Author Topic: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy  (Read 18326 times)

Liam's Ghost

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...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« on: 21 March 2016, 02:19:13 »
Geological Anomaly A031
20 kilometers north of the ruins of Linzhi
Eastern Tibet
January 25, 3146


"Feeding the conditions to your huds. This area is hot. Ten minutes, people. In and out, no lingering to take in the sights."

The hatch cracked open to a bizarre, alien hellscape. The lights of the dropship and their accompanying industrialmechs did their best to pierce sheets of black rain to illuminate the smooth, glistening ground and the surreal forest of spikes around them, but could do little beyond thirty meters. The only other sources of light in the gloom came from frequent flashes of lightning and strange blue pools of luminescence glowing in the distance. The air seemed to howl and moan in terror and anger as the wind whistled through the spikes.

As he took his first few steps onto this strange landscape, Doctor Greely felt the ground crack and splinter under the footsteps of his Tunnel Rat suit. The whole team was outfitted with powered, sealed exoskeletons to protect them from both the toxic heavy metals in the atmosphere and the ambient radiation surrounding them.

"It's like walking through Tsingy de Bemaraha during an LD overdose," Felger offered.

"Personal experience?" Greely asked as he went to one knee to get a better look at the ground. Sheets of material had cracked and broken free with his every footstep.

"I still have all my limbs," Felger replied as he unstrapped an atmospheric sampler from his back and began setting it up. "So no."

Greely attempted to pick up a good sized shard from those on the ground, only to watch half of it collapse into dust. The other half seemed solid though as he gingerly tried to wipe away some of the wet soot and particulates that had been raining down on it. The shard was mostly black, but a rainbow of colored veins traced through it. "It's like volcanic glass."

"Can't be," Doctor Yang said. "There hasn't been enough time for it to cool down this much. We'd all be roasting if it'd gotten hot enough to vitrify this much ground."

"We're on a whole hill of can't be," Greely reminded her as he slid the shard into a sample case and scooped up some of the dust. Under that was just more layers of the same glass, though his sensors told him there was some sort of heat source further down, and his Geiger counter told him he really didn't want to dig for it. "Watch your footing and your instruments," he said. "There's rad anomalies under the surface, and some of this stuff just crumbles."

Orbital observation and high altitude sampling had told them some of what they could expect, while at the same time telling them how little of what they could expect made any sense. In addition to the expected lethal levels of polonium, radioactive lead, and other fallout and particulates, atmospheric surveys had found a whole periodic table of trace elements in the atmosphere over Tibet, including some that apparently couldn't be identified or didn't exist in nature. It got stranger on the ground. Initial surveys by their supporting mechs had revealed that the luminescent blue pools they'd observed were radiation sources of some sort, something like naked fission piles pouring out enough radioactivity to kill any members of Greely's team who might get too close.  It would be an amazing scientific discovery if it wasn't so terrifying.

It fit the setting, really. Their dropship had set down in a "clearing" of sort, itself nearly perfectly circular. Around them was what they'd chosen to call the "forest".

"Let's go look at the trees," Greely said, motioning for his team to follow.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Sharpnel

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #1 on: 21 March 2016, 03:53:39 »
One ping, Vasili. one ping only.

I had to google Tsingy de Bemaraha to see the significance and now I understand the line. After looking at photos, that place is a stunningly beautiful example of our planet's geological wonder.
« Last Edit: 21 March 2016, 03:59:53 by Sharpnel »
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DOC_Agren

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #2 on: 21 March 2016, 11:04:24 »
Tag
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #3 on: 21 March 2016, 11:15:47 »
This should be...interesting. In Hoburn Wash's sense. ;)
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

worktroll

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #4 on: 21 March 2016, 13:10:12 »
Tagged for great glory
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Grognard

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #5 on: 21 March 2016, 22:47:00 »
Mag clamp activated.

GROGNARD:  An old, grumpy soldier, a long term campaigner (Fr); Someone who enjoys playing tactics and strategy based board wargames;  a game fan who will buy every game released in a certain genre of computer game (RTS, or computer role-playing game, etc.)

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #6 on: 24 March 2016, 22:28:52 »
John Byrn felt a slight shudder as a remote sensor was ejected from his workmech's arm and embedded itself into the ground. As he waited for the sensor feed to start, he swept his searchlight around the surrounding area.

"Readings are just as bad on the ground as they were from the air," he announced over the comms. "There's enough metal in those protrusions that I can't get a read on anything outside of visual."

"It's not like there's anything alive to see out here," Doctor Greely replied. With Doctor Saroyan whisked away by government bigwigs to an 'undisclosed location', that put Greely in the driver's seat over their research group. And the Doctor liked being there. Given the choice of either playing lunar refugee in the hold of a warship or doing something incredibly dangerous, he'd jumped at the chance to drop into this bizarre and hostile environment, and he'd been more than happy to volunteer the rest of them. Not that he'd asked their opinion or anything. "Walk that big Tin Can of yours around the perimeter, drop some more sensors, and look for anything cool. We'll be fine."

Byrn made sure his speaker was off before he answered. "Sure, right, why don't I do that?" He throttled up his Chaffee into a slow walk. The mech, as well as Lou's Popmpier, were surplus from the post-Jihad reconstruction effort. Reconditioned and refitted to the specific needs of the Hazard Research Team, they provided extra muscle and sensor capacity when needed, but Doctor Greely didn't think much of them, or their pilots. It didn't help that Byrn and his cohort didn't have PHDs to their names like the rest of the team.

"Hey John," Lou called out from the other side of the clearing. "These formations look weird to you?"

Byrn ran his searchlight across the edge of the stone forest. "You mean aside from the everything?" he asked. Felger's comparison to the limestone formations of Madagascar's Tsingy de Bemaraha was close, but even that didn't really fit. The stone formations looked like they were the same glassy material as the ground, and ranged in size from small enough to comfortably impale a man's foot to large enough to dwarf a battlemech. Mostly shaped like jagged pillars, the larger ones had protrusions along each side, almost like objectively terrifying branches.

"The spacing," Byrn said finally. "Not like a forest, like an orchard. Everything in relatively neat rows."

"Circles," Lou corrected him. "Like someone dropped a stone in a pond and froze the ripples."

"And then sharpened them into a forest made of glass knives?" Byrn asked. Before Lou could respond, Greely broke in on the conversation.

"Shut up, you two, we've got something."
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #7 on: 24 March 2016, 22:47:05 »
Yep, I think the fecal matter is about to impact the rotary impeller device.
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #8 on: 26 March 2016, 03:39:02 »
About fifty meters out of the clearing, they found the dead. Bodies, both man and machine, did not so much litter the glass forest as permeate it. Man and Mech alike suffused the ground and the pillars, sometimes as barely recognizable limbs or bodies protruding from the glassy rock, sometimes as just trails or streaks of different matter running through it, as though they'd been stretched like taffy or wadded into unrecognizable shapes and stirred into a liquid mass.

"Oh god, oh god," Felger muttered, his focus locked on a face protruding from one of the pillars, distorted and contorted into a silent, unearthly scream.

"Concentrate," Greely snapped. He desperately wanted to rip his helmet off and vomit, but they had a job to do. "What are we looking at?"

"There was.... there wasn't any fighting in this area before the KF event," Yang offered, her voice quavering just a little as she got to one knee in front of one of the more intact corpses. Most of its torso was exposed, but the left arm and shoulder protruded from the stomach in a way that defied natural laws. Though most of the features were burned away, others looked almost pristine. Yang tore free an epaulet, barely scorched, from the right sholder and held it up. The bull head and stars insignia was still fairly distinct. "This one's wearing a Taurian military uniform," she said.

Greely scanned the area around him. He didn't know anything about military uniforms, equipment, or insignia, but the implications of what he'd just been told would turn the universe upside down. "Search the area," he said. "Look for anything recognizable enough to identify and shoot the images to the dropship."

"The hand," Felger muttered.

"Not now," Greely said. "We have to..."

"LOOK AT THE HAND!"

Startled, Greely looked down to where Felger was pointing. Back at the left hand of the corpse in front of them. "What am I... oh God..."

The fingers were moving.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #9 on: 26 March 2016, 09:21:37 »
Wait, Taurian? That's awfully far from Terra...
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Euphonium

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #10 on: 26 March 2016, 14:02:08 »
Tag...
>>>>[You're only jealous because the voices don't talk to you]<<<<

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #11 on: 04 April 2016, 03:28:10 »
Bryn's console began beeping for his attention as a contact appeared on his secondary display.

"Shit," he said as he switched on his comms. "Greely, I've got an spike about ninety meters from your position. Big heat source." More beeping, as data fed in from his remote sensors. "oh hell."

"Movement, all around us," Lou confirmed. "Small, no hard returns. But a lot of movement. Dear god, there can't be people out there?"

"No way," Bryn said. "Nobody could survive out there." On the secondary monitor, the heat source had begun to fade slightly, but it had also begun to move... "Greely, that contact is heading your way."

-----

Greely could hear the sound of cracking glass and collapsing pillars not that far away. "I know," he said into the comm. "We have a survivor here!"

"He can't be alive," Felger was muttering. "He can't be alive..."

The... thing they thought was a corpse had begun slowly rocking back and forth at what remained of the waist. The arm protruding from its stomach weakly reached forward, the hand grasped at the ground, not even seeming to notice as the razor sharp fragments sliced straight to the bone. Muffled moans were issuing from the shapeless lump that might have once been his head.

"This is impossible," Yang said. "You can't... rearrange a body like this and expect it to function."

"Nervous breakdowns later," Greely said. "How do we get it out of here?"

Yang looked back. "He's co-mingled with the rock. Fused together. We don't even know what's intact or where we can cut. It'd take hours of painstaking work to get him free without tearing him completely to pieces. And there's no way he'd survive..."

A line of pillars just ahead of them exploded as a massive machine crashed into view.

Felger fell to his knees. "Oh god, oh god."

"MOVE, MOVE!" Greely called out as he grabbed Yang's hand and pulled her out of the way. The battlemech, awkwardly pulling itself forward on its two forelegs, didn't even seem to notice what ws in front of it as it continued on.

Felger didn't even scream as he and the survivor were crushed under the machine's bulk.

Yang was crying as Greely watched the machine slowly pass. Whatever type it was, its back end was... just gone, reduced to ribbons of metal and debris trailing behind it.

"Byrn, Lou," he called out. "It's heading your way..."

Over the sound of the machine smashing its way through the stone forest, Greely didn't hear the skittering and cracking sound coming from behind him until it was too late. He heard Yang's scream, though, as a spear of alien chitin stabbed into his back and out of his chest.

It was the last thing he ever heard.

------

"Greely!" Byrn called out as Yang's scream echoed across the comms, followed by silence. "Greely, are you there?"

"Oh God," Lou uttered, panicked. "What are those things!"

Byrn didn't have a chance to wonder at Lou's panicked exclamation, as all around him, the stone forest came alive. Creatures, something like spiders the size of horses, but almost impossibly alien, rushed out from behind the pillars with terrifying speed. Before Byrn could even react, they were swarming his workmech, climbing all over it and tearing at it with spike like mandibles and forelegs. Even as the mech toppled to the ground he flailed wildly at them, smashed some, shook some free, but they kept coming.

Even as the dropship began firing wildly into the swarm, the spider-things were ripping into Byrn's cockpit like voracious beasts. As the cockpit glass gave way, he began to scream.

Then the creatures reached him.

-----

Drone 3154351654f464665164 came to a halt as the dropship blasted into the sky. Its targeting and tracking systems swept the surrounding area, finding no additional contacts. Its communications systems sent out requests for task assignment and recovery/repair to control nodes that were either dead or now hundreds of light years away and got no response.

It paid no attention to the spider creatures, and they paid no attention to it. After all, they didn't exist in its targeting parameters, and there was no meat within it for them to kill.

So as the drone went back to sleep, the spiders began to spread out, eager to find those who had so devastated their home, and settle the account.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Cannonshop

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #12 on: 04 April 2016, 04:47:34 »
nice.
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #13 on: 10 April 2016, 23:06:22 »
Private Stateroom
RAF Falchion
In dock, Metis Colony


"You say it's our fault?!"

David was seated in the chair in the far side of the room, the one that provided the best view of the doorway. He kept his voice even, soothing, the way he always did when he dispensed unwelcome advice.

"No," he said, "I'm not saying that. You didn't know. You couldn't have known. But this force, this entity... could it even comprehend the difference? Its only experience with mankind was being imprisoned for centuries, and then its captors decide to vaporize everything for a thousand kilometers rather than let it free."

"It drove Terra insane, David," Devlin responded, ignoring the nagging irony. "It mind raped the planet and drove us to slaughter each other for three days!"

"After humans used a weapon that will effectively destroy the planet to try to kill it. It was defending itself, just like you and I had to do so many times. It was trying to kill the enemy that was trying to kill it. Look, Devlin, I know we're at war. I know we have to defend ourselves. We have to defend our people. But we can't do that simply by fighting. We need a way out. Because this thing will consume everything that stands in its way."

The door slid open, and Devlin quickly turned towards it, doing his best to compose himself. For a moment he found himself hoping the sound proofing in the walls was good.

The man who entered was slight of build, medium height, maybe forty years of age, for the most part as boring and plain as the grey suit he wore, the only exception being the eyes hiding behind the tinted lenses of his glasses. This close, Devlin could see the mixture of intelligence and naked disdain in them.

"Don't trust a word he says," David said from his corner. Devlin did his best to ignore it as he addressed the visitor. "Are you the one I have to yell at to get us cleared to launch?" he asked.

The grey man pushed up his glasses with one finger. "The delay was unfortunate, but priority had to go to other craft bound for Terra."

"Is that how you really want to play it?" Stone asked. "Is it because you assume I'm an ignorant Terran, or just an ignorant ground pounder?"

"The particular depths of your ignorance are largely separate from our immediate concerns." The grey man replied. "If you care for introductions, my name is Alister Morgan, and I'm here on behalf of the ruling body of Metis Colony to ask you to stop acting like a petulant child."
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Cannonshop

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #14 on: 11 April 2016, 01:01:32 »
YUSS!!! Slap Stoney DOWN.
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #15 on: 29 April 2016, 03:03:28 »
"Is that how you always talk to your head of state?" Stone asked.

"My head of state?" Alister Morgan replied. "Even if you're ignorant enough to believe that you truly rule here, I'm not sure that title really applies to you. I seem to recall your paladins naming someone else Exarch during your... nap."

Stone felt the anger boiling up inside him, but he held it back.

"I will be honest," Morgan said. "I find it distasteful to be dealing with a malignant narcissist who believes he has a right to my loyalty simply because he exists. If the universe were a just place, you would have died in your cryotube and spared us all your incompetent flailing. But the universe is not a just place, and better people than you somehow decided you'd be a useful symbol, so here we are."

Kill him David seemed to whisper in his ear, not out of anger, but fear. He will end everything. "You really expect to deal with me?" Stone asked. "You've hidden weapons and technology from the Republic. Your people detonated a weapon that will kill all life on Terra."

"Perhaps you would have preferred the monster," Morgan replied. "Regardless, whine to the Freehold about that. They're tenants, not servants. Their operations were their own."

He's lying! "So you claim no responsibility I suppose. Convenient considering the lives it will cost us."

"Your fortress has already cost us tens of thousands of lives. No jumpship traffic moves without the Republic's say. Columbus, Terrelibre, the Oort Cloud, they're starving to death while ships stand idle and supplies rot in warehouses, and the few jumpships you've bothered to clear for operation are too busy stripping the fortress bare of arms so you can fight your war."

He will kill you. All of you. He doesn't serve the Republic "My concerns are the safety of the entire Republic, not just the ones who complain the most. I don't answer to you."

"Spoken like every tyrant who's set himself up on that world and deigned himself the master," Morgan said coldly. "Terra is lost. Mars will fall next. If you have a shred of decency, you'll think about the people you claim to rule."

"And do what?" Stone demanded.

"Let us out." Morgan said. "Give us the means to jump out of the Fortress before the monsters your incompetence awakened kill us all."

He doesn't want salvation. David's voice seemed to bore into Devlin's brain. He wants to let the True Enemy in. If you give him what he wants, all is lost. "Get off my ship."

Morgan's eyes were cold, piercing. "I told the rest you're beyond listening. Perhaps I hoped I was wrong."

Then he turned and left.

-----

Alister Morgan's "escort" was waiting for him just outside the cabin. The republic marine didn't say anything as they moved through the ship back to the docking bay. That was fine. The Metis Council would be unhappy, of course. They would have preferred diplomacy. At least a chance to see if the Republic could see reason. A pointless gesture to make them feel better.

As the docking hatch cycled open, Alister took one step to the side. The marine caught the movement and might have said something, if a laser blast from inside the aerobridge hadn't bisected him.

"Keep the senior leadership alive if possible," Alister told the first Tornado suit through the door. "But no unnecessary risks."

He waited patiently for the twelve white painted suits to pass into the corridor before stepping into the aerobridge and walking to the other side, passing the bodies of the two republic marines that had been guarding the entry.

It was better this way. Better to have the whole pack well in hand when the Hegemony arrived.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Cannonshop

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #16 on: 29 April 2016, 04:59:49 »
mmm...nice...
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

ckosacranoid

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #17 on: 03 May 2016, 00:01:58 »
Thats one wsy to deal with stoner...shot the bastard....

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #18 on: 15 May 2016, 19:36:51 »
Hey....

So I lost the thread a while ago. However, drawing on some inspirations around me (Cannonshop, 1st Succession War, others), I got it back. We should be resuming into a more sustainable rate of posting by tomorrow at the latest.

Have a Dogfish.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #19 on: 16 May 2016, 00:49:43 »
Conference Room
RSS Triumphus
Stationary 150 kilometers over Turkey


It sounded a bit like treason to Constance McGuire's ears.

"For the good of the Republic," she said. "That's what you want to go with?"

(Acting) Admiral Thomas Hale nodded. "If you'll give me a chance, I think you'll agree with me that this is best."

"I find that hard to believe," Constance replied. She'd been offworld, inspecting the new yards opening up over New Earth, when word of the catastrophe on Terra had reached her, along with orders apparently signed by the Exarch recalling her to Terran orbit to consult with the fleet command. When she'd arrived, however... Admiral Hale waited only until they were alone to reveal that he'd forged those orders himself, and that he'd reached some sort of agreement with the Metis Commission to keep the Exarch and what remained of the rest of the council of paladins locked away in the Asteroid belt. "This is a coup d'etat." She said. "And I don't believe there's anything you could say that would change that."

"You're right," Admiral Hale replied. "I won't deny it. We are seizing control over the Republic. Hopefully as quietly and peacefully as we can, but anything I say on that front is just going to sound like more polite euphemisms for toppling the lawful government. And this is just going to make it sound worse, but the fact that I have to explain it to you is the very reason why it had to be done."

Constances looked over to the sealed door at the end of the room and weighed her options. Hale was alone with her in the room, but she assumed that could change very quickly. She had no weapon, but Hale wore a sidearm, a sonic stunner by the looks of things. So at least he intended to keep her alive. At least long enough to say his peace.

If she could get out of the room, then she'd have numerous decks between her and the bay where her shuttle was docked. And she had no reason to believe that hadn't already been secured by Hale's supporters. And even if she could get out, her shuttle would find itself alone and in easy reach of three capital warships and all of their support forces. Presumably all Hale's supporters.

She really had nowhere to go.

"Fine," she said with a resigned sigh. "Let's here your rationalizations."
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Cannonshop

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #20 on: 16 May 2016, 03:48:11 »
oooh...
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #21 on: 16 May 2016, 09:56:46 »
I see no way in which this can go badly
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Euphonium

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #22 on: 16 May 2016, 11:54:51 »
This will be fun...

I see no way in which this can go badly

[Nelson] Me neither [/Nelson]
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Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #23 on: 18 May 2016, 02:04:48 »
Metis

"Don't resist."

Devlin didn't have time to wonder what David meant before the door slid open and the first armored trooper came in. They said nothing at all as Devlin was violently pulled to the floor despite his protests.

"Devlin, listen," David said. "They're going to take you. They never intended to let you leave, or really keep power."

Devlin violently twisted in the trooper's grasp, trying to work his way free. In response he felt his arm snap as the power suited assailant twisted it behind his back. The pain was blinding, almost enough to drown everything else out, but somehow he could still hear David with perfect clarity.

"Devlin," he said, "do you want me to help you? You have to tell me." Somehow Devlin knew...

The trooper grabbed his other arm, this time he didn't resist as he felt the bindings being fastened. If he didn't ask for help, Devlin knew it wasn't just his life, it was the dream that would die with him, and yet somehow he knew...

"Say it, Devlin," David was insistent. "You have to say it."

The trooper pulled Devlin back to his feet.

"Help me," Devlin croaked out. "Please David."

Time seemed to freeze as David smiled. The world seemed to fade away, replaced by a darkness that seemed to... writhe around them like the undulations of thousands of black tentacles.

David stepped towards him and raised a hand to lightly caress Devlin's cheek, sending sensations of equal parts endless despair and unimaginable ecstasy through Devlin's body.

As David's lips met his, Devlin saw visions of himself seated on a throne of black basalt, David at his right hand, all his enemies, past, present, future, real, imagined, all at his feet. His people worshipping him in awe, adoration, and stark terror. He felt alive... alive in ways he hadn't felt since those three terrible days on Terra, in ways he had been terrified to feel...

He saw the purifying darkness of incomprehensible unreality bending to his will. He saw the nations bowing. He saw his dream spreading across all mankind, he heard humanity's prayers, their pleas for mercy and justice, he saw his eternal reign over all mankind, finally bringing them true peace...

As David broke the kiss, reality returned, but the feeling remained. As the troopers dragged Devlin away, he shared David's smile.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #24 on: 18 May 2016, 02:48:03 »
Oh hell. David wasn't just a fig newton of Devlin's imagination.
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Cannonshop

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #25 on: 18 May 2016, 03:32:49 »
Oh hell. David wasn't just a fig newton of Devlin's imagination.

it's lovecraftian-was there any real DOUBT?
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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #26 on: 25 May 2016, 05:47:34 »
Conference Room
RSS Triumphus


"I won't bother to ask if you read the briefing material we forwarded," Admiral Hale said while Constance weighed her options.

"Quite thoroughly," she replied. With escape impossible in the immediate future, her priorities had to be gathering what information she could, and from there figuring out a way to get it out to anybody who might still be loyal. "Though the context changes now that I know you engineered the uprising."

Admiral Hale sighed. "I suppose that's a logical conclusion. A doomsday device goes off, Terra collapses into chaos, we step into power in the confusion. Nobody's the wiser. Except we didn't do it."

It was ridiculous, but Admiral Hale said it with such conviction... Constance couldn't begin to imagine how he expected her to believe it.

"Do you want to know how many people are in on this conspiracy of ours?" Admiral Hale asked. "Me, the command staff of the Triumphus and Auspicium, and the Metis Commission. That's it. Nobody else. If you walked out of this room and told my crew that I was illegally detaining the Exarch and ordered my arrest, there's a fairly even chance that they'd do it."

"Is that an option?" Constance asked facetiously.

"Not until I say my piece," Admiral Hale said. "You read the briefing material, you know how the uprising started." The Admiral slid a datachip into a port on the edge of the conference table, and a holographic rendering of Terra popped into existence. A handful of pinpricks of light appeared across the planet, centered on a few major cities spread across every continent.

"It took well over a week for us to compile a remotely coherent time-line based on what we could see and intercept from orbit. As near as we can tell, the uprising began with spontaneous riots in these cities, each of which began within ten to fifteen minutes of each other."

This had all been in the briefing material Constance had already read. The initial riots had been launched predominantly by civilians, with only a tiny fraction of military personnel involved. At first, they'd been severe enough to paralyze emergency response in the cities where they'd taken place, but the open fighting wouldn't come until later.

"Within an hour of the rioting starting, the detonation in the Pacific took place." On cue with the admiral's words, a large orange circle appeared in the southern pacific of the holographic globe. Almost immediately, more pinpricks began appearing across the planet.

"Even though there's no way word could have reached anybody yet, the detonation in the Pacific was like flipping a switch. These lights?" Admiral Hale gestured to the map. "These are just the locations we knew about. Even so, they looked small, controllable. Small groups of rioters, mass shooters, the isolated soldier going on a killing spree. Twelve hours into the uprising, we were still confident that order could be restored. We didn't understand it, but we thought we could stop it. The Pacific was being devastated by tsunamis, but we thought we could salvage the rest of the world."

"The briefing you gave me gets sparse here," Constance said. Her packet had barely managed only a few sentences to describe the next twenty nine hours, indicating only that the first mutinies among republic forces had begun.

"It had to," Admiral Hale said. "We could not risk details of what happened next getting out. You have to understand, this could break the Republic, beyond any hope of repair."

Constance waited expectantly.

"We called them mutinies in your briefing, but if you asked us who mutinied against who... I couldn't tell you. Our troops just started turning on each other. Entire platoons and companies started wiping out each other and everybody else they could reach. Entire populations started joining in." Hale's voice was low, haunted. "Those who didn't join the fighting were butchered by those who did..."

His hand shaking, Hale pushed a couple of buttons and the holoimage changed. "You have to understand."

Constance had long been a student of history. She'd made a study of some of the most destructive conflicts imaginable, and the imagery of the worst of those, of the Jewish Holocaust, Elbar, Kentares, Galedon, they were all burned into her brain. Constant reminders of just how terrible man could be.

This was worse.

It was a silent video, low quality, but good enough to paint a clear picture. A ruined city. Soldiers moving through the rubble and...

There were body parts, neatly stacked in piles in a field kitchen, while a cook chopped up some unknown meat and threw it into a stew pot.

There were prisoners, stripped naked and fastened to frames while soldiers took turns raping them.

There were others, being flayed alive with bayonets, their skins left to dry in the sun.

There were children, impaled on spikes inside strange ritual circles drawn in the dirt using their own blood.

And through it all, there was Devlin Stone, walking through the ruins, seeing all this horror, and laughing.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #27 on: 25 May 2016, 09:12:18 »
Part of me wonders how they managed to snap out of what happened that drove them to insanity, but part of me points out that maybe they didn't, really.
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #28 on: 25 May 2016, 09:12:24 »
Part of me wonders how they managed to snap out of what happened that drove them to insanity, but part of me points out that maybe they didn't, really.
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Euphonium

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #29 on: 25 May 2016, 16:02:06 »
If you say that a third time, does it summon something?  >:D

Nice update, Liam's Ghost
>>>>[You're only jealous because the voices don't talk to you]<<<<

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #30 on: 25 May 2016, 16:30:45 »
Stupid phone.

And yes.
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #31 on: 01 June 2016, 20:48:14 »
No update today, BUT, in light of the release of Touring the Stars: Promised Land today, I seriously considered making the planet's indigenous Cuddle Bears agents of Nyarlethotep.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Daemion

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #32 on: 13 June 2016, 15:51:23 »
Tagging this for easy finding.
It's your world. You can do anything you want in it. - Bob Ross

Every thought and device conceived by Satan and man must be explored and found wanting. - Donald Grey Barnhouse on the purpose of history and time.

I helped make a game! ^_^  - Forge Of War: Tactics

Daemion

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #33 on: 14 June 2016, 16:45:00 »
I'm glad to see you got the ego-centrism of most academia professors well displayed.



While I want you to keep going with the story, part of me would like a nice little book on who's who beyond the major faces we recognize. Because I'm getting confused about all the secondary characters.

Otherwise, great read.
It's your world. You can do anything you want in it. - Bob Ross

Every thought and device conceived by Satan and man must be explored and found wanting. - Donald Grey Barnhouse on the purpose of history and time.

I helped make a game! ^_^  - Forge Of War: Tactics

Starfox1701

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #34 on: 25 September 2016, 13:59:45 »
Since Liam directed me here I feel confident we will see more in the future. Cannot wait this is the coolest crossover I've ever read

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #35 on: 11 December 2016, 08:24:38 »
Merchant Jumpship Chuichenko
Station keeping outside Doukas Station
Jupiter L1 Point


"It's time."

Gabe Abel felt himself break out in a cold sweat at the Dark Man's words. He hadn't been startled. Not after so long under the dark man's sway. He had been alone in the engineering compartment, just one of a couple of caretakers aboard a jumpship left idle, waiting for the fortress to be lifted. But he hadn't really been alone. He was never truly alone. Not since the jump from Aldebaran all those years ago. The Dark Man was always there. Always there...

"So soon?" he asked, even as he pushed off from his resting place towards the console. It was a reflex, beyond his control. He would have stopped himself if he could. He would have left the ship years ago if he could. Stranded himself somewhere where he didn't have to feel what was outside ever again. If he could.

The dark man began reciting variables, codes, numbers, which Gabe dutifully entered into the computer system, feeding data to a subsystem of the KF drive, a useless system left behind by the march of technology. Gabe couldn't begin to understand why he was doing this.

"This will cripple the ship," he said. "The draw will burn out the power system. I don't even know if it will work with the fortress up." He had been mostly free. That was the agreement they'd made on the jump from Aldebaran. His days were his own, save for a few certain bans on what he could bring himself to do. His nights, too, for the most part. Asleep he could occasionally feel the Dark Man close by. It was only when he was outside, when the ship was slipping between reality, that he could truly feel his master's grasp.

He'd desperately hoped that the Fortress would have made him free...

The Dark Man did not respond to his concerns, only continuing to rattle off commands that his puppet continued to dutifully enter.

"This is within the proximity limit," he pled. He'd had no choice. Cancer had been ravaging his body, and in his first meeting in the outside, all those years ago, the Dark Man had offered to save him. Give him years to live, for a small price. The Dark Man had told him that the ship he served on was special, and he would have use of it.

When he entered the final commands into the computer, the Dark Man smiled. "Your debt is paid," he said as he began to fade away.

Gabe Abel felt impossible relief as the weight of unreality lifted from him, even as warning alarms sounded around him and he began to feel shudders from deep in the ship's core.

With a contented sigh, he drove a knife into his throat as the jump controller tore free from the jumpship and vanished into the unreality of KF space.

-----

It was called the Pigeon system. A distress beacon from a time before it became common to install hyperpulse generators on jumpships. Unreliable, dangerous, and at best guaranteed to strand the ship, it launched the jump controller itself through a barely controlled jump to another location, hopefully carrying a message to call for rescue. Few ships were ever equipped with it. Fewer still had survived to the present day. The Chuichenko had been one of those ships, built for a Free Worlds noble centuries ago who'd demanded the best and latest in technology.

The systems projecting the Fortress around the Sol system failed to detect or stop the pigeon. The field it projected was too small and unstable to register. Even so, the pigeon was doomed. In the best of times, you got a mangled ball of wreckage surrounding some extremely robust solid state data storage systems. This time, as the pigeon forced its way back into normal space, it, for want of a better term, smashed headlong into the barrier of Sol's gravity well.

Very little of the Pigeon would even make it back into normal space, and even that was only due to the hyperaccurate data on the local KF topography provided by Gabe's Dark Man. That which did survive came out as fragments, light, and heat. Those at its arrival point, a secure storage facility near the center of the asteroid Metis, would have no time to appreciate the unique phenomena they were witnessing, as a blast wave of superheated air obliterated them, the structure they were guarding, and the surrounding city block.

Those who rushed to the scene wouldn't even begin to understand what was happening before something undeniably wrong rose from the ashes, ripping the germanium rod from its body and unleashing a paralyzing psychic roar.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #36 on: 11 December 2016, 08:32:59 »
And we're back.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Daryk

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #37 on: 11 December 2016, 08:42:25 »
And I'm glad to hear it! O0

worktroll

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #38 on: 11 December 2016, 14:01:38 »
I feel fine!
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #39 on: 12 December 2016, 01:45:22 »
Wait, refresh my memory: was that a Cthulhuspawn, or something far bigger and nastier that just got freed, and isn't Stone on Metis?
« Last Edit: 12 December 2016, 01:46:55 by Giovanni Blasini »
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes / When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

misterpants

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #40 on: 12 December 2016, 13:35:23 »
It says something that remotely creating a building-leveling explosion anywhere in space-time* is probably on the bottom of the defense planner priority list in this timeline.

*ignoring pesky details like an obsolete piece of technology, sacrificing a jumpship to do so, and mapping precise KF coordinates
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worktroll

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #41 on: 16 December 2016, 17:13:21 »
For those of us waiting for more of this ...

Here's something I prepared earlier.
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

worktroll

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #42 on: 16 December 2016, 17:13:59 »
(with kind permission of the author, of course!)
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #43 on: 20 December 2016, 03:36:04 »
RSS Triumphus

The video footage continued as Admiral Hale resumed speaking. "This nightmare played out all over Terra for twenty nine hours," he said as the scene shifted to different areas across the planet, all showing the same horrors being committed by men and women in Republic uniforms. "A lot of this footage came directly from the gun cameras of the Republic troops that participated in these atrocities. No shame, no effort to cover up what they had or were doing. You can see it in their eyes. They're practically proud of what they're doing."

"That's enough," Constance said as she turned away from the monstrous images playing out on the holotable. "This can't be real. Nobody could do that..."

Admiral Hale switched off the table. "I've been telling myself that for a week now," he said. "Every night I desperately hope I'll wake up to find out it was all a nightmare."

"But you've pulled survivors off the planet!" Constance protested. "The Exarchs, the other paladins. If they were a part of this..."

"They don't even remember," Admiral Hale said. "None of them can recall any clear memories from more than seventeen hours before they were pulled offworld. It's the same with almost everybody that's been evacuated. Those twenty nine hours are like a blank space in their minds, at best something like a dim memory of a nightmare. The only ones that seem to remember are completely mad... or maybe still fighting, we can't be certain."

"Not everybody snapped out of it," Constance said absently. Her briefing material had been clear on that. Active combat continued on every continent, even as the world was slowly being engulfed in lethal fallout.

"Maybe," Admiral Hale said. "We can't be sure. We know that after the twenty nine hours, some form of sanity started to reassert itself. By the third day of the uprising, Stone and some of the Paladins were coordinating a defense effort by Loyalist troops throughout western Europe, until they were forced to withdraw from Geneva by a massive attack by renegade troops and armed civilians."

Constance caught on to the incongruity immediately. "The attackers were organized," she said.

"Yeah," Admiral Hale replied. "During the twenty nine hour period, the fighting was done by small, roving packs of killers. No organization, no apparent direction to their actions aside from causing devastation. But just as our side started to get hold of itself, so did our enemies. We aren't fighting a thousand small bands of renegades. We're fighting a unified enemy, and we don't even..."

Hale was cut off by the sound of the general alarm. "Admiral to the bridge!" came the call through the ship's comms. "Hostile forces inbound!"
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #44 on: 26 December 2016, 03:44:42 »
"Shit," Hale said. "Story time later, come on."

It was a short trip from the conference room to the ship's control center, complicated only by the warship's sudden maneuvering. Once through the doors, Hale didn't break his stride as he went straight for the holotank dominating the room's center. After a moment of hesitation, Constance followed, stepping into the holographic representation of near orbit.

"Hundreds of contacts on their way up from the atmosphere," the acting commander said without even looking their way. "Small and slow, no hard returns, just thermal output."

"Like Luna?" Admiral Hale asked. Constance was lost. Another area where her briefing had been sparse. She knew Luna had been attacked, but hadn't gotten any details.

"We think so," the captain said. "Can't be sure, we've never seen them operating in the atmosphere before. Our friends on Bismarck weren't much help either."

Bismarck, the warship run by the Minnesota Freehold. Surprise allies that had been hiding in the Belt. There were at least a dozen problems Constance had with that convenient little story, especially now, but not much she could do about it.

"I'm sorry," Admiral Hale said as he looked back to her. "I thought I'd have more time to explain, well, everything. There are terabytes of data we couldn't risk sending you by courier."

Constance didn't respond, instead turning her attention to the hundreds of icons climbing through the atmospheric interface. Like all of the Paladins (with the possible exception of the Ghost Paladin), she was a military officer with all the requisite experience, however her specialty had been in ground operations and logistics. Even so, as she selected and called up detailed information on one of the inbound contacts, she knew that what she was seeing didn't look right. "What am I looking at?" She asked.

Admiral Hale sighed. "The enemy," he said. "Beyond that, we don't know." He slipped a hand up to toggle the headset he wore to transmit. "This is Admiral Hale to all ships. Weapons free, engage at will."

----

Dragon Flight, on Combat Space patrol

"You heard the man," Dragon Lead called out to his provisional squadron as he kicked up the thrust of his Poignard. "Remember your briefings and keep sharp. Engagement range is at least two hundred klicks, and there's no fire control signal to give you warning."

Being the only survivors to escape from Luna, as well as the only pilots to have engaged the... aliens (that was going to take some time to get used to) had its privileges, and its drawbacks. Dragon Lead and his wingman had spent a day in debriefing after parking in the Bismarck's landing bays, digging up every last detail they could from their brief engagement over Kepler.   

Right after that came orders for Dragon Lead to take command of an entire provisional squadron in support of the evacuation effort. In addition to his wingman, he had six survivors from Terra under his command, flying a motley collection of whatever was available. They'd made it through so far, conducting combat air patrols and air strikes to support the evacuation in Turkey, but most of them were still pretty shaky. Even with his own brief exposure to this "enemy", Dragon Lead knew he couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like to have actually been on Terra when this nightmare had started.

Hundreds of targets filled his heads up display as his squadron closed in on a course that would skate just above the interface. Just like at Luna, they were all small targets, low acceleration, their thermal output almost like primitive chemical rockets. "One minute to engage," he called out. Waiting was the hardest part. A few of his squadron mates had longer range weaponry, some were already firing, but his own Poignard would have to get closer, close enough for the enemy to shoot back, before he could do much.

Behind them, both the Triumphus and Bismarck opened up with their capital beam weapons, sweeping the approaching cloud of contacts with dispersed fire. Entire groups of targets began to disappear in brief flashes of light. Knowing that this enemy could be killed offered a brief moment of reassurance to Dragon Lead, before his own fighter began to shudder under multiple impacts.

"Damnit!" he shouted as he threw his craft into violent evasive maneuvers. Fault sensors popped up all over the craft. His comms were alive with reports from his squad. The enemy had engaged. "Maximum thrust!" he ordered. "Go straight through!"

As the range indicator on his hud spun down, he triggered his weapons, spraying shells and laser fire across the enemy.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

worktroll

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #45 on: 10 May 2017, 21:48:38 »
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #46 on: 11 May 2017, 01:37:14 »
More?!


I'll see what I can do.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Zureal

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #47 on: 20 June 2017, 00:06:24 »
please give us more! *begging*

nighthunter

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #48 on: 20 July 2017, 15:08:53 »
Ok, I just stumbled upon ...And I Feel Fine a few days ago, and I have enjoyed reading this immensely!  The scope of this is fantastic, and the Lovecraftian elements are spot-on, especially the efforts to integrate it with the setting.  Bravo!

That being said, are there any plans to continue this?  I realize that there were challenges (Liam's Ghost was very direct about those in a few posts), and I respect that.  Just curious, because of the enjoyment I have had in journeying through this wonderful story.

Well done, good sir!
RAC/5:  Rotate on this.

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Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #49 on: 05 September 2017, 02:14:23 »
Triumphus

"Where are our shots falling?" Admiral Hale called as the Triumphus lumbered through a ponderous maneuver to fully unmask its starboard side.

"Northern Black Sea," another officer replied. "Maybe some stray shots into Crimea."

Constance winced involuntarily. Even without direct experience, she knew there was no safe way for warships to fight in near orbit. The damage from a stray shot of naval weapons fire could be catastrophic for those caught on the ground.

But likely just like Admiral Hale, she couldn't see any other option. These mysterious enemies just kept coming, swarming up from the planetary surface no matter how many their guns and fighters struck down.

"We can't keep this up," Hale said, before glancing back to Constance. "Paladin McGuire," he said, "Between our three warships, there's about forty thousand refugees up here with the fleet. We're too low to maintain station and fight this battle, and even if we boost to a higher altitude, the people in our holds aren't secured for hard maneuvering."

"You want us to withdraw?" She couldn't begin to understand why he was telling her this. He'd already siezed power. "That'd mean abandoning the evacuation in Turkey."

"I'm saying we've already lost the evacuation," Admiral Hale said. "But there are forty thousand people that I think we still can save."

As if to punctuate his point, faint tremors rattled through the deck beneath them as warning alarms began to sound. The enemy had reached them.

"You're the ranking officer!" Admiral Hale declared. "It's your call!"

Realization finally hit her. That was why she was here. That was why Hale had wanted her to know. He wasn't trying to secure her or convince her to accept his rule. She was the only Paladin left that he could even hope to trust. He needed her to lead.

"Give the orders, Admiral," Constance said. "Get the fleet out of here."
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #50 on: 05 September 2017, 02:18:30 »
Author note: please accept the above small passage as a promissory note for future installments. I very much intend to get back to this on a fairly regular schedule.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

SethsMatches

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #51 on: 05 September 2017, 03:13:59 »
We'll be here... jonesing  #P
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Daryk

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #52 on: 05 September 2017, 03:18:11 »
I'm just glad to see it back again... I can't wait for more!

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #53 on: 06 September 2017, 21:30:34 »
read it again.
and again.
and there's a nuance there...
and again....


GROGNARD:  An old, grumpy soldier, a long term campaigner (Fr); Someone who enjoys playing tactics and strategy based board wargames;  a game fan who will buy every game released in a certain genre of computer game (RTS, or computer role-playing game, etc.)

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #54 on: 07 September 2017, 02:25:08 »
Tonight's (September 6) update is delayed by the Eagle Creek wildfires in Oregon. We're nowhere near the fires to be at risk, however the smoke was very thick today, aggravating my old man lungs and making it difficult to function. I hope to have an update tomorrow, covering the difficulties of dogfighting in space with eldritch abominations.   
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #55 on: 08 September 2017, 02:41:42 »
Dragon Lead

These enemies gave Dragon Lead no time to think. Even plodding along as they did, they were able to swarm all around him and his squadron, attacking from every direction with weapons that gave almost no warning, showed none of the telltales he'd been trained to watch for. No fire control, no line of tracers... just a brief surge of energy around one of the contacts before you got hit. He'd set up his computer to put out a warning whenever it picked up a surge, but with so many contacts out there, it was just an endless parade of noise with no idea who was shooting at who.

With no warning, that meant either burning fuel on constant evasion, or accepting getting hit. Each hit ripped another chunk out of his fighter and sent an em pulse through his systems, scrambling them even further.

He jerked his fighter into a hard spin, walking autocannon fire across a passing target, more like a hole in space surrounded by a halo of thermal energy really. His only confirmation of a kill came when the halo abruptly vanished.

"What the hell are these things?" Dragon 4 called out. "It's like we're fighting ghosts!"

"Tell that to Five and Eight," Dragon 3 replied. The two fighters were sweeping up behind a wave of enemy contacts closing in on a fleeing Mule. Unlike the larger dropships, the... things... seemed able to move without regards to the gravity well the dropship was pulling out of. "They sure as hell found out they were rea..." The communication cut out as Dragon 3 disintegrated into fragments.

Dragon Lead swore as he opened the throttle all the way, spraying laser fire into a pair of contacts closing in on him.  His momentum was carrying him in the wrong direction, but he needed to get back to the rest of his squadron, while there was still a squadron left to get back too.

One of those closing contacts blinked out of existence, but the other briefly flashed, delivering a blast to the wing root of Dragon Lead's battered fighter. The fighter's hull groaned as an entire section of the wing tore away, pulled by the thrust of the starboard nozzle. The competing forces of the two nozzles slewed the craft to one side just right to carry it directly into the path of the closing contact.

As the thing tore through his fighter's nose at a few thousand kilometers per hour, Dragon Lead got his first real look at his enemy. If he were thinking clearly, he might have wondered how that could even be possible, but instead he screamed as a bulbous mass of green flesh slipped past him, ripping his canopy open with one inhuman claw even as it seemed to disintegrate into vapor.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #56 on: 16 September 2017, 17:50:43 »
I am halfway through the next update. Expect to see something later tonight.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #57 on: 17 September 2017, 00:25:27 »
Metis

Three teams of power suits darted and bounced their way through the maze of alleys, roads, and access corridors of the industrial district, handling the crowded environment and the spin-generated gravity with a grace that came from constant practice, and an urgency that came from the unknown.

The blast that had torn through a block of the industrial district had also killed any communications or surveillance systems active on scene (techs said probably some sort of electromagnetic pulse). From the first responders, all they'd heard were screams before those comms were cut off as well. They had no information about what had happened or who had attacked the habitat, only that someone definitely had.

It was the sort of situation the Hazard teams had been trained for. Under the encouragement of some bigwig named Alister Morgan, Metis and the other major belt colonies had been gradually reinforcing their internal security forces since the Jihad, keeping it mostly quiet by flagging them as civilian security rather than militia, even as they issued them powered armor, aerofighters, and assault ships.

"Two blocks out," Major Tanaga called out to his troops. "Stealth approach from here. Beta, Spinward side. Gamma, Anti. Call out when you're in position." He received a chorus of acknowledgements as the other Nighthawk teams set out to their assigned positions. The urgency had necessitated their fast, reckless, and noisy transit into the industrial sector, but this close to the target zone, facing an unknown enemy, keeping it quiet was the order of the day. "Alpha team, let's move."

-----

RSS Falchion

"Don't you have security forces?" Morgan demanded.

"They were in the facility," Agent Ebon responded. "They've been out of contact since the blast." The two men were in the security station aboard their recently commandeered Republic dropship, observing as the ship's crew and passengers were being gathered up by the boarding party in the main conference room, while also waiting for further news from the disaster in the industrial district.

"I'm sure I'll have a lot of words to say to whoever let you set up that facility here." Morgan said icily. On the surface, relations with the Minnesota Freehold and the Belt weren't that complicated. The Freehold was classified, and nominally treated, as simply another settlement under the vaguely defined authority of the Metis Commision, albeit an extrasolar one. And as a settlement with considerable economic pull in the belt, they were entitled to space on Metis to house representatives and necessary materials. Most had the decency to limit such materials to office equipment however. The battleship Morgan could begrudgingly accept, it couldn't leave the system even if the Freeholders wanted it to. The Freehold's alien menagerie was another matter entirely. "Can you tell me anything useful at all?"

"If I knew something, I'd tell you," Agent Ebon Said. "If the servitor has somehow broken containment after all these centuries, I can only guess it'll attempt to escape the colony. The blast might have been the result of it attempting to jump out. If not... you have to understand, nobody I know of has even seen an active servitor in nearly a thousand years. There's no way to be sure how it will act, or how dangerous it could be."

"All the more reason not to endanger millions of people by keeping it here, mister Ebon," Morgan snapped.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

David CGB

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #58 on: 17 September 2017, 19:13:35 »
Nice stuff
Federated Suns fan forever, Ghost Bear Fan since 1992, and as a Ghost Bear David Bekker star captain (in an Alt TL Loremaster)

worktroll

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #59 on: 17 September 2017, 19:19:18 »
Just like Soviet bio-agent plants in the middle of cities ... "No-one will look for us here!"

Servitor = shoggoth? Or Spawn of Cthulhu?

(for the record, just started Tim Curran's "The Hive", a modern retake on "At the Mountains of Madness" ...)
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #60 on: 17 September 2017, 19:26:45 »
Servitors are what the Freeholders call the Starspawn. Though going back in time to when this facility was first introduced, shoggoths aren't out of the question either.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #61 on: 28 September 2017, 13:56:30 »
Sorry for the further delays. My asthma decided now was the time to assert itself. Then the albuterol they gave me for my asthma attacks decided to kick me right in the ticker. I was literally shaking too badly last night to type.  ::)

Hope to resume updates tonight or tomorrow.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

worktroll

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #62 on: 28 September 2017, 14:19:25 »
Take care!
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Daryk

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #63 on: 28 September 2017, 19:07:50 »
Yikes!  Take care indeed!

DOC_Agren

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #64 on: 28 September 2017, 20:54:37 »
take care of yourself
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

SethsMatches

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #65 on: 29 September 2017, 02:09:59 »
You're not allowed to die before this story is done!!! How dare you for even trying!  >:D

(But seriously. Take care of yourself please :-) )
"Man shouldn't have to live by carbohydrates alone, complex or otherwise." - Spike Spiegal

Liam's Ghost

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #66 on: 15 October 2017, 23:27:46 »
Oh man, the boards are working again? I gotta get back to work?

Eh, I'll do it tomorrow.  :P
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #67 on: 16 October 2017, 02:13:03 »
I hang out/lurk ourbattletech.com when we're down here.
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BATTLEMASTER

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #68 on: 01 November 2019, 20:48:34 »
I found this excellent fanfic as a result of an end-of-the-BTU topic.  Even though I'm not too familiar with anything Lovecraft, I've found the story enjoyable!  Was this ever finished?
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Starfox1701

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #69 on: 02 November 2019, 19:15:01 »
Not yet

worktroll

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Re: ...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy
« Reply #70 on: 02 November 2019, 19:15:38 »
It is rather excellent, isn't it?
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"