>>5489899
>>5488855

"Yeah, it's me. What's wrong? You look like shit, Cyl."

Cylia slams her fist on the console, causing the camera to shake.

["You'd better not be fucking with me! It's really you, right?! David?!"]

"Yes! What the fuck?! Seriously, what happened!?"

Cylia doesn't speak. Instead, she slowly begins to break down.
Her bottom lip puckers, and tears begin streaming down her face as she slowly collapses to her knees.

She rests her head on the console, covering her face with her arms. You can hear the muffled sound of her quietly weeping over the microphone.

A few moments later, Kyla comes into frame, looking to see what the commotion is about. She seems to be similarly exhausted.
Her tired eyes widen in shock as she sees you and Sanig together in the cockpit of an unfamiliar ship, but she focuses more on comforting Cylia.

["Come on, Cylia. Look, they're alright, just like i said. See?"]

Kyla pats Cylia on the back as she stares back into the display, almost like she's trying to make sure it's really you.
As she picks Cylia back up to her feet, you can see she's got snot running down her nose, which she tries to hide by wiping it on her sleeve.

["Can you get the airlock ready for them? Please?"] Kyla asks her.

["Y-Yeah..."] Cylia sniffles. ["I can do that..."]

As Cylia walks off, Kyla turns to speak with you instead.

["Sorry. It's... it's been a rough couple of weeks. Cylia's not doing so good, so i'm glad you finally decided to turn up."]

"What? What the hell are you talking about, Kyla? It hasn't even been an hour, has it?"

"Hour and a half, according to my clock, kid."

There's a long pause. Kyla seems unsure of what to say.

["David, i... a-are you sure you're alright? Did anything happen to you down there?"]

"Well, we got caught up in a big magnetic storm... but other than that, no, not really. Everything went really smoothly."

["...Sanig?"]

"What the kid said, girl. Besides that big demon showing up, and whatever happened on our way up... nothing really went down."

Kyla lets out a long sigh and rubs her face with both hands, as if she's trying to come to terms with something.

["Okay. Okay... I don't know what happened, but as of today, you guys have been gone for almost exactly three weeks. We lost track of you almost as soon as we turned around and went back to orbit."]

"Shit, really? Are you kidding me?"

["No, i'm not. We've been waiting on a signal from you two ever since. Communications wouldn't go through... couldn't detect your suits. Never saw a signal flare either. So we've just been waiting.]

"...Sanig, check your watch again. And the chronometer on this ship."

You check your own suit's clock as well, and it matches up with what he said. It's been about an hour and a half since you dropped planetside.
And you don't remember missing any memories, either.

"Clock still says an hour and a half, kid... but the chronometer on this ship must be screwed."

"Why? What's it say?"

Deploy emergency hugs

>>5489911
+1
Also cuddles and make a feast for them.

>>5489900
So Clylia and Kyla are getting all the cuddles. SHODAN is getting a hug. Ahhh fuck it, even our Jannie gets a hug. But what does the ship clock say?
>>5489911
Plus 2 and checked. Make extra special dinner for everyone.Then show off Satan's carcass.

>>5489911
+1
Including Guildar. Come here you!

I was expecting SHODAN to be the first to reply or initiate contact. Or to inmediatly prepare the airlock and not Cylia...
Oh no SHODAN...

>>5489963
She locked herself in her room. Knock?
>y/n

>>5490011
>W-welcome back, Iiiiii ~iinseccc insectt

>>5490027
>>5490011
>>5489963
https://youtu.be/51dGYXJqTBQ

>>5490054
>>5490027
>>5490011
She's going to be very moody won't she...

>>5490078
after all the bullshit we two have been through, she's probably the one that had more faith in us.

>>5489900
Enough of the bad mood! I know what will cheer everyone up!
It's time for David to bust out.....the Shepard's Pie.

>>5489900
You know, this is the exact opposite of what I expected. I fully expected our hour to be a second or so of realtime, something the wraiths do in large number for that full "oh, shit, that's what happened, OH FUCK that's dangerous!" moment.

>>5489900
>>5489900
oh well glad David fucked everything up with whatever those wraiths were planning there
now let's bounce before that time dilation gets so bad that it triggered a black hole or someshit

>>5489900

"The stardate on this thing is... well, it stopped updating on 9/2128B/15."

"Okay. What's that mean? I'll be honest, i don't pay much attention to the stardate." You admit.

"It means this ship is at least 5,400 years old. Which is obviously impossible. It'd be rusted to dust, along with the whole city. Even the buildings would have eroded away by then."

"Is it just set wrong, or did the storm mess up the ship's computer?"

"No, even this ancient hunk of scrap must be using a crystal storage matrix. Magnetism wouldn't effect it... and look here."

Sanig shows you dozens of data logs, all with similar stardates. Some going back days, others up to two months from the final entry.
They look like maintenance and construction logs for the ship itself, when they were putting it together.

"They're all dated like that, huh..."

"Somethin' fucky's going on, kid. I don't know what it is, but i don't like it."

"I still can't believe it's been three weeks. I only know one way to travel forwards in time, and it involves a black hole."

["And it's been a long three weeks at that."] Kyla cuts in. ["Ever since you disappeared, the whole crew has been having... nightmares. Bad ones. Reminds me of when i got taken, you know?"]

"Nightmares...?"

You're about to ask her to elaborate, but then you remember something, and you understand what she's trying to get at.
You should probably hurry up and get back to the ship.

"Alright," You continue. "let's get the ships docked for now, and we'll go from there. Alright?"

["Yeah, that's probably for the best..."]

Kyla totally sounds like she's had the life sucked out of her. She can't be feeling good.
That's pretty well confirmed when you get the ships docked and the airlock opens, revealing Cylia, Kyla and Gildur all standing together to greet you... and it's clear that all three of them have lost weight.

Gildur in particular seems to have sunken eyes, and he's leaning heavily on his mop handle to keep upright.

Cylia doesn't give you any time to think about it though, as she jumps up into your arms and hugs you almost immediately...
Although it's a nice gesture, it's dampened a bit by the fact that you're still wearing your armor.

"Alright, Cyl... geeze, at least let me get out first."

...Up close like this, you can even tell that she's lost some muscle, as well.
Have they even been eating properly while you were gone?

You cradle Cylia in your arms as you walk back to the workshop, and she only lets go when you tell her you need to put your suit away.
As soon as you step up into the crate and peel yourself out of the suit, she jumps you again, this time from behind... and hangs off the back of your neck, like she usually does.

Only, she's really close this time. Not just hanging off of you, she's rubbing herself against you, sniffing your neck and hair...

"Jesus, Cyl. Did you miss me?"

>>5490554
oh shit, she's marking us

>>5490557
Kind of the other way around, actually.

>>5490557
Nah brah, she gotta get that good sniff. Make sure we're legit and not a skinwalker. Yeah, that's the reason why she's doing it.

>>5490554
Muh heart. Lets go hug Kyla, then go wraith hunting.

>>5490554
Our babe is having BHC withdrawl, our crew is having nightmares with us gone, and some spooks have gotten aboard and fucking with them. We use Satan's corpse and fuck shit up, release Princess, and hunt the spooky bitch down.

>>5490554

She doesn't respond. Instead, she just shudders as she takes another long whiff of your scent.
You can feel her whole body relaxing as she does, but she still refuses to let go.

"That's... getting kind of creepy, actually. Cyl? Hello?"

"Sorry, i just... i needed to. Sorry." She apologizes.

Cylia seems embarrassed, and manages to break herself away from you, dropping free from your neck.

"It's fine..." You tell her. "I'm just glad you guys are alright. Nothing major happened, right?"

"Well, no... we weren't attacked or anything. Nobody even knows we're here, i'm pretty sure."

"Good. I wouldn't put up with anything happening to my crew in my absence. Now, let's go check on the others, shall we?"

...

Kyla meets back up with you in the hall. It seems Sanig has gone back outside with some cables to secure the new ship.
He plans on dragging Princess in with him when he comes back, so he'll probably be gone for a minute.

"So... three weeks is a long time. When did these nightmares start, exactly?"

"The very first night. None of us have gotten a good night's sleep since then. We've all been on edge because of it." Kyla informs you.

"Alright, i'll take care of it."

You take a deep breath and close your eyes. Focusing on your sixth sense, you almost immediately feel something... not just on the ship, but right next to you.
How the hell did this thing get so close without you noticing?

You slowly open your eyes and scan the hall around you. There's nothing.
All you can see is Kyla standing nearby, and Gildur mopping the floor at the far end of the hall.

But it's neither of them. No, you can feel this thing circling around you. Almost like it's sizing you up...

Either way, this is the thing that's been tormenting your crew.
It must have slipped into the ship at some point, even though you barely spent any time on the surface. Never even touched town, but it still got in.
That settles it. Without some kind of anti-wraith coating, your ship will never truly be safe from these bastards. The carrier at least has to have one.

Sighing out, you relax your muscles and face the wall, waiting for it to circle around your front. When it does, you strike out with speed rather than force, and make contact with something invisible.
You feel it in your grasp, and it becomes visible the moment it's crushed between your hand and the ship's wall. A large, octopus-like wraith, with smooth, jet-black and slimy-feeling skin.

It screeches and tries to wriggle out of your grasp, but you tighten your grip so firmly that your nails begin digging into it's flesh. It can't escape.
Realizing this, the wraith wraps it's tentacles around your arm and attempts... something. You're still not sure what it is, but it tries to invade you somehow, just like the others did.

Not only do you resist, you push back unconsciously. The wraith shrieks in pain, and you watch as it's flesh shrivels up in response. It weakens, and nearly falls limp.

>>5490872

This one's different from the others. It can hide itself, even from you, as long as you aren't looking for it.
It didn't attack until it was cornered, either. It's been psychologically tormenting your crew for weeks, but doesn't seem to have physically assaulted them.

You still have no idea what these things want, nor what exactly it is that they get from the living. A demon is far too dangerous a research subject, but something like this... maybe.

>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
>Just kill it. What they want, what they're trying to get from you... who fucking cares. They're evil, and they need to be exterminated on sight. That's all there is to it.
>Write-In?

>>5490873
>Just kill it. What they want, what they're trying to get from you... who fucking cares. They're evil, and they need to be exterminated on sight. That's all there is to it.

>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
This is THE specimen to take for study, if we're ever gonna take one. Easily captured, no real physical threat to the crew, and if other wraiths try to go I Am Legend about us having a prisoner, we just throw Satan's Pickle Jar out an airlock.

>>5490873
>Capture it.
At the very least we'll torture this thing in retaliation for tormenting our crew.

>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.

>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later
Truly a fate worse than death. I say we call this thing a "Nightmare".

>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
...fine. lets go full XCOM on its ass. by the way, we still need a proper xenobiologist to research these things. or a space priest; whatever comes first

>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
Killing it is too much of a mercy. We're going to torture and experiment the hell out of this little bastard. Learn all we can so this incident NEVER happens again.
Also show it off to everyone. We caught the culprit!

>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.

>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.

>>5490873
>>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
we must study it and determine how to effectively contain it, and kill it.

>>5490873
Oh no, they come in hentai nightmare too.
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
>Try beaming thoughts of dissecting it for daring to bother our crew.
Did Kyla and Gildur just get a view of us grabbing a dark squid thing outta nowhere?

>>5490928
Yes. Cylia, too.
Kyla knew more or less what was going on, but couldn't prove it.

>>5490936
And the Captain is the King of the castle. As he should be.

>>5490873
Ask Sanig if he's interested in a live specimen.

>>5491053
>yfw he says "no" and shoots it to death immediately

>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.

THEY ARE EVOLVING AND THUS WE MUST AS WELL.

Also, WHERE IS OUR AI WAIFU?

>>5491260
I'm sure he'd be fiiiine, its a spook even he can throttle.

>>5490873

"Holy shit...!"
"Holy shit...!"

Kyla and Cylia both cry out in unison.
You squeeze the wraith even harder, until it completely lets go of your arms.

"What the fuck is that?!" Cylia screams, pointing at the wraith and covering her own mouth in shock.

"I told you, Cyl! I told you one of those things was in here with us!" Kyla yells at her.

"Don't worry girls, i got it." You assure them.

"...Is it dead?" Kyla asks.

"No, not yet. These things are actually pretty hard to kill. It'll probably regenerate over time."

"Well hurry up and kill it already, then!" Cylia yells, taking a few steps back from you.

"...No."

"Wha- What do you mean no?!" She demands.

"I think this one would make a good test subject. It's weak, seems to lack any natural weapons... and it's small enough that we can make a container for it."

"No. No way, David. We are NOT keeping a live wraith on the ship! Look at that thing! What even is it?!"

"Looks like an octopus."

"The fuck is an octopus?!"

"Highly intelligent, usually. Need to make sure we make a container it can't open..."

"David, please, this thing is disgusting. I can't even stand looking at it, so please, please, please don't..."

You hold the wraith out at arm's length and shake it at her while going "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!"
It's legs jiggle and squish together, making a wet shlopping sound which is honestly pretty gross.

Cylia shrieks and immediately bolts down the hall, taking refuge in the new cargo bay together with Gildur, who until now seemed completely unaware of what was going on.

"Hah. Oh man, she's gonna friggin' hate the trophy i brought back."

"...Trophy?" Kyla asks, seeming unbothered.

"Ah, yeah. I killed a big-ass demon down there, brought back it's core and it's head. It's still in the other ship, but you should see that thing. It's huge."

"Sounds cool, but uh... if it's fine with you, i'd really... really like to take a nap."

"Oh. Yeah, sure. I'm sure you need it."

...

Sanig eventually comes back after securing the new ship to the metal gear semi-permanently.
Over his left shoulder is your sack full of plunder, and in his right arm is princess, still half-asleep due to the vacuum.

She yawns, expelling a small jet of lightly purple-tinged flame.
Sanig lets her go, and after stretching out a bit, she sniffs around and waddles over to you, casually trying to snap at the wraith in your hand.

"Ah, no girl. We're keeping this one, no biting."

Princess doesn't listen. She stands up on her hind legs, bracing her front paws against your stomach as she continues trying to snap at it and pull it out of your hand.
You feel her sharp claws digging into you as she does, and if it weren't for your skinsuit they probably would have scratched you.

"Ah, AH! No, down girl! Down! No jumping! No biting! Bad!"

She seems irritated, but obeys. However, she huffs at you as she waddles off.
That's weird. Princess almost never disobeys you, nor does she act up like that.

>>5491652
Oh no, she's becoming a teenager. Or she's upset over scaring her earlier. Probably both.

>>5491656
It's like putting a toddler in front of a pitbull.
It was bred to tear the toddler to shreds. It yearns for the sensation of it.
But it can be trained to not maul the baby until you're not looking, at least.

>>5491661
She -needs- to eat the wraiths.

No Princess, you are the wraiths.

And then Princess was a husk.

>>5491652
We'll give it to princess if Sanig doesn't want the damn thing.

>>5490557
ugh, cats sometimes do that... it's very weird when you can hear their little noses go sniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniff

>>5490873
>as long as you tape the lid down.
octopuses be like that huh....

>>5491972
Seriously, those little bastards are smart. I remember hearing about one that learned staff rotations at an aquarium so it could sneak into nearby tanks and eat the fish undetected.

>>5491996
Twenty bucks says what really happened was one of the staff was actually poor and hungry.

>>5492035
he would've snipped some of the tentacles... they regrow right?

>>5491972
You got no idea, those fuckers are basically upper level 3rd graders. Maybe 4th.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5974545/
okay this was a very fun read. Skip the introduction and go straight to wound healing and regeneration of cephalopod body parts

>>5492036
If they do regrow... Are they edible for us?

>>5492057
the wraith flesh? the fuck are you smoking!?

>>5492064
Infinite forbidden calamari, man.

You know we might consider that learning more about wraiths may be a "stare into the abyss and it stares back" situation. Like whatever their root/cause is might gain more access to us the more we know about them.

>>5492064
Smoked wraith calamari? Would it taste any good?

>>5492142
Only one way to find out!

>>5492115
that's what i've been thinking as well

>>5492064
It can't be any worse than mercury and that shit's still super common in regularly consumed fish.

>>5491652
Maybe we can just try a tiny nibble...

A cat can have -some- salami.

>>5491652

That evening, you make a big meal for everyone.
Cylia did her best to cook for everyone in your absence, but you get the feeling that she still doesn't quite get what your cooking is going for.

A meal needs to nourish both the body and soul. It has to be healthy, balanced and delicious. Utterly filling and satisfying. Nothing else will do.

So not only does this meal include lots of protein, it includes a ton of fat as well.
Heavy cream is a great way of hiding ridiculous amounts of fat in food without it feeling greasy. It just becomes 'creamy' instead.

Everyone eats their fill and then some, and you go to bed satisfied.
That night, you're treated to both Kyla and Cylia crawling up into bed with you.

Kyla is sprawled out, snoring and naked as usual. Every once in a while she'll roll over or change position, but she's sleeping soundly.
Cylia is wearing a set of soft, fluffy pajamas, and sticks to you like glue. Every time you try to roll over and get comfortable, she pulls you back... so you settle for just being the big spoon.

She completely buries herself into your back and pulls the blankets up over her head, but after that she doesn't move an inch.
Your sleep that night is utterly peaceful and restful, a long sleep with just a few faint dreams and a lingering feeling of happiness by the time you wake.

But even though you slept for... twelve hours, apparently... you're still the first to wake up.
You lay in bed, enjoying the warmth of your two companions for a few more hours, lazily drifting somewhere on the edge of falling back to sleep, before Kyla eventually wakes up.

Sometimes it's nice to simply rest like that.

Breakfast that morning is hearty, consisting mainly of sausages and waffles.
Cylia doesn't join you until the meal is nearly over, and even then she's still barely awake.

A bit unusual for her, she sucks down a whole tube of Sanig's sweetened Tikka paste to help herself wake up.

"I thought you weren't big on that stuff." You comment.

"I needed it to get through the last couple of weeks."

"Mmm. Well, how'd you sleep last night?"

She lets out a long sigh, accompanied by a satisfied smile.

"Good. For the first time in a while, really good. Just not nearly long enough."

"Her nightmares were the worst out of all three of us." Kyla informs you. "Not sure why."

"What were they about?" You ask, curious.

Kyla and Cylia shoot a knowing looking between eachother.

"We... really don't want to talk about it. It was nothing good, let's leave it at that." Kyla answers.

"...Alright. I get it, i've had some... particularly bad dreams myself. Not as bad as some of my buddies, but pretty bad. Sometimes you just want to forget."

"Yeah..." Cylia agrees.

You eat the last of your meal in silence for a while before Gildur speaks up casually.

"I dreamt i was being chased through the forests of my homeworld by rabid canids. They'd catch me, then rip my limbs off with their teeth and tear me apart with their claws."

>>5492848
You know... They talk about how they can't see images in their heads because that is basically tricking the brain into hallucinating. Yet they have dreams? Do they just dream in concepts?

>>5492856
Dreaming is just hallucinating.

>>5492856
Some are able to dream properly. Some dream through words, or through sound, or through concepts.
If you ever told them about lucid dreaming, they'd never believe you.

They must have a strange way of remembering things... they can explain "my dream was like this" but without being able to see it, as if someone told them the dream in turn.

Processing information without using a language... I am not sure if our brain can do that.

>>5492866
We should refill everyon on how to lucid dream, then beat the shit out of their paralysis demons and make a bloody skin suit out of it. You gotta be hyper aggressive with those little shits.

>>5492869
A lot of people do that.

If you're blind, what do you see when you dream?
If you're deaf, what do you hear when you dream?

What if you're both?

We make connections between words and our experiences. Sights, sounds, even concepts, but those words are not those things. They merely represent them.
If you're blind and deaf, you dream what you know. Through touch, through smell, through taste. You dream of concepts you understand, although you have no words for them.

But you don't need words to understand something.
And another person's words don't necessarily have the same meaning to them as yours do to you.

If you were blind and deaf, you could still dream of the warmth of a fire. The feeling of cool water on your skin, or running through a field.
You could still dream of another's touch, the smell of your mother's cooking or even your own fear of the unknown. All without a single world, a single sound, or a single image.

>>5492893
>If you were blind and deaf, you could still dream of the warmth of a fire. The feeling of cool water on your skin, or running through a field.
>You could still dream of another's touch, the smell of your mother's cooking or even your own fear of the unknown. All without a single world, a single sound, or a single image.
and this is how a masterpiece of art is made
this is why I love gaming OST's that tells something without uttering a single word that describe it except sounds

>>5492848
You know Gildur, this is a great excu-I mean time to teach you how to fight.

>>5492893
>If you were blind and deaf, you could still dream of the warmth of a fire. The feeling of cool water on your skin, or running through a field.
>You could still dream of another's touch, the smell of your mother's cooking or even your own fear of the unknown. All without a single world, a single sound, or a single image.

For some reason I am now inspired.

>>5492990
That's because you're too stupid and gay to have realized that on your own. Congratz!

>>5493293
I'll admit to being stupid but I've never been happy, you take that back you son of a shoe-salesman.

>>5493315
My apologies for the offence, I meant to imply that you're a homosexual.

>>5492848

"Oh wow. I used to have dreams like that." You tell him. "Except i usually turned around and started punching them to death."

Gildur nods his head in response, waiting until he's swallowed his mouthful of pancake to respond.

"I can believe that, Captain. I'm sure the thought of something kicking your ass would just confuse you."

"That's not entirely true. Life kicks everyone's ass, Gildur. And it comes at you fast, so live every day like it's your last!"

You punctuate your sentence by stealing the last dodo sausage from Sanig, right as he was about to stab it with his fork.

"Hey, you little shit!"

"Shorry, can't hear you... over da shound of chewing!"

...

That day, you go out with Kyla to patch the hole in the side of the ship, so you can re-pressurize it.
After that's done, you plug the Metal Gear's spare antimatter bottle into it so it can power back up, and after a couple of reboot and repair sequences, it's computers seem to be running fine.

There's only about a third of a bottle of dark matter and energy each in it's warp drive, which ain't much, but it's enough to make it back to Thekia.
The Metal Gear can handle the increased output of a larger bubble anyways, so it's not a big deal.

After all the minor repairs are done, you start on your way back to Thekia.
The laminated jar you ended up printing for that wraith has a lid that both screws and locks into place. You also insisted on a physical padlock for extra security.
The wraith does occasionally bang around inside of it, but that's the only indication that it's still alive. It doesn't even seem able to attempt anything from there.

It takes a little over half a day to get back, during which nothing of significance happens.
The crew is able to rest, relax, eat and even fool around a bit. The only difference you note is that Cylia is more clingy than usual.

But that's fine. She's nice to have around... mostly.
All women are at least a little irritating at times, you figure.

...

Upon arriving back at the station, SHODAN immediately updates you with the local news.
Apparently there has been an increase in what the locals are calling "Redsang Refugees" from several nearby stations.

Almost none of them are afflicted by redsang addiction themselves, but instead seem to be fleeing the stations where the drug has become prevalent.

"According to reports, continued use of the drug results in reduced brain function, increased muscle mass and violent tendencies. Eventually, this results in rabid behavior, and has caused a breakdown of the social system on many effected stations."

"Well that doesn't sound very fucking good."

"No, it doesn't. Xebric seems to have been affected as well.

>>5493555

>Sounds like a "Them" problem. If they can't hold their shit together, that just makes them easier to take out when we get there.
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
>Whatever. The best solution to a feral crackhead is 9cc's of lead. Instant cure.
>Write-In?

>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
that's not good news for the budding criminal empire we're trying to build on thekia. better to be ready for it before it comes here

>>5493557
>Sounds like a "Them" problem
Not only does this make the neighboring stations easier to take over, it'll also allow us to target the redsang epidemic once we're in charge in order to ameliorate our image from 'conquerers' to 'people that make shit better'.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the plan of whoever is spreading Redsang in the first place. No reason we can't co-opt it before they can execute.

>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
We're out here trying to do some good, in our own roundabout way. Ethical lawbreaking, as it were. Ain't no Robin Hood or romance in a bunch of crackheads shitting in the streets

>>5492893
Saving this. Thank you anon, I'm going to paint tonight

>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.

>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.

>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.

>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.

>>5493557
>Whatever. The best solution to a feral crackhead is 9cc's of lead. Instant cure.

Wonder if Red sang is just the wrath juice being made into drugs.

>>5493557
>Write in
It's a them problem for now, but it'll be our mess to clean up once we take over. We gotta figure out how best to take advantage of the chaos and how to put things right once we're in charge.

>>5493598
>Whatever. The best solution to a feral crackhead is 9cc's of lead. Instant cure.
lmao, that never works

>>5493651
Silence liberal.

>>5493693
No he's got a point. Crackheads are super hard to put down. A 9mm just won't cut it. Upsize the caliber.

>>5493707
Oh, well if that is what he meant, then I understand, 45ACP oughta do it?

>>5493555
It's weird SHODAN wasn't communicating... or doing anything up to getting to the station

We should probably check on that. We already have a inkling that AIs are boxed souls... so we should probably do some form of checkup...

>>5493750
She's probably just jelly that Kyla and Cylia are catching all the dick. Or more realistically it's just getting to the point where it's hard to write all the characters in all the time.

>>5493841
It does become harder to include everyone when there are too many characters, which is why i think it's important to keep a relatively small core cast.
However, the real reason is simply that i'm trying to speed things along, which means a lack of intricate detail.

With only one or two updates a day, the quest is simply glacially slow.
Or at least it feels that way. I'm not sure if we're making more or less progress than a quest that only runs on weekends or not.

Either way, at this point the core characters are fleshed out enough that i think we can focus less on doing that and more on story elements.
Maybe that's a bad idea, i don't know. Maybe you guys are here just for the characters, and not so much for the story.

It's my first time writing anything, so i still have to learn about things like that.
I won't really know until i do it, and hear out what people really think about it.

>>5494029
I'm here for a bit of both, personally. It really can be hard to give enough focus to every character when your cast keeps growing and changing, though, so you've got my sympathies.

>>5494029
I'm here for both qm you were doing fine as you were imo. But I definitely understand how you feel about the slow pace of the quest.

File: Spoiler Image (106 KB, 500x750)

106 KB JPG

>>5494029
Readers will always be greedy for more as I am, but we don't want you to burn yourself out and abandon us with the abrupt end of this magnificent quest. This is well written, interesting and balls to the wall insane - lets rip the wraiths apart and use them to paint our exoarmoursuit with their blood and add to our menacing aura - type of ideas.

I love it.

>>5494029
You're handling it really well. The best way to pick up story pacing without sacrificing character development is by doing exactly what you've been doing: creating scenarios where only specific portions of the core cast are in play so they can be shown off as much as desired without cluttering up the narrative.

You've also employed an alternate method of addressing bloat from too many characters: dropping one off somewhere, but for something narratively useful.

All in all you're doing great on all aspects, especially for a first-time writer who presumably hasn't taken any formal classes on it. Consider that although the pacing of the quest is slow in terms of real-life time, I don't think that it's poorly paced as a story. Someone experiencing it by reading the archive wouldn't necessarily think things need to be sped up too much.

>>5494029
What does the cum from those rock aliens look like?

>>5494341
Sand, duh. Retard

>>5494029
Don't need detail of what they say and what they do.
Acknowledgement that they may be in a scene/are active is enough really.

Was more worried as SHODAN is usually fairly talkative. A complete lack of communications during docking and 'reintegration' when a demon wraith is around is somewhat concerning.

>>5494029
I'll agree with the others to check on SHODAN to make sure she's okay. Afterwards while we burn time through warp travel, can we teach everyone how to sense wraiths and how to kill them if they ever get caught? Where to target their cores, how to sense them without sight or sound, how to ignore their mind tricks.

>>5493555

"Shit. That's gonna be a problem later. Sons of bitches, what do they think they're doing to my new vacation home?"

"Captain, you haven't taken over the station yet. It's it a little early to be calling it 'yours'?"

"Yeah, yeah... i know. But we'll get there eventually. And when i do, i don't want it overrun with drug addicts. Hmm. Wait a minute, come to think of it... didn't i fight somebody like that, once?"

"Affirmative. An individual named Gorn. According to the bounty database, his bounty of 25 credits was paid off three days after your encounter."

"So he lived after all that, huh? Looking back, he wasn't all that tough in reality... every hit did the usual amount of damage, but he just kept getting back up for some reason."

"That individual did appear to be suffering from the reported effects of long-term redsang abuse."

Reduced brain function, increased muscle mass, violent tendencies... and that's on top of the usual effects. Slowed perception of time, increased wakefulness and focus... Could it be?

"SHODAN, doesn't redsang seem awfully like some kind of combat drug?"

"Perhaps. However, reduced brain function would inhibit the user's ability to follow orders."

"What if they don't need to follow orders? What if they're not meant to? You know, just drug people up, get them all numb and roided out, then let them loose on the population."

"That would violate countless ethical treaties of warfare, Captain."

"Oh, please. You know as well as i do that rules only exist for the lower class. Come on. If they wanted to, oh i don't know, keep people from expanding stations out beyond their reach and becoming independent... how would you do it?"

"....That is... concerning."

"Yeah, for sure. They've got the fabs locked down, they've got the blueprints for the fabs locked down, the food, water and even life support are controlled by the government to some extent... and if you step out of line, what happens?"

"Killer drone swarm."

"Yeah, exactly. People don't have a fucking chance out here. Dumping cheap drugs into the community is just... just..."

"Captain?"

Redsang... the feds... Sadia... Laggard... Laggard was pissed at Sadia. He was going after the redsang shipments. That's right, Sadia was in on it, weren't they?

"Is Sadia complicit in destroying their own station? Fucking why?" You mumble.

"Isn't that obvious, Captain?"

"...Profit. They don't give a shit about the station. It's just a mining outpost to them. They get paid from the minerals, they get paid from the redsang operation... and they probably get paid by the feds to "clean up" after they're done. Fuck, man."

"Taking Xebric from Sadia may be easier than expected, but it may also attract too much attention from the Federation. It may require continuous defence after it's capture."

"Yeah, maybe... shit, i dunno. Is it even worth it if it's gonna be like that?"

>>5494712
Its the American way to tell Government to fuck itself.

Jesus Christ what will happen when humanity gets involved especially America being America detecting profit and getting a chance to nab some territory in the name of “freedom and liberation.” Which considering the situation we are probably more then heavily justified at least publicly. In spreading the American dream.

>>5494712
It'd be much easier to gain power by running the underworld and by doing business as a... well... a business. Soft, indirect power. If Gron still wants to go through with it, we should help but the outcome is uncertain. Maybe we... bust out the D.A.R.E. lion?

>>5494712
Of course its fucking worth it David! Its about principle! Its about fighting foe what we believe in! ITS ABOUT THE OIL- I mean THE AMERICAN DREAM! LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PERSUIT OF HAPPINESS!
The fed and corpo scum dont give a shit, which is why it'll make it all that much more easier to kill them all and take their stuff. If the feds try to pull some shit? Fire MAC rounds until they fuck off, or mini-nukes or they bring capital ships to the playground. If humanity is good at anything, it's being as persistent, spiteful, and vengeful. Like gorrillas armed with glock and the knowledge to use them.

>>5495044
That lying fuck said people would be tripping over themselves to give me free drugs.

Besides, these vegetarians would probably take a friendly lion telling you not to do drugs as a threat

>>5495140
To be fair, a lion shouting "Do drugs or I'll fucking kill you" is a very compelling argument when your entire species are a bunch of limp dicked noodle arms.

>>5494712
I'm increasingly certain that redsang is epinephrine, maybe mixed with testosterone.

Would not be surprised since apparently humans are ridiculous to deal with. I wouldn’t be surprised that low level drugs for humans like normal pain killers are the so called illegal drugs they use.

>inb4 Redsang is just motrin and whey

Redsang is like a fool's Strength and Courage. Perhaps an alternative must be produced.
Gyms, meat-eating, sparring, honor, and discipline.

>>5495447
Lmao I can imagine this is what redsang might be. Aliens can eat acidic stuff or things too sugar or they die on the spot.

Diabetic aliens who die from having sugar or anything to strong which human revel in eating.

"What do you mean, Captain? Of course it is."

"Huh..?"

"I mean 'Free as in Freedom' and 'Freedom ain't Free' as you would put it. It was never possible to stake your flag without pushback. Without consequence. You knew that from the start, didn't you?"

"...Yeah, i guess you're right. I guess i was just hoping they'd be bigger pushovers... but this kind of shit, it's starting to remind me of what i'd see back on earth."

"Insane, barbaric atrocities."

"Yeah, that."

"...There is another option, in the case that defending Xebric become untenable. As you know, every station has at least one or two mass fabricators used for building ships, but the beating heart of each station is it's life support system.
Those too are mass fabricators of a sort. Specialized, like our own ship's medical fab. They process the atmosphere, biowaste, plastics and so-on in order to keep the station's environment stable."

"So... what? We abandon the station and take the life support fabs with us?"

"Yes. It would then be possible to set up a new colony elsewhere, on some distant asteroid, moon or planet. It would be possible to transport them, once the carrier is built."

That's... an idea. Assuming it works, you mean. You've got to assume there's some kind of system in place to prevent fab theft like there is in most public fabs... but if there isn't?
You could take them back to earth's moon, set up a city there... and it'd be so damned easy to populate it with humans. Just like that, you'd jumpstart humanity's spread into the cosmos.

Even if you are able to defend the station, it's still worth considering...
But for now, you need to check in and make sure nothing's going off the rails.

...

"Greetings, Captain."

"Hey, Clank. How are things going?"

"All projects are at or ahead of schedule. Information on local businessmen, underworld traders and gang leaders have begun to trickle in from the brothel. A new apartment complex has been built to support the local population. The homeless enca-"

"Okay, okay. So we're all good? Nothing's going horribly wrong?"

"Not at all, Captain. There have been several minor incidents since your last report, but given their new equipment, our staff were able to handle the issues with ease. Your disappearance was noted at a recent meeting, but dismissed with prejudice."

"Are you not gonna ask me where i went?"

"I am certain that your missions were of critical importance, Captain."

"Yeah, you could say i didn't have much choice in the matter. But enough of that, i want to hear about this redsang crisis that's going on..."

"There is not much to tell that is not public knowledge, i am afraid. Little information has come out of the neighboring stations regarding the nature of the addicts. However, i was rather easily able to obtain a sample of redsang for analyses."

Clank opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out a clear plastic bottle, full of pills containing tiny red crystals.

>>5495985

"...And? What did you find?"

"Nothing as of yet, Captain. As you can see, the sample is here with me. I am still searching for a lab capable of analyzing it's chemical structure covertly. Possession of the chemical is illegal, making it difficult to do so."

>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>Clank will find a lab that can do a full and proper analysis eventually, just leave it to him.
>...You could just feed it to one of your drone ship prisoners and see what it does to them.
>Write-In?

>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
We have the tools right here, let's use em.

>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

Gets us out answer faster and without it burning clank by association with the stuff

>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

>use one of the crystals. see what it does

>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

Shieet he's totally gonna reverse engineer it and upgrade his combat drug cocktail with that isn't he?

>>5495989
>>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

I fully expect it to be a medication familiar to earth

>>5495989
See what Sanig and shodan can sus out, there's gotta be some useful equipment for this sort of work leftover in a closet somewhere on the metal gear.

>>5495989

>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

File: deviant heresy.jpg (54 KB, 564x562)

54 KB JPG

>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>It turns out Sanig's analysis involves doping both himself and anyone nearby with the drugs
>Redsang-marinated dodos
>Redsang-fueled husks and wraiths
>Redsang-fueled onaholeaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA

I'd propose that Clank buys up most of it because soon money might just become meaningless to us with the fab and working knowledge of bipedal combat armours combined with AI-controlled autonomous behaviours.

>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

>>5496651
Then that's just a waste of money. If we want to get rid of the stuff then all we gotta do is find the deals, then work our way up from there.

>>5496651
>money might just become meaningless to us with the fab
nah, we still need money to pay other people and to get goods that the nanofab can't make, like antimatter, food and the basic resources the thing needs to work

>>5495989

"Actually Clank, i think we can just do that on the Metal Gear. It was originally a long-range research vessel of sorts, so it's got all kinds of equipment onboard for that sort of thing."

"Then, if it would not trouble you, Captain?"

"Sure, not a problem."

...

After doing some rounds so that the locals can see you're still here and working for "Clark" you head back to the ship with the sample.
The second you start to ask something, Sanig sighs out in frustration.

"Kid, can't you see i've got enough on my plate right now?! You think it's easy to just... design a whole goddamned carrier ship from the ground up?! With this in-fucking-sane list of parts and requirements?!"

"Sorry, old man. It's kind of important though, the carrier can wait a second."

"Fuck, fine! Just hurry up and tell me. I've got too much shit to do, including testing that damned fab."

"Ah, right. Let me know how that goes. Here, take a look at this."

You hand over the vial of pills, and Sanig eyeballs it.

"What, redsang? Don't take that shit, kid. It ain't good for you."

"Any idea what's in it?"

"Not really, kid. It cropped up maybe ten, fifteen years ago. I'm not big on the hard stuff, though. Ain't looked much into it, you know?"

"I thought this was something students took to get through exams..."

"Yeah, and?"

"Okay. Cultural differences, i guess. Most kids back home downed a pot of coffee instead of snorting meth... or whatever this is."

"Dunno what either of those are, kid."

"Right. Well, it turns out that using redsang long-term has some really nasty side-effects, and it's turning people feral. Increased muscle mass, loss of brain function, probably numbs pain too, if that Gorn fucker was anything to go by."

Sanig blinks twice.

"What? No it doesn't."

"What do you mean? There's outbreaks of redsang fever all over the neighboring stations. It's definitely this stuff causing it, every single person had it in their system."

"Redsang doesn't do that, kid. All it does is keep you awake, boost focus and alter your perception of time. It doesn't do anything to your muscles, and it certainly doesn't cause loss of brain function. People use it to study!"

"...Maybe it's cut with something? My best guess is that the feds are using it to wipe out stations on the rim that are no longer profitable."

"Here, give me that shit. We'll toss it in the spectrometer and see what's really in this thing."

Sanig takes the bottle over to the lab, opening up one of the gel-caps and dumping it onto a small glass slide, which he then places inside a machine built into the wall.
Closing the glass door, he types in some commands and the machine comes to life, lowering some kind of tool down until it's just above the slide.

You hear the telltale sound of a powerful laser firing, then see faint whisps of smoke coming from the sample.
The machine dings, and Sanig gets an output on it's monitor.

"Alright, let's see here... carbon, oxygen, hydrogen... wait, what?"

>>5497231
>carbon, oxygen, hydrogen...
Wait...
That's nothing but air

>>5497231
Im going to guess redsang is just Adderal. Heck or just nicotine. Nothing like sucking on snus to quiet the chettering my head so I can study in peace.

>>5497283
Probably, but the problem is the extra shit the "new version" has; thats the concerning thing right now

>>5497231
Just a placebo, you say?

Could be.

>>5497294
a placebo doesn't make you gain muscular mass and lose brain cells at the same time

>>5497315
Maybe steroids mixed with tesoterone?

>>5497352
i was thinking something like that. steroids when taken improperly can cause some of the symptoms we heard

>>5497352
Testosterone is already an anabolic steroid on top of being a naturally occurring hormone.

>>5497381
Oh shit, what if it's DAVID'S Testosterone, we've already established that humans have superior biology to most aliens and whatever it is it's younger than David's arrival to Space, those Grey bastards probably transmitted their preliminary tests and it's being used as population control.
Also that bit where Cylia is pressing her nose against us is super cute and I hope we get to see more of it
>Inb4 it's revealed that she's actually getting a contact high from the Testosterone in our sweat and that's why she's gotten so buff in the weeks she's known us

>>5497492
that's dumb; testosterone is just that. if its chemical composition changed then it wouldn't be testosterone and to boot, the only difference between david's and an ayy's T is the amount that each body has, with the ayy having a dramatic lower amount in their body

>>5497492
I doubt there's enough test in sweat for that, but I bet 20 bucks there's enough to get her horny

>>5497510
Twenty whole bucks? Shit dude that's a lot of musk. Where you been keeping those antlered bastards?

File: deer.jpg (208 KB, 1280x1024)

208 KB JPG

>>5497516
Docile from the regular dicking I give them

>>5497500
Testosterone is a hormone, and hormones have a fair amount of variability (think like all that stuff about how S O Y makes you feminine because it contains Phytoestrogen) , aliens probably have a Testosterone equivalent but Human Test is probably stronger or more efficient or something, like with Opiates and Narcan.

>>5497563
i guess you have a point there; maybe the aliens use a weaker testosterone analogue and in way lower doses than david, but the redsang issue began way before david even arrived to xebric, nor it started in there either. its either something else, or the aliens managed to synthetize testosterone on their own

>>5497241
That's not air, but it could be caffeine (C8H10N4O2) or ritalin (C14H19NO2). Which would make some sense if it's being used as a study aid, though it'd probably have to be cut with something or taken in really small doses for ayys so it doesn't make their hearts explode.

>>5497231
What if it's some kind of bio-engineered virus that is being spread by the Feds under the guise of redsang?
If I remember correctly, then the aliens don't really know about viruses. Maybe this could be why the real cause of these changes wasn't found and reported?
The symptoms for sure look plausible. We have a "zombie" plague on our hands now!

File: file.png (285 KB, 511x387)

285 KB PNG

>>5497231

"What's the matter?" You ask.

Sanig uses a pinching motion to zoom way out on the machine's touch screen, revealing a peak way out in the distance, away from everything else.

"That. That's the matter, literally and figuratively."

"What is it?"

"I have no fucking idea, but it's heavy. Even heavier than Duranium."

"...Super heavy matter? What the fuck is something like that doing in a pill?"

"Hard to say, but if i had to guess... well, i guess it would be easier to just look and see."

Sanig moves over to another machine, popping open another pill and placing a single crystal grain inside using a pair of tweezers.
You hear the hiss of a vacuum being formed, then the hum of capacitors being charged.

"What's this machine, old man?"

"It's a microscope. A really powerful one. Using this, we can see down to level of individual atoms..."

"Oh, a scanning electron microscope! Cool, we have those back on earth, too. They're way bigger, though..."

"Color me surprised. Next you'll tell me you rubbed some sticks together and made a working fusion reactor."

"...Well, we haven't quite gotten there yet."

"Hmph." Sanig chuckles smugly, still looking through the microscope's visor.

"But we're close. It's kind of a joke, that it's been 20 or 30 years away for decades... but we're making some real progress on it lately. I think we're pretty close to getting more energy out than we put back in."

Sanig pauses, sighs and then continues quietly with his work.
It takes him a while, maybe five minutes or so, but he seems to have found something.

"Damn, that's what i was worried about." He grumbles.

Stepping aside, he gestures for you to come over and look.
Looking through the visor, most of what you see is rough sheets of vague blobs, arranged in regular patterns. Is that the surface of the crystal?

But amongst all those blobs is something else. Something far larger and far brighter than the surrounding atoms, and it's moving.
A huge, snake-like chain of both large and small atoms that appears to move with intelligence, as if it's searching for something, almost like a bacteria.

"Is that... a nanomachine?"

"Not quite, kid. It's way too small to call it a nanomachine. Attomachinery, i guess?"

You can't help but just stare at it in amazement, but after a while the nagging question gets to you.

"How the fuck is it moving like that? How is it moving on it's own at all?!"

"I have no idea." Sanig admits.

"Okay... so what does this mean?"

"...Well, it's definitely Federation tech. Probably Grey in origin. As for what it does specifically, who can say. But you said you've seen the results, so i guess it doesn't really matter.
In any case, i've never seen anything heavier than duranium that wasn't some kind of warp metal. If anyone knows how they work, good luck getting them to tell you, kid."

So the drugs are just normal drugs, but they've been intentionally tainted with what Sanig is calling Attomachines.

>>5498103

And those Attomachines must be causing what's happening to everyone.

"...Do you think it's curable?" You ask.

"Honestly? Probably not. These things may be smaller than regular nanomachines, but what they're being used for is probably the same. Genetic modification."

"So it is curable, but you'd need gene therapy for it."

"Not every species has had their genome reverse engineered though, kid. Like you, for example."

"So what happens if i get these things in my system?"

"...Well, i can't tell how long their lifespan is just by looking at them. There don't seem to be that many machines in each pill, so they'd build up in your system slowly, over time... you probably wouldn't notice the changes right away.
Depending on how long they last, you could be fucked after the first pill, and the machines will just keep working for years until you slowly slide into madness. Or they could die off after a few days or weeks, and you'd be fine. Who can say?"

>I want you to find out. Do some testing, lab animals only... see how long it takes, what kind of dosage you need.
>Do the testing, but use a couple of the prisoners. Some real death row motherfuckers. We can probably still turn them in afterwards.
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
>Write-In?

>>5498104
>I want you to find out. Do some testing, lab animals only... see how long it takes, what kind of dosage you need.
the carrier can wait, or we can offload the design job to one of the NPC AIs we liberated

>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.

>Tell clank

>>5498104
>>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.

>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
>When we clear enough of our todolist, we are checking deeper into this.
>Tell Clank to check food supplies from Federation ships if this stuff is slipped into it.
We need to find out if there is a potential secondary trigger for this stuff.

>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.

>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.

>Tell clank

Clank could probably do the testing.

>>5498104
>I want you to find out. Do some testing, lab animals only... see how long it takes, what kind of dosage you need.
Extreme violence is only half of the battle. We need to know what exactly we are pitted against.

>>5498104
>I want you to find out. Do some testing, lab animals only... see how long it takes, what kind of dosage you need.
So the government is using what is probably illegal technology in a bid keep the peasants in check.
The more things change...
We can't let wider Humanity get access to true space-age tech. We'd fit in too well.

>>5498183
its gonna be interesting to see how despite david's efforts he'll either create the federation 2.0 or see humanity fall into old habits once again

>>5498104
>Do the testing, but use a couple of the prisoners. Some real death row motherfuckers. We can probably still turn them in afterwards.
outsource it to Clank, we NEED to do research on this, it could be in the fucking food for all we know, but I don't want to delay the carrier for this

>>5498104
>>5498267
I'll back this.

>>5498267
>>5498293
>we're already considering doing the same shit the federation does
welp, it didn't took us long to be just like them

>>5498188
>space religion fighting demons
>space jihadists
>feudalist mindset with corporate skin
>the mindbreaking industry run by soulless chinese
>"pirates" trying to live outside federation
>the actual pirates
>us
If anything we could only make it more worse
It's setting is like the fantastic world of ss13 is living in fucked up world of brigador in the starsector universe

>>5498104
>>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
We already know the pill is bad shit alright? Knowing HOW BAD will get everything around us to glow.

>Tell Clank

>>5498533
Donk Co. and Waffle Co. are the good guys
Plasma isn't real

>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
If we feel like it must be tested then just outsource to Clank.

>>5498104
Give Clank a heads up. It's not much, but confirmation that the feds and griggers are behind this is still important information. Other than that, let's keep this on the back burner for now.

>>5498103
>"But we're close. It's kind of a joke, that it's been 20 or 30 years away for decades... but we're making some real progress on it lately. I think we're pretty close to getting more energy out than we put back in."
Convenient timing IRL...

https://abc7.com/amp/nuclear-fusion-reaction-fossil-fuels-climate-change/12563634/

At this rate, ITER will be operational around 2050 and mass produced by 2075.

>>5498104
This might be too late a write-in to get support;
Tell Clank, get blood and tissue samples from addicts under the guise of drug rehab studies.

>>5498131
>>5498104
>Support
Yes tell Clank . Sanig has enough on his plate already.
And this anon:
>>5498945
has the right idea

>>5498104

"Alright... i think that's all we really needed. I'll let Clank know what's happening, and we should probably check any food or medicinal imports from now on as well."

"Great." Sanig grumbles. "Now i'm gonna be paranoid about it. Can't even trust your own dealer these days."

...

After informing Clank of the situation, he immediately gets on the line to find a scanning electron microscope of his own.
The Oni sisters also make an effort to inform the locals of the tainted redsang, but you aren't sure how much good that'll do. If they're addicted, they might not care.

A few more days pass, which are mainly spent dealing with local issues on Thekia. However, you also get some news from your mining crew, who have managed to scout out a particularly rich asteroid belt.
A rich belt isn't that uncommon this far out in space, but what is uncommon is having it all to yourself. That was only possible because of it's distance from Thekia and the other stations.

It's too far out to be profitable in hauling the ore back.
Out in the middle of nowhere, nobody has any reason at all to be there, not even by accident. And that's on purpose.

If you're going to build something as big as a carrier, particularly with malicious intent, it has to be done in secret.
It also needed to be done around an active star, so that you could set up a solar panel array for local power generation... and a gas giant for fuel skimming.
Thankfully, solar panels are dirt cheap and extremely efficient. Nearly 80% efficiency for the particular patent you bought, almost like a miracle.

There's only one problem. They still cannot process the ore they collect, so it's been sitting in bins, just waiting to be used.
That's when the news you were really waiting for came in. From Sanig.

"Check it out, Kid."

He gestures towards the mass-fab with a big, shit-eating grin on his face.

It's been cleaned up. The rust removed, old displays replaced with modern holographic versions.
And most importantly, you can hear it running. There's a faint hum of electricity emanating from it, even though it's not doing anything right now.

"It works?" You ask.

"Oh, it works. Had a few rusted out macrocomponents. Missing bits and pieces, nothing that couldn't be replaced... biggest problem was the nanomachines."

"What was wrong with them?"

"Hard to say, honestly. Could have been age. Lack of energy from sitting dormant... or maybe a magnetic storm fucked them up somehow, who knows. Whatever the case, they wouldn't recognize any inputs. Couldn't get them to wake up."

Sanig slaps the side of the machine, still smiling.

"So i took a page from your book, kid."

"...Alright, what'd you do?"

"I shoved a boot up their ass, and told them to get to work. By bombarding them with electrons and alpha particles."

"..."

"Yeah, i see that look. How many times have you told me 'it's not stupid if it works'? Point is, at least one of them became functional again, and immediately woke up the rest."

>>5499302
I didn't realize we could just force a swarm reboot sequence like that. Props to Gramps.

>>5499302
so basically sanig shocked the nanites until one reacted in the way he wanted? that's pretty clever

>>5499310
He basically just started whipping them at the subatomic level. I fucking love it.

>>5499302
Sanig you nano slave drive, come ere your getting a hug!

>>5499302
Sanig: "wake up you lazy cunts!"

>>5499302
Grandpa, Your not supposed to treat the indoor ones the same as the outdoor ones!

>>5499389
You are if they don't work when they s'posed to! Hiyaah!

Nothing the white hot glow of plasma doesn't fix

>>5499310
>tfw you're having a nice long nap and some fucker with a cattle prod zaps your dick

File: 1530767466273.jpg (73 KB, 721x960)

73 KB JPG

>>5500009
>tfw you're sick of all this shit and waiting out the heat death of the universe on some quantum spooky planet and some ayyy threatens you to build his space carrier that would come with hookers and blow

File: 1669751163741.gif (1.6 MB, 498x280)

1.6 MB GIF

>tfw the ayy tells you it's been five thousand years since you and your kin were left disabled yet it's only been ten years for you

>>5499302

"Isn't that.. i dunno, kind of dangerous? Didn't you warn me about the whole grey goo thing?"

"Yeah, you're absolutely right, kid. That's why we paid a special visit to a certain Grey dumping ground... a rogue black hole. Small, completely silent. Perfect for disposing of... problems.
We isolated the nanomachines, and if anything went wrong, we'd have launched it below the event horizon using the gravity generator."

"So that really was a last-ditch effort, then. And they're working fine, now?"

"Yep, no problems whatsoever. Did a few test prints, and she's pretty damned accurate as well. Below 3% variance at single atom thickness, not bad at all for a mass fab that's been sitting around for thousands of years."

"How's the software? Is it locked down?"

"Oh, that's the best part, kid... it was locked down. Keyword was. But the quantum encryption was so old and weak that SHODAN broke it in under two days. She's bare naked to the world, now."

"So... we're good to go?"

"You kidding, kid? We're not just good to go, i've already got Tezza's boys fixing up that old ship with custom parts printed off this thing. Once we fit it with skimmers and gear, we'll have two mining ships working on our little project."

"Sweet. They should be just about done bringing in the drone ships any day now, too. If we break them down for parts and materials, we might actually have enough to build the carrier's skeleton..."

"The skeleton? Sure. But we're gonna need a lot of carbon for the armor and graphite control rods. Silicon, too."

"What about the heavy elements?"

"Not a problem, now that we have this baby to process the ore with. We'll have more than we can ever use after purifying all that nickel and iron."

"That's good. So all we really need is carbon, right? We can buy the silicon here, exchange some of that nickel for it, probably. Where do we get the carbon from, though?"

"Didn't you hear me, kid? I said we'd equipping the new ship with a skimmer. There's plenty of gas giants out there, with more hydrocarbons in their atmosphere than you can shake a stick at."

"Huh. Sounds like it's all coming together, huh? Maybe a little easier than i expected..."

"Yeah, well don't jinx it. The girl, Bitbrain and i have put a shitload of planning into it already and nothing's gone horribly wrong yet. You know that won't last."

"True... haven't heard shit from the feds, or from Sadia. Although they might be dealing with more important shit right now."

"You can probably expect the call from ol' Pebblenuts any day now. He won't wait if he knows they're weakened."

"Speak of the Devil... Captain, it appears that 'Pebblenuts' has just docked in the bay next to ours." SHODAN informs you.

"Oh, good." Sanig grumbles. "I can't wait to put everything on hold for this bullshit. I say we've got our golden goose already, kid..."

"Nope, i've still got a score to settle with those assholes. Not to mention, Cylia's ship to get back."

>>5500656
>"Nope, i've still got a score to settle with those assholes. Not to mention, Cylia's ship to get back."
and the definitely-oh-so-very-important grandpa gasbag who in theory was our excuse to go rogue

>>5500656
If we don't want to butcher the drone ships for raw parts for the sake of using them for the big fight, we can always go Ship Graveyard spelunking and haul entire skeletons back to the station, then butcher those to make the carrier skeleton. With the Mass Printer we'll be able to refurbish even more ships for mining, transportation, and combat purposes.
I'm getting EVE Online flashbacks. God it's been YEARS since I last played.

>Mining opperations will consist of 2-5 dedicated mining ships, several cargo haulers to ferry materials from the asteroid belt, and 2-3 combat dedicated fighters with some sensor tech in case any fucko comes snooping around.
>small combat fighters will be outfitted with radar dishes, honey comb style armor with a healthy coating of wraith ash red paint jobs, and several lasers
>honey comb style armor with hollow aero-gel style filling methods for best weight:protection ratio, paint job for extra light weight energy weapon protection

Can we ask Gron if he would like some extra thermal protection for any of his ships? Ask if he doesn't mind if said ships will never be allowed to dock at stations that aren't their own, due to the heavy amounts of dark matter in them.

Will we eventually get to socialize with our new A.I. friends again?

>>5500829
Unfortunately your carrier design also requires quite a lot of expensive exotic materials, some of which literally cannot be bought.
That necessitates mining raw asteroids to collect what would normally be dealt with as hazardous material.

However, ship graveyards will absolutely be a good source of raw metal for repairs going forwards.
Repairing your armor will actually necessitate skimming hydrocarbons, however. That usually means visiting gas giants or living worlds.

Fortunately the aerogel requires so little silica that you can simply keep a stock of sand on hand, since it's useful for other things as well.
And yes, the new AI cores you've collected will come back into play on the carrier. They'll actually serve a combat role as well.

>>5500762
David can really hold a grudge. He still wants Elynderr's head on a pike, even moreso now that he's killing civilians on government orders.
For him, the memories simply don't fade so much with time.

>>5500829
I'm still wondering if Clank wants that upgrade, linear motors instead of hydraulics, but it'll be a plotpoint when it comes to that.

Getting hyped about what we can do with the battleship. Shit is gonna get real if we go the overt-warfare route.

>>5500980
I haven't forgotten about grandpa.
The corpo scum will suffer.

>>5500656
With the software cracked can we make more mass fabs?

>>5501564
You can make the components for a mass fab, but you'll need a nanomachine cluster to make it functional.
Two options for that. Either you find unregistered, unprogrammed nanomachines, or you develop your own somehow.

>>5501581
so tricking the fab into making more nanomachines isn't an option? i mean, it no longer has any funcional DRM; it doesn't sound unfeasible to do that

>>5501682
The schematics of the nanomachines could simply not exist. Or be in an unreadable format for this fabricator.
It's like I told you to draw a perfect ilustration of your femur. What, you can't????? You have TWO of those

>>5501719
That's fair enough.

On the other hand, we've got existing nanites in the fab and we've got access to scanning electron microscopes and mass spectrometers.

>>5500656

"Come on, kid. Can't you just let that shit go?"

"Let it go? They burned an old man and his daughter to death for eating fish. They threatened me and my crew. They're killing civilians out of convenience."

"Kid, that shit happens a thousand times every day. How big do you think the galaxy is? How far does the federation's hand reach? You just can't win 'em all."

You suck air in sharply through your nose.

"Look, Sanig." You sigh. "If you want to live like an ignorant fuck, then fine. As for me, i know i'm just one man. But goddamnit, i can at least do something about the shit that's happening right in front of me."

"Captain, we are being hailed by the Star-Fall. Captain Kordunn is on the line."

"Patch 'em through in a minute."

You move to walk past Sanig, clasping his shoulder as you go.

"Don't worry about it, old man. You just make the guns, i'll decide where we use them."

...

Now sitting alone in the mess hall, you receive Gron's hail on your holowatch.
The one who immediate picks up is Asta, who's sitting in the pilot's seat.

["Captain, he answered."] Asta yells out over his shoulder.

The image switches from Asta to Gron's face, which is a little too close-up.

["Captain Rockefeller. I assume you have recovered from last month's battle by now. Your ship appears to be in good repair."]

"As good as it can be, yeah."

["That's good. The Star-Fall is back in shape and re-armed as well. What of the drone ships you captured?"]

"They're paid for and being worked on. The last of them should be delivered any day now."

["And the AI to drive them?"]

"Eh... well, we've got at least one who's willing to work with us. All the shackles have been removed by now, but we haven't plugged any of them in since we took them."

["You may want to get on that, then. I've gotten word from my men that there's a big disturbance on Xebric, something about a virus outbreak or drug epidemic. We're not sure what's going on."]

"Way ahead of you on that, Gron. It's the Feds. They're committing genocide on the rim, putting nanomachines in the redsang. Maybe the food and water too, who knows."

There's a pregnant pause as Gron attempts to process what you just said.

["...In redsang? No, that can't be."]

"Yep. Once they build up in your system, they turn you feral. Increased muscle mass, reduced brain function, violent urges... I fought one of them a while back, and he was hard to put down. Normal people don't stand a chance."

["I see..."]

There's another long pause, but this time Gron says nothing at all, so you just continue.

"So, my best guess is they're trying to keep society from expanding out of their reach. Stations like Xebric are too far from the core to really keep an eye on, so once they lose their value... they destroy the station."

["...We can't let that happen."]

"Yeah, obviously. Getting genocided is terrible for the economy."

["Is that supposed to be a joke?"]

"I guess not. Jokes are supposed to be funny."

>>5501682
>>5501719
Like anon said, blueprints for nanomachines simply don't exist. You'd have to either find some or develop them yourself.
If you can do that, though, you could make an unlimited number of nanofabs.

>>5501728
so we just have a finite number of nanomachines in the fab? they don't replace themselves whenever one stops working as expected?

>>5501730
There're probably safeguards that keep them from replicating outside the conditions inside the fab.

And to determine what those conditions they're programmed to be okay with are we'd have to reverse engineer the rod-logic inside the nanites.

We could probably harvest nanites from the fab itself, but never at an appropriate scale to construct more at a reasonable rate.

>>5501730
They can repair themselves most of the time, but can't replace their numbers automatically.

>>5501727
Am I the only one who sometimes gets the impression that Sanig used to be a lot more like David back in the day? Pissed at people doing evil shit, itching to bloody the noses of assholes that got in his way, and generally just a bad man trying to good things with the fastest tool he had: violence?"

I dunno, sometimes when he tries to talk "sense" into David, it sound like one of his ancillary hearts is breaking watching this stupid kid making the same "mistakes" he did once upon a time. I mean, this is a guy who genocided a whole SPECIES for killing one of his apprentices, but he's asking David not to try and fuck with a company that's doing horrible shit, you know?

I never expected David to take that tone with Sanig.

>>5501901
Pretty much yeah! Remember that Sanig isolated himself from other greys and he is very ancient. He saw most of grey's history unfold in front of him and took part in it.

He has HAIR damn it. Just to ilustrate how old he is. Speaking of old, we have to go and get some of that rejuvenat for him. At the start of the quest he got some but I guess it has its limits

Yo gang, just wanted to let y'all know that this has been misarchived as a different quest. No idea how to go about fixing that but wanted to mention it now in case someone else does.

>>5502261
post the misarchive link here for record and also so coch can put it in the next thread header

>>5502244
I'm sure he'll be fine for quite a while thanks to his muscle suit and power armor.

QM has to contact he qst person over discord. This is not the first quest I've seen it misarchived... SUS
>>5502261

>>5502261
I concur with >>5502376, please post the link
I checked the archive link on this thread and the archive list on discord and it all seems to be fine.
If you're talking about quest #4 being also #3, it's only misnamed, but the link is correct, it's a known old issue.

>>5502456
Discord archive list keeper here, QM himself is the one who archives the threads on suptg, I only update the list with the link of the last thread when threads change.

>>5502720 huh, then >>5502261 had one too many cups of wine last night. They didn't even said what was the other quest being misplaced

Alright, the archive's been fixed, and you can find it here.
The description will come later.

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2022/5489899/

>>5502720

["This is serious, Captain. The populace is in real danger."]

"I know. The plan hasn't changed, we've just got a few more enemies to deal with."

["Those enemies are problematic. If you found them difficult to defeat, then few of my men would be capable of handling them. Slyrgg, or perhaps Javan..."]

At this point, Cylia quietly slinks in, trying not to disturb your call.
However, she still sits down right next to you, wrapping her tail around your waist and leaning into your chest as she watches the screen.

She knows Gron can see her, right?

"No, i never said they were difficult to defeat... just hard to put down. What i mean by that is, they don't really care how hard you hit them, so you need to physically disable them. Break some bones, go for the brain..."

["I'll... take that into consideration. However, we will likely still have to deal with Xebric's self defense force before we can worry about such matters. When will the drone ships be combat ready?"]

The drone ships... if this was before, you'd have had to share fab time with other customers, but now? You can probably break a couple of them down for parts and have the rest repaired pretty quickly.
Maybe a week, if you hire a whole team of engineers?

"...Week and a half, probably. I still have a few things to deal with, but the repairs are moving quickly."

["Very well. Please inform me as soon as the drones are combat-capable. We'll strike as soon as we can. Kordunn signing off."]

...

"So what was that about?" Cylia asks.

"...We were talking about Xebric. There's been some complications, but we're still going through with the raid. Within the next two weeks, probably."

You stand up to stretch your muscles, slipping out of Cylia's grip in the process.

"Which means i gotta get my ass moving on some of these projects." You continue. "Starting with..."

>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.
>The drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.
>Getting the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.

>>5502864
>>The drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.

>>5502864
>The AI
more spooky ghost stuff plz

>>5502864
hmm sanig and kyla and shodan herself should be in charge how would she look like she already has an idea what she would look like based in our head
it would be ok if we dont get the MK.II skinsuits to the whole crew if they can man the turrets on the ship and have some fire support
I feel we have too much warp mind fuckery for the day even if this is the most exciting one and we need to get a move on soo
>The drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.

>>5502864
in order of importance. (most to least)
>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.

>The drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.

>Getting the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.

>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.

>>5502864
>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.

>>5502912
Cylia is going to cry if SHODAN comes out looking like a total smoke show.

>>5502864
>>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.

>>5502864
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.

She might be even more helpful with diplomacy if she has her own body, too.

>>5503074
>>5502931
>implying its not gonna be a 3 ton mech with guns for ams

>>5502864
>>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.

>>5503079
Could look like Rosie the Robot from the Jettsons for all I know.

>>5503121
Yeah, total smokeshow.

>>5502864
The AIs first. The killer robots in each ship is a nonissue now that we know they're weak go phasers or electricity.

Regarding scraping parts, would we be able to salvage more drone ships if we simply hauled more shit from graveyards to be recycled? We could just hire someone to haul shit for us again.

The MK.II skinsuits and armor is a big maybe, as not everyone in the crew is for combat (Kyla and guildar). Strong as they might be they might not want to be head in a fight. Wearing combat armor over their MK.I skin suits would be workable. That just leaves David, Sanig, and Cylia as the one capable of using the suits.

>>5502864
>>Getting the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.

I want that MK.II skinsuit baby!!!

>>5503289
>Cylia in Mk2 power armor
Muh dick

>>5502870
>>5502864
Changing to Skinsuits/Armor

>>5502864
>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.

>>5502864
>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.

>>5502837
Also, I'm curious, what was the issue boss? I didn't see anything wrong when checking the archive, so I must've missed it.

>>5503832
Some faggot intentionally misarchived a couple of quests.
The only way to fix it is to contact the guy who runs the archive and have him manually make the changes.

>>5503836
Well that fucking sucks, glad it's solved though.

Question for each choice is what will happen or are they all happening at the same time and we are just shifting David’s focus

>>5503893
You're choosing which one you want to do first.

>>5503898
that's why I put mine in order.

>>5503911
i mean, its implied in the sentence before the choices
>>5502864
>"Which means i gotta get my ass moving on some of these projects." You continue. "Starting with..."
its not cochrane's fault to assume we actually read the post

>>5502864
>>Getting the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.
We have the tech, time to put it to use.

>>5502864

"Starting with... the AI. We need them to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane."

"How are you going to do that?" Cylia wonders.

"Simple, just plug 'em back in. We've got an extremely basic AI interface hooked up to a monitor and speaker in the workshop, just gotta talk to them and see how they're doing."

"It won't be dangerous, will it? Can't a hostile AI do all kinds of damage to the ship's computers?"

"Nah, like i said it's extremely basic. Totally airgapped with almost no actual functionality. And besides, SHODAN's on guard duty."

"I assure you, miss Litzwiss, that my cyberwarefare suite is both extensive and highly effective. Besides which, much of the Metal Gear is now run on custom code, out of necessity. To put it simply, it's a confusing, nonsensical mess."

"Oh. Well... that's... good? I guess?"

"Yep. Kyla said if you tried to run half this code on a normal ship, it'd just fuckin' explode. Anyhow, it's time to start plugging those guys in. Want to come watch?"

"Sure. I'm kind of interested in what other AI are like..." Cylia admits.

"Yeah, don't get your hopes up."

...

The workshop. There's a pile of dense, black cubes sitting on a heavily reinforced workbench at the very back of the room.
Each one contains what you suspect to be a soul. A person. Each with their own personality and thought process. Each one of them different from the others.

Some of them were still in decent shape before you pulled them out of their housings, while others were... well, not doing so great.
How much of that was due to what happened to them in the process of being turned into a blue box, you can't say. You also don't know what removing their shackles might have done to them.

Simply ripping the shackle out by force drives the AI insane 100% of the time, no question about it. There are a few known methods for trying to remove them, but Kyla seems to have found the best way by far.
She uses precise magnetic fields to manipulate the machinery inside the box. Completely blind, as it's impossible to see inside. All she has is the slight feedback from pushing or pulling.

She says it's like a really complex 3D puzzle. One that's more frustratingly difficult than fun, but she managed to remove them all in the end, regardless.
All except for one. One of the shackles disappeared all on it's own, and was never found. You still remember that dream so vividly, as if you had actually been there in that hellscape.

And there's still a faint scar on the palm of your hand to remind you that whatever happened, must have been real in some way.

The blue box that was installed aboard that big, fat bootleg megazord of a ship. The one that was nearly devoured by a demon.
You can't quite remember if it was always this color, but the box seems to have taken on a dark, golden hue. It even has a bit of shine to it.

>>5503953
"Golden hue"
THE CHOSEN ONE

>>5503953
This the lady that got dunked in the pile death bath, or the other one we talked to? I hope theres still something left of their soul after whatever those three demons did to it.

>>5504508
>>5503963
yeah the one we fed out fluids to. While dreaming

>>5503953

You struggle to grip the slick cube with just your finger strength, but manage to quickly lift it up and get it into the receptacle.
It slides into place with a heavy, satisfying click, indicating that the blue box is properly seated.

You press a button on the battery bank sitting next to this contraption, turning it on and allowing the machinery to power up for the first time.
The screen activates immediately, but there is no signal from the box.

At first you thought it might be dead, but you notice faint lines of white light beginning to trace around the cube. They seem to be coming from behind, likely originating from the hole where the shackle was.

When those lines finally meet up at the center on the other side, the lines brighten until they shine brilliantly, then slowly fade away into nothingness.

"Crazy lightshow, huh Cyl?"

Cylia look at you, confused.

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"On the blue box? They've already faded, but uh... well, nevermind."

Turning back to the screen, you can now see some kind of fuzz visible.
Which is odd, you think. It's not like salt and pepper on an old TV... no, they look more like phosphenes.

That eventually clears up though, and a very dim image becomes visible, slowly growing brighter and clearer as the seconds pass.
Your jaw drops at what you see on the screen. It's almost enough to make a shiver run up your spine.

It's a woman. With pale white skin and long, silver hair, she sits with her back against a tree that's been burned black, atop a mound of cracked earth.
With her arms wrapped around her knees, you can see the holes in here hands, where she had been nailed to that tree before.

You glance down at the scar on your own hand, feeling it ache slightly as the woman slowly opens her eyes to look up at you.

"Holy shit. It was real." You whisper to yourself.

"David? Who is that? What's going on?" Cylia asks.

You can't even answer her. You're still trying to come to terms with it yourself.
The woman in the image is the same one you remember, but she seems to have plumped up since you last saw her.

No longer skin and bones, there's life in her eyes now, where previously you saw none.
However, despite locking eyes with you, she makes no attempt to speak.

Instead, she just smiles.
It's a warm, gentle smile. You aren't sure why, but you feel a sense of thankfulness from it. Not just an impression, but genuine emotion that seems to pour through the screen.

"David? Are you okay?"

"Huh? Oh... yeah, i uh... yeah. I'm fine."

>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>You aren't entirely sure what's going on here. Maybe it'd be best to leave this one in cold storage for a while. An emergency backup or something...
>Write-In?

>>5505245
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.

>>5505245
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.

>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.

>>5505245
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>Ignore the boner you're sporting
>Ask Shodan what to do after you're done asking questions
We should get Shodan a body, maybe even a "Human Inspired" biological body, it's obvious Clones and Synthetic biology exist in this universe. I bet that Sextoy guy has the equipment to make full sexbots if not I bet we have the ability to jailbreak his 3d Pocket Pussy Printer to print full bodies (piecemeal)

>>5505245
>Write-In: Just try to answer Cylia's questions first.

File: hey.png (236 KB, 387x302)

236 KB PNG

>>5505245
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>hey so hows my blood?

>>5505245
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
>"Well, I'm glad you're doing better. I didn't think that little transfusion would work."
>"So...do you have a name?"

>>5505245
>Write-In: Just try to answer Cylia's questions first.
>I uh....may have actually went to hell and saved her soul...those cubes are people Cyl....the Federation is sacrificing the souls of the living to make AI Slaves...
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.

>>5505245
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
Explain to the crew how we know the lady. You guys cant call us crazy without the existence of space hell and space demons. We got the gaint corpse to prove meta (magic) bullshit exists!

>>5505245
>>Write-In?
>Pick up the cube and show it to her.
Now THIS is mindfuck

>>5505245

>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
Let's introduce ourselves to her and ask her if she is okay. Maybe there is something more we can do to help her?

>>5505245

"That woman is uh... she's... well, i guess she's whoever is in there."

You gesture towards the blue box.
Cylia looks between you and the blue box incredulously.

"What, you mean like her avatar? Kind of like how SHODAN made an image for herself?" She guesses.

You shake your head.

"No. No, i don't think so. That woman there, on the screen... i think that's her. The real her."

Cylia stares up at you with a somewhat worried expression.

"I don't think i understand... What do you mean by "the real her"? Is it not just an avatar?"

"It's not. Look, i know this might sound crazy, but we've both seen some crazy shit by now, haven't we? So just... take my word for this one.
I don't think AIs are just machine intelligence, like VIs are. I've seen some things... that make me think... maybe..."

Cylia sighs as you struggle to get the words out. You're too worried she's going to think you're really going nuts.

"Look, David... if it were before we met, i'd definitely think you were a jabbering idiot. Definitely."

"Gee, thanks."

"But you're right, we have seen some pretty crazy stuff. Maybe... maybe you've seen a little more than we have, but i still believe you. You do a lot of stuff that's hard to believe, after all. Maybe you really can just see more than others."

Cylia slowly embraces you in a hug, pressing her whole body into your chest and closing her eyes.

"I think i started doubting my own sanity a little bit during the three weeks you were gone. Hearing voices, seeing things out of the corner of my eye... and having all those terrible dreams.
Kyla always believed whatever i told her. She couldn't see it, but she still believed me. So i'll believe you too, no matter what."

Well, that does make you feel a little better.
You rub cylia's head through her beret, causing her to purr just slightly.

You didn't even know she could do that until recently, but even since she started clinging to you, she returns your affection like that.

"Alright... i'll tell you. I think... honestly, these Blue Boxes are containers. There are all these mechanisms inside, i don't know what they do, maybe they're the mechanical part, but... it seems to me like they're containers for a person's soul."

There's a long silence as Cylia thinks over what you said.

"...So that girl on the screen... that's her soul?"

"I'm pretty sure, Cyl. She looks... everything looks just like it did in that dream. It's all the same as it was back then, even the holes in her wrists."

"Wait... what dream?"

...

You spend a while going over the 'dream' you had involving this woman, the cut on your hand and the disappearance of her shackle in the real world.
When you're done, she seems surprised, but not suspicious at all.

"...So it was just gone? Nothing on the cameras at all?"

"Without a trace. Kyla looked for it for like a week."

"So this girl... what's her name?"

"No clue. She never spoke, but i'm going to try and ask her now."

>>5505468
So, looking at the previous descriptions, can we go ahead and imagine her looking like an anime girl?

>>5505652
Nah I'm thinking its more along the lines of vampire-like ya know? but without the fangs and pointy ears I'd assume.

My power may end up going out here due to the weather, so don't be shocked if i miss tomorrow's update.
If everything's fine, i'll post as usual.

>>5505652
caminoan

>>5505652
No. She musy be Stacy's mom.
https://youtu.be/dZLfasMPOU4

I just caught up to this thread yesterday, and I want to say this story is fucking brilliant, QM. I love practically everything about it. You do a great job of world and character building, as well as introducing new plots and developments. I can't get enough!