Alright guys, question, primarily about real-life correlation.
This is a starmap.That starmap has stars that are merely 50 light years from Earth.
The nearest nebula is roughly 450 light years away...
This means that some of the stuff I have planned will require a dramatic skewing of real life in order to remedy all this stuff.
To be honest, nature is tooooo big for man... I would have to give the four houses such unbelievably large numbers of stars and planets that it'll make this entire RTD's scope really, really insignificant.
Thus, I'll have to take some *ahem* creative liberties and perhaps bring some of the stuff in the universe a bit... closer, let's say?
So if you'll excuse me, I'll be shuffling Pollux around to fit the storyline... actually, perhaps I don't. Commence... stuff! (My brain hurts after looking up stars with sophisticated names. Forgive me)
Roll 57(Uh, I was unaware that thresher maws are an ME creature {I haven't actually played through me2...}. I thought Dwarmin was doing his lore-thing
)
"Alright, so man eating plants...somehow I knew that was coming...
What's the dominant predators we know of that live the? It'd be useful to know of them, especially the pack predators...""The animal species are well-documented..."*snip*
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Amatn sat back in the synthetic leather chair in his quarters on the
Griffin. He was rocking back and forth, sometimes spinning a bit, at times facing his desk, and at other times facing the doorway, as if he anticipated someone to come. He didn't really anticipate anyone, however. He would simply hear footsteps and turn around .But really, he was somewhat anxious, yet confident in his own abilities.
This wasn't the cheesy type of anxiousness found in the movies and media, where he was worried that something would happen that would endanger the group, or injure him. Or perhaps Van Buren would show up with a new ability that Amatin would be unprepared for, and he would lose control of the situation. What if the lack of intel would doom him and his team?
Amatin, while not necessarily talented with respect to foresightedness, wasn't completely overwhelmed with the degree of uncertainly about what might happen. His group had abilities that the vast majority of the human race didn't even know existed. They could wing practically anything and stand a much better chance at surviving or even succeeding than would a team of regular commandos.
But rather, what tugged at Amatin was this odd glimpse of events that hadn't happened. Violent images popped up in his mind... creatures he hadn't seen, which were devouring his teammates. His powers were tugging at him, almost trying to drive him insane.
He slammed his Centauri Expresso on his desk, watching the flow of the black liquid in an attempt to focus on reality. The powers still reigned, giving him vague delusions of teeth and fire in the coffee. He knew he was destined to fight a strong enemy, but he wasn't legitimately afraid. In fact, he was eager to confront this strange menace, the menace which seemed to be making him hallucinate. But the visions remained, and they bothered him moreso.
He got up, and hit the button on the door, on the spot where most doors would have doorknobs. The door slid to the side immediately, the motor's hum ending as it began, and Amatin walked into the hallway, proceeding to the door of the room opposite to his. He pressed the large button for that door, which opened into
Zakroff's second "room."
Zakroff had, since recruited into the team, claimed his own room. But that one was adjacent to the one Amatin had just entered. Since the party left briefing in order to prepare for the trip, Zakroff had converted another of the 20 rooms from the
Griffin's crew quarters into a workshop of sorts. He had taken over as the ship's technician in Jaffar's place, and had made multiple changes to the interior of the ship, specifically this one room. Hastily-positioned crimsonwood drawers and tables with cracked glass counter-tops contrasted with the blank stainless steel wall and rubber floor.
Zakroff himself was working on attaching a pair fuel tanks to the new fusion cell he wheeled in. The cell was intended for a large vehicle with a dedicated fuel tanks. Most smaller vehicles were powered with batteries, but Zakroff preferred fusion. It was more economical to purchase deuterium and tritnium because they were so cheap; likewise, despite the extra weight, a small reactor could power a computer, an industrial lathe, and a plasma cutter with ease. His main issue was heat generation, but generally, none of his experiments required enough power as of yet to pose a hazard as a result of heat. The fact that Vulcanus' caves may contain water meant that he could use that to cool the drone. But he and his team had chosen the surface route, despite the dangers, and thus would be forced to walk long distances in sluggish heat suits. For this reason, Zakroff was planning to cover the drone in thermal foil to insulate it as well as possible, because the drone's only cooling system consisted of a single air-radiator, which would be useless on a planet where the air was hotter than the reactor it was meant to cool.
Zakroff turned around, asking,
"What brings you?""Nothing in particular. How's the fusion cell?"Zakroff rolled his eyes.
"If that's all you have to say, then can you just leave?"Amatin felt a hitn of anger stirring up inside of him
"Zakroff..." he muttered.
"You've been at work. And I understand that. But really, could you care just a little bit more about your mission?""That's what I've been doing.""Zakroff, we..."The ship's automatic announcer voice blared through the speakers:
"Approaching Beaverhead Transit Station, ETA 24 seconds.""...have 24 seconds before we begin to enter warp, and the ship isn't equipped with the atmosphere bubble system yet. That means we'll have to wait in orbit for you to install it, and that means we might be detected and shot down before we even get to land.""Renovations take time, sir. I'll head over to the reactor with the arc welder and rig the bubble generator to the power supply in a second. Will that be alright?""Go ahead and do it!"Zakroff skidded out of the room, mildly annoyed at the interruption, but thoroughly annoyed at Amatin's rebuke. He walked quickly to the ship's garage, aiming to grab the welding equipment and do his job.
He walked past
Varron's room. Varron normally would have noticed this, but he was busy meditating, specifically on his apparent ability to perceive other dimensions.
Varron had known about the properties of hyperspace--hyperspace was an essential part of the observed Liverworth Phenomenon, which governed the tendency of a tear in space-time creating a "sinking" effect, where the disconnected piece of space slowly shifted into hyperspace--modeled as a plane
below the existing world. In hyperspace, distances translated to a much larger distance in the real world--leading into the question of whether space is spherical or at least curved. But since hyperspace had its own laws and ordinances, no actual hypothesis could be made.
But anyway, Varron thought about the implications of what was known about hyperspace. It clearly wasn't a second universe--it was far from that. Rather, it felt more like an integral part of the universe--at least to him. That is how he could at least perceive it. Multiverse theorists could never pin down anything entirely concrete, and even the most plausible models postulated a multiverse that was simply like a universe--with a beginning, leading to criticism from the universe theorists of the time. As far as Varron knew, hyperspace was another plane of the universe, that mankind now interacted with in varying ways.
But he thought further, about the possible existence of an opposite to hyperspace--hypospace? As pseudoscientific as it sounded, he could
sense the existence of something greater, whenever his powers worked through the boundary of real space and hyperspace. But as of yet, he was unable to comprehend. He did, however, comprehend hyperspace, especially, in fact, as the ship neared the warp point. Varron snapped out of his trance, having missed the announcement in his meditation, and looked out of his room's window. He noticed the transit station, and realized that the ship was about to enter warp.
Perfect opportunity... will my brain short out if I... let's do it!He awaited the activation of the ship's hull-mounted jump lasers--carefully feeling the process with his clairvoyance, and his inherent sense of gravity. Then, as the ship lurched forward into the new wormhole, [6] his clairvoyance became fully engaged, allowing him to feel the area around him to an increasingly large radius. As time progressed, he could no longer even perceive the existence of the upper plane he had noticed earlier. Outside, multitudes of charged particles few past, leaving rainbow-colored tracers that stood out against the blackness of a separate plane in which nothing was supposed to make sense, but everything did.
The trip lasted over an hour.
Despite the system being within the 50-lightyear bubble around Sol, the Alpha Centauri-Pollux warp point is one of the farthest jump point pairs in house space. The red giant harbors a ring of brown asteroids which sometimes contain traces of diamonds. The asteroid belt covers practically the entire system, so in-system transit between jump points is difficult for larger ships to traverse, so the system is mainly traveled by owners of smaller ships, including pirates and independent miners.
There is one planet in the system, Vulcanus, which is roughly the size of Mercury and rotates once every 0.4 Earth years, with an orbit of 1.3 Earth years. It has a warm but not molten core, with minor volcanic activity. Its surface, however, is always melted on the light side of the planet, and an ancient network of caves is frequently invaded by magma flows. The planet is slowly melting and its surface and caves are expected to eventually become one solid mass of molten rock. The planet will remain a shelter, however, for Solaris Station, and Independent trading base and unlawful haven, as it has been since the station was built.
The
Griffin flashed into existence, shooting past the
Atlas, an Indie battleship stationed near the warp point to inform Centauri authorities of pirate traffic--the system surrounding Pollux was so dangerous that there was no commercial activity in the system save for some rogue mining activity. The ship's computer monotonously announced the activation of the vessel's magnetic radiation shielding as it turned and began to engage its cruise drives.
Amatin thrusted the door open.
"Hello Varron. Have you been preparing for the landing?""Why, uh... not really. What do we need to bring?""We will be trekking over the surface after landing on the planet, proceeding toward the dig site. We can dock with Solaris station momentarily if you need something, but the hike will only last at most an hour before we reach the dig site.
Also, put one of these on."Amatin tossed a silver bundle at Varron, who intercepted it from the air and spread it out.
"One of these... I find them highly counter-intuitive.""Just be thankful that the air on Vulcanus is breathable once it's cooled. You've got an hour of air in the back of the suit just in case something goes wrong, but you'll probably be dead if that happens anyway."The
Griffin bypassed Solaris Station and proceeded to descend into the planet's thin atmosphere. The air reddened, the red giant sun disappeared over the horizon, and the realization that the planet was a pressure cooker even in nightfall became evident. The ship finally landed on the ground, merely kilometers away from a gaping maw spouting lava from it's rim, and another few kilometers away from what the team presumed to be the dig site. The ship's stairs folded down, and three people in silver suits proceeded down onto the the red gravel.
A platform from the center of the ship actuated downwards on two sets of pistons, lowering a fourth silver suit and his drone, fusion cell activated and humming. The pair walked off the lowered platform, meeting up with the other three.
"You started the bubble?" asked a muffled voice from one of the suit wearers.
"Yes, the bubble is started." replied another.
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Four soldiers in various multicolored suits of armor walked smoothly along with the multitudes of politicians entering the shuttle. The shuttle itself was parked out in the great desert, because the effects of its takeoff would cause a number of problems in the city, even on the landing towers.
First off, the shuttle was powered by newer Orion MLX5's. These nuclear-powered ramjets were perfect for planetary takeoff and landing, but since they required a steady detonation of three nuclear charges per second, the fallout would prove to be a major issue in the city. Since the isotopes used in the engines decayed quickly, there was no long-term effect. However, with a population density as large as that in Empire City, the effects of even a short term thrust of the four Orions in the midst of the city would have drastic moral and ethical repercussions.
Secondly, the ship was large. Far too large for the landing towers. The entire vessel was a kilometer in length, dwarfing the Griffin tenfold. Its sides were encased in reactive armor plates, the gaps bristling with autocannons and the latest Tachyon weaponry from the recent Lambda project. The sheer weight of this behemoth would easily topple the largest structures save for those that supported cities floating upon the hydrogen seas of gas giants.
As the remainder of the politicians stormed the passenger decks, the ship's relatively minuscule doors shut closed and the flight crew began to run their diagnostics.
The four parties sat down on a row of four seats. Aduin stayed in between the others, with Kayle and Jaffar next to each other, Kayle at the window. Caplus sat at the end of the row, grimacing with his helmet on at the hordes of sneering imperialists that he was forced to bear with, at least for now. Until their transport truck was eaten by one of the giant plants on Iesac... he wished.
The shuttle took off, the passengers jostling in their seats as the Orion drives fired in sync to get the ship off the ground. As the drives began to stagger their thrusts, the flight smoothed out and the shuttle took off into the cosmos. The gravitic dilation web activated, and the ship began a turbulent ride into hyperspace, in an hour reaching the remote Ross-controlled system Vega. The tiny green dot orbiting the effervescent blue disc was only one of many, but it served as the Ross political capital, on which politicians had to prove their worth, migrating through the dense jungles. The main negotiations building was moved every two months, which was roughly the frequency of most ordinary meetings, putting newcomers through mostly the same trials as experienced veterans.
The shuttle floated down to a clearing in the jungle near the building, but out of the 2km circular border, which was off limits. The shuttle's garage bays released swarms of small vans and trucks, as well as three mammoth treaded vehicles...
Marshcrawlers. They were normally used as mobile fortresses, providing supply and ammunition storage, quartering, and heavy fire support to ground troops. Their roof-height treads could easily crush trees, absorb the blows of hostile wildlife, and gain traction in the deepest mud. All three were equipped with a pair of x-ray lasers for long-ranged support. (watch out for blooming!)
The party was placed in front of the convoy, along with a squad of Centauri Royal Elites, soldiers kitted in heavy power armor that resembled that of
certain space marines.
The entire convoy proceeded forward as planned for about 100 meters before the first problem was encountered: a migrating wave of
Klathidons. The Klathidon herd numbered in the upper hundreds, and began to move slowly--a one of the possible indicators that they would begin to feed.
"Just in time!" exclaimed Alduin.
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Topic: Space Wizard RTD: Rolls. (Read 85983 times)