First Contact

Chapter 310: (Evil Never Dies)

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Are all of you all right?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We're all right. They obvious were working off of bad intelligence and tactics.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

They didn't stand a chance.

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

They did some damage, but it was mostly because of the sheer amount they threw at us.

Putting Omnicron back to sleep is proving more difficult.

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TERRASOL

We've got some fighting still going on. Mostly against the brain damaged ones who don't know when to quit but are smart enough to go guerrilla.

Found some poor bastards in the EmpShade Preserve.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh, those poor Lanaktallan. Did they live?

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TERRASOL

A handful. They're in bad shape, but we managed to rescue them.

The EPOW camps are full though.

Funnily enough, the ones who don't wander around in circles shouting slogans aren't too keen on going home. A lot of them have suffered severe brain injuries.

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AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT

It's been three months out here, almost four. How are

>All right, test that section.

>Green lights. Looks good.

all of you doing.

What is that?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

I've checked the lines. That's coming across the maintenance channels, but those have been damaged badly for centuries.

I'm starting to think

>Are you all right?

>Yeah. I think so. That puffies and their mother was rough.

>I know. We can do this because we must do this.

>It's just difficult some times. So many of them. All so afraid. I love you.

>I love you too. Just hold on. We can do this.

>PLAY IWILLALWAYSLOVEYOU.MID

>We love you too, Wally.

that they might be.

Wait, did he say 'puffies'?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

He did! He said 'puffies!"

PUFFIES!

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What's a 'puffie'?

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

They've mentioned them before.

What are they?

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TERRASOL

Pubvians. An extinct species.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

A xeno-species my people xenocided during the Terra/Mantid War.

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CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

If they're in the system, how are they finding Pubvians?

>Oh man, oh man. Ugh.

>What? Is the system destroyed? It'll be hard to fab equipment for that area, it's clean.

>No. Clean means no microbes. There's a pair of corpses stuck in the wiring and they're still gooey.

>Ew.

Wait, were Pubvians ever SUDSed up?

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DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Not as far as I know.

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TERRASOL

Records are spotty at best.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

They've encountered them before.

What's going on?

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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

You don't think? No. No way. Everyone's been trying to figure it out for eight thousand years.

You don't

>OK, the system wasn't actually damaged. Looks like the wiring got pulled loose.

>Well, that's some good news.

>Yeah, it's straight green down the board.

>Well, I've got bad news.

>What?

think they actually got into the hardware of the SolNet/SoulNet system, do you?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

I don't see how. We've had people working on it for eight thousand years.

Nobody's even gotten

>Well, the next part is Layer Gamma and then Layer Beta.

>So?

close to even figuring how the whole system works. We know on our side kind of what happens but anything to do with the hardware we

>You can't get there from there.

haven't been able to figure out what to do. That's why there hasn't been any hardware updates.

>So how are we going to...

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TERRASOL

That might not be... entirely true.

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

What did you do?

>Yeah.

>Oh, man.

>There's something in the buffer. Looks like an old signal. It's pretty scrambled so I'll shunt it over to error checking and repair and then send you through.

>It's like going through Hell.

>No, it's like going between Hellspace and Deadspace and scraping the edges of both with your brain.

>Thanks for that, Sam.

What did you do to the system?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Anyone else completely lost?

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AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT

No, I'm totally lost. I can't figure out

>How long till I get there?

>Ten hours.

>I'm going to recompile, defrag, and relax.

>Any preference?

>That park by the lake. The Treana'ad are doing ballroom dancing. I want to watch.

>All right. Sleep well.

what is going on.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Wait, wherever they are, where we can hear them talking, there's Pubvians, Treana'ad, Nammerain, and Terrans.

Are they...

Are they...

Are they in the SUDS system?

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

I thought only Terrans could be hooked into SUDS

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Ballroom dancing? That's one of those fads that... wait...

It was HUGE 8,000 years ago among the Cattle Queens and everyone else.

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DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

OK, where are they?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Considering they fixed the emergency channels, they have to be where the hardware is.

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Back up. TerraSol, what did you do to the system?

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TERRASOL

We found Legion. Turns out he wasn't dead.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

You mentioned that.

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TERRASOL

Well, it turns out, he got into the SUDS system once before.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Daxin's wife.

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CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

And the dogs and cats.

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TERRASOL

Well, who better to get us into the SUDS than Legion?

We Black Boxed him.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

ARE YOU HIGH?

You put the master of the Fleet of One in a Black Box Project?

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TERRASOL

Who else is going to get into it? You?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Touche.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, there's some secrets going on here and I want them out in the open.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Do you need us to leave?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

No, no. You get used to TerraSol. He's so twisty he has to screw his socks on.

Come on, spill.

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TERRASOL

All right.

There's evidence that the researchers working on the SoulNet and the SoulNet Neural Recording Application Device had made a major breakthrough.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Oh boy.

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TERRASOL

We'd figured out how to add everyone to the system.

Even the Treana'ad, which meant we just needed to add the Mantid.

We added phasic energy systems to allow the Mantid to join the SUDS.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh my god. Oh my god.

THAT'S why the SUDS blew out!

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

If you did that, then when the Mantid attacked, they'd have a direct line straight into the system for their psychic attack!

Oh.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

THAT explains why some of my people went crazy.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

So, they wired the system up to accept Mantid psychics, the Mantid attacked, used psychic weaponry, and it blew out the whole system?

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TERRASOL

Not... quite.

Someone managed to get the system partially working.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Legion?

It was Legion, wasn't it?

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AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT

Oh, I bet it was

>You awake?

>Yeah.

>Ready?

>No.

>Close the door and you'll mat-trans to Layer Gamma.josei

>All right. Ready Wally?

>TRIUMPHANTBEEPING.MID

the Digital Omnimessiah.

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TERRASOL

Yeah, it was the Digital Omnimessiah. The Fourth Miracle.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Well, all this is fascinating, but how long until you're able to rejoin the rest of the universe?

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TERRASOL

Not sure. We'll probably be last.

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Oh, wow! I didn't realize anyone was actually speaking! I've been running PSA's and commercials on this channel!

Oops.

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The alarm sounded, a howling that accompanied red lights. The computers all spun up, the drives whining, using crystal platters rather than the solid state drives that had been old tech even back then. Amber monitors flickered to life and information streamed by.

The hexagonal chamber lit up, the walls blue with gold starbursts. The machinery hummed, for the second time in thousands of years.

The hum died away and the emergency lights went out, the siren going silent.

MAT-TRANS COMPLETE

was on several of the monitors.

It was silent for a long time, then the door opened.

A woman stood there. Naked.

A pack of cigarettes in one hand, a single cigarette in her mouth, a lighter in her other hand.

She lit the cigarette, inhaled, then slowly exhaled smoke before she spoke.

"Falmy, you bovine fucking bastard. I should respawn you with two cocks so I can geld you fucking twice."