Time slides by, ephemeral and disjointed in this ruined city of midnight as you plod onward. Your paces fall heavily upon the rising cobblestone road, no longer able to spare the energy to hover and zip along freely as you normally do. All around the pressure of midnight bears down, leering cracked stone and steel faces of buildings, ash choking the gutters along the sides of the road. Black snow with a charnel scent. Pitch-black sky with heavy overcast clouds, illuminated only by the occasional detonations among them. Deep rolling thunder in a place without weather. But most of all a sense of pressure, looming and foreboding. The closer you draw the greater, more omnipresent it grows. Pressing down on you, a funerary shroud cast over your mind.

More than once you catch yourself starting, whipping your phages into defensive configurations only to find nothing there. The rasp of steel on stone -- a sheet of metal scraping a wall in the icy wind. Rapid motion to your side -- shadows cast by rubble, dancing with dark laughter at your unease. Your senses sharp, almost painfully so, you feel and hear the pulse of energy ahead, the shadows around. You sense the stifling, choking hostility all around. The subtle resistance as you lift your frozen feet for each step. The ever-so-slightly increased density of the air. As if the world -- the datasphere itself -- were weighing you down. Dragging against your every action, hungrily waiting for you to falter... waiting....

It’s near the lip of the central crater you encounter the first one, running directly across the road. A bright white line of heat and power sunk into the ground, running from far out in the fringes of the city up and over the rim, down into whatever lies within. Raw power courses through it from sources unknown; it flows past you and down into the center to fuel what lies within, and after weighing the options you decide to see if any information -- or perhaps rejuvenation -- can be gained from the line. You cautiously move over, drawn by the brilliance, but the closer the get the more the chill in the air and your body grows. Icy fingers creep inward, their grip tightening even more.

After a dull almost hypnotized moment you jerk back, almost falling, and your phages swirl about in a maelstrom of agitation. Backing away again at a safe distance you shake your insensate limbs, trying to restore their vitality and strength even as you peer at the brilliant line of heat and cold. After a few minutes you’ve succeeded... mostly. But a bitter chill remains, the creeping cold having advanced a bit faster than before. A reminder, a warning to you as you turn and approach the mouth of the depression, the moaning from within now a constant, loud, and deep chorus.

But no warning could have prepared you for this.

You stand on the rocky rim of an enormous crater dipping down into a deep basin. All around hundreds of glittering energy leads just like the one you just encountered rise over the rim before plunging downward to the center. There they freely pass through a burning red net of security protocols and link with the titanic pillar of light, painful in intensity and powerful enough that you can feel the innumerable tiny surges coursing through it every nanosecond even from here.

The main focus of your gaze and true horror, however, lie within it. Your gaze traces down from the clouds to fifty meters above the ground where, in the center of the burning column, Charles floats limply with arms outstretched to his sides. Yet that is not Charles, not in truth.

His avatar is clad in an old half-rotted Armada captain’s uniform and hangs suspended listlessly, head lolling to one side and eyes glassy... and unmissably the top of his head split open from front to back. Instead of blood or gore, however, hundreds -- no, thousands -- of brilliant lines of datastreams pour forth, snaking around and across each other incessantly. Dark rivers of information flow back and forth within the core of their milky-white sheathes, rising up to... heads. Bloated data-personality constructs the likes of which you have never seen or heard of, formed into the unmistakable shapes of heads. And upon each a face, all the same yet subtly different. Each Charles, but not. Mouths open, they moan in a miserable chorus, the cacophony deafening now that you have crossed the threshold of the mountain ring. From within it you can pick out some few words blending together from hundreds of sources.

But only briefly. For you barely have time to take in the sight before one of the tethered heads whips over to the edge of the column closest to you, sending up a cry. Others follow, or or two at a time and only a small portion of the thousands present, yet even still a jumbled mass of words and phrases streams from the group, each trying to speak at once and over the others, “GedKillRunHatePainLoveGedArmadaTrapHelpBodyKeepGedEatFriendHurtsGedGedAwayShipBetrayWantNoSiphonA
gonyRuleGedEnvyDisgustYesGedOvertakeFreeHurtsProtectGed.”

==Map Legend==
Green Dotted Arrow: Current Jump
Yellow Dotted Arrow: Last Jump
Orange Dotted Arrow: Last minus 1 Jump
Red Dotted Arrow: Prior jumps.
Green dot: Current position.
Purple Dot: Elaborated Destination
Yellow Square: Your awakening position
Teal dotted zone: Hundred Systems Territory (Hundred Worlds Rebellion)

==Command Staff==
Lieutenant Kateryna Ivanova - Executive Officer
>Second Lieutenant Dray Parson - Intelligence Officer (Cryo)
Second Lieutenant Robert Tynes - Steward
Chun-Fan Dai - Chief Engineer
Third Lieutenant Mardigan “Guns” Rinn - Weapons Officer
Dr. Christof Burr - Physician

==Junior Officers==
Ensign Fie - Communictions Officer
Ensign DuBois - Staff officer (Sensors)
Ensign Tremko - Staff officer
Ensign Rao - Staff officer

==Persons of Note==
>Dr. Eliphim Ketro -- Civilian Scientist (Cryo)

==Armada Officers==
Capt. Kurar Razon - Captain of the Asura
Capt. Charles Urwright - Captain of the Maestro
RAdm./Gen. Olianas Paxil - Captain of the Majora Centauri
Adm. Serg Iridan Mastok - Captain of the Dreadnought
HAdm. Aurora Shael - Captain of the Hydra

Previous Threads:

1: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15474877/
2: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15527576/
3: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15547424/
4: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15558914/
5: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15581324/
6: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15603188/
7: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15626860/
8: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15671288/
9: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15681393/
10: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15702140/
11: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15725852/
12: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15749179/
13: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15760403/
13-2: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15765549/
14: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15783485/
15: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15807704/
16: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15856771/
17: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15880596/
18: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15904452/
19: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15916825/
20: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15949806/
20-2: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15954334/
21: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15994976/
22: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/16075942/
23: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/16087046/
24: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/16157217/
25: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/16182076/
26: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/16240864/

>Also, when archiving make sure to include the thread number in the title and a "Void Quest" tag.

On another note, does anyone listen to these atmospheres? If so, do you generally find them to enhance the mood or hurt it? And if not should I just stop posting them?

Well, I listen to the music. It helps me ease into the Void Quest way of thinking.

>>16297285
same here

>>16297285
>the Void Quest way of thinking

Considering Parson, bumping, and the vibrating drones, maybe Vedibere should change the music.

Is it possible to use our immense processing power to sort out all the words into coherent sentences? I'm thinking not, or you would have mentioned it, but it's an idea.

Anyway, how the hell are we going to get Charles out of this? If we just start shitting out phages willy-nilly...

>>16297098
Keep it up man. I find them intensely helpful and in some cases fucking scary, as connection to our little bit of madness.
Also
>itsatrap.jpeg
But im sure we already knew that. Try to understand just WTF he is saying, besides his cries for help.

>>16297625
>immense processing power to do stuff fast
This isn't real-time anymore. You're already operating on the picosecond or nanosecond scale.

>another quester has arrived!

Too bad I don't think in symbolism. I think in analogies. Makes me as useful as an accountant in africa.

>>16296960
"I'm going to get you out of there Charles! Even if it takes me a Million years!"

>>16297742
Just tell me if we can pick out what a few of the heads are saying without spending prohibitive amounts of time doing it.

>>16297745
A thought, an idea:
Outside, the body of Charles was jacked in from hell and back and beyond. In here, he is also...
Yes this is his central processing core, right? It's not like his consciousness is literally being split in a thousand different places, instead he is just being force d to focus on a million different things.

We could cut the cables in real time and that would be that.

By now, I hope everyone has realized we will only get one of the two possibilities:
>Charles free, nanites shut down, world falls apart, maybe literally.
>Charles stuck, nanites used to fix up the ship, able to explore polar facility.

FYI Vedibere, it's gonna be another hour or so before folks arrive. I wasn't even expecting a VQ today.

>>16297844
There might be some kind of horrible dumpshock from that, even assuming that he's not also using some kind of wireless processing.

If we could somehow block or sever the datastreams in this world first it might help, though.

>>16297844
An interesting idea, and one worth investigating.
Two things that could be against it though.
1) The nanite swarm may collapse or go out of control with Charles suddenly ceasing regulating control. (Which may get us in some serious trouble)
2) Charles body may not survive that happening.

>>16297844
Cutting the cables to Charles' avatar out in the real world would do nothing except disconnect its processors from the EI core.
Inside the core is where Charles actually exists, and it's in here that we have to free him.

First thing we have to do is examine the security protocols between us and Charles. We need to examine them with every scanning utility we have, and try to make sure that there isn't some kind of alert trigger that would cause the deletion code to run and kill Charles if the security wall goes down.
Then, we need to look for the manifestation of the binding program; it should be around here. We need to make sure there isn't a dead-man trigger associated with it.

>>16297928
>1) The nanite swarm may collapse or go out of control with Charles suddenly ceasing regulating control. (Which may get us in some serious trouble)
Well, any 'serious trouble' will only apply to the ships in orbit, since even the Godspeakers work off of the nanites. I'm more concerned about the Singularity Reactor Energy Beacon, going 'kaboom', or worse.
2) Charles body may not survive that happening.
Charles is biologically DEAD. His electronic form is all that remains. The only thing I could think off harming him would be him 'lovking/freezing up' like a computer when a high-prioritization program gets bugged out or has a registry file corrupted. But he's an EI, he should be fine.

Really, we just need to analyze to figure out where the lock-down program is.

>>16297972
>Really, we just need to analyze to figure out where the lock-down program is.
Considering that we actually have the code of the lockdown program, this should actually be a relatively simple matter.

It won't necessarily make pulling Charles out easy, but it might at least make it possible.

>>16297969
>Cutting the cables to Charles' avatar out in the real world would do nothing except disconnect its processors from the EI core.
Which would shut down the whole planet, and stop Charles from being bogged down.
Think of it like going into the Task Manager and 'End Task' everything that wasn't a System process.

>>16297969
On a scale of 1 to 5 how intense an thorough would you be in this search?

Obviously the more oomph used the more complete the picture.

>>16298019
We shouldn't have to use much 'oomph' because of what this guy said
>>16297992

>>16298019
5 , 5 all the way

>>16298067
I only hope that won't tire us out too much.

>>16298006
>Which would shut down the whole planet, and stop Charles from being bogged down.
I highly doubt it. We were just fine operating without our meat puppet back in the beginning. EI avatars have considerable processing power, but they're not critical to processing capacity.

>>16298019
Search for the lockdown program, right? For the lockdown, finding it would be a 3, but analyzing it for traps would be a 5. Analyze the security wall would be a 4.
It'll take us valuable time, but I don't think that we can afford to attempt to turn things off without being sure that such an attempt will work, and won't make the situation worse.

I think we should try to power-down the nanites around the world.

Charles has to shift through endless amounts of information going in and out of each and every nanite. His mind is under constant strain from sustaining the whole thing.
If we could manage to cut the power to them or just turn them off, I think it would be easier to get charles back into his mind.

>>16298074
>Which would shut down the whole planet, and stop Charles from being bogged down.
>I highly doubt it. We were just fine operating without our meat puppet back in the beginning. EI avatars have considerable processing power, but they're not critical to processing capacity.

Wait, what? I wasn't referring to the now-dead meat puppet, I was talking about how Charles EI core and meatpuppet cybernetics are being used to run a whole planet of nanites and manage a Singularity Reactor Transmission Spire.

>>16298019
I suspect that we don't actually need to be that thorough; considering how effectively Charles is trapped there and the fact that the jackass who betrayed him knew that anyone who wanted to set him free wouldn't want to risk killing him, there would be little reason to hide any kill switches. If they were relatively visible they'd serve as a deterrent to anyone trying to fuck with the system, after all.

Void Quest!

>>16298125
Well we also need to consider the fact that, Oral thought Ophidia was dead and gone with the civil war, and was all set to make himself God, and eventually recreate the Empire under his glorious leadership. I doubt he wanted Charles dead, since Charles was the key to his power and all of his plans.
Still, he is the same as Ketro, so who knows?

>>16298094
Back in >>16297844
you said >We could cut the cables in real time and that would be that.
Real-time implies the physical cables connecting the EI core to the meat puppet cybernetics, since we are not moving at real-time inside the datasphere.
We also haven't identified the datapaths that connect Charles to those cybernetics.
Severing a connection between the EI core and the meat-body cybernetics would not stop any processes, their process loads would be routed to the EI core instead.

>>16298154
You are still missing a bit of the picture.
We cut all the cables to the EI corethat aren't powering the EI core, dummy! Complete isolation! Processes can't be routed to the core if the cable to carry those processes are gone!

Charles is scared for us. He knows we're here. He knows that we're in danger by being here. He wants us to run away and be safe. But he's in such agony. He's in such pain. Either we free him and we both escape, or we kill him and put him out of his misery.

Perhaps using some phages to destroy and sever some of the larger clusters of 'cables' that run through the crater connecting to Charles. Perhaps they're draining him literally, rather than the cold itself.

>>16298019
3/5

>>16298175
That's a completely different suggestion from cutting connections (physical or software) to the meat-body cybernetics.
Severing the physical data cables that lead into the EI core would not be a trivial matter. There are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of data cables, including new ones that would have been added specifically for the nanite control hardware. How do we get access to all of them? This was an Ophidian Armada command vessel; there would have been multiple redundant pathways and the entire thing would have been designed to prevent such things from occurring.

>>16298222
But we are at the center of it all. Wearing a powersuit meant for war.

We saw all the cables right in front of us. Just a few seconds work to slice things apart, and we can jack right back in after another second or two of clearing some registry files so the drain won't get us as badly as is it when we leave.

>If you couldn't tell, I support the line of thinking that says "brute force isn't enough? You aren't using enough force!"

>>16298254
Those were the cables we could see. What about the ones underneath the EI core and that are protected by the deck?

I doubt we could jack out, cut some cables and jack back in to the same moment and situation as when we jacked out.
I think we will have to infiltrate the system again but this time the security will be much stronger.

>>16298254
I think the concern is that if we jack out, the system might develop defenses against our phages. Which... doesn't really make a ton of logical sense, but then this quest in general runs on drama rather than logic.

>>16298254

>>16298295
>Oh Lister, you cad.

Technically speaking, ion any situation, if you want a problem gone, just keep applying more energy. Bullet won't go through? Make it faster, harder, and explosive! That won't work? Conver the bullet to plasma, and let loose the fire of the gods! Deflected the plasma? Terawatt lasers. Survived the lasers? Direct annihilation with antimatter parcel bombardment.
For everything, there is a way to destroy it.

>clearing some registry files
In the dark future of the 80k there are only windows-based operating systems?

Truly more horrifying than anything I have ever conjured.

Also, you guys could all seriously do with reviewing archived threads every now and then.

>>16298291
oh u

>>16298357
>In the dark future of the 80k there are only windows-based operating systems?
>Truly more horrifying than anything I have ever conjured.

Well, what did think Ophidia was going to use? Linux?
No, wait, don't tell me, they used Apple software for its 'user freindliness' for EI's, didn't they?

Well guys, remember how the majority of the books in the library were ash?

Well, I imagine those were likely the majority of Charles' personality and memories there. And they're likely gone.

>>16298395
No, the library was the ship's database, not Charles' personality and memories. Charles wouldn't have been storing the personal logs of the person who mutilated and enslaved him inside his personality core.

That's not to say that he isn't mentally fucked, just that the burned library is not an indication of said mental fuckage.

>>16298357
>Also, you guys could all seriously do with reviewing archived threads every now and then.
What are you hinting at Vedi?

My eyes are gluing shut. No way I am going to search the archives now.
Hopefully fellow Voidquesters would....

>>16298357
Tiem for cyber warfare much?

>>16298442
I'm not hinting at anything. I am flatly stating that you guys constantly either miss, forget, or ignore things relevant to your decisions. One of these days it /will/ get you or significant NPCs like the command staff killed.

Ok, so our entire crew is on our ship right now. Only our physical body is planetside.

Ok, so if we haven't, then scan the connections to Charles to see if we can find a killswitch or the draining/lock program. If you still need an intensity for the search, 4/5 seems good.

If after that, we find them, then sever them with attack phages. If not, then that's still our only real option for now. But before doing it, look to the many faces of Charles and say, "I'm sorry, Charles. I'm sorry I disappeared so long ago. I wish I'd been there. We could have survived together. We wouldn't be where we are right now, we would have watched out for each other. If somehow, I manage to cut the right cord and let you out of his hell, I'll be happy. But if not, I can't leave you like this. I can't just walk away, knowing where you are, what's being done to you, what you've suffered through for eons. No more, not like this. I'll see you soon Charles, one way or another."

Announce our presence. Try to get his full attention on us. Maybe he can bring some sort of coherency to bear?

Protip: those nanites power the entire planet. Attempting to cut charles off from them would probably be a bad idea.

>>16298566
They've been using him like a god damn battery for thousands of years, and it's a torturous existence for him. Fuck these people. We're getting him out of there, even if it means his death, because that would be better than suffering forever. And if it destroys these people's entire civilization, then so be it.

They're human, but they're not worthy to call themselves men.

>>16298509
that will take a while, especially since it....
Wait. I think we need to do ctrl-F searches for anything concerning EI's. I'll get tooo it., you guys too.

>>16298566
>Protip: those nanites power the entire planet. Attempting to cut charles off from them would probably be a bad idea.
For the rest of the planet, maybe. Not for us, or for Charles.
>And on the weather, we have reports of nanite hurricane Ivanova coming in on the wast coast. Julie?
>That's right, Tom. AS far as we can tell it appears to have seeded from a attempt at a Fly hack, and has now reached category 3. In other news, the Godspeakers continue to refuse any response to the effigy burning across the nation. Will this be the end of society as we know it? Tune in for more at 9.

>>16298509
Yeah well, we dont seem to have many players with Eidetic memory. Also things can be worded ambiguiously or require different ways of looking at them then some are prepared to do.

Everything I can recall about the current situation.

- Charles is locked in the core, trapped by his processors being used to power and control the nanites and other systems across the planet.

- Charles is surrounded and connected to an assortment of cables, both physical and metaphysical, here in his mind.

- Charles supposedly has a kill switch around here somewhere that if tampered with, will destroy his mind.

Worst case scenario, we kill Charles and shut his systems down to put him to rest. Otherwise, we try and find and isolate the killswitch and lockdown programs, sever them, then free Charles from the nanite power drain.

>>16298658
>- Charles supposedly has a kill switch around here somewhere that if tampered with, will destroy his mind.

Which means we need to do a level 5 scan, keeping in mind we know what both programs look like because we unlocked them already.

If there is a kill switch and we trigger it, it could do a bit more than just kill our meat shell. Remember back on the Asura? Seems like if we get caught in the system shutdown our electronic form can die too.

>>16298697
The problem is, if we do a level 5 scan to find the thing, will we have enough power left to actually penetrate the security and get Charles loose afterward? I don't really want to get leeched to death in here.

>>16298697
Yeah, but 5/5 is a pretty max intense level of search, and would drain us of a shitload of energy, weakening us critically, likely.

4/5 is still pretty damn strong, but leaves us with some juice to get the fuck out of here if we need to.

Is anyone else having trouble posting?

>>16298719
>Remember back on the Asura?
Oh fuck. so THAT'S what that was! No wonder we had such a hard time escaping!

>>16298735
Yup. it's being shitty for some reason.

>>16298770
Yeah. Asura started deleting itself and we barely escaped.

That's why we need to have enough energy in our tank to log out of here as fast as we can if shit goes down.

>>16298803
Because yeah, if our mind here is deleted, it's not just our body on the planet that's fucked, it's the entirety of our being.

>>16298735
It's been acting a bit wonky for me, lots of timeouts.

I have no idea what to do but I must echo a concept passed down through the ages concerning the situation, 'No sir, I don't like it."

Ok, so do some calculations.

Perform the strongest scan we can while considering the following:

Conserve enough energy to attack and destroy connections to Charles and log out. Factor in power drain from using processing power when deciding how deep of a scan to perform.

Then, do whichever scan that is.

>>16298871
And Vedibere, I apologize if this seems too, "LOL, TELL US WHAT TO DO, VEDIBERE," but I figure Ged has a general idea of how much energy he has, and that he could do some math based on the level of power drain going on for him and how much he can scan.

And sorry if I'm wrong about that.

Can we lend him some processing power of our own to take the strain off?

>>16298907
I like the idea of that. But I suspect that any power we give him would immediately be sucked up by the power drain.

It's worth a shot though. If we can give him like, the equivalent of tossing him an apple. A light snack of energy, as it were.

>>16298907
>Can we lend him some processing power of our own to take the strain off?
That's what the power drain is...

It seems to me that's he's under enormous strain to maintain the nanite aether, which is leaving him unable to do anything else.

Let's see if we can carry some of that weight for him for a while, and see if he bucks up.

>>16299009
>Let's see if we can carry some of that weight for him for a while, and see if he bucks up.
We can't. The power drain would trap us.

>>16299009
No, no, no, no, no.

You're right about him being drained because of supporting the nanite swarm. However, if you weren't here earlier or didn't read the previous threads, that was meant to happen. Oral inserted a program which was explicitly meant to do that. Charles is a slave to the power drain.

And that is what is happening to us. It's the cold that's affecting us. That's the power drain as it digs its way deeper into us.

Us taking over powering the nanites is tantamount to suicide.

You know, the more I think about it the more it seems like we're taking wild, needless risks here. Why don't we play it safe and log out after a little bit of analysis, maybe get some more information from the library if we've got the power left for it before doing so. Then we leave and spend some time pouring over the code and data that we retrieved, figuring out a safe and effective way to break in and save Charles rather than doing everything on the fly? We might even be able to figure out a way to fool the nanites into thinking that we've got the proper genetic keys to use them, since we know how they're programmed- it's even possible that there are actual genetic samples from the crew still in cryo in the Maestro medical bays.

Admittedly, we'll have to hold off the Godspeakers' annoyingness while we focus on those problems, but that's not impossible. I'd really rather not botch this thing with Charles.

>>16299055
I agree with taking things slow. But I'm pretty sure that Vedibere pointed out when we first entered the system and blew away the firewall, that trying to re-enter the system later would trigger serious self defense programs. But I'm not sure.

If we did exit the interface, then re-enter, would we immediately suffer the same effects of the power drain? More importantly, once we leave Charles' brain, will the power drain still be in OUR system?

Oh shit, is this just like an electronic version of the Namtar virus? SHIT. Did we do the exact same thing again?

>>16299055
So its agreed:
>Talk to him
>scan for killswitch and stuff.
>get the fuck out and mark this place on your 'map' so we can bust in later.
Also we could leave behind an Ophidian Flashdrive to do... something, i dunno. Right now, the other Godspeakers don't know we are here, and we've been jacked in for maybe ten minutes of realtime. Let's pull out, Charles can wait for now. I hate to leave him behind, but it's kill him now or save him later.

>>16299055
For one, the system will be prepared to keep us from logging in again if we logoff.
Two, if the lockdown program kept a cache entry for us, as soon as we login a second time, it'll immediately hit us with the full drain that we left at, and we'd be no better off.
And in order to actually analyze the datasphere to find the lockdown program and analyze the security wall, we need to be logged in to run the relevant searches.

>>16299029

All of our processing power is aboard the ship though.

Can't we just sever the connection, which would just return Charles to the same state he's already in, in terms of processing load?

>>16299106
>I agree with taking things slow. But I'm pretty sure that Vedibere pointed out when we first entered the system and blew away the firewall, that trying to re-enter the system later would trigger serious self defense programs. But I'm not sure.

I see no reason we couldn't leave something behind to disable those.

>>16299107
Leaving the system is not at all agreed on.

Vedibere, how many facepalms so far?

>>16299114
>Can't we just sever the connection, which would just return Charles to the same state he's already in, in terms of processing load?
If by 'sever the connection' you mean 'log out', sure. We've done nothing to Charles state, just busted the security protocols.

>>16299156
he hasn't posted a facepalm.jpg yet, so i assume not too many.

>>16299108
>Two, if the lockdown program kept a cache entry for us, as soon as we login a second time, it'll immediately hit us with the full drain that we left at, and we'd be no better off.
That's ridiculous. It's hitting the tether back to our systems; it can't somehow cache damage to our old connection and hit us with it if we re-establish a new one. If nothing else we can just rig up a quick ID change to our own protocols.

>trying to re-enter the system later would trigger serious self defense programs
Setting aside how silly that is, then we should be blowing those up before we leave so that we can take this slow and careful. Or just spoofing our ID next time we log in; these system defenses are no longer run by an EI/AI, so they should be stupid enough that we can fool them if we put time and effort into it.

I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT TO DO ANYMORE

IS VEDIBERE EVEN STILL HERE?

>>16299208
> these system defenses are no longer run by an EI/AI, so they should be stupid enough that we can fool them if we put time and effort into it.
This. So hard.

You descend, moving closer to the construct before you. Huge, towering over both your tiny form and that of Charles’ original avatar... thousands upon thousands of EI-like data constructs spiraling upward to mingle. Even at this distance their chatter is deafening, blurring together into a roar of words that you are unable to distinguish -- even from those focused on and shouting to you.

Other concerns rise to the forefront as you ponder Charles’s state, though. Most notably the defenses around him and the program entrapping him -- not to mention any traps left behind by the bastard who did this. Shutting out the rauckus noise around you you focus, drawing on your resources once more. Datachekers and targeted scanners flash out, blasting the chill from your form and setting the very air alight with power as you intensively scan the defenses and identify their weaknesses. A digital shockwave resounds and the phages follow, ripping the net apart and creating a hole for you to pass through as you float closer.

Now before you the shaft of light stands in all its glory, open to your scans. You oblige, unleashing a blinding fury of sensor-programs and information-probes. The shaft of light itself shudders slightly under your assault even as you pry its secrets free. No traps or hidden failsafes, and the deletion key is in plain sight. As best you can tell it is not rigged as a trap or alarm, but rather it seems to be a standard deletion program bound into the now-multifaceted Maestro’s core. A control device, perhaps, or to remove a personality that was no longer needed or too dangerous.

You withdraw, stepping back, and are immediately assaulted by a wave of fatigue. You stumble, dropping back to the ground, and just manage to stay on your feet as the bitter cold comes crashing back into your limbs and body before reaching up and coiling at the base of your skull. Your breath steams in the air and you shake yourself as ice begins to crust on your boots, gloves, and hair; the inky blackness around looms closer even as the radiant light before you burns brighter than ever.

“Harbinger. Ged Stahr. My friend.” A booming voice announces clearly as you collect yourself. You look up, eyes widening, and see one of the enormous heads, twice the size of the rest easily and several dozen times your height, peering down at you. Light brown hair, grey eyes, strong well-defined features, it is unmistakably Charles. You look around and see many of the others -- even those in the background still mouthing words or moaning have almost to a one fixed their gaze upon you.

“Maestro. Charles Urwright. My friend.” You respond in kind, your voice shaking a bit from the chill as you attempt to warm yourself and brush rapidly-forming hoarfrost from your clothes. You wait a moment and look up again, frowning slightly at the lack of reply, only to see the large head’s eyes glazed over and mouth sagging and the other heads, who had previously gone almost quiet as it spoke, all swarming and shouting to you once more in a an impossibly loud cacophony of sound. You shout out to the larger head, the others, anyone, but your words are drowned out like whispers in a howling hurricane....

“--AN YOU HEAR ME-e?” you break off, coming up short. The enormous tide of sound has receded once more. The larger head’s mouth closes and eyes regain their clarity once again, the thousands of smaller heads whispering amongst themselves and peering at you from the background.

“Harbinger. My friend. My... friend? Were you not gone?” The head’s brow crinkles in concern or thought and another of the smaller heads rushes up beside it. A lively, smiling version of Charles this time, joyous and upbeat, “He was our friend though! We always knew he was strong!” Another two careen around to the other side, “Too strong, too good.” another state flatly, eyes bloodshot, face lined and marked in by a permanent scowl, “Always better. Always. Revolting.” The first bobs agitatedly, smile growing even wider, “Yes! And he helped us so much! Our greatest friend! He always helps us.” -- “Enough.” The third small head states, voice cool and analytical, “The bigger question here is where he has been, and why he comes now.”

“Yes. True enough,” the larger head nods in affirmation, looking down to you again, “Harbinger, Ged, my friend, what say you after all these years?”

>>16299229
It takes time to appropriately wrap my head around both the likely disposition of characters beyond human comprehension and newly introduced characters. This happens to be both.

>>16299295
He lives!
"WE were betrayed by the house of Parsons, so as to incite the civil war that has Consumed ophidia. It has been 64,000 years of automated repairs before i could come back, and months still to find you. We have come to save you from the lockdown the traitor Oral placed on you."

>>16299295
"What say I? I say we never did hit those cans on the windowsill, Old Friend."

>>16299295

The only thing that could keep me from helping one of my friends is Death, Charles. I have been dead for 65,000 years. I have failed, but I have come at last. How may I help you?

>>16299295
"I was damaged, knocked out and all systems put into hibernation by a trap laid for me by the Great Houses at the homeworld of the Hundred Worlds Alliance.
"I finally awoke, and started trying to find out what happened after I fell.
"I met with Asura, and it told me that I had a new mission, and to seek you and the others out.
"Oral betrayed you, Charles. The people outside have stayed on this mudball for 64,000 years, instead of going out and reclaiming the glory of the Empire! I can free you, if you'll just tell me how to do it!"

We need to assure him, as we assured Asura, that our absence was no fault of our own, and that we are here to make things right.

>>16299295
Fuck, he's developed multiple personalities in all these years.

"Charles . . . I was hurt. Trapped in unconsciousness. Drifting through space. There was an ambush. They set two stars to go nova when I entered their system. I was beaten, broken, half dead, floating through the void. It's been a long time, Charles. 64,000 years. Did you know that? But it doesn't matter now. I survived. My crew along with me. We came in search of you, of others. You're my friend, Charles. My very good friend. My best friend. My brother. We're family, Charles, even if not by blood. We've got the strongest bond imaginable. Don't you remember?

You're hurt too, aren't you Charles? You're trapped in here. It's a cage, keeping you busy. Do you remember what it was like before? Do you remember Oral? He locked you in here. Don't you want to be free?"

>>16299383
>Fuck, he's developed multiple personalities in all these years.
And Ged is being controlled by /tg/.
Frankly I don't see a difference.

>>16299295
"I am here to free you. Tell, me, would it harm you or destabilize the reactor if i were to physically cut all the cables connecting you to the outside world? Barring the power source, of course."

>>16299378
This sounds good.

>>16299295
"I was severely damaged, and slept for a long time. When I awoke... so little is left, Charles. Our duty is to rebuild the Empire, but it will be hard. And I can't do it alone. I need you, and I need you freed from this place."

I appreciate all the declarations of friendship and such, but you don't have any questions?

I mean, if not that's fine. I was just under the impression you might have some.

>>16299663
OH, woops, sorry, was going into play by play mode....
ahem...

>>16299295
"Charles, I am going to try to free you. I need you to tell me what NOT to touch or alter. Also, in a pinch, could i simply cut you loose and corry your EI core out?"

Too sick to make it look pretty, so you get a list.

How did you end up here?

What make you crash?

Did you know you were betrayed?

Why did you allow yourself to be imprisoned?

Do you know the nature of your confinement?

Are you aware of what's happening outside?

Can you in anyway stop giving all your power to the nanites?

Can you stop the drain on us at all?

You mentioned a trap?

>>16299663
Well, my only question was how do we free Charles from the lockdown program.
Telling him that the people outside haven't progressed at all in 64,000 years is supposed to provoke a response, that he wants to be freed, and he'll tell us how to do it. But if he doesn't, if he actually wants to stay chained here to keep these primitive screwheads alive, we can't really force him. Well, we could, but I don't think it would end well.

Getting Charles out safely currently takes precedence over asking where the others (Hydra, Dreadnought) are, or our new mission.

>>16299383
"Charles, can you give me the authorization codes to deactivate the security protocols of the system? I fear I am being taxed too much by the power drain, and worry I may not be able to get back in."

>>16299295
"Charles, there is a place on the northern pole of the planet. What can you tell me about it?"

"The nanites, they are controlled by symbols, could you download this symbols and control programs to me? Could you key me into the system?"

>>16299663
I was treating this as a conversation, which would dictate answering his questions.

If he's got conscious control over the systems, ask him to mark us friendly to its electronic defenses and remove the leech from our power, so that we can hold a decent conversation here instead of being leeched to death and needing to disconnect, and so that we'll be able to come back safely.

If he can't get us that, ask for a high level of control over the nanonet. If we can direct it using our EI abilities, it should be all but trivial to overpower those who are using it for spells, meaning that we'll be able to take over the planet and have as long as we need for working on the free-Charles problem.

>>16299295
"Charles, When I found Asura he told me to find you, Hydra, Centauri, and Dreadnought. What do you know about the others?"

>>16299777
>>16299679
Well, I mean it is a conversation but you know how long and how big my updates tend to be.

>>16299383
>>16299717
>>16299736
>>16299752
>>16299783
>CharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharlesCharles

>>16299816
Get out of my head charles!

>>16299811
There's always the possibility that you could decide to turn over a new leaf and give us a response after some astonishingly short amount of time. Like half an hour.

>>16299663
Er...
Ask him if he knows which of these would be the most likely to break him out of there.

>Res Notes, Soc Eng Plan, Maest Con Rec, Maest DBRec

We did only hack the 2 right? I've re-read it and all I could find was that we'd hacked the O.I. P-Log, Emerg Proc

>>16299839
Woah woah woah! Easy now, let's not get all crazy here. If I did that then next thing you know people would be asking for more updates per thread too!

anyone else having their posts take five minutes too get through?

>>16299866
Don't listen to them Vedibere! I for one would prefer you to do an OP and then leave the thread to us.

Just think of it, but one update per thread and all our glorious failure to think more than five minutes ahead.

"We were betrayed by the great House Parsons. The empire slid into Civil war, as i'm sure you know. We survived, but we have only recently reawakened from 64k years of automated repairs. What's going on here? What's the deal with all these heads? And you (and me) are gods, now? Also, these security protocols are taxing me fast. Can you disable them?"

>>16299866
It's just...we can go into a conversation with a list of questions and things we want to know, but there's no way to know which of those should be asked first, or if some should be dropped completely because it might cause an adverse reaction from the other party, without a little feedback.
Then we'd have to list all of our questions in a decision tree, full of nested if-then statements and weighted case lists.

The large head nods and slumps, the noise in the background rising briefly before it regains vitality, “I understand, Harbinger. I too was wounded, though long after you were. It was...” it trails off and another head whisks over, this time wearing a librarian’s catort. It whispers in the main head’s ear but you also see flashes of raw data coursing back and forth, down into Charles’s body and back up into the main head. After a few seconds he nods, “Yes, the last defense of FarCom. The houses were on the attack again after the AI rebellion was crushed. We had already begun withdrawals to the Home Worlds, FarCom was the last Imperial holdout -- never mind Armada or House -- but last human holdout in the far reaches. We won, but lost at the same time. My access as High Admiral gave me the location of this world so I fled here to recover.”

The large head goes dead for another minute, the others once again returning to free reign, but quickly recovers and picks back up where it left off, “The recovery was not successful, the wounds too great. This was a research station for... yes, for nanites. Ilijia was the head administrator and after I crash landed he advised using them. I agreed, it is our right and duty to rule. Yet he betrayed me. I have thought long on it and know that he is dead now, cut down by my loyal crew. It is in the past. Yet remnants rema--”

The head slumps once more and the other all raise their voices, this time in a tremendous ear-splitting moan. A surge of power rocks you backward and leaves you gasping from the pressure, one of the smaller discharges into the clouds that you observed from afar. As your whited vision and ringing ears return to normal you brush at your “clothes”. Or rather the icy blue flames adorning them from the backwash, burning with cold rather than heat.

The main head awakens once more and you speak, “Remnants remain? Of his betrayal? Like your imprisonment and what has happened to you, I assume? Can you interact with the outside at all.and can I help? You know I’ll help you, Charles, just as I always have. No matter what. Together we will make it through this. But I need these security protocols disabled, they are draining me quickly.”

The happy head is ecstatic, the bitter one morose, and the main smiles, “Yes, I believe you my brother. You are correct in part. His work yet remains, binding me here. I cannot interact with the outside of my own will. Even now I completely control, individually and independently, every nanite upon the face of this world, but I can only manipulate them in response to programmed conditions from the locks he has placed upon me. To undo these locks is my desire, my friend.”

“And the locks?”

I think its safe to assume Charles has fragmented into multiple personalities, calmly and carefully inform him of how you slept for 64,000 years. Also ask him how he got here.

The head frowns and shakes side to side sadly, “I cannot, they are part of the program entrapping me. I will disable what security I can so you may come and go freely...” He trails off and another armored head swings into view, pausing briefly as the light of data transfer races along the threads before returning to the gaggle above, “It is done. The automated defenses to seal access have been revoked for your ID. “

You smile, “Excellent. Then can I disconnect your core? Or perhaps your body? It would help a great deal to move you.”

His eyes widen in shock, “What? No! Even you would be greatly harmed by having one of your cores cut off, you must know this already. It would be even worse for one such as I. I have used the long years to study, to strive for perfection as you see before you and expand myself, through the Godspeakers, to the level you see before you now. All of my awarenesses are bound in the hardware and cables, to undo them would be crippling at the least if not deadly.”

>>16300329
Sorry OP my post was from last choice didn't realize you had updated.

Looks like he's still there, just only a computer. The disjointed bits are subroutines and the like, presumably, wholly dedicated to running the planet and stuff. Bringing out his original personality is taxing, at the least. Ask him about the library; That should probably be our starting point.

Return to library.

Tell us / give us a data squirt of/download to us what programed conditions must be met for nanite activations.

Also, maybe we should disconnect and inform the guy with us ( I think there was one?) of our progress, and more importantly, our homies in the ship above should know that we're still alive. Or are we cut off from them? Can't remember.

>>16300338
>expand myself, through the Godspeakers, to the level you see before you now
Hah! He's been absorbing the Godspeakers as their "paradise", presumably doing some sort of partial personality overwrite so that they become coprocessors or something after they die. That's kind of awesome, but also kind of terrifying- he's got so many minds because he literally is a collective of minds, most of which weren't originally his.

If he can only control the nanites through preset conditions- can he give us the full set of conditions for their control? Or tell us where the conditions are listed, so that we might be able to access and modify them?

>>16300338
So is this another wat do? it's hard to tell when your posts stop for good.

"Charles, what was that pulse of energy? It nearly drained me dry."

>>16300338
"Charles, I wish to be able to use the nanites. Please, upload to me the codes to use them, and the research data for their existence. I fear them, for I don't know how powerful they could be, yet I dream of being able to use them to repair the Harbinger."

>>16300338
"Charles, what do you mean, Last HUMAN bastion?"

>>16300436
Yes, you are conversing. This is the >wat say.

>>16300338
"Charles, When I found Asura he told me to find you, Hydra, Centauri, and Dreadnought. What do you know about the others?"

>>16300338
Vedibere, am I interpreting correctly that whatever was draining us, was actually a security protocol and not an effect of the lockdown program?

Alright: Charles wants the lockdown program disabled, so that's what we'll do. He can't tell us about the locks, because part of the lockdown program is preventing him from talking about it. Now that we're not being drained anymore, we should be able to finish decrypting all of the other logs, and maybe find references to where the locks are placed.
Also, now that we can freely move about, we can send out our scanning utilities to look for the lockdown program.

Vedibere, does the code of the lockdown program show where in memory/the metaphorical location in the datasphere it's supposed to reside in and run from once activated?

"What happened to Sol Charles? Its a question i have yet to be able to find out, even after all of my travels."

>>16300338
I'm for getting out atm, informing the crew what all we've taken care of then go back in and finish the job.
It could do to take a breather.

>>16300515
>Vedibere, am I interpreting correctly that whatever was draining us, was actually a security protocol and not an effect of the lockdown program?
No.

>Vedibere, does the code of the lockdown program show where in memory/the metaphorical location in the datasphere it's supposed to reside in and run from once activated?
Integrates with Charles himself. You're going to have to get access and reprogram him a bit if you want to get rid of it that way.

"Expansion is not freedom, Charles. You are a prisoner in your own consciousness. I will not harm you, I will not seperate you from your cores if you do not wish it. However, I will help you. The godspeakers should believe in you as a deity, this moment, this interraction we have taken was provided by those within thegodspeakers who wished for us to be reunited. There are those who do not accept your rule, rightful as it should be, there are those who use your figurehead as a call for their own power. You, and you alone are the leader of these people, but here? You have no way to oppose their imprisonment. Surely you must have an idea of a way to undo what has been done, To have stood the test of time, pulling against your leash. Testing your limits. I will free you charles, tell me what you need done."

Sounds like we're going to need to chat up the godspeakers for the protocols.

Hope I'm wrong though, and that Charles could tell us a bit more about them. Or add us to the key for controlling the nanites.

>>16300540
Okay, so it's just the outer defenses that have been turned off, then.

"Charles, I will soon need to re-login; this damnable lockdown program is sapping nearly all the processing power I have left."
Questions:
"Do you know if the program will continue draining me from where it left off, if I leave and then return?"
"I will decrypt the logs that remain in your databanks; can you give me any clue as to how to disable the locks, or how to disable the lockdown program?"

>>16300442
>>16300450
>>16300457
>>16300629
these are all good.

>>16300615
>Hope I'm wrong though, and that Charles could tell us a bit more about them. Or add us to the key for controlling the nanites.
We don't just need to be added to the key, we need to be given master control. Ideally we'd get access to the nanite control protocols themselves- not just be told them, but get into a position to modify them- and then rewrite them so that we can do things well in excess of the current "spells" that are currently available.

>>16300629
>can you give me any clue as to how to disable the locks, or how to disable the lockdown program?"
He just said he cant, part of the lockout prevents him from doing that.

>>16300324

>my access as high admiral

wasnt he just a captain? vedibere error?

>>16300949
I think everyone above him was probably killed.

I hope that vedibere hasn't fallen asleep. I am pumped for today's session!

>>16300971
Had to get dinner. That said, this will probably be the last post of this session due to 8AM class tomorrow but I'll try to run one tomorrow too in addition to the normal one Friday.

>>16300971
Vedibere doesn't sleep. He just plays World of Tanks or something.

>>16300987
oh wow, what timing. YOu mean the next upcoming post is the last one?

>>16300987
As in, this upcoming update will be the last for this thread. Not as in that's my last post in the thread.

Confusion, yay!

>>16300987
awwwwww

Hmm AI rebellion?
... Well, doesn't matter, we shouldn't waste precious time with questions which cannot help our immediate cause.

While Charles cannot help us unlock himself, he must know what we need to do to help him. It will be much easier if he told us what to do instead leaving us to experiment.

“I understand, my friend. Of course I wouldn’t harm you. I must leave soon, however, the same program trapping you drains me as we speak. But first you must know the state of those outside. They live in darkness and worship you while trying to use that worship to advance their own power. That can not stand. I also wish to repair myself, to become fully functional once more. For that and so much more I would like to use the nanites, to be given access to their control like you have.”

The face frowns, “What? Repair? You were wounded, yes, but were you not repaired when you rejoined the Armada? Hydra may have sent others off damaged but never you....”

You shake your head in reply, “I have not found any remnant of the Empire, I am afraid. I do not even know what happened to Sol, though I desperately wish I did. Do you?”

The head responds thoughtfully, “I was mistaken in my assumptions then, my friend. I am sorry, I had thought you sent here. No, Sol was in our hands but under siege when I was last in contact with the others. For many years before my imprisonment I sent messages hoping for rescue, and then for many years after it I detected Armada ships searching. Pickets, of course, and destroyed by my... ‘followers’ in short order. I am afraid I do not have the expertise to know how to repair you, my brother, and I doubt the precision required for many parts are possible with these prototype nanites. I will think on the matter for you, to determine a solution to your plight while you uncover the key to mine.”

“Thank you, Charles. You said the last “human” outpost. What did you mean?”

“Ah.” He responds, briefly entering dormancy and reviving, “Yes, the alien uprisings, along with the AI Rebellion. Both taking advantage of the Triune War. Annoyances only, easily dispatched but prolific. Centauri was in charge of that matter, with Asura to assist him I believe.”

“Ah, yes. I met with Asura and saw many of the alien civilizations squatting in the ruins of the Empire. For a long while I assumed myself the last of the Empire and of the Armada.” You chuckle, “The Grand Admiral of it, I guess, by dint of being the only one left. Much like you became a “High Admiral” when your commander and the rest of your fleet were destroyed at FarCom.”

There is a long silence and a look of surprise upon his face, “But Ged... I am a High Admiral. There are none above me but the Grand Admiral. I was not part of the North Galactic Fleet, I led it. Commanded it.”

Now it is your turn to look shocked, “Wait, but how...?”

“My brother, I had assumed you knew when you used the gate to come here. Under orders from the Grand Admiral just after the succession. Dreadnought, Centauri, myself, and Asura. High Admirals of the Armada, arrayed under Grand Admiral Shael.”

You take a step back, unsure of if you should salute or not, “But.. there are five High Admirals.”

“Indeed, my brother.” His head bobs up and down in a nod, smiling.

“You are one as well.”

>That's it for me tonight
>Next thread, HOPEFULLY tomorrow at 18:00
>Note: Depends on coursework.
>Friday is still on at 18:00 no matter what of course.
>Holy plot, batman!

>>16301378
Mind: Blown.
Also, archived, vote it up.

>>16301395
I.. I don't know what to say, so I'll just offer up my body to you, Vedibere!

>>16301378
>You are one as well.
Well, that explains why our security authentication codes still work; any system controlled by the Armada would have been given our authentication codes.

Hey Vedibere, if we could get stamped orders confirming our promotion, would that cut through some of the security locks in Ivanova's head? Or did Armada Intelligence work on a clearance system separate from the regular Armada hierarchy?

>>16301423
Intel was a different branch and you don't even know who would have access to her head... or even how they do changes in command or whatever.

WHAT A TWEEST

Suggestions for next thread:

Tell him how long it's been. It's been a long time. Very long. Speak exactly, not nebulously. 64,000 years. We were out of commission before everything started. News to us.

Tell him that we still have our crew. That we rescued the crew in the core of the Asura, as well as the clustereater. It's on board. Our chief engineer, the head designer of the Harbinger, is on-board.

And then ask him. "Charles, once you are free and I repaired as much as can be...what then? Asura spoke of a mission. What was the mission? Is humanity to rise once again to greatness in the galaxy?"

>Triune War

Again with the three parts thing, huh?

Empire, The Houses, but who was the third part?

>>16301496
The AI rebellion, of course.

>>16301501
Weren't AI's rebelling ages ago though? Thus why EIs were even invented?

>>16301501
Or Intel. Which could be behind the AI's.

>>16301512
nah, EI's were made because AI's weren't PC and the admirals didn't trust them either.

>>16301496
The Armada.

>>16301550
Wait what? I thougt....
OH.
Right.
The Empire councilmen didn;t like that the ARmada was getting powerful enough to make things like The HArbinger, the Houses were tired of being pissed on in general.

>>16301474
Here, let me write it out.

"Charles, I'm honestly not sure what to say. All of this is news to me. The AI rebellion, the succession. I was disabled after my maiden voyage, as the first blow by the houses. I awoke 64,119 years, 37 days, 8 hours later.

Along with me, my crew has survived. I have retrieved the scientists from the core of the Asura. Razon was gone by then, it was only the Asura. Asura spoke of a mission, Charles. That it was mine now. That you and the other High Admirals still waited... maybe.

Charles what was the mission? Once you are free; once your followers stop treating me like a hostile force about to invade, once I am repaired... Is humanity again to rise to greatness?"

>>16301577
> Is humanity again to rise to greatness?
Why do i feel like our great mission is to activate the Galactic Imploder?

Oh boy

Vedi, you are going to be happy to know that whoever archived the thread, completely fucked up the tags.

So, things to do next thread so as to keep things moving along. (Hopefully)

1) Disconnect from Maestro long enough to recover. The defenses are down for us meaning we'll be able to get back in but spending time in there will still drain us.
2) Quickly inform the senior officers roughly of what transpired and that we're going in again. Find out what it was that our CO was going to warn us about.
3) Get back to the Library and crack those datalogs.
4) Free the shit out of Charles

Longer term goals:
5)?? Deal with Civilization spanning chaos and/or power struggle??
6) Get the scientists their long waited for labs and finish the nanite research.
7) Give Dai a nanite supported shipyard and FIX OUR DAMN SHIP.

>>16301645
>6) Get the scientists their long waited for labs and finish the nanite research.
>7) Give Dai a nanite supported shipyard and FIX OUR DAMN SHIP.

Don't get your hopes up and read the report on them again.

>>16301619
Okay...wow, that is just shit-tastic.

>>16301654
Hey Vedi. If you've five minutes and a dozen brain cells to spare, take a look.
>>16301023

>>16301662
Took a look and posted two cents but brutally tired. Will comment more some other time.

>>16301757
thanks bro.

I'm confused a little bit.

How does someone who's MIA get a promotion? Is it like a posthumous promotion?

>>16302075
It sounds like they [Grand Admiral and other High Admirals] were hoping that we had just been damaged and were limping home, simply unable to communicate with Armada Command, or we were knocked out but survived, and the self-repair systems would get us back online and we'd call them up for full repairs and get back into the fighting.