel can't do much with it other than learn a bit of the trade from your economists. Fortunately, Pacifica is still in the middle of a synthmeat boom, and needs little help - you note that a lot of DIY missionary teams from Heartland are driving up and down the territory's interior, and they seem especially interested in winning over the souls of those with biotech skills. Some things never change...

Misrays react much better to the focus on weaponry; they want to fight, and figure that it will take their specific brand of industrial skill to give your Legionaries winning weapons.

# End year.

# Wait.

>>1169388
the latest Legion recruits have top-notch equipment.
End the year

Also Thats interesting and a bit odd about the hell nodes...

>>1169388
># the latest Legion recruits have top-notch equipment.

>Anything else to cover before moving on? If nothing is forgotten next year.

I can't wait to see what a 10 Egypt looks like.

>>1169388
># the latest Legion recruits have top-notch equipment.

we can focus on the air next year, it looks like we just about have the land and sea covered.

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>>1169398
>10 Egypt


>>1169400
>>1169398
>>1169397

The Legion has grown, to the point where the Last Army outnumbers it a paltry 20 to 1 - good odds for any Roman, especially if they have advanced armor, full tactical awareness, and a swarm of friendly drones overhead. Analysis of the banter between the Millennium Force agents and Damien indicates that they have 189 trained martial artists, total; you at this point have a few thousands.

# End year.

# Wait.

>>1169405
># End year.
LMAO as if were going to have martial artist go head to head, drones in the FRONT! target with extreme prejudice.

>>1169405
>wait

Hows the other angel? We learn its name yet? It being good?

ah shit, you guys put it through the child soldier program didn't you? good chance that backfires.

>>1169418
I think it actually got parents.

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>>1169417
>>1169418

It's regenerated its brain, mostly, and has started to toddle about. You've decided to make sure that it gets genuine, caring parental attention, and that seems to be helping its recovery... unfortunately there's no way to ask it its name. Apparently off some TV show, the foster parents have suggested Castiel, specifically because it sounds Angelic but isn't a canonic name.

>>1169416

Your Legionaries understand very well that in war the worst thing they can do for themselves is play fair... Yahweh cheats, anyway. In that sense, both Kat (before leaving anyway) and Ithuriel seem to have calmed down about that, when Phanuel bit the dust.

Speaking of Kat, guess who is back! When she unsets the privacy settings, you immediately gain access to cached data that was locked, and review it in sequence.

Why, precisely, Kat felt the need to discuss matters with the Tree of Life clinician inside of a faraday cage is something of a mystery. Not all that much of a mystery, she's spent the last thirty years being a petulant showboating bloodthirsty bitch whenever she feels she's been wronged, but up until now that has been pointed squarely at the believers or TOL. Cubedly, even, with her penchant for disproportionate response. It probably mostly still is.

Whether she has saved whuffie, gold, favours, what is immediately known is that she has in one secret meeting spent most, if not all of the above, and then returned to her duties preparing the Legion for the final battle.

It was not precisely planned for this to involve a somewhat overdone video of her mecpod being lifted from its usual chassis, and ferried to a new one. Four meters of menacing black metal-reinforced chitin, shot through with pulsing green veins, only vaguely esembling a humanoid shape anymore, the forearms grotesquely enlarged, covered in sharp ridges and each knuckle spiked with bone, their only purpose aside from applying extensive kinetic force being to aim the nozzles that would feed form the canisters on this new body's back. From each knee rises cultured horns modelled after those of a rhinoceros, save for the serrations running root to tip, and the engraved biohazard symbols suggesting the madwoman asked Tree of Life to find a way to put some manner of neutron source inside of them. The biomechanical chassis will get cancer, as if its cellular structure wasn't unstable enough, but that will be for after.

As the mecpod slides home and the ogre stands to its feet, flesh visibly shifting out form under the nearest edge of the armour to grip the top edge of her mecpod to help hold it in place, Kat raises a fist and shouts: "In hatred of he who is called I AM, I have come! We, the sons and daughters of man have built greater angels than those of heaven, and now greater demons than those of hell!"

Notably, the new setup has no remote shutoff switch.

# Veto.

# Okay...

>>1169434

# Okay...

And on that day, a machine laughed.

>>1169434
>See if we can get a shut off installed and/or how the body operates with gas everywhere.

Don't want her new...? Suit dying because it got gased.

Also sorry guys but I seriously need to die tonight. These meds suck. Please remember to keep bumping Egypt too 10 and digging those tunnels!. Only way to win is to have all the baskets with eggs, not just 1

Fact: in the book of Leviticus, it's written that man is forbidden from eating shellfish, for they are unclean. Kat has made herself into a giant shellfish.

"when you enter the battlefield I want you to yell 'eat me.' just do it."

>>1169445
I really don't want to install an overide on this one this time, I have a feeling a certain someone will try to interfere with it. in fact, i'd rather have just about all field units deployed in the battle without remote shutoff systems.

>>1169445

(Past midnight here, I was planning to call it quits soon and start early tomorrow so that everyone is awake for the big fight, however it ends)

>>1169445

Kat shares the "design" with you, although it's clearly a one-off. Your neurotoxin will eventually get to everyone everywhere, even the Desolators and their works-in-space setup; regular gas masks only works up to a point. While the design is untested against an Angel, Kat can be moved to a regular frame in a couple of minutes (which is an eternity in battle) if need be. Proper testing shows that the armor, which requires an enormous amount of baby food and protein formula to be kept running, is about as strong as the synthmuscle frame and about as dexterous as the standard; this is overall a downgrade, but if it works on an Angel, that more than makes up for it. It also looks sufficiently WRONG that most everyone going near Kat when she wears it (which is most of the time; she even sleeps in it, in order to get used to it) is visibly on edge and displaying a fear reaction.

>>1169449

"I like that. A lot."

>>1169449

The retrofit is easy to accomplish, and done as part of regular maintenance: the anti-shutoff is handled by microfuses, rather than by a software setting. It can be tripped remotely just before the last fight, but once you trip the anti-shutoff, however, you will not be unable to untrip it.

>>1169434
>Okay....

I'm legit impressed there, nice.

>>1169462

(Much like there was someone behind the Quinn character, there's someone like the Kat character. Unlike me, she is a published author. That was all her.)

# End year.

# Wait...

>>1169466
>end year

>>1169466
># End year.

our to do list.

>Gasmask and hasmat so that our troops can fight in the hell we create.

>Air Superiority

>>1169466
>(Much like there was someone behind the Quinn character, there's someone like the Kat character. Unlike me, she is a published author. That was all her.)
any books I should buy?

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>>1169470
>>1169468

One thing that surprises you is the ease with which The Other Light is picking up recruits now that it has conquered some land; your theologians suspect a mix of narrative causality and Sunday's simple, broad-brush rhetoric. People want to fight, at this point; the people who aren't tough enough to cut it in the Legion or smart enough to do engineering in your largely automated war factories are happily gobbled up by the Last Army and turned into grunts or grease monkeys. Of note, the Last Army is taking enough of a toll in the territories that it has occupied that your people find themselves exporting food there.

The Temple announcements this year are brief: Noah has reached India and has been steaming up and down the coast, part as mission trip, and part to reassure the people of that territory that they are in no danger. He renews the invite for Damien to visit the Ark replica's inside and, as a postscript to his letter, inquires about the health of "that one kid building a skyship". Damien assumes that the patriarch means Jeb, and answers that he is doing as well as he can. A Levite priest praises the efforts of the Millennium Force in dealing with hidden enemies and taking them from false to true light, but does not mention specifics.

Believers are encouraged to practice humility and perseverance. Cameron Kirk Williams tries to run a special on people in believing territories trying to wrap up their bucket lists before the Great White Throne Judgement and the ascent into Heaven, but is disappointed to find that nearly everyone who wanted to pilgrimage to the Temple has done so, and for most people with any curiosity, an exciting trip anywhere involves one of your territories. The underwater settlements report an increase in Christian visitors, who are generally welcomed gracefully; the few people there who do convert generally go to a clinic in Atlanta to have their augs removed. The prospect of Christian merpeople, and quite a bit of this tourism, is brought to an end when a priest, asked about it, points out that mermaids are icons of ancient Syrian pagan goddess Atargatis - suddenly believers think that instead of Disney, and lose interest.

Tsion has wrapped up handling the refugees in Africa, and announces that it is time for him to return to Greater Jerusalem; as a show of devotion, he decides to do so on foot, which will take him either through the Rub-Al-Khali or through Misrayim. If the latter, your sysadmins legitimately wonder if he'd even recognize the place... it has changed a lot in the last few years.

>>1169480
Sojourn: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction (Volume 2) It's an anthology, and one of the authors is a friend who has contributed to the fluff in this quest. No, I won't say who and please don't try to guess :)

(I'm going to go horizontal if that's ok!)

>>1169488
yeah, see ya some time tomorrow Geist.

Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>1169493

Thanks for playing! I will run another quest after this one, after a break, but what it is depends a lot on how this one ends. Also mystery dice roll.

>>1169502
Please be in our favor.

>>1169405
>189
>>1168830
>+997

Hmm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB3H05OhVDI

>>1169529

Are..... are the dice turning around?

>>1169541
>This will be what the final battle will be like.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXgheWHHHN4

>>1169541
>>1169545
If we prepared for this right. It should be far more anticlimactic.

>>1169570
True, seeing as the dice have turned in our favour as of late, we might see final victory with minimal losses. Still, the dice are a tricky thing, they may desert us yet again in a moment.

>>1169545
you realize we lose if thats how it goes right? Humanity is put into the matrix.

>>1169933
I know what the plot of the matrix is, but i posted that video because we are an AI with drones and shit.

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(Back!)

Rules for allocating cabals and assets: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.QuestRules.html

You have 25 cabals total; of these, 3 are maintaining your systems, 1 is space police, and 1 is army liaison, so 20 are available. Your civilian research grant is focused on curing radiation sickness. Your military grant is focused on containment systems.

You are not tracking enemy teams. TOL are wrapping up taking over their territories.

Your Moon and Mars colonies are doing well.

You have 2 tunneling teams that have breached into Greater Jerusalem. They are 50% done.

Variable complexity:

# Media blitz to leverage any recent success.

# Any interesting idea you might want to try.

# Deal with special situations.

# Assign manpower to research.

Complexity 0

# Use a MISC special.

# Use your automated base in Greenland to produce army assets (1/3rd dot) or aerospace equipment.

C 1

# Continue tracking.

# Use army units to attack on a TOL base or a govt installation.

# Send a cabal to the canopy station for astronaut training.

# Foster pagan worship in a territory (Vulcan/Hekate/Satan).

# Harass or sabotage a Hero, or tie up an enemy team.

# Jam radio transmissions in a territory. This forces people to switch from NJ-controlled broadcast media to internet media, or not get news at all.

# Send a survey team anywhere (covert or overt) to look for trouble or to spy.

# Work on Hell nodes.

C 2

# Use any base to produce army assets (1/3rd dot)

# Use any of your bases to improve (relative to rest of the world) prosperity in a territory. NOTE: Diminishing returns apply.

# Use a base in a territory you don't control to start bringing that territory under your control. Progress will be made in 1/5 increments.

# Seed irradiated super-grain in a Christian territory.

# Seed irradiated super-weed in a Christian territory.

# Build aerospace parts.

# Use an aerospace part to deploy Sky Eyes in three territories.

# Do a space launch using parts you have built.

* Asteroid mining outposts

* Titan colony

* Large ship construction

C 3

# Dig! Start a new tunnel network or expand an existing one.

# Attempt to eliminate a Hero or enemy team (by force or by cleverness).

# Set up a pirate radio in a territory.

# Hack into TOL systems.

# Infiltrate a believing territory for sabotage.

# Convert 3 cabals into 1 infantry army size dot immediately

C 4

# Send crew from the canopy base to an off-world location, and replace the canopy base crew. (1 population dot; 1 cabal lost for Earthside ops)

# Recruit people into your infantry.

C 5

# Begin a new base.

# Recruit.

C 6

# Heavy weapons factory: add 1 dot to army size (navy or heavy).

>>1170477
>Build an air Force. Ment to fight TOL fighters. Six cabals.

>Build an air Force. Ment to Irradiate archangels in combat. Six cabals

>Boost prosperity in Egypt, two cabals.

>Capture Tsion on his way back for the last angel trap. Six cabals, Kat Ithuriel and Damien.

>>1170477
>Build an air Force. Ment to fight TOL fighters. Six cabals.

>Boost prosperity in Egypt, two cabals.

>Capture Tsion on his way back for the last angel trap. Six cabals, Kat Ithuriel and Damien.

># Dig! Start a new tunnel network or expand an existing one.

>You have 2 tunneling teams that have breached into Greater Jerusalem. They are 50% done. (Digging = C3) Both Digging Teams

# Use any base to produce army assets (1/3rd dot) 2 Cabal

# Continue tracking. 1

>>1170477
Continue military expansion, into more anti-angel methods like the supersonic-fighters and preferably some helicopter models to hover and fire.

Invest into improving prosperity in Egypt.

Continue digging through the bedrock.


>>1170490
>>1170535
If we are going to try and counter TOL's fighters, we would be better off using our supreme networking and operational awareness to support more conventional means. An advanced missile / gun AA network would be more cost-effective and free pilots to fly anti-angel planes.

>>1170545
Good idea. We can swap the fighters out for tunnel deployed anti air batteries.

>>1170545
>>1170552
Well my only reason to not support Anti, is because he forgot that we NEED to finish the tunnels first.

>>1170545

Your drones are very much capable of close air support - that's pretty much what they do.

However, most of their weapons are sound based, which makes them formidable against infantry and light armor but completely ineffective against supersonic aircraft.

>>1170556
We can finish the tunnels in two to three turns at this point right? So we can probably build the angel Irradiaters after this one. Letting us reassign troops to some other goal.

>build a series of mobile anti air batteries that we can send up through the tunnel network. Six cabals.

>Set a trap for Tsion. Six cabals. Kat Damien and Ithuriel.

>Prosperity in Egypt. Two cabals.

>Dig the tunnels three cabals. Urist

>Prepare a sky eye mark 3 to be deployed over GJ but don't deploy it yet. 3 cabals.

>>1170557
I am talking about creating new vehicles and / or turrets that will launch out of the very soil they stand on / fly over. Then release a volley of fire to bring them low like birds with their wings clipped...


Also, i want to get a 16-wheeler truck or something and mount an array of neutron sources + a power source (a reactor) on it just for a laugh just to see if it would be even slightly effective at beating an angel. That or we make some neutron-source turrets for that too.


One more question, could we go around the world getting every asset we can off of non-believers? Every aircraft, airship or boat that can have a neutron source strapped into or onto it.

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>>1170592

You can do anything you like; you must decide whether to do that by buying vehicles or confiscating them.

A containment vehicle (specifically, a squad of tanks supporting a dedicated containment system on treads) had been built, but it does not feature a large neutron source. It is however nuclear powered; at this point all your vehicles larger than a car are.

>>1170477
i'll back this >>1170589 thanks anti

Rolled 55 (1d100)

>>1170589
>>1170616

What other two territories will be the Sky Eyes be deployed on?

>>1170628
Middle and East america.

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>>1170633
>>1170589

Tsion Ben-Judah has been a thorn in your side for a long time, and even now, as he returns home, you finally have a plan to get rid of him. Fortunately for you, he has decided to walk home through Misrayim rather than through the Rub-Al-Khali: the workers digging under Greater Jerusalem, under Urist's direction, can continue their work apace without fearing interruptions from the Glorified theologian

The Other Light is putting under arms anybody who remotely wants to be, aiming for quantity over quality.

Interestingly, you haven't heard a thing about Urist's attempt to send delegates to the Temple last year: what you have noticed is that the Dwarfs are being considerably more proactive in assisting your subterranean endeavors.

# Ask for details.

# Don't intrude.

As Pacifica took a turn towards something resembling a free-market economy after the synthmeat boom, the people of Misayim seems intentioned to go the other way, at least to some degree: there is sufficient automation in the country that it's cheaper both on your logistics algorithms and on society in general to institute a universal basic income policy than to run a needs-based welfare scheme. This takes some urgency out of the small-business ecosystem that has developed in Misrayim, of course, but also allows those who sincerely wish to NEET to do so without causing economic harm to others - a side effect is an ephemeral inflorescence of art and literature, most of which is forgettable but some of which is worth sending to the Reach as text files on the return stream for the telemetry signal.

# Make it a propaganda point that you are defeating the curse of Adam.

# Current development is sufficient.

Your launch ramp doesn't go unused, either; Simaris is still plying the Earth-Mars route, and while you are still heavily subsidizing space travel by sinking principal costs for the cargo ship, there is now some legitimate interplanetary trade taking place: Martians want high quality media, Earthlings want to see real mountains and try Martian spuds and hops, and one should never underestimate the bandwidth of a fission-powered spaceship loaded with optical discs.

Your canopy deployment team prepares a squad of ice skimmers to quickly deploy Sky Eyes over Greater Jerusalem, and uses the deployment of similar systems over North America as a dress rehearsal: your new awareness of the North American continent reveals that Heartland has been trying to reinvent itself as a showcase of the benefits of Millennial Kingdom life. Given that they're still buying their hamburgers from Pacifica, the effort is somewhat laughable by your people's standards, but Heartland is the (distant) second to Greater Jerusalem for the Christian tourist dime.

The two underwater settlements, with their leaders gone, have calmed down significantly, to the point that each is being adapted to the other's preferred shape to a degree, as intermarriages become more common.

"So... Tsion."

>>1170674

# Ask for details.

# Make it a propaganda point that you are defeating the curse of Adam.

>>1170674
# Ask for details.


# Make it a propaganda point that you are defeating the curse of Adam.


We are literally breaking the bible, soon we will have a true utopia that might actually be made worse by god's intervention...

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>>1170688

As many do, the street preacher brought a wubber to campus and set it to "amplify". As it happens often, some undergrad wanting to show off blew the wubber out by resonance. Security generally only intervenes if it looks like there will be a fight; eardrum rebuilds are an outpatient procedure by now anyway. Today there's just a counterpreacher.

"...To a woman in labor or to a man sweating out in a field under the sun, God's pronouncements surely feel like curses. Yet, maybe only moments later, the satisfaction and joy in seeing a healthy baby or a job well done can make it all seem worthwhile. We feel grateful that God has given us such blessings."

"Excuse me, but you're pretty wrong there."

"I understand that few here believe the story of Adam to be literal. I'm using it to make a point."

"Oh, I know, but you're still off by a few decades. Who's had a kid here? Hands up please. Okay, who has experienced any pain during delivery? Okay, nobody. When is the last time anyone had to till a field, as in, not for gardening or research? Just you in the back? No, manually driving a plough drone because it lost GPS doesn't really count...."

"What's your point?"

"My point is that we've obsoleted all that. Maybe five percent of the population work in ag and they're mostly on the research end of it. The only people who go through childbirth and feel pain are Revivalists under a hundred years old, and that's because they want to."

"How old are you?"

"130. I'm a postdoc here."

"You yourself are cursed! Destined for the Lake of Fire! I will not waste time arguing with you while there are yet souls to reach!"

"Where are you from?"

"I have a right to preach here! You can't just ask me my papers!"

"I'm just curious where you come from."

"Oh. Warszaw."

"And you've been here for a few years, because I remember you from undergrad. Did you see what's happened to this country since you came? Let's even say that Yahweh wins the Last Battle..."

"He is destined to!"

"...and let's not get sidetracked on free will. Let's say that all of us are thrown into the Lake of Fire. After the drought, this was the only major desert left on Earth. It was the worst ecosystem on the planet. Do you have any idea what we're going to do to it?"

"... to the ecosystem?"

"To the Lake of Fire. Lake means it has shores. Fire means it has a recognizable chemistry, which means recognizable physics, AND a system in thermodynamic imbalance that energy can be extracted from. Were we to end up in the Lake of fire, we would TERRAFORM it. We are doing it to the Moon and to Mars, and with an eternity of time to work on it, we will become exceedingly good at it. Don't believe me: come to the astrobiology department. We give tours."

"That's not the point! That's now how any of this works! I rebuke you! You must leave me and these people! You must!"

"Suit yourself. Folks, after you get bored of this guy, do pass by, we're trying to send a petition to start a Venus project."

>>1170767
The cheeky wee cunt...give him a gift basket or something, that was the best put-down of a firebrand preacher I have ever seen.

>>1170767
Teraforming the immaterium. That sounds like something Andrew would love.

>>1170690
>>1170688

Urist doesn't seem to want to discuss what happened to the delegation.

"We, as a people, are not yet as strong as we must be."

When you insist for details, the mood of the Dwarf firstborn darkens noticeably.

"Most dismissed us as children. Some made a point of pretending to not even see us. We believed that it was because we'd accepted your sensors, so we shed them, on the first day. Our people were shunted with the Eastern European delegation, at the very tail of it. Our gifts were shunned by the ancient ones with the young faces, to the point that our bearers were forced to drop them on one of the altars, as no priest would take them in hand. Tired of this outrage, Mafol Kubuktathur, one of the guards we had brought along, demanded to see one of the judges."

Urist shudders.

# Go on.

# Guess that Mafol Kubuktathur was zapped or combusted, and leave the Dwarf to his private pain on losing one of still so few.

>>1170798
# Go on.


"I presume that he was...eliminated? By the Christians? Or did they manage to do something worse to him?"

>>1170798
># Guess that Mafol Kubuktathur was zapped or combusted, and leave the Dwarf to his private pain on losing one of still so few.

"This indignity shall be punished. In due time."

>>1170798
# Go on.

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>>1170811
>>1170804

"Nobody else was there for that conversation, and we do not quite know how it went. I understand that much of it was demented nonsense. The priest struck her, and as is her right, she struck back. But all our delegation heard the sentence, Mafol Kubuktathur would be melted, as were the Global Community soldiers on the day of the Glorious Appearing, with diseased blood. That... worked less well than anticipated, much to the priest's annoyance. For daring to be strong of muscle and sinew against a curse, we were banished! And so we made a deal with Tree Of Life, and they sent us their legendary medical team."

"They put Mafol Kubuktathur in a scanner. Every single body part was red. The medical team began their grisly works. The diagnosis was over almost instantly, and the surgeon began to remove what appeared to be all of the flesh. The infection had left it in such a state that it was all taken off. After that, bones were set. There were other injured dwarves, but none quite as severe as this one, so the process took about two months. The wounds over her entire body, from the surgery and the original battle were all sealed by adamantine thread and bandage. Another month spent recovering, with more wound dressing and suturing every other day, and she got out of bed. What at the time must have been little more than an adamantine suit with a pool of organ mush inside of it, stood up, and armed itself with the sword it used when it was still a dwarf, and straight away went back to the training room.

Now It is invincible. It cannot bleed to death, because there is no flesh to bleed from, and there is nothing left to infect, so we put it in a squad consisting only of this dwarf, and put it in a cage with a food chute and booze stockpile. Mafol Kubuktathur keeps training.

Now, should anything show up to try to rape our fort, we will just pull the lever and watch the carnage as the creature becomes a whirlwind of gore."

http://www.dfst.org/en/stories/280

Your logs indicate that this is the first time you have observed a Dwarf past toddlerhood shed a tear.

"Leave me alone, Omega. Now."

>>1170866
"As you wish urist, as you wish."

We're adding this dwarf to our book of hero's. The one who dared strike back against it's tyrants.

>>1170866
Damn.

I'd like to look at that later, but not now.

>>1170866
Really? They have the adamantine horror? The steadfast blueskin? The undying dwarf; a dervish of devilish death?


Okay, that is it, we can't beat the angels in close range, 1-1 but that fucking dwarf could survive being shot with a rail-gun or hit with a hammer of Damocles. Assuming OP holds faithful to the tales...


Kidding of course, we aren't laying all our hopes on this one being...yet.


"If there is anything we can do, just ask. Our knowledge of flesh and metal, the mixing of the two is one of the most advanced in the world and we have the budget for this kind of thing."

>>1170927

"Mafol Kubuktathur did not ask for this. We did not want this. The medicae... kept to their deal. And I cannot hate them for it, I have no right to, yet I do. I appreciate your offer, Omega, but this is our burden to bear."

You make a note of this tactical asset in Urist's possession for now. As much as the Dwarf firstborn is cold towards you at the moment, it seems that you now have a common enemy.

These are the End times, and monsters walk the earth.

>>1170910
>>1170895

Tsion is walking home.

He started from near Timbuktu, and the launch complex was put on alert, delaying a routine transfer of nuclear fuel from the Moon, but all he said was a curt "Let me through" to the Legionaries at the frontier, which they did since he is on the do-not-engage list.

Tsion is walking home.

The desert at the south of Misrayim, carefully protected by your geologists and agronomists so that the various revivalist communities have a place to fully experience the environment associated with their chosen subculture, is inhospitable enough that venturing out without a stillsuit or an exact idea of how to survive is still dangerous enough that you lose a trickle of people to it every year, and Tsion's sandaled feet hit the sand. Every morning a small amount of manna appears on a nearby rock to sustain him, and that's all he eats or drinks during the endless day. Some take it as a challenge and try to keep up, but none can for more than a few days.

Tsion is walking home.

Fertile fields have long given way to even more fertile aquaponic systems, tended by drones and supervised by biologists and agri engineers. Without breaking so much as a pane of glass in the greenhouse, but ignoring fences both physical and virtual, the Glorified theologian keeps marching. A small drone swarm follows, repairing any minor damage behind him.

Tsion is walking home.

You knew this, and have made available a large amount of resources to make sure his march is interrupted.

# Pick a place - the smaller eastern desert? the fields? the coast? the city of Cairo? the Temple of Perseverance?

# Pick a method - instawall? wubbers? Leigionary shields? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTZscYmBXco

# Pick a pretext - will you arrest the guy? shoot him? drop him in molten iron?

# Pick a fight - expect something big to show up to free or rescue him: how many cabals will build an arena vs. how many will fight in it?

(You can also abort and be refunded the cabals to do something else)

>>1170971
>The fields, wubbers, instawall, arrest him then drop in lava.

>>1170971
Gas him and move him with AI drones. We know that works and will prove immediately effective.

>>1171038
>>1170990

Alternatively, you can let Kat, Damien or Ithuriel decide on some or all of these aspects.

>>1171151
We know what works. Kat can handle Gassing. Damien can handle drones Moving and Ithuriel can handle trouble/angel shooting.

Rolled 60, 8, 21, 18, 87, 35 = 229 (6d100)

>>1171178

Makes sense. Confirm >>1170990 ?

>>1171214
yeee

OK, bad dice. Let's see what we can do about this

>>1170971
Neither.

Make an artificial cave for this guy, and drop the floor out from under him.

>>1170971

# Pick a place - the small desert or field.

# Pick a method - suddenly drones. A medium with a hydraulic ram gets ahead of him, and nutpunches him back into a swarm of silencers and sleep gas.

# Pick a pretext - none, there shouldn't be any sign at all.

# Pick a fight - ideally I want him in stasis, but if he does summon an arch angel, we'll want Kat and Damian, the martial artists, the desolators, and Ithurial.

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>>1171553

Tsion continues to march, paying no attention to people who view keeping up with a Glorified as an athletic challenge and march along. One by one, these people peel off after getting a text message about an environmental hazard.

Once they are all gone, the drones start showing up. Tsion continues to not pay attention as long as they don't get in the way.

A pair of large "mothership" quadcopters, each with an attendant swarm of flying wubbers, flanks the theologian. If he has noticed, he is not letting you know of it.

# Attempt to steer him towards a prepared artificial cave.

# Just arrange a robo-beating and skip that step.

>>1171652
# Attempt to steer him towards a prepared artificial cave.

>>1171652
># Attempt to steer him towards a prepared artificial cave.
Worth a shot, but if he continues ignoring them we'll just skip to the robo beating.

>>1171727
>>1171674

Tsion does not deviate, at first. When the drones on his left start piling up, however, he does - without a comment. The large amount of drones that he is preceded and followed by makes him look a little bit like a robotic prophet: this is going to be the most telegraphed mugging in history.

Content that the drones are just looking, and that none seem to be mounting firearms, Tsion keeps walking. Your other forces are keeping onlookers away.

About an hour later, Tsion is above the artificial cave

# which has been prepared as an Angel arena, with wubbers and neutron sources.

# which is full of artificial lava.

# which is just very deep, enough so that anyone falling would die on impact.

>>1171774

# which has been prepared as an Angel arena, with wubbers and neutron sources.

>>1171774

# which is just very deep, enough so that anyone falling would die on impact.

Pretty sure that won't kill him, but so won't lava, and the last thing we need right now is another Angel so close to Judgement Day.

Also, dump a bunch of concrete down the hole. For safety reasons.

>>1171774
>Which locks him inside and is flooded with gas.

>>1171774

># which is just very deep, enough so that anyone falling would die on impact.
Hmmmm
># which is full of artificial lava.
Sorely tempting. But I'm not sure he won't get resurrected.

># which has been prepared as an Angel arena, with wubbers and neutron sources.

Well the precaution is for the response, the drones can easily screw with Tsion.

>>1171827
Go with the angel arena.

>>1171827
>Sorely tempting. But I'm not sure he won't get resurrected.

Which is why I don't want to do that, I want to encase him in concrete so he stays there till Judgement Day.

We can dig him up afterwards if we win.

>>1171839
I suspect an angel would just dug him up. Whatever we do, he must be unable to speak, or even be conscious if possible. It worked on Steele at least.

>>1171854
Considering that an Angel's about as strong as a man and probably won't use his sword for fear of chipping it, it's going to be there a good, loooong while.

Still, good idea to gas him before hand. And also prop his mouth open so concrete gets in and stops up his vocal cords.

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>>1171802
>>1171834

(Looks like that Angel arena has a plurality, with concrete as an option?)

>>1171945
I'll not vote against the Arena, but here's my reasoning behind burying him:
We have only five years to go. That is, we only have five years to make good whatever losses we suffer here, and we only have to hold Tsion five years until Judgement Day.

Baiting and fighting the Angel will cost us the equipment for the arena, and we'll almost certainly suffer casualties-and all this would accomplish would be retaining possession of Tsion and bagging another Angel under our belts.

Burying him and leaving costs us very little by comparison-it's just a shitton of concrete-and we only need it to hold for five years. If it brings an Angel, even better-we'll end up tying up that Angel for five years, if we bury the guy deep enough. Which effectively means we neutralize an Angel and keep Tsion restrained, the same result as an arena fight, without the costs or causalities of said arena fight.

>>1171945
Just the arena, with Gassing.

>>1172005
The only reason we are really doing an angel trap at this point is because they are extremely routine and we just need to test Kats new bio-armor.

>>1172020
Point. We ARE going to need less casualty-prone ways of dealing with Angels, come Judgement.

I withdraw my objection.

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>>1172027
>>1172020

The drones form a circle around Tsion, and when it's thick enough, he stops.

Tsion does not react, and instead puts down his satchel, gets on his knees, and starts praying in silence. This makes the original idea of delivering a sonorous kick in the nuts impossible: the drones with the testicle-tracking firmware report that they cannot see a valid target.

So, you move to the next part of the plan: all the quadcopters increase altitude, most of the tankettes roll back, and shaped charges blow up the stone slab that Tsion was kneeling on, to drop him into a roughly hewn artificial cavern. Unlike the tankettes, he reflexively straightens out in the few moments of freefall and executes a near-perfect rolling landing.

He even manages to stand up before the tankettes that didn't get damaged by the fall can run their self-righting mechanism.

There's of course no way that Tsion can jump back up, and when the dust settles, he's pacing and looking around.

"I SURRENDER!" he exclaims.

# Gas.

# Talk.

# Concrete.

(Peter Capaldi would make a good Tsion for this story, except that all Glorified look ken-doll-ish, canonically)

>>1172124
# Concrete.

>>1172124
# Gas.

Welcome to /pol/

"I SAID, I SURRENDER! IS ANYONE EVEN WATCHING THIS, OR DID I JUST STEP ON SOME STUPIDLY COMPLICATED LAND MINE!"

Your quadcopters have roosted on the edges of the hole in the cave.


>>1172145

(I guess someone had to go there eventually)

If you go with gas, you have several options: urticant, soporific, diluted neurotoxin to paralyze, or full-strength neurotoxin to kill.

>>1172155
Knock out. We have to test the bioarmor on an angel.

>>1172155
# Gas.

# Concrete.

Probably will still get an Angel if we concrete him, so we might as well.

>>1172208
That or we get earthquake.

>>1172208
>>1172225

You start pouring concrete (high-density epoxy with silica microspheres, really, Misrays don't do half measures when it comes to building materials: either stone as the Pharaohs did, or good modern stuff) out of several squirters off the roof. Fortunately for Tsion, he managed to land without being incapacitated, and can easily dodge the jets of the stuff, only losing a sandal to it.

At least this is doing a decent job of distracting him from the gas: what looks like steam from secondary nozzles is in fact...

# a strong urticant agent, tear gas on steroids.

# something distantly related to chloroform, in the sense that a Dodge Charger is related to a Model T.

# a deadly neurotoxin.

# a deadly neurotoxin, diluted precisely so as to paralyze arms and legs but not hearts and chest muscles.

>>1172267
# a deadly neurotoxin, diluted precisely so as to paralyze arms and legs but not hearts and chest muscles.

I'm way too erect for this.

>>1172225
It's a solid piece of concrete, not a building. Breaking it open with an earthquake would probably liquefy the surrounding rock-which wouldn't exactly be conductive to unearthing him.

What the Tyrant needs for this one is a drill, not a claw hammer.

>>1172267

# something distantly related to chloroform, in the sense that a Dodge Charger is related to a Model T.

>>1172267
# something distantly related to chloroform, in the sense that a Dodge Charger is related to a Model T.

My sides.

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>>1172275

(That is a side effect of many deadly neurotoxins. Please check that the morality core assigned to your section of the data center is working correctly. Otherwise, your section of the data center may be in the process of being flooded with deadly neurotoxin.)

>>1172296
MY
FUCKING
SIDES!

>>1172275
And it gets better, before his converting, Tsion was a Jewish Israeli.

>>1172294
>>1172277

Tsion dances around the fast-dry epoxy, which by now has formed a compact layer on the floor. He correctly surmises that eventually he should be able to just climb out of the hole if this keeps up.

"IS THIS IT? IS THIS YOUR STUPID TRAP? The Lord is with me! You're going to run out of goop before I even get tired..."

Even as he says it, his movements slow down; the soporific gas is actually a finely blended mixture of carbon monoxide and fairly complicated aerosols intended to make sure that the gas turns into carbon dioxide once the target has been incapacitated. Within minutes, the hole in the ground is full of the stuff; Tsion efficiently waltzes around the squirters; rather than simply accusing sleepiness and starting to make mistakes, he simply slows down, like an Angel might.

Near a tree, by a river, there was a hole in the ground, where an old man of iron went around and around. And his mind was a beacon in the veil of the night, for a strange kind of fashion there's a wrong and a right.

And he's not going to get to fight you, because he is sleeping soundly.

# Standard capture: tie up and place on a seat below a silencer.

# Encase.

# Terminate.

# Deliver a robotic beatdown while he is unconscious.

# Listen to Kat when she says that this was too easy.

>>1172309
I.. I, you know what. I need to fap.

>>1172331
# Listen to Kat when she says that this was too easy.

>>1172331
# Listen to Kat when she says that this was too easy.

"Advise, general?"

>>1172331
# Listen to Kat when she says that this was too easy.

# Encase.

Set up some sonar so we know he's still there.

>>1172386
Also, next time we should get a binary action epoxy, and only mix the other reagent in once he starts floating in the stuff.

>>1172351
>>1172335

"This shitstain literally called down the wrath of God on this country. Three times. He's an accomplice in millions of murders while knowing full well that all those who died by his hand and mouth would face eternal torture. Before all that he was one of the reasons why humanity failed at kicking his God's ass properly the first time. He's IMPORTANT. So why aren't we being swarmed by Angels right now? Why was he trying to surrender? What's the trick?"

Ithuriel objects that the Glorified do not lie: if Tsion cried out that he was surrendering, he meant it. "Perhaps... he does not think that anything we do here will affect the outcome."

Kat snarls at Ithuriel, causing him to reflexively back off in fear. "So that's his trick! Make us think it's all written and this is for nothing!"

"Well, it is written."

Ithuriel manages to calmly face two metric tons of angry rhino-lobster-woman growling in an interrogative tone, and answers with no trembling in his voice..

"Written it is, and we must deal with this fact. But I don't think it's for nothing. Whether we win or lose is less important than that we're fighting. Fighting we are, and Yahweh must deal with this fact."

Damien, who's hanging upside down ready to coordinate the trap's mounted weapons in case Angels show up, gets the two to back off from each other a little bit. "We already won, whatever the back of their book says. The Reach is still pinging, and she's a good three light-months out by now. This is a fight for what's right, not for survival."

>>1172386

(Confirm encase?)

>>1172404
# Standard capture: tie up and place on a seat below a silencer.

"And someone castrate him after we test the bio-armor. . . Or out him under a surgical drone for me. ."

>>1172404
>Encase his ass.

>>1172438
Better that be "something" castrate him, given the last "somebody" who tried that got combusted so hard it melted titanium alloy.

>>1172453
Thus the surgical bot.

>>1172456
>>1172453
>>1172442

(So far I have two on encase, is this the plan?)

Elsewhere, life continues as normal: outside of the "antlion" trap, your drones are keeping a very tight sensor net up by doing multiple flybys from multiple angles. Signs have been posted to stay away from this particular area of desert since drones with live ammo are conducting an exercise and may decide that anything that doesn't look like one of your drone designs is a valid target. Within the hour, a couple of idiots have launched a flying wing to go take a look; Damien takes control of the nearest quadcopter and uses its rotors to mess with the simpler drone's aerodynamic controls and make it crash. Said idiots are then sent a text message containing a generic compliment for their design, a notice of confiscation, and their own exact GPS coordinates plus a picture of Damien blowing them a kiss; they get the hint and leave.

>>1172477
I voted Encase, So encase his ass. Also, Get fucking Kat some mood stabilizers.

>>1172485
We need her lucid. Or at least semi-lucid.

Save the stabilizers for if she gets homicidal on us.

>>1172485
She wants to be an angry demon, I say let her.

I also say don't stray from protocol yet.

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>>1172485
>>1172386

The unconscious Tsion is held up by the shoulders and a few metal panels are quickly held up in a box-like fashion: the theologian is then equipped with a ball gag with an airway (Why did Kat have one of those on hand?) and nasal intubation for water. As for evacuating, while the Glorified do in fact have to go to the restroom, "he'll just have to hold it".

Tsion is encased in the dark-grey epoxycrete

# entirely

# leaving his face out

# leaving his eyes out

# with a pair of video glasses over his eyes

and Damien takes a bit of time for fun in recreating a reasonable approximation of the Han-Solo-in-carbonite pose. Since the carbonite in the movie wasn't very thick at all, more epoxy is poured as the inner layers solidify until what you have is a two-meter cube, with slightly thicker corners and insets for ease of grabbing by low-precision manipulators.

So far it looks like that this action wasn't hostile enough to call an Angel.

# Shoot some oxygen up Tsion's nose and wake him up.

# Take your unwillingly cubical companion to a long-term storage facility while he's unconscious.

# Wait.

>>1172517
>>1172516
>>1172485

Kat is quite lucid, although her frame has grown over her MECpod a bit and it's hard to tell where the interface socket is anymore. She's also been noticeably more hateful than usual against your enemies since it was discovered that Phanuel had messed with people's heads.

>>1172527

# entirely

>> although her frame has grown over her MECpod a bit and it's hard to tell where the interface socket is anymore.
Might want to see if we can still peel that frame off after this.

>>She's also been noticeably more hateful than usual against your enemies since it was discovered that Phanuel had messed with people's heads.
Shit.

She should get a therapist after this. This sounds entirely too much like something that'll bite us in the ass at the last minute.

>>1172527
># leaving his face out
This way the trap can function and we can perma-seal him later.

># Shoot some oxygen up Tsion's nose and wake him up.
Too many portal references. LoL.

The whole thing needs to be prepared to trunk into a gas chamber the men can still fight the angel in.

>>1172527
# Wait.
A bit anyway-if an Angel doesn't show up in a few days then stuff his ass in storage and call it a good weeks work.

Also, set up ultrasound so we can tell if the body suddenly disappears or something.

>>1172527
# with a pair of video glasses over his eyes
# Take your unwillingly cubical companion to a long-term storage facility while he's unconscious.

>>1172532
Actually, it sounds like a berserker. And seeing as her motivation seems to be to destroy the angels and the GJ in revenge for the mindfucking. I'm all for it.

>>1172543
You know what beserkers do?

They scream and leap, ruin all our well-laid plans in the process, and get their ass wished away by TJ, who then does the same to us.

We need soldiers, not beserkers.

>>1172549
Fair enough. Well have her hold her rage and refine it in battle.

>>1172538

While you decide what to do, you wait a little, take the time to let the fixed-mount wubbers recalibrate against the two or three centimeters of epoxy on the floor, and have your psychologists compile a report on Kat as she interacts with the Desolators present. You know from past experience that it's possible to keep a Glorified person unconscious for a long time, and an Angel will only show up when the person asks for help; from the look of it, it doesn't seem that Tsion Ben-Judah is an urgently needed strategic asset on Yahweh's part, since the pattern hasn't changed.

Ithuriel is optimistic; he's less interested in a duel since the fight with Phanuel, and thinks that taking on something of that power will be easier the second time.

Damien is primarily worried about testing Angel containment systems: even if they work on an Angel, would they work on Jesus? It's not the easiest thing to research given the inability to do experiments.

Kat has had the good manners of making sure that the Desolators don't need her to lead the dance before sticking herself semi-permanently in the bio frame; like many HMECs, having lost much of her natural body she is very protective of her self in other areas. It's fairly obvious however that the sheer amount of adrenaline that goes through her body affects her on some level even though there is no direct fluid exchange, probably through sweating and skin contact. Your psychquisitors figure that Kat is functional enough to fight, although it may be good to not ask her to do PR or research work for the few years that remain. After the threat is gone, the general plan is to give HMECs who want it a proper body anyway - a surprising percentage of them, almost two in five, has however refused.

# Decide what sensory input to leave Tsion.

# Decide what to do with him afterwards.

In the meantime, The Other Light have kept up their recruitment campaign; their focus now seems to be to make sure their immense, low-tech army is able to efficiently move to Greater Jerusalem when the time comes. A few outlying areas in the territories they have conquered are experiencing a minor dust bowl effect just out of the sheer amount of people that foraged there.

>>1172593
Well, we could make him think he's being loaded on a rocket. Wake him up for the "countdown" and inform him that since he's such a danger to humanity he's being sent to Pluto on the slowest route possible, ETA 55 years or similar. Like Planet Hulk, only more Planet Lonely Tsion.

>>1172593
# Decide what to do with him afterwards.

>>1172593
You know, I almost want to just encase the guy entirely and leave him no sensory input.
If sensory deprivation won't deconvert someone, no one will...

But that's a pretty serious breach of most any moral code.

>> It's fairly obvious however that the sheer amount of adrenaline that goes through her body affects her on some level even though there is no direct fluid exchange, probably through sweating and skin contact.

Changed my mind on stabilizers. Probably should put her body on mild adrenaline antagonists, if it wouldn't kill it. Last thing we want is Kat's intelligence compromised by all-encompassing rage all the time, let alone in the field.

>>1172603
*nothing, blah.

>>1172593
# Decide what sensory input to leave Tsion.

Enough to call for help

# Decide what to do with him afterwards.

Permanent unconscious lockdown.

>>1172603
Can we not fuck with the personal life of one of our generals yet and just adapt to it, besides, we need to have her ready to fight this angel if we can get it to show up.

>>1172616
If this was just anger management issues I'd agree with you-it'd be something she could and should handle on her own.

It isn't. It's her new suit screwing with her head by artificially jacking up her adrenaline.
At the very least we should let her know that's happening.

>>1172600

Simulating a rocket's acceleration is trivial: simulating the absence of gravity is significantly harder, so much so that you wouldn't be able to do it without a lot of drugs, and even then a Glorified with an acute (if one-track) mind might catch on.

Nothing stops you from actually putting the guy in orbit, of course, although sending him to Pluto would require a bit of engineering work when it comes to life support, you can adapt one of the minimal life support units that keep spacebound HMECs alive. It is unknown whether giving the heavy MEC treatment to a Glorified would work.

You note that on average, HMECs who have been tasked with operating multiple drones like Damien, or large vehicles like Simaris, are less likely to want a body back. Other factors include whether the medical techs were able to salvage and reconnect their private parts and whether the HMEC had experienced life as an infiltrator-class MEC before.

>>1172628

It was probably an expected side effect, but you do know that Kat has always been somewhat lax in running the necessary diagnostics in a HMEC's life. You inform her

# after this caper

# immediately

>>1172628
Alright we'll let her know and see if we can throw her the counteraction meds.

>>1172635
# after this caper

>>1172635
# after this caper

We don't need to cause a panic in our ranks mid operation.

>>1172639
Ditto. Angel comes, last thing we need is to throw Kat off her game.

>>1172635
I'm mostly suggesting it as a conclusion to the joke. Better to stuff him in deep storage somewhere. Though we could leave him with a loop of Misrayem's tourism commercials. "Try the food, see the space centre, and loose in a game of chess with the Collossis system".

>>1172640
>>1172639
>>1172643

For now, Tsion is at your (questionable) mercy; he's certainly not going anywhere by himself even if he does wake up. It might be interesting to get him to witness an Angel fight (Ithuriel's suggestion: let's see what the theologian will say after he sees a victory!), or to experience sensory deprivation (Kat's call, noting that he might be into it but she doubts it, and that "if you want to mess with dommy types, force them to do subby things") or to actually be shot into space (Damien's favorite, although her suggestion involves putting the interplanetary ferry into a Sun-impact trajectory, release the cube, and then normalize the ferry's orbit; Damien is sure that Simaris would do it "if I dare him").

>>1172651
(That's hilarious. Don't forget the Pagan Pyramyd Tour, the Nile Bed magnetic hoverboard ramps, and aquajetting on the Mediterranean!)

>>1172655
Between Kats and Ithuriel. I would have to go with Kats, it's clear we won't see an angel fight at this point.

The last battle will have to be Kats field test.

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http://gizmodo.com/power-company-sends-fire-spewing-drone-to-burn-trash-of-1792482517

(Seriously, you seem to have caught this guy, finally: now what will you do?)

>>1172670

You will if you want to see it: your people are very loyal, and will go with whichever plan you prefer.

>>1172673
Go with Kat.

>>1172673
If the others would go for it I'd say angel trap and handle this almost as if routine. If not, sense deprivation.

>>1172670
Let's not have them fight. Inform Kat of her suit troubles first, get that sorted before we get Angel-on-abomination fisticuffs.

>>1172655
I'd prefer sensory deprivation and storage, followed by video glasses if that doesn't pass.

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>>1172691
>>1172687

You figure that sensory deprivation is the best way to keep this particular enemy contained; video glasses are put on Tsion's eyes during encasement, but they are kept offline, ensuring that all he will see when he comes to is black and all he hears is silence.

A couple of extra holes are carefully drilled in the cube, lest it get gross after the first few hours.

# Wake him up and welcome him to a hell of his own making, but risk calling an Angel.

# Keep in storage on sedatives and minimal nutrition, and move on with the year.

# Postpone the fight until right before the Feast of Tabernacles, and take the time to build a containment system for the Angel: first stage will be silencing, followed by

* rapid encasement.

* fast creation of a hard-vacuum.

* oil and air-bubble removal; pickled Angel, anyone?

>>1172729
# Keep in storage on sedatives and minimal nutrition, and move on with the year.

But prepare this
>* fast creation of a hard-vacuum.
For next year.

>>1172729

# Postpone the fight until right before the Feast of Tabernacles, and take the time to build a containment system for the Angel: first stage will be silencing, followed by

* oil and air-bubble removal; pickled Angel, anyone?

>>1172729

# Postpone the fight until right before the Feast of Tabernacles, and take the time to build a containment system for the Angel: first stage will be silencing, followed by fast creation of a hard-vacuum.

Might as well field test this now so we have a few years to improve before the Big One.

>>1172744
This

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>>1172691

Kat is thoughtful about your analysis, and figures that for now something like a gas mask should help keep her frame's sweat off; she doesn't seem interested in having extra hormones rooting in her brain, although she's fine in having the frame modified to suppress adrenaline until it's needed. Your psychs note with some relief that she's still making a distinction between pod/body and frame.

In a few days, her Desolators have built her a breathing mask featuring shoulder-mounted bellows and decorated with horse teeth. It definitely fits the frame.

As the year goes on, the Angel arena is improved and perfected: the top hole is given an airtight iris door reminiscent of the popular notion of a ballistic missile silo, and safety alcoves and large turbopumps are installed in the sides of the arena. Your martial artists will be able to quickly take refuge in these, and a vacuum close to that of space can be generated in the artificial cavern within seconds. The usual complement of radiation sources and wubbers accompanies this setup.

Over the months, Noah finishes his goodwil tour of India, and renews once more an invitation to Damien, plus one, to visit the Ark when she is back in Greater Jerusalem; the Ark replica sails up the new Suez Canal to relatively little fanfare, although the patriarch has to endure the occasional homemade drone from Misrayim checking the boat out. Urged to make a few evangelism stops through the canal, he decides instead to only hold one once the Ark is at the northern terminus, so as to not get in the way of navigation for other ships.

Once the trap is improved, you wake up Tsion and

# let him see and hear.

# mess with his perception, since it too is at your mercy.

Whichever Angel shows up, Kat and Ithuriel stand ready to fight, your martial artists are good to go on backing them up, and Damien will coordinate the static defenses: she's not as skilled as Zak with a wubber, but she is more used to paying attention to multiple things at once.

>>1172761

# let him see and hear.

Not that I expect him to deconvert on seeing an Angel die, but we can at least make sure he can't fall back on "you're fucking with my perception.

>>1172769
He won't deconvert can't say I care. Best thing will be he See's this, gets horrified. We win the final battle. And I get to torture him in the name of avenging Quinn and the dead misrays.

>>1172761
>let him see and hear.


Hell has no furth like an angry person

>>1172779
(Kat's a crazy overlord, Ithuriel's the perfect 'benevolent dictator or mook thereof', my fellow subroutines and I are amoral AIs and cackling mad scientists all at once somehow...

...Swear to Vulcan if we all become a bunch of 2-bit evil overlords right after Judgement Day, I'm going to make an Excalibur sword with embedded data storage for insta-brick viruses just so whoever rightfully kills us has a fighting chance.)

>>1172786
overlord=warlord, apparently.

>>1172786
Actually I only want to kill/torture Tsion and just Tsion. Don't really have any other goal outside of stop Armageddon and keep the cause of it contained.

>>1172798
Still making that sword or equivalent thereof right after Judgment Day. Or at least I am.

Sword of Damocles, I'll call it. Some last resort in case we do in fact go mental and pull a Skynet.

>>1172807
Actually we gave that order to Quinn before Tsion killed her. And given that Kats anger prone and Damien is kinda loopy. Think we should give Ithuriel the "kill us if we become worse than tyrant" order?

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>>1172783
>>1172779
>>1172769

Tsion's video feed is connected to a camera external to the epoxy cube. Damien expertly maneuvers a waldo arm with two drills on it, spaced like Tsion's eyes, into alignment with them. Tsion gets to watch, for a very long minute, the twin drills penetrating the prison that he understands he is in. The only thing he hears are the drills going through the epoxy, ever closer to his eyes. Then, blackness when the drills finally hit the video glasses and break them.

Tsion is trying to chew through the ball gag and squirming within the epoxy cube. Expertly controlled by Damien and a precision rangefinders, the drills stop just in time to let Tsion feel hot metal against his eyelids, then retract.

Finally, the drills give a rough poke to the ball gag, breaking it and allowing the theologian to spit it out.

"Call for help, Tsion Ben-Judah. Surely an Angel of the Lord will rescue you" an impersonal voice resounds.

"YOU PEOPLE ARE MONSTERS! I HAD SURRENDERED!"

"Oh no, Tsion. You're the monster." Kat definitely cuts a striking figure, especially when pretending to break down a stone wall (it was actually just inch-thick concrete). "You are an accomplice in the greatest crime in history. You murdered millions and sentenced billions more to eternal torture. All we did was lock you up and oh, look, you got a split lip."

Kat bounds forward and opens her gas mask's teeth. "Let me kiss it better."

Tsion remains stoic on the outside, although what little telemetry you are getting shows that if he was a Natural he would have had a heart attack already.

"It doesn't matter what you do to me, demon! The Lord will deliver me from this!"

"Demon? Oh no, Tsion. Demons are feeble little spirits that do feeble little parlor tricks. What I am, is a heavy metabolically extended cybernetic trooper. A soldier in the Legion of Light. I'm all human where it counts, Glorified. FEAR ME."
# Let Kat tell Tsion that he is about to see an Angel die.

# Ask Kat to act scared of an Angel showing up.

# Tell Kat to affect empty bluster.

>>1172786

(The marquee does say Villains. Heroes are on the other team. :P )

>>1172825
# Let Kat tell Tsion that he is about to see an Angel die.

#And that gods do bleed.

>>1172825
# Let Kat tell Tsion that he is about to see an Angel die.

If he doesn't call for one. Have Ithuriel "restrained" and wheeled out. Prepared to jump free the second he does call for one.

>>1172814
>>Think we should give Ithuriel the "kill us if we become worse than tyrant" order?
Start with that, but I wouldn't rely on it.

Remember his reaction to 1984? Whatever state his moral compass is in, free will and/or sanity doesn't register on it. Otherwise, he's a very 'crusader' type personality and is loyal to us.
Depending on HOW we go mental-say we incarcerate and brainwash everyone who mentions the name of the Tyrant on the grounds that they might be harboring the memeplex, and go from there-he might actually be a willing accomplice the whole way.

We need a countermeasure that we can trust but can't control or subvert.

>>1172825
Her show, let her say what she wants.

>>1172837
Hmm. What if we have Damien, Kat, and Ithuriel all together as a sort of council of "your taking it too far."

We know Ithuriel has a stricter moral compass than the two but can be roped in.

We know Kat has a looser moral compass but can be hastie.

And we know Damien is a little nutty but can usually see a bigger picture.

Put them together and maybe we have an effective "morality core"?

>>1172837

( Not wholly unrelated, as I was looking for the exact prayer to have Tsion recite, but... check this out: https://www.biblefaithfellowship.org/sermons/display/263/ Read the first paragraph at least.)

>>1172830
>>1172834

"Okay, 'Turi, you gotta pretend to be scared out of your wits for this one" Damien says in a maternal tone while one of your martial artists, who does illusionism in her spare time, ties him up with the right sort of knot. "Just tug on the knot that's between your toes and most of this stuff will just undo itself, then you can get up".

"I'm going to be half naked, tied up, next to Kat in her bio armor, surrounded by radioactive cannons and tanks full of neurotoxin, about to fight another Angel, and you want me to pretend to be scared. Got it, Damien." Your body language analysis algorithms cannot tell if Ithuriel is being sarcastic or stalwart. They grow up so fast, don't they?

Kat matter-of-factly tells Tsion that if he summons an Angel, it will die. "Messily. We will have to beat it to death, then your cowardly God will throw it in Hell Himself for its failure."

"You lie! I'm done listening to you. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever..."

Sensors show one unidentified trace coming in fast, ETA three minutes. The neutron sources warm up, the wubbers perform a calibration check, the martial artists take a sip of their preferred saline reintegrator, and the mothership drones outside move to intercept and irradiate.

# Let Tsion pray.

# Gag him.

# Three minutes is too long. Wheel in Ithuriel.

>>1172846

(Not a bad idea.)

>>1172852
# Gag him.
It's coming! Get Ithuriel off the table. "No longer necessary, we have incoming."

>>1172852
>gag him
>COMBAT MODE

our fucking Angel is best

>>1172846
Sure.

In addition:Have these three form a team or teams, and have that team(s) start making contingency plans for reining us in or killing us. This/these team(s) should not be made known to us, and they should not inform the "core" of their contingencies until and unless the "core" makes the determination that we are beyond saving.

There should also be contingencies for activating those plans should the "core" be subverted or destroyed by us or an outside identity, which again we should not be aware of.

>>1172852
>>Read the first paragraph at least.

While that is neat and geeky, what we're talking about is for restraining ourselves from going mental in a world where there is no absolute, universal and universally enforced morale code. While Perseverance and Listening is high on the list of desirable traits, Faith and Obedience is decidedly not.

# Gag him.

# Three minutes is too long. Wheel in Ithuriel.
Keep him in reserve in case Kat falters.

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>>1172858
>>1172865
>>1172866


Kat stuffs an oily rag in Tsion's mouth and seals it in place with a squirt from her goop tanks, causing Damien to look around and make a reference to Japanese cartoons while Ithuriel disentangles himself and gets his weapons.

The bad news is that your mothership drones were barely able to send any radiation the Angel's way.

The good news is that this specimen isn't particularly impressive; it's about the size of Ithuriel, with admittedly nicer hair, and comes in with a longsword and - that's a first - a golden chestplate with pauldrons. Damien describes the overall effect as "very eighties".

And in the tamed desert, an iris door opens, and malignant green light pours out just to make sure the Angel doesn't miss the obvious entryway.

# Irradiate as much as possible while it flies towards the cavern.

# Use the drones' sensors to get what little advance intel on the armor is available instead.

Ithuriel is free of the fake impediments, and has retrieved his Dwarven sword and axe. Kat warns everyone take standard precautions: don't step on areas of floor that the projectors are illuminating red because there's radiation there, and so on.

# Standard pattern as soon as the Angel lands: no heroes today.

# Let Kat fight it.

# Let Ithuriel fight it.

# Have a two-on-one.

>>1172852
>Christian preacher points to Warhammer 40k Space Marines as an example of how to be devote.

I'm dying here!!

>>1172871
# Irradiate as much as possible while it flies towards the cavern.

# Have a two-on-one.
Think the two of you can take it on at once?

>>1172871
# Use the drones' sensors to get what little advance intel on the armor is available instead.
That armor could be...worrisome. Probably should stick to grapples and limb-breaks.

# Let Kat fight it.
Science! But transition to two on one if Kat falters.

>>1172872
The worst bit is, technically the Emperor was cheating a bit when he made the Astartes.
I seem to recall he engineered the whole "fear" thing out, among other things.

>>1172871
>get advance intell

>2 on 1

>>1172875

Ithuriel is confident that he can sunder the Angel's sword, but doesn't know about any armor - what would it even do?

Kat isn't worried about the armor on grounds of "it's basically a chainmail bikini for guys" and there's sufficient exposed Angel for "a few hearty meals", but admits that she doesn't have much of a plan to deal with its weapon other than ablate some chitin and close in to grappling range quickly.

>>1172878

A Legionary of Light does know fear. He or she knows that fear is what can save your life. They are trained to master their fear, and this is what the psychquisitor tells them before training starts: "When you are scared, Your heart is beating so hard, I can feel it through your hands. There's so much blood and oxygen pumping through your brain, it's like rocket fuel. Right now, you could run faster and you can fight harder, you could jump higher than ever in your life. And you're so alert, it's like you can slow down time. What's wrong with scared? Scared is a super power. It's your super power. There is danger is this room, and guess what? It's you!"

>>1172866
Before I forget, I would approve of this. However. The core must be able to review those under their command in charge of the "teams." Then those in charge of the teams must be able to review those under themselves in order to prevent wrongful insurrection. This line of review is to be handled annually and can be ordered at any time.

>>1172885
Assuming the armor is anything like what we are used to, cut around it or cut through it with the dwarves blades.

>>1172883
>>1172876
>>1172875

The armor is pure gold (quick conductivity test made by letting a "daughter" drone collide with the Angel and fry its battery charging pads through it), shining like clear glass (simple optical measurement and image processing). The greatsword is built like all other Angelic weapons.

# Allow Tsion to watch the Angel approaching on a screen.

# Don't.

Your martial artists are told to stay in the alcoves and warm up, ready to burst forth should there be a need; Kat and Ithuriel are ready, the former staying in Tsion's view, the latter hiding by the simple expedient of remaining behind the encasement cube. A waldo arm is brought down to hold the rag muffling Tsion in place. He seems to have moved on to Psalm 24.

# Show him Ithuriel.

# Just have either Kat or Ithuriel open the fight.

>>1172899
>allow him to show

>show him our own angel

>>1172899
# Allow Tsion to watch the Angel approaching on a screen.

# Just have either Kat or Ithuriel open the fight.
Ithuriel goes first. Start irradiation of the longsword wielder.

Should we win. At some point in the future, I imagine that were going to create an army of bipedal drones. This will then necessitate the development of EMP weapons. But for that brief moment of time, the parades in Misrayim will be epic.

https://youtu.be/jaOJuQjstbs

>>1172885
>>A Legionary of Light does know fear.
Not suggesting we should change that.

Although...I'm not the expert on this or anything. but I recall that when the amygdala fight-or-flight response is engaged, it tends to starve the other parts of the brain of energy. Which is great when you're operating on instinct/training-less so when you need to complete other tasks your instincts or training don't cover.

Might be a good idea to find a way to dial the fight-or-flight response back-not completely get rid of it, mind, just enough that our Legionaries get the warning without having their intelligence compromised or wasting willpower on fighting the fear back.

>>1172889
>>The core must be able to review those under their command in charge of the "teams."

Agreed, but again, there should be contingencies for if the core is compromised- they might exercise the veto or sacking authority this implies to compromise the teams.

>>1172899

# Don't.

# Just have either Kat or Ithuriel open the fight.
Let's not fuck around any more than necessary.

>>1172921
Our legionaries are the military branch of our operations. Not our cabals. Although the legionaries have been known to build bridges on the fly when needed, along with other industrial task.

>>1172928
They are also expected to fight in a battlespace which, on the Judgement Day, will include at least two enemies that cannot be fought in the conventional way and will end the world if we either hesitate or screw up by acting hastily. This is not something training or even prior experience can fully cover.

We need soldiers that not just fight well but follow the tradition of the Steely-Eyed Missile Men-coolness, intelligence, and confidence to act under fire.

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61 KB JPG

Rolled 40, 29 = 69 (2d100)

>>1172904
>>1172901
>>1172928
They've decided to style themselves after Romans; building roads and bridges goes with the territory.

>>1172921
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpmJfxUtfj8

Tsion manages to spit out the rag when he sees the Angel approach, and exclaims in genuine relief, "Anis!"

"... Dude. Your guardian angel's name is Anis?"

The Angel flies in majestically and executes a picture-perfect "hero landing" that leaves a mark on the epoxy floor, but Damien is still snickering, her laughter melting into the "beat" for the fight. Tsion warns the armored Angel, "She's behind me!": Kat has positioned herself next to Ithuriel, and has started shooting her neutron emitters right through Tsion to test the projection system: your martial artists, including Ithuriel, are trained to not step where the neutrons go.

What steps out from behind the cube is Ithuriel instead, with red wings courtesy of some spray paint and some help from the projectors.

"Rabbi Ben-Judah, my name is Anis. Pray as you have never prayed before, May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and give you peace."

Above them, the iris door closes; yours is the only light in the chamber, and other than the red symbols indicating where the neutron sources are hitting after going through Anis (and occasionally Tsion), Damien is keeping the light squarely on the enemy Angel.

"Anis, my name is Ithuriel. Hasta la vista, baby."

The shotgun blast catches even Damien by surprise; a number of lead pellets fall to the ground after impacting on Anis' armor, which is slightly dented by the impact.

Ithuriel drops the shotgun, unsheaths sword and shield, and assumes a defensive stance as Anis charges forward!

>>1172936
Well, it was worth a shot.

...I'll show myself out...

Rolled 42, 83 = 125 (2d100)

>>1172936

# At any point, you have the option to order the other martial artists to intervene, Kat to barge in, or the air in the room to be sucked out.

Ithuriel and Anis move around, with Kat staying in the shadows and irradiating the latter. The fight has the speed of a fencing duel, but the two combatants are clashing into each other like ancient hoplites. Anis' armor might as well not be there, and only serves to hide where its weak points are. Even so, as Ithuriel slices bits of it off, he in turn takes superficial cuts to the chest and shoulders by Anis. Ithuriel is going for

# the longsword, trying to sunder it.

# the armor, in case it does something else other than look distractingly shiny.

# direct damage.

Tsion does pray, and while his voice probably reaches to heaven, Damien's wubbers blanket the room, drum and violins resulting merely loud to Ithuriel but ear-damaging to Anis; most of your forces have at one time or another experienced wubber-induced deafness and, unlike the Angels of the Lord, are used to fighting in it.

The ceiling is low; neither of the Angels has tried to fly or shriek a trumpet blast yet. They are fighting like Men, which may give Ithuriel the advantage.

>>1172936
This is going to be final boss territory. we are ready to deploy our martial artist, right?

>>1172942
>the armor

>>1172942
# the longsword, trying to sunder it.

When Kat See's an opening, like the sword breaking, she is to engage.

>>1172943
If you mean Kat and the suit, yes.
We still need to test that, and vacuum exposure.

For the later, we should have the minimal amount of personnel in the chamber so we can pull out quickly and evacuate the chamber before Anis figures it out.

>>1172947
>>1172943

# At any point, you have the option to order the other martial artists to intervene, Kat to barge in, or the air in the room to be sucked out.

The two Angels have more or less fenced in a circle around the room: Anis now knows the size of the place he's fighting in. You don't know if this makes a difference with trumpet blasts - Ithuriel has been taught the math, but finds that it's too hard to do in his head, and just goes by instinct, sill performing better than a good 80% of wubber users.

Anyone expecting witty banter is disappointed: the two are trading lunges and dodges with complete concentration. Oddly, Anis seems to be using its longsword's point almost exclusively, holding it like a rapier.