History of the Galaxy, part 1-Story Thread

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
The game is on a 10 day break cause Mensch is on vacation.

Geo

Oh ok, well then I can be patient(sp) since you got a good reason then. Thanks for the update tho

[Ragnarok]

Is this still on it's vacation? I thought it was only 10 days. Oh well, I just can't get enough storys to read. There's none right now that I haven't read and I'm bored here doing nothing wanting to read one. lol. Just thought I'd check up on this one.

[Jmenschenfresser]

No, I'm back. And I wrote this just for you.

--------------
Encrypted Log
2416.9
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Tallik - General of the Interior

I am placing this log in a sub directory of Raeghar's personal files, of which I have access to. I am placing upon it all of my signatures. If I die without an end coming to this insanity, at least I know here, in this file, when one day the Ministry of Historical Records proceeds to write the biography of my one-time friend, as I know they will do, it will be found, and the truth will be known.

While the rest of the galaxy calls the Tribunals fanatics and religious purists, I know the reality. I, with great meditation, spat on all that purports to be sacred. I left civilization for a while, wandered out into what the ancients called "the wilderness" to track down my tombstone. My dreams burned, never consuming my mind. Self-exiled, in a shuttle stolen from two priest, dead by my own hand, I sat atop the crumbling Pillars of the Sky and cursed the Almighty. I cursed Her with my entire history, and pushed the shuttle over the edge. I wanted to die there, atop that proud, evil member of the world. Right under Her eye. Let Her soft eyes scratch with the dust, my dust. In the distance I heard the great wings of the flying reptiles. Soon I'll be dead, I thought, and a day won't go by, when my bleached bones don't pass under Her gaze.

I woke up days later in confinement, in a cell in a mining outpost. Two Tribunal friendlies took me back to the capital. I told them of what I had done. I actually confessed of evil done to the priest of evil. But there was no guilt. So here I am...now a decorated general. I kill. I hate. I curse. I seek my own death, and I am rewarded. I have learned that the overly-righteous need people like me to do what they cannot. The zealots need minions of murders who've forsaken their own souls.

While the fleets build, while the resources run ever lower, while the workers die in droves from constant double shifts, while the priests and the locals sway the masses, while society is being carved into classes, while faith is corrupted into blindness, while hope is turned to lust, I have been given the task of undoing the society we inherited from the our peaceful years. As General of the Interior, I have first off the responsibility to maintain and further the defense of our planets and our internal warp points. However, my second charge, one that is not reported on and the one that takes far more time, is what we call culling the masses. The grand scheme is quite simple. All research is going toward designing superstructures. These planet like things will be in essence, giant work centers--grand centers of industry. After their construction is complete, I also have the task of overseeing that every citizen be transported to these work centers along with all industry.

The galaxy is evolving...the Norak need to evolve as well. After all citizens are removed from the planets, they will be home to the select, what we call, the Enlightened. As the workers toil, the Enlightened will persue, through all means necessary, to facilitate their evolution into cosmic beings. This is what lies behind the Tribunals. They are just the stewards, the heralds of the future. A society toiling for another, supporting, feeding, taking care of everything, so they can meditate toward evolution.

The present turmoil masks our intentions. External wars mask our inner workings. The Beginning was a band of dusty, disobedient monks brooding in a cave, formulating a vision. I am the Middle, the Facilitator. The End is a Machine, a perfect social machine, producing a Face which will one day intimidate even She who knows no rival.

This project will be my Last. It will take me the rest of my life to complete it. It's vision is my volition. Its hopes are my streets. My destiny stands in its light, or it does not stand at all. I can do nothing else--may it be my gift to the galaxy, and not the curse I fear it to be.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Jmenschenfresser:
And I wrote this just for you.

Wow, I feel super special now. Thanks for writing that though. haha.

[TerranC]

Norak = Devout Followers of Nietzsche

Irony in itself. This is becoming more interesting as it goes along

[spacefan]

Aboard the cruiser, Alpha Tau
Personal Log of Lord Alzene

I received a message from the Lord Huju recently, in regards to the quandry my project has found itself in. It seems the Norak have sent a cease fire proposal which involved this ship as a large part of the bargaining.

Strangely enough, the translators had difficulty understanding a Norak expression, which literally means, Flag Ship. Through local transmissions in Knoglam with the Norak presence there, Lord Knoglam learned that the phrase Flag Ship meant the leaders' ship, or a ship that represents the entire empire somehow.

This is of course pure insanity, not only because we never had one ship that somehow represented all of Fazrah. Even if we did, I can say for certain it would not be a Construction Ship run by me. If such a thing existed at all, it would be some large weapon-loaded warship.

The reason my plan was foiled, was simply that the Norak regarded my ship as the most important of all, and therefore moved to surround it. As part of the Norak cease-fire proposal that Lord Knoglam agreed too, my ship and its escort will be granted free passage to Huju.

Lord Knoglam hounded me rather incessantly about my project and its silliness, but the humorous part is that the only reason it failed was because the Norak thought my ship was a "Flag Ship" and I was an "Admiral".

I have since heard that the Sallegans, Norak and Praetorians all have "Flag Ships" and "Admirals" which lead their entire militaries into battle, and are highly revered.

The silliness of these titles is one of the few things the System lords can agree on these days. From talking with Lord Huju, it seems every System is disputing with neighbors about military protection, free trade and anything else they can find to disagree.

The politics make me a bit naseous, but then they are a lot more normal than the pre-war unity. As a summary of what I know, Lord Huju and the entire Huju populous are rebuilding slowly, in the aftermath of massive losses from the Praetorian war fleet. In Huju, the war is now called the Massacre, and all taste for war has been sapped from Lord Huju and followers. This is good news for me, as I shall definitely be welcomed in Huju as an advocate of peace.

On the bad side, the balance of power among Fazrah has shifted away from the Huju system to the Knoglam system. Huju has always been a bit cut off from the rest of Fazrah, and this is cause for Lord Knoglam stating that if the empire is rebuilt as one, it should be centered in Knoglam.

Arguing his case well, Lord Knoglam has managed to collect a fleet of over a dozen cruisers in Knoglam. These warships bolster his power and agressiveness almost daily, and Lord Knoglam has already begun gathering support from other System lords for his political agenda, which calls for a new empire of Fazrah with him as leader, and a military agenda. It is likely he would support an attack on the CueCappa, whose agents seem to have replenished the espionage threat that had faltered when the Norak agents pulled out. Lord Huju has promised to oppose such a plan, and I have promised my opposition as well.

In all likelihood, within the next year or so, there will be two factions of Fazrah, instead of the nearly dozen there are now. The question now is which side the System lords will join. The war fleet is composed of forces from only a few systems, so those will be most crucial. If Lord Knoglam gains support from all the War Ships, he can simply suppress our faction.

[sachmo]

More! More! More!

[geoschmo]

2417.1

The small ship exited the lights and colors of the wormhole and plunged into the inky darkness of the Osshod Nebulae. The pilot immediately changed course, circled around, cut power to the minimum and watched the stellar portal closely for any signs that he was followed. The radiation from the Nebulae made sensors inoperable and visual sighting impossible beyond a distance of 1500 kilometers. For ships travelling at near relativistic speeds, 1500 kilometers was less than nothing.

The thought of running into another ship in this soup briefly crossed his mind. Entire fleets of warships could pass through the same sector and even amongst each other’s formations and not even realize it. But the sheer size of space made the chance of that infinitesimal. That was something that spacers took for granted usually. But he was no spacer, so it bothered him regardless.

His sensors would not help him detect a ship if it were following him, and his eyes, even at this close range would not help if the ship were cloaked. But even a cloaked ship caused minute fluctuations in warp points as they passed through. It was those fluctuations that he was looking for now. Once reassured that there was no one behind him, he set his course for the coordinates he had been given. Somewhere in this nebula was another ship, one belonging to the Sergetti Empire. He was to rendezvous with it, meet with it's occupant, and enter into negotiations to sell his soul.

He thought back over the seventeen years since that awful day when his universe had turned upside down. He thought about the chain of events that had led him down this path to treason. In fact he had already been tried and convicted in abstentia for high crimes against the Sallegan Republic, but he rejected that.

Before this day if he had been guilty of anything he would accept only that he had put too much trust in incompetents. His incompetent advisors that had assured him the Xi'chung were not a threat. And his incompetent nephew who allowed himself to get killed by the first shot in the war. Their incompetence had cost him his position, and nearly cost him his life. It was only by sheer luck that he had escaped the obliteration of Capitol City as he had taken that precise moment to visit the Space Yard to personally berate the incompetent mangers in charge of construction.

In the chaos surrounding the bombardment anyone who knew his whereabouts on that day was killed. Fearing for his life he had taken to the caves along with hundreds of others in the outer province. Whether it was fear or shame that had prevented him from revealing his identity to his fellow survivors that terrible day he know longer knew, and he know longer cared. Whatever the cause it had been a wise decision. One that had saved his life. For upon his triumphant return that megalomaniac Grandow had issued orders for his arrest, not even knowing whether he was alive, and not even caring whether he was guilty.

The trial had been a swift one, as all kangaroo courts are he thought. He had watched it on the television from the safety and anonymity of a refugee camp. He had decided then that his days as Senator Dravis Flicken were over. With forged papers, he worked his way onto a colony ship and set out for the Usphada system.

Five years of manual labor producing minerals for the Republic had hardened his heart as much as his body. Another five of work more to his talents, advancing up the ranks of colony management had led to his present position as the real power behind the incompetent Governor Simpson of Usphada III. He could not risk taking the reins of power openly himself without being recognized. Before Simpson he had resigned himself to never achieving his revenge on Grandow and dying a lonely anonymous death on a backwater world of the Republic. But in this man he had found a true lump of clay that he could mold in his image. And through this man he would get that revenge.

But he had never allowed before allowed his anger for the Admiral to take him down the road he was now travelling. He had never lost his love for the Republic, or at least that is what he told himself. Even now as he waited for the ship containing the enemies of his beloved Republic, he believed that the ends justified the means.

He knew it was very likely that his plan would fail. And even if it succeeded he knew he would probably be viewed poorly by history. But he had to do something. He couldn't sit back and let that man destroy everything that thousands of years of Sallegan progress had built.

He reached the coordinates and waited…

[geoschmo]

2417.1 Continued

Along with the coordinates, he had been given a frequency to monitor, but no other information about what to expect. After a time his communication system chirped and the sergetti ship pulled into view. It was much larger than his own ship, probably frigate class, although Flicken was not all that good at identifying those sort of things. Space ships had never held much facination for him. As long as they got him where he wanted to go he cared for little else.

This ship did not have the sleek cylindrical shapes that he was used to with Sallegan ships. It appeared to his untrained eye to be just a series of large spheres joined together with some engines hung off the back almost as an afterthought. He had been told to maintain strict radio silence to avoid detection, and suddenly realized he didn't know how he was going to dock with this thing as he had been given no instructions. As soon as that thought formed though several lights along the side of the Sergetti ship began flashing in a rythmic pattern drawing his eyes towards what was obviously a docking portal.

He nuged his ship slowly closer until the magnetic clamps took hold and locked their ships fast. He made his way to the airlock and stepped through into the Sergetti ship. The sergetti airlock was very similer to his own. Idly he supposed there was only so many ways to design one of these things afterall. The only major difference was a complete lack of furniture of any kind. In fact the only thing in the room was an enviroonmental suit hanging on a hook in the wall. A closer examination showed the suit appeared to be designed for Sallgan pysiology. As he had been on their ship for several minutes now and had no communication from his hosts, Flicken surmised that they were waiting for him to put the suit on.

As soon as he did so he heared a hissing and gurgling sound and the chamber rapidly began filling with water. The suit had some sort of breathing aparatus and something that appeared to be a communication device, but it was not very well insulated. The water was painfully cold. So much so that Flicken started to wonder if he would be able to function in it. He had no medical training, but he knew what hypothermia was, and what kind of effect it had on the Sallgean body. His body started to shiver uncontrolably

Once the chamber was full the inner door opened and Flicken floated face to face for the first time with a member of the Sergetti race. Three meters long, and except for a larger head and arms it was the spitting image of the sea snakes that inhabited his homeworld. Seeing his discomfort with the water temperature the Sergetti swam towards him, reached out and pressed a button on the sleeve of the suit. Flicken felt the warmth flow over his body as the environmental suits heating system kicked in.

Through the water Flicken could hear sereval clicks and whistles that he assumed was the aliens method of speech. His guess was confirmed when the communicator/translator crackled to life with a mechanical sounding voice speaking in Sallegan, "That is better, no?" Flicken nodded his approval, the shivers almost completely subsided now.

"What is your designation, er, your name? Is that the word?" The Sergetti asked.

"My name is Davisen," Flicken replied, using the name he had adopted all those years before. "I speak for Governor Simpson of Usphada III."

"You may call me Riesta. My Queen wishes for me to be blunt with you. Why do you seek to betray your government?" The Sergetti had been swimming slowly around but stopped and locked eyes with Flicken while he waited for a response.

"My governor and I, and many others in this part of the Sallegan Republic believe that it is our government that has betrayed us. They have failed to give us adequate protection from the Norak in the area. And now we have learned that they are prepared to give back the gains that we have fought and bled for for their own security. We feel this is a bad policy. We believe the Norak are not to be trusted." Flicken had told himself these things so many times he almost believed them. "Our Admiral is a shortsighted fool. He seized power years ago in a time of crises, and has refused to relinquish it. He has caused mch suffering among my people, and the Sergetti people in his attempt to keep the masses afraid and in line."

"So," Riesta interupted "This is why your people have invaded our territory and enslaved our populations?"

"Yes. Governor Simpson is prepared to return your planets to you in return for your assistance." Flicken stated flatly. The fact was Simpson had no knowledge of this meeting, and would probably have wet his pants at the thougth of conspiring with the Sergetti.

"What is this assistance you need?" Riesta asked warily "We cannot openly oppose the Norak, we have a treaty with them. We are not particularly fond of their expansionism in the area, but they have not captured our people or destroyed our vessles as you have."

"No, we understand this. We do not ask you to take arms against the Norak. We will deal with them. We have many ships that are loyal to our cause. But we need time. We need your ships to interfere with communications between Usphada and the Sallegan Homeworld. And when we deal with the Norak here will need your assistance in dealing with the Sallegan fleets that are sure to come to respond. Many will be tied up in Cephredi as this action will likely cause open warfare between the Norak and Sallegan fleets amassed there, but enough will come that it could be a problem for us."

Riesta considered Flickens words for a moment without speaking. "And for this assistance, you will agree to remove your fleets and your colonies from Usphada and Narcisston once you have seized control of your government?"

"Yes." Flicken answered without hesitation.

"Then go, we shall do as you request. But do not fail us, and do not allow the Norak to learn of this arangement."

With that Riesta swam away into the interior of the ship and left Flicken to make his own way back to his ship.

...

[geoschmo]

2417.3

In retrospect it was remarkable that the Sallgan rebels had managed even the small amount of damage they did in the brief battle in Usphada. They outnumbered the Norak warships by 4 to 1, but these were not the outdated Norak ships that the Sallegan navy had faced in the Battle of Cephredi a couple of years before. These four ships were top of the line Norak battle ships, with much superior weponry, and the mysterious Religious Tailsmans that the Sallegans had so far been unable to decipher.

While the rebels did have three Grandow class Battle Cruisers, they were early units of the series, including the initial Grandow herself, serial 0001. The remainder of the fleet were pratically relics. Frigates, and destroyers with hoplessly outdated weaponry and little or no combat electronics. Remainders of the Xi'Chung and Sergetti wars pressed into service due to the recent tensions and assigned to what was supposed to be a security post in a less critical area of the empire. In fact a couple of the Desroyers had actually taken part in the invasion of the Xi'Chung homeworld and were scheduled to be given to the naval museum as soon as the situation allowed. A few of their youngest crewmembers were not as old as the ships they were serving on.

In tonnage and number of weapons it was far closer to an even fight than the number of ships relayed, and in fact in quality the Norak were far superior. Despite this the Sallegans did manage to destroy one Texas V class Battleship, although the rest of the Norak vessels escaped apparently without scratch. Many of the smaller Sallegan vessels were destroyed by the first Norak volleys before even making to their own weapons ranges.

Davisen/Flicken had done a careful job of selecting officers for key fleet positions that were loyal to their cause. This in conjunction to a well timed Sergetti interferance had resulted in Admiral Grandow not being aware of the operation until it was too late to stop it. He attempted to warn the Norak government of the plot, but his signals either did not arrive in time, or were not taken seriously.

Apporpriate appologies were expressed over the loss of Norak life on the battleship. Grandow considered them all very fortunate that that was the extent of the losses. He could not imagine the damage to Sallegan/Norak relations at such a critical juncture in the peace process had the rebels succeded in their attack. It very likely could have lpunged the quadrant into a war that neither side would have recovered from in his lifetime.

In fact, since most of his frontline ships could not leave the Cephredi system, he had to dispatch the fleet garrisoning the Xi'Chung homeworld. He was not even sure they would have been able to deal with the rebel fleet in Ushpada had they been victorious. If they managed to get through this crises Grandow decided he needed to have a talk with his minister in charge of keeping the fleet retrofits up to date.

Despite the incident the Norak government showed restraint. Negotiations were finalized to turn the colony in Narcisston back over to Norak control. The order was sent, although Grandow was not sure who was at the receiving end. The loyalist fleet he dispatched from Organtrix would not be in Narcisston for four months, and though he had issued orders for Governor Simpson to be arrested, communications had been sporadic from the eastern systems. Most of his concrete information over the Last couple months had come from the Norak themselves. There was still a large Sallegan fleet in Narcisston, and he was afraid that considering the events of late, he was not totally sure of their loyalty.