The Crystalline Religion

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Cryslonite Imperium,
536112.00 Teracycles since emergence
(.1 years terran = 3.12 teracycles)


Zexlak thought, and whether it is his thought or the energy of another Cryslonites' thought is irrelevant. The thought rippling through the Imperium at lightspeed and faster was chopped up into megahertz rate pulses and fed into everyone, cycling back into itself as it met itself and before a second had passed the system found thought stability for a moment, and went on to another issue. With every nanosecond gap all the crystals thought alone for an instant, only to be slammed back to collective again by another synch pulse.

The first thought was that Zexlak was somehow a malfunctioning crystal by being a first one, though that oddity had been solved merely 3 seconds ago, but another Crystal thought the question again, and the rebuttal came, which was that Zexlak was merely slightly specialized for dealing with organic infestations. Words can not show what the rebuttal said about his specialty in any detail.

The Imperium constantly continued this collective averaging of individual relapses, all while the physical work of the crystals continued, with energy being reformed and used and collected and reformed again.

The group of Crystals within a light second of Zexlak continued the thoughts related to his title, repeatedly, while more distant members only had an occasional comment from the far side of the emergence world.

Zexlaks thoughts went to new fast communications methods that were being used for those Crystals outside of the great pull of the emergence world. Responses indicated that the Crystals exploring the newly found portals were not diverging much from the collective thought, so long as the communications worked.

Crystals had placed these new devices at each portal, and in orbit of each of the solids oscillating about the sunworld.

Zexlak and a cadre of nearby crystals were also using subconsious synch to analyze and estimate the probability of organic infestations and other emergence worlds.

The Cryslonite had immediately rejected the idea that any other world could bring forth the greatness of the Cryslonite. The only other gaseous concentration known was the SunWorld which provided great amounts of energy. Throughout time, Groups of Cryslonite had shared thoughts of the great mostly untapped power of the sun, the great energy of it was felt on a visceral level by the Cryslonite, it vibrated every molecule of a Crystal to dream of inhabiting the SunWorld itself and sensing its every emanation. But every Crystal making the trek to SunWorld had expired. Only one world could support such a species as the Cryslonite, the world that was a cradle till the day the SunWorld received its long awaited guests.

The Cryslonite believed unanimously that it was their great destiny to inhabit SunWorld someday, and that formed the only thing that could be called a religion among the Cryslonite. There were a great many fervors amoung the Cryslonites, as fervors had a way of overpowering weaker thought waves, but the Pilgrimage of Brilliance to the SunWorld was most fervent, and it had the most aspects of a religious nature. The nature of the collective ensured that the Crystalline Religion would always hold sway among the Cryslonite.

The great thought shook through Zexlak as it did through all others. Zexlak contemplated that this great thought appeared almost once every hundred cycles, while thoughts of his own oddity appeared only every twenty thousand cycles or so.

The greatness of our goal must dominate our thoughts, this thought came from outside of Zexlak, and then he was in synch and contemplating the greatness of the Religion.

Research was a default state of sorts for the Cryslonite, so long as it did not marr the Holy. Solid Containers were being used to keep supplies in the same locations as the explorers as they found and investigated the portals. Solid Containers also brought pilgrims to the periphery of the sun for the final stages of the Pilgrimage of Brilliance. But Cryslonite in general preferred to be the only solids amidst a gaseous environment. Solid containers were claustrophobic for inhabitants, and every thought of the inhabitants became a thought of the collective, and so it was decided to try to make containers bigger lessening this pain and fear.

Zexlak knew that in solid containers would be the only way to travel through the portals.

On the far side of the emergence world from Zexlak, a Crystal that infestations may desire to call Kruzk had a thought, along with his nearby cadre, that the Crystals could calculate a bit more about chemical properties, thus allowing greater manipulations among the solids, liquids and gasses surrounding the SunWorld, and the solids used by the new containers.

Kruzk reasoned that any infestations due to be wiped out could very well try to attack the weak containers, and unless they could be strengthened against such horrors, it would not take much for the container to break.

Four tiny shuttle sized containers existed currently, three of them used for the pilgrimage and one used for searching for and investigating the portals. But already Cryslonite knew how to build containers that could fit 100 kilotons of solid mass. A brief divergence of thought from a subsequently shattered Crystal, had brought up container plans to inhabit worlds other than SunWorld, this was anathema, and no emergence worlds could exist, as Zexlaks team had already concluded and transmitted.

But plans for an even bigger container to be built were accepted by the collective, and by teracycle 536114.78 (a mere two teracycles since the research began) the collective Imperium knew how to make even bigger containers.

Despite the supposed impossibility of finding other emergence worlds, and despite a large amount of clashes among thought waves in the collective, it was decided to find out where the portals went. Plans were to do this in another 10 teracycles at the latest.

(Translators' note: Reports that the life expectancy of Cryslonite is around 5 years are based exclusively on the fact of the Sun Pilgramage that all Cryslonite take eventually, and almost universally shatter from. If they don't shatter from it because they refused to go through with it, it means they return as excommunicates and are shattered then. If a Cryslonite ever survived on SunWorld, that individual would gain no accolades, instead the greatness the victor experienced would reverberate throughout Cryslonite civilization, and many members would shatter just from the thought pulse of such a magnitude)

[Ruatha]

Truly alien.
I like it!

[civ2buf]

(OOC: This story is based in the gameplay world of Proportions)

First Battle of infestation Soluk
536145.32 Teracycles since Emergence

An entire battle over one enemy ship, the thought flew across the collective as an incredulous fervor. Those on the emergence homeworld were three seconds behind the actions in the Tricali system that was found to be the exit of one portal. Even with the quickening devices, three seconds was the best sync disparity possible. This created brief 3 second rifts of opinion between the DeInfestation fleet and the emergence world.

It was only 33 teracycles since the discovery of the portals, but already a valuable lesson in Infestation training was affecting the thought waves of the entire Imperium.

Six containers were destroyed with no losses for the infestation, 5 of them being ships and 1 of them a sacrifice container with a large-yield nuclear explosive.

Zexlak remained at an onship broadcasting station on the fifth DeInfester frigate where the infestation was to be informed of its impending death. To properly ensure this, Zexlak had the distasteful task of learning the vibrations that made up the infestations language. They found out it was called the Soluk Empire. A thought rang through the collective, that perhaps, although tainted by the Infestation nature, this infestation had at least a few similarities to themselves. The Imperium now knew the name and their history. And they knew that the Soluk shared no regrets about trying to take over everything that opposed them. That was a good moral stance to the Cryslonite. It seemed they agreed quickly on things, another good moral to the Imperium.

Nonetheless, the Cryslonite role was being redefined only slightly. The collective felt that no infestation should exist, and the emergence world found nearby the infestation, which had produced a great deal of crazed thought waves in the collective, could not be properly investigated until the system was clean.

Kruzk had contributed a great deal to the onslaught of thought waves that concerned the first battle of Soluk. This was the first battle as opposed to earlier skirmishes.

The problem throughout the battle, which Kruzk first expressed, was that planetary infestation bases had too many missiles for the ships to consider coming in range of the planet. Plus ships on both sides were as fast as the missiles themselves. When the enemy frigate was surrounded, it was surrounded around the planet, thus ensuring it could hide from fire within the protection of planetary missiles.

An escort and a frigate were both destroyed for failing to fall back in time to avoid enemy military. The collective did not want to fall back from the enemy ship, because it would give it space to wait and attack again. This was a mistake of the collective reasoning process.

After everything looked hopeless, the ships moved away from the planet, while holding a roughly circular formation. With the complete focus of the entire collective on this battle, 3 second delay or not, They managed finally draw out the enemy ship where previously their enemy had operated with flawless tactics.

But even after being impacted by the suicide container, and being hit with a missile, the enemy frigate still held form. The frigate managed to fall back into close orbit with the infestation planet, safe there indefinately.

Larger ships were being built by the collective, but the suicide containers were discontinued due to lack of effectiveness. The Cryslonite were great researchers due to quick cooperation and sharing of information, and they managed to quickly learn to build large containers.

From what Zexlak could tell, the Soluk infestation world had not been affected in daily activities. Only those manning the missile platforms remained busy. From detecting the energy waves coming from the infestation, it appeared there was much speculation about the Imperium itself. Zexlak and his cadre had still not thought of any way to communicate back to the infestation. Perhaps the energy waves could be recombined in different patterns to tell the Soluk to surrender.

(Translators Note: all names are transliterations of Solukian and Praetorian naming schemes, created by Zexlak in order to interact with the infestations on a limited basis. Zexlak created his own name as well.)

[ April 10, 2003, 04:53: Message edited by: civ2buf ]

[Raging Deadstar]

Very good, a trully alien idea. I'm impressed

Check out the Space Empires Fanfiction Thread, i've posted a question there for you, read through the thread as well, it's only 4 pages long

[oleg]

...Ohh, NO ! What Proportion Version do you play ? If it is more than 2.0, Soluk is a joke. PvK created it using Piundon race which is crystolline, but Soluk .emp has no Crystallurgy ! It will eventually kill them because of research and ship design. To salvage you game, back up all Piundon AI files and replace them with files copied from any other race without racial traits, for example Terrans.
Good luck, I' looking forward the next chapter.

[civ2buf]

I really like the style of ship designs in Proportions. The armor system is great, and creates much more of a motif of the early Ironclad ships and other heavily armored ships.

Tactical battles with missiles on both sides are some of the most interesting types.

Plus the fact that the homeworlds are actually powerful really gives a lot more siege type plots.

[oleg]

Yes, Proportions is IMHO the best mod around.
(JLC' AIc is here too) I am just a liitle bit worried about some discrepancies between empire files and actual AI files in the game you based your story.

[primitive]

Great story, keep it coming

Edit: A post of 5 (short) words, and I can't get the spelling right

[ April 11, 2003, 00:21: Message edited by: primitive ]

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The Soluk campaign, planetary disposal phase
536255.50 teracycles since emergence

The infestation world was being irradiated, napalmed, plagued, attacked constantly by high yield capital missiles, and peppered by an even greater quantity of light missile fire. Well over three and a half billion infestation units remained by the beginning of the planetary disposal portion of the campaign, where the fleet faced no more resistance for a dozen teracycles.

To say this was the limit of what could be inflicted on a planet would be wrong, thought Zexlak, no, a planet that had withstood the might of the Cryslonite for dozens of Teracycles should rightfully be completely torn asunder shattered into a million pieces. The collective certainly had that in mind for future research possibilities, the thought waves of solids shattering were prevalant in the Last cycle with knowledge of victory in the second battle.

Twelve ships had shattered to the feverish battles and skirmishes of the Soluk campaign so far. It was no concern to the Cryslonite, as the thought waves of celebration crested with great intensity on the mind shores of several billion crystals.

Because of the regular container service to SunWorld, it was now rather easy for Crystals to make the Pilgrimage of Brilliance in vast numbers. In the past, only those who were elders with vast energies stored had the resources to attempt it. An astonishing two million crystals took the pilgrimage in the Last Teracycle, when the campaign appeared to be nearing the end of active resistance.

Despite the fact that the collective was declaring victory, it soon became clear that the planet could withstand more attacks than the fleet had supplies to deal with. Unless they could cripple the enemy, it might not be a victory after all. The Soluk could just rebuild the weapon platforms that had been so deadly thus far.

More Supremacy class ships, which were equipped with napalm as well as rapid fire light missile systems, were needed and more refueling ships were in need to keep weapons in supply among the fleet.

But, with nearly four billion Solukians still alive, the plague should do excellent at sundering large parts of the infestation, and the conditions where becomming deadly from irradiation (how plague and irradiation would mix was unknown among the collective). How fast the infestation would weaken was the cause of much thought wave activity

It was time to learn about some better means of DeInfesting. Kruzk pondered what could be used to even the odds against such a massive target as the infestation world. Something more deadly than anything before.

The collective took that goal as another fervor, among thousands of boiling thoughtwave fervors competing every pulse for the collectives' attention.

We must destroy better,
We must destroy better...

But before all the plans for destroying Soluk could be dreamt of, the fleet had removed the force shield that surrounded the entire planet, temporarily. All of this in turn, happened while planetary weapons platforms were launching great salvos of missiles against the fleet.

For several dozen Teracycles the fleet waited while reinforcements poured in. Finally, with two ships with missile defenses available, the fleet plunged into a close range missile fight. They had to overwhelm the planetary point defenses, and that wasn't helped by long range fire.

The best ships for such a battle were the few newcomers known by the Soluk as the Supremacy class. The collective knew the Supremacy had the faster firing rate and anti planetary capabilities specifically designed for close range fire.

The fleets' point defense was inadequate, and both point defense ships were destroyed in the battle, but they had served as a distraction to the Soluk weapon platform commanders, leaving Sumpremacy, DeInfester LC and IIDS class ships to pummel the world until the shields gave out. Then, finally, the plague weapons of DeInfester P class destroyers were not stopped by anything, and the plague began its incessant spread.

The collective savored the thought of destroying an infestation with an infestation discovered by Zexlak to have the Soluk name of Plague. Plague, the infestation that fights infestation.

"With enough refueler ships, there will be nothing left of you, I swear it to you who are known as Soluk ambassador," Zexlak had learned the energy waves the Soluk used for talking, and now was sending hourly updates on impending doom to the Soluk.

As an Imperium, it was known that Zexlak had a great purpose, but as a collective, thoughts still rumbled that he should be shattered as an outcast, despite the fact that Zexlak kept to as many synch pulses as any other crystal.

It might take 100 teracycles, or a 1000 teracyles even, before the Soluk had no existence, but the Cryslonite had already won in their view, they had shown the fury and might of the great Cryslonite Imperium.

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The Cryslonite are Alone...
The rise of a new world and the new Galactic Order...
536361.60 Teracycles since emergence


The first civillian non-religious vessel was finally built nearly 250 teracyles after the first container set out on the religious journey to the SunWorld. The new system had another SunWorld, but theological debate raged over whether to pay any homage to that one.

The Soluk infestation was utterly removed, and the solid remnants had such deadly conditions that no one would ever inhabit it again. The Cryslonite now stood as experts in anti-planetary weapons and tactics.

A new emergence world brought one million Crystals along with the colony vessel sent there. The DeInfestation fleet returned to celebrations in the Cryslonite way, an energetic lightshow on the nearest solid planet sent into the minds of all the Crystals, and the widespread taking of thoughtwave altering drugs which had temporary effects on the coherency of the entire collective. This is why such things were Banned except in times of celebration lacking any need for coherent thought. Bannings are absolute and effective in a collective.

New planetary weapons known as neutron bombs were discovered only a few dozen teracycles after the fleet was back. They seemed to destroy infestations specifically. An investigation after the fact determined the constant irradiation in the disposal phase had not resulted in more deaths at the time, but it did maintain the planet as unihabitable for millions of Teracycles, but the plague now subsided, having no targets.

Better plagues had been discovered as well, and the fleet which was half anti-planetary ships made tremendous amonts of retrofitting to use new and better weapons.

A massive fleet of transporters was planned to send millions of Crystals to the new world.

Amidst the chaos of the celebration, Zexlak kept falling into despair at the loss of any use of his specialty, and he kept forgetting and trying to remember what he knew about the Soluk language and culture. But as a Crystal he kept being interrupted by pulses that brought him back in line. And the collective was pushing out anything to do with the Soluk except military planning for the future.

Zexlak pondered that he was doomed to start over each time, for after a victory, they would never willingly keep the Soluk on their mind. The fleet crystals even destroyed the data he had kept on a personal computer pad that the fleet tolerated during the campaign. So he had no source to look for the future.

Zexlak's outcast nature was much more evident once again among the collective, now that the war was over. Some suggested Zexlak had now finally become a rogue crystal.

Some said Zexlak was chosen for his role because he was an evolutionary strain that had some buffer against the pulses. But this was not a majority view, and thus was destroyed.

But strangely, some things were kept in Zexlaks' crystalline structure. They were things he did not think of now, for then they would be destroyed along with him, and he was well enough in synch to not know what he really knew. But something remained untapped.

Most Crystals have no personality and are completely interchangeable, excepting their own work position, which continously informs them of their uniqueness, each time getting snuffed in the collective pulse. Things that continously affect a Crystal mind can keep it unique, but should the differences end, the uniqueness falls away.

But Zexlak was unique in having a personality yet only intermittent ambassador duties to keep it refreshed. But he was a normal crystal so much of the time it never reached the level neccesary for the collective to feel they had to shatter Zexlak. Inside, something did remain from the prior conflict, waiting to return when next the time came for ambassadorship.

Zexlak thought to himself, "Maybe these infestations are dieing too quickly," and then the fervor of the collective overwhelmed him in its reaction...