So the kid, right, he did great on his grades. Absolutely A+ preem grades, even after school studies! - CW5 Cathal Casey

Not this shit again. - SSG Maddox

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

We're going to recall Dreams of Something More and her diplomatic team.

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Any particular reason?

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

We've got a lot of problems back here in the Confederacy. We need a lot of diplomats.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

How bad?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Oh, just about two dozen star nations attacking us or attempting to colonize former Terran worlds.

Which keeps spreading shades.

And Deaders.

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HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL

You mean like the dead Terrans that shamble around, moaning and trying to eat people?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Yup.

"Brains... brains... cunnilingus and brains..."

Those guys.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Wait, I thought that was Black Cauldron only.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Turns out, if you combine the various Lanaktallan bio-weapon attacks, then the Terran Xenocide Event, AND "The Soup", you can get Black Cauldron.

It looks like in about 0.021% of nanite corpse disposal cases, the nanites transfer into Black Cauldron protocol.

And, well, this is going to sound crazy, but some worlds hit by the Terran Xenocide Event, went FULL Black Cauldron.

Along with Full Overdrive Protocols.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

"Full Overdrive Protocol"? What's that?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Malevolent, omnicidal VI installation on every electronic and mechanical device on the planet.

Hell, some of them have transforming capabilities.

One second it's a fizzystim machine, the next it's a big robot with chainsaw arms chasing you down the street shooting those fizzystims at you like a cannon.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Why?

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

The old Terran "If I can't have it, nobody can have it?" mantra?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

That and Mutually Assured Destruction.

We've got idiots who invaded those planets, then, when their troops got eaten, or shaded, or chased down by vending machines and slaughtered, went home.

Only there were shades on their video records, so when the video records were played back home, it spawned shades.

Oh, and their troops infected with Black Cauldron attacked their own troops, now their whole army is Black Cauldron.

And the VI would hide and hitch a ride back with them.

Now the whole planet is on Full Overdrive.

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

It isn't just because the humans were our friends that we're defending those worlds.

Those worlds are extremely dangerous.

We're hoping Dreams of Something More and the other diplomatic teams will be able to make those star nations understand that simple fact.

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

It seems like the same nations the Terrans beat like a rug would be somewhat respectful and careful of Terran worlds.

But no.

After getting so thoroughly stomped that some of them didn't even have superluminal capacity for a couple centuries, after getting stomped so hard some of them have a nervous breakdown at the sight of a primate, now they're rolling up and flexing on all of us.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Which creates a problem that we're having a hard time getting them to understand.

Several star nations are accusing the Confederacy of xenocidal attacks upon their worlds.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What?

Why?

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

They darted in, grabbed some Terran stuff, ran back to their own worlds.

Then the "Full Overdrive" and "Black Cauldron" and "MB Dyson" protocols hit.

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HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL

MB Dyson, wasn't that the supervillain, pit fighting champion software engineer?

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Yeah.

He's the origin of the quote "The day I killed everyone in your village and used their skins to camoflauge my killbots was the most important day in your life. For me, it was a decision between using your mother as a prostitute and ordering baby seal skin boots."

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Wrong quote.

"For you, the day I attacked your village was the most important day of your life. For me, it was nothing more than a method of expanding my corporate resources. It did not even move my corporate stock by a tenth of a point."

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Both of you are wrong.

His biggest quote was this: "And here... we... go."

Right before the dinosaurs ate everyone.

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

All of you are wrong.

Wow.

Anyway, so these other star nations are accusing us of attempted xenocide?

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Right.

They take back loot, unaware that they've got people and equipment infected with modified soup nanites and feral VI.

They get back, both of them activate, now the dead are attacking people, and the dead are being created by hostile machinery full of omnicidal VI.

They're claiming the Confederacy is doing it on purpose to xenocide everyone.

There's even some nations claiming that the Mantid or the Treana'ad or the Pubvians did it to the Terrans and now are doing it to them.

It's a complete cluster fuck out here, to use a pithy phrase.

So we're recalling Dreams of Something More and having her see if she can unruffle some feathers.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Good luck with that.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

LANAKTALLAN FREE THOUGHT GRAZING FIELD - NOW WITH MORE PIXELS!

Sometimes I'm glad we just got our asses kicked.

I mean, the longer this goes on, after the Atrekna, the more and more happier we are that we just took a C+ cannon round to our culture.

I'll say one thing though, it was sheer horror that fell upon the Unified Military Council when we saw the full military force weight descending on us right as the Atrekna attacked.

Then finding out that it was merely the advance guard?

There were experienced and capable Most Highs galloping around in circles screaming "WE'RE ALL DOOMED!" when they saw the sheer zetatonnes of war material heading straight for our faces like a warsteel gauntlet of doom.

Say, what happened to the main body of that wave?

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Oh no.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Wait, it didn't arrive?

That can't be right.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Admiral Thennis and Admiral Smith were the main body, right?

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

No.

They were the advance wave. All of the active duty fleets and military units in the Rapid Response Forces.

The real knockout punch was the second wave.

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HAMAROOSAN PINCHING FESTIVAL

What second wave?

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

There was a second wave?

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

There was.

It never made it to Lanaktallan space.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

FREE LANAKTALLAN GRAZING FIELD OF FREE THOUGHT - NOW WITH MORE PIXELS AND SPRINKLES

What happened to it?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

I'm not sure. Our transports made it.

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

I'm not sure either.

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

Me either.

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

I know.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What happened?

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

The Terran Xenocide Event happened.

Remember, at the time it went off, around 85-90% of the Confederate Military Services was Terran.

Operation Skipping Stone went dead.

Total radio silence.

We don't know what happened.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What kind of force are we talking about?

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

The fleets from the Terra-Sol worlds.

Nearly four million ships total, including resupply, fabrication, cloning, and SUDS relay ships. Nearly sixteen million torch ships and light attack craft.

Over eighteen billion crew members on the ship.

And twenty-two billion ground combat troops.

Complete radio silence.

The Xenocide Event happened and they just dropped.

There was some record, but when the Hypercom Wave went down, well, now we don't know where they went.

We lost them in the Long Dark.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

That's not good.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Well, it's not good for somebody, but for us, it doesn't really matter.

The Terrans are gone.

Those ships are just out there somewhere.

Well, that and the logistics bases they were building.

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AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

Define... logistics base.

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

You know. Resupply areas. Training areas.

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AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

And...

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

And...

well...

Ship building yards. Manufacturing centers. Fortified systems.

You know, the kind of stuff you build when you're building toward heavy enemy territory.

We'd already surrounded the Lanaktallan systems, completely englobed them.

The Thirty-Eighth Terra-Sol Military Expeditionary Force was supposed to completely crush them.

We know they had built almost forty logistic system infrastructures.

They didn't check in after the Xenocide Event.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

You mean to tell me that Terra-Sol sent what looks like one of the largest military forces outside the Lanaktallan Unified Military Council, into the Long Dark, with orders to build logistics systems in order to leapfrog through the Long Dark...

And you LOST them?

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

It looks like it.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

That... doesn't bode well.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Well, to be honest, right now it's a problem for another day.

Most of them more than likely have a high probability of possibly being nothing more than dead systems populated and crewed by the dead.

Just dead systems full of junk.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

With what we know about Terrans, do you believe that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Well, yeah.

I mean, it's going to be a problem for someone, someday, but the surveys of the Long Dark show that hardly anyone is further along than the combustion engine. There's a few that have radio, but pretty much once you got radio out in the Long Dark, the Precursor Autonomous War Machines showed up and harvested you.

We'll get around to clearing all that Terran junk left behind as soon as we get a handle on all of this havoc the other star nations are causing.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

It just seems kind of risky.

We were just talking about how star nations are taking back Full Overdrive and Black Cauldron and MB Dyson Protocol infected hardware and people back and losing entire planets and now you're saying that an unknown amount of logistic bases, including cloning, are in the Long Dark.

And we shouldn't worry about it?

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Not unknown.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

How many?

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Just around seventy five along the primary string of pearls. There are nine major branches, each with about a dozen systems off of it.

Not many.

They were only a third of the way through their logistics base construction when the Terran Xenocide Attack happened.

It wiped out the Terran Logistics Services as well as the Terra-Sol Military Services.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

LANAKTALLAN GALLOPING FIELDS OF GREAT THOUGHT WITH MORE PIXELS AND NOW SASH AWARDS THAT ARE REALLY COOL AND IMPRESSIVE

Waaaait.

Was that primary military force the one building the logistics bases?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Don't be silly.

It was the Terran Logistics Services building the logistics lines.

The logistic lines were build to look like a cone, the narrow end toward Terran Space, the wide end terminating at the Lanaktallan Conflict Zone, with six contracting interior rings.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

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...

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

What happened to the Terran Logistics Services.

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

They died too.

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TUKNA'RN GESTALT OF RACIAL OPINIONS

That seems... non-optimal.

Do we know where any of this is?

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Well, not exactly.

I mean, things have been really busy and confused.

And, well, you know, TerraSol was the one who was keeping track of them. That was the Terra-Sol knockout punch.

It was... well... kinda not a full Confederate Armed Services force.

It was a joint services venture.

There were Confederate Armed Services observers to make sure they didn't violate any of the major warfare agreements, conventions, or treaties.

But... well... the Terrans, they were pretty upset over the Harmony Biowarfare Attacks.

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HAT WEARING AUNTIE

And angry Terrans tend to get a bit, well, breaky.

You know.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

So...

The Terrans sent a massive military fleet, millions of ships and soldiers and naval personnel, supported by a massive logistical force, into the Long Dark, to build bases to enable more military forces.

And then you all LOST IT?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Well, when you put it like that...

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Yeah. I mean, that sounds little rude.

I mean, not wrong, but rude.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Nice to see nothing's changed in 8,000 years.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

This is going to bite us all on the ass, you just watch.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---