First Contact

Chapter 383

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

All right, so, who is affected by whatever is happening?

My people are not being affected. Terrans in our area are being affected.

First the Lanaktallan succumb to neural scorching, then the Terrans start suffering cybernetic and bioware neural linkage disruption.

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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Anyone with less than a 30% neurological deviation from baseline Pure Strain Human is being affected in our areas.

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COOPERATIVE

We're all being affected. For the most part the cybernetics and bioware are self-correcting, but in approximately 28% of cases the person must undergo cybernetic reintegration to the neural wetware.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Well, we're not being affected, for what it's worth.

But we're seeing humans in our area suffer from this.

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FEDERATION OF PLANETS

We're mainly low cybernetics. It's not part of our lifestyle, with a single exception.

The Borg suffered a massive character class crash. If the cyberware they use wasn't polyphasic polymorphic adaptive cyberware there would have been hundreds of thousands of deaths.

As it was, we've got thousands of casualties. We've had to recall that character class.

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HESSTLA BUNNY BURROW

I uploaded the medical files from III CORPS.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

That is a... radical... departure.

We're seeing the same thing. How long ago did that happen?

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HESSTLA HOPPING BUNNIES

That's hard to answer.

To your perception, maybe five months ago.

For us? In orbit, we're talking over seventy years. On the ground, nearly five years in some places, six months in others, a year in other places. It's a mess.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

So, you suffered temporal warfare effects, now the Terrans are suffering a temporal warfare strike.

That can't be a coincidence.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

So is it rippling out from Hesstla?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

No, that would have been caught almost immediately.

Right now, there's no way to track how this is spreading. It isn't following the standard temporal warfare attack patterns.

It should have rippled out from Hesstla, or maybe Terra. Instead, it happened in Hesstla and Terra then went into Temporal Warfare Case Omaha.

It jumped and there's no way to tell how.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Ya think, sis?

>TREA puts on a weird looking hat and puffs a pipe

III Corps is an Old Blood Unit, one that requires military personnel to serve at least a century in other units, at least two decades in their current military specialty. The average age of a III Corps (OLD BLOOD MIXED METAL) soldier is two hundred and sixty years old.

It contains some of the most prestigious units in the Old Blood. Right up there with Ninth Guard (Old Blood Old Metal). It's one of the most highly contested postings, even my people compete for the Old Blood units.

>TREA waves and family trees appear

>TREA taps an icon of a male and female Terran side by side

Here we have Captain David Sally McCloud-Elkan, present on Hesstla at this moment. He showed immediate affects in Hesstla.

>TREA taps an icon above it.

This is his mother, Cathy Duwad Elkan. She showed affects only days afterwards, but her cyberware automatically corrected.

>TREA taps the icon below it

This is his son, Andy Julianne McCloud. He suffered affects approximately two months afterwards and is two hundred and thirty-eight years old.

>TREA puffs on his pipe.

It's not a temporal warfare strike that should be tracked through normal space-time, sis.

>TREA folds his gripping arms and bladearms.

It is tracked through familial lines. It ripples upwards and downwards from each infected point. Eventually it gets ripples upward back far enough that new lines are infected on the downward ripple.

Meaning it will affect all of biological Terran Descent Humanity as the effect ripples backwards to ancestors and forward into descendants.

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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

By the Digital Omnimessiah.

It's not a standard attack.

They struck directly at Terran Descent Humanity itself.

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COOPERATIVE

And the Temporal stabilizers and counter-warfare protocols protected events but not individuals.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

How does that work? If you alter or eliminate a person, doesn't it effect the effect that person had upon the event?

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AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT

Technically, no. Temporal streams are largely self-correcting. Time is less a stream or river and more an ocean.

And the farther back and the larger effect a change can have requires more energy until there isn't enough energy in the universe to effect a change.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Correct. Which is why the Hive Matrons of old couldn't change our society when we first invented temporal manipulation.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

And that messing with time just makes things worse.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Then why is it being so effective on the Terrans.

Striking a few tens of thousands of Terrans on Hesstla is effecting the entire Terran species.

Why is it so effective if its supposed to be the worst outcome possible?

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

Because, based off of what we saw with Major Devon Carnight, who is just over two hundred years old, this may be the worst outcome for the enemy not Earthlings or the Cradle of Life.

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ALKTAK FREE FLIGHT

How?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

I'm probably the best person to answer that.

>MANTID puts up two different brain scans

Do those really look that different to you guys? I mean, generally?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

By the Digital Omnimessiah.

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Oh.

Oh.

Someone fucked up.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

What? I mean, there's some obvious changes, but what?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

I don't get it.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

See this?

>MANTID shares behold-1-meme.hol

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

It is a drunken Terran with a bottle of whiskey eating from a jar of jam while only wearing pants.

He looks quite intoxicated.josei

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

BEHOLD! HUMANITY!

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

>snicker

Yeah, that kind of sums them up.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

That's humanity at rest. That the brainscan from last year.

>MANTID shares behold-2-meme.hol

That's the new brainscan.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

I recognize that! That's an Imperium of Wrath Space Marine!

They're...

oh... wait.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Yeah.

Oh.

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HESSTLA TECHNOBURROW

OK. What is the difference between humans from then and then and now?

It's only 8000 years. They lost psychic ability, now they have it again?

What happened? What changed them?

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CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

That's... that's a question that we really don't want to answer.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HAND

Tell us.

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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

OK, first, you have to understand. After the Terran-Mantid Wars, humanity was absolutely insane.

While the Digital Omnimessiah had cured Enragement, humanity was in one huge feedback loop.

Even babies were being born enraged again, partially due to the Digital Omnimessiah being assassinated, the Imperium of Wrath, and everything else.

So...

...well...

...they did something terrible.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

Define: terrible

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HAMAROOSA PINCHING FESTIVAL

HoW TerrrIBLE?

LANAktallan and UNIfied CouCIL terribbbbbble?

---FOLLNOT OWSHING---

...

...

...

FEDERATION OF PLANETS

Whatever this is...

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DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

It wasn't aimed at us, just at the biological Terrans.

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

Overproject Neighborhood.

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

By the Thousand Gods.

They didn't.

>PUB looks at MANTID

They didn't use that on you?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

No.

On themselves.

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CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

Add in what Legion did. Then the genetic prosthetics to keep psychic abilities from coming back. Then massive cultural shifts.

Add in nanite suppression systems.

And Overproject Streetlights.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

And Daxin, acting as Osiris of the Warsteel Flame, gathering up everyone that it didn't work on and taking them to idiot space.

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...

...

...

LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

How could they?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

I understand.

Terrans will do anything to survive.

Anything.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

And some idiot, yet unseen, just undid all of that.

How bad is it?

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AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT

I've watched Terran historical documentaries.

They don't look that bad. I mean, yeah, a lot of them look made up, but how bad are we talking.

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

If this enemy, this unknown xenospecies, reverted Terrans to Pre-Glassing.

It's bad.

Real bad.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Imperium bad?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

This is prior to the Glassing.

Not by much. To any of us it wouldn't matter.

Nobody's quite sure how long ago.

Pre-FTL.

Pre-Diaispora Terra Humanity.

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

Earthlings.

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>TREA shudders

MANTID FREE WORLDS

You think modern humans, or even Imperium humans will do anything to survive?

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

An Earthling will do whatever it takes.

Individually and as a group.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Let me put it on context for some of you.

All of humanity will be returning to the neural genetic makeup that created Daxin.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

So?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

When's the next 'ripple' going to downstream?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Thirty days to the next archaeoneurological reversion .

Maybe less.