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 Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 9:27 pm
Perched side saddle on the stone horse that reared over the so-called wishing fountain, Rhysi gave her source stone a bored look. Draining was, uninteresting to say the least. A chore that interrupted her more inspiring studies. She'd just gotten to what was referred to as the Manhattan Project and felt her grasp of humanity's idea of progress becoming more and more complete. Possibly too complete? It wouldn't do to lose her own perspective as a Velencian after all. Still. It was more productive than feeding a source stone. They were, of course, incredibly useful. But they also felt like something that fell far short of needs and purpose. Like someone tried to create an artificial starseed and succeeded to the point of creating a mediocre battery. With an unimpressed little huff, she sent it back into subspace and considered the shining glints of light in the water below. Much more interesting! Humans really didn't know how to treasure anything, did they? Not even the money they constantly demanded for their goods.
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Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 9:22 am
"I wasn't ******** done with you!" Faustite hissed at the deceased. While it was clear there would be no rising up for another round, Faustite still turned the man over with his boot and pushed the prone form toward the edge of the rooftop. "Get the ******** up!" He kicked the body again. No response. Muttering to himself about the disappointment of such an affair, Faustite aimed a last kick that sent the body off the edge of the roof, where it landed squarely in the dumpster. Yet his adrenalin still raged, his anger unquenched, and even as he was wiping the last dregs of blood from his nose, he was looking for another target. White Moon, Dark Mirror, it didn't matter anymore. But there were neither. There was nothing. If he closed his right eye, he could see a margin better, and — There. On the fountain horse, of all places. That didn't look human.
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Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 1:11 pm
The sound of something landing heavily in a nearby alley had Rhysi looking up from the water. Not hearing anything further, she considered ignoring it for several long moments, and then with a sigh. flicked a finger at her wristband. A comtech screen suddenly appeared, floating high in the air, lighting her features along with that of the statue in its gentle pastels. Using the GPS, she sat up straighter, head turning to meet the gaze of the...General? On the roof. Rhysi squinted back at the figure even as her fingers danced along the controls. Camera. Zoom. Capture. Video. Heat signature. Her heart sped up as everything strobed across her screen within seconds. The last forcing her to look away from the screen, rapidly blinking, hand clumsily switching the video back to its normal recording mode. At first she thought maybe a battery of some sort. But no, this was nothing so...middling. They? It? Was definitely a "A GENERATOR?" Rhysi called up to them, summoning her short bow in the barest show of caution in regards to the difference in rank.
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2023 7:04 am
Oh. That was —
That was one of the Queen's aliens. Maybe. He seldom met them, and didn't want anything to do with them or their tech, but this one looked alien-shaped. Whether this one belonged to Lyndin or the other one in the space-opera-style divorce that happened in the middle of that battlefield, he didn't know. But he could try to play it safe, maybe just yell at her like she was one of theirs.
Faustite made to close the distance, jumped off the edge of the building though he winced at how his left leg hurt with the landing. He approached the fountain at a purposeful gait, twin capes streaming behind him and ruffling about the hot air.
Yes, he realized, as he got closer. This one definitely looked like an alien, and not the sort like that fish person that he refused to name. Undoubtedly she would prove less useful than the fish person, too, for it never seemed like their sort had any information on them with which to part. So he stared up at her, unimpressed with the bow in her hands, and twice as confused by her shout about a generator.
"What the ******** are you doing up there." Faustite glared up at her, hand on a hip. "You raise a ******** weapon at me, you better ******** shoot it."
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2023 7:17 am
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Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2023 6:16 pm
She shot him. Right in the shoulder. That part of him reeled back a margin with the impact, then it went numb and his arm didn't respond when he tried to move it.
What the ********, he thought. What the ********. He understood that the Queen wanted them to be left alone to do their work, but this ******** —
Faustite teleported to her, the pushed her off with his working arm. "You piece of ******** s**t," he spat, cinders coming out of his mouth as he hissed at her. "What the <********> do you think you're doing? Why can't any of you work on something <********> useful? Instead, you piss around and shoot General-Kings in the ******** arm with your pissant little weapon. I've had worse from a ******** Mauvian!"
Those ridiculous imitation cats were still somehow better than these periwinkle space elves and their complete inability to put out something that justifies their existence.
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Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2023 6:37 pm
She'd yet to witness an agent's teleportation ability but sadly was too startled by it to properly observe. With a small backflip, she crashed into the water below, on her feet but it was far form an ideal landing. The coins underfoot nearly lost her footing even after, and she'd really need to clear those out after this. With Rhysi's sudden distance from it, the large two foot by three foot comtech screen disappeared, then reappeared down below with her. The image was from her perspective, looking up at the General King. "Who created you?" She called up, unperturbed by either the shove or the less than complimentary tone in their voice. It was a very reasonable reaction to being shot at, much more so than crying and calling her mean. And they even suggested she go see a Mauvian about their tech, which was a good idea she had yet to consider in her studies of Earth's scientific perspectives and development. Even as a small stream of steam still emitted from her uniform where they'd pushed her, her expression turned friendlier. "Interested in my work?" Oh, this was going well! In the corner of her eye she saw something extra shiny in the water. Bending down she fished out one of those star charms from the festivities earlier in this season. This was going very well!
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Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2023 7:26 pm
His response was automatic. "What the ******** kind of question is that."
It was only after saying it that he thought about the question — it might have been cleverer than he initially thought. While the braindead answer he thought she was after was a simple 'my parents', could she have known enough about half-youma to recognize that no one was born that way? So she would have been asking after Umber, essentially, but —
No. Faustite would not spare her any modicum of respectability, here. Not if she's out implying that Umber ******** created him, like he was a mastermind and not some enormous bitchfaced ******** that ******** up his entire life in what was fundamentally a failed experiment. And he wasn't going to indulge her by mentioning Celadonite or Amazonite, both of which had intentionally become half-youma.
She deserved the braindead answer. "My ******** parents," he responded belatedly. "Assuming it's the same for you. Keep asking stupid questions and I'll be explaining to the Queen why I had to kill you." He hoped that she tolerated answers like but Your Grace, she was so ******** annoying.
"Interested to hear that you're not all braindead layabouts that suck our resources dry. If you've something worth reporting, out with it." But he was going to stand right where he was, because she looked tall and he would rather be taller.
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Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2023 9:05 pm
The disappointment and disgust at the answer was almost exaggerated in how clear it was across her features. "Mundane." They must be hiding the cool information; which, while she didn't approve of others having secrets about things she was interested in, was probably not a shoot-them-again offense. Okay, they clearly wanted to deal in answers for them rather than questions to them, and she could be the more generous one here. Her answers would probably be more interesting anyway. And it was more respectful of their rank, so nobody could accuse her of disrespect later, right? Actually, she'd been wanting to share her ideas like burning, but they were much too early in developing even the concept to bring to her peers, let alone Lyndin. She hated looking in anyway ignorant or unprepared among other Velencians. A...well, demi-human? Of Earth, was probably a much safer audience when it came down to something as torturous as embarrassment. Clearing her throat, she dismissed the floating screen, took a few steps back, and re-summoned it to give the General King a clear view of its display. A rendering of a starseed showed up on the screen. "The organic and spiritual nature of the starseed," and here her voice lost its terse and stilted rhythm, "...makes it an inherently perfect structure, and the peak potential of this form of power. Unfortunately it is still vulnerable to destruction, corruption, and dependent upon the health and strength of its vessel. And, it's outside of all but the most crude forms of control: simple and direct power usage and consumption." The screen changed, featuring a similar starseed with runic coding on each side, "My interests are two-fold: the ability to program organic starseeds," a second starseed appeared on screen, this one with an altered structure, reflecting light in a different, almost unsettling way, "...and the creation of usable, if weaker, artificial starseeds. Reliance upon of the Cauldron and the whimsical nature of reincarnation at this point is sub-optimal."
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2023 5:08 pm
While he expected a summary, what he got was a lesson. As the seconds ticked by, Faustite felt the urge to pace increase exponentially until he wondered if it would be more exciting to pace along the rim of the fountain or if it would be better to pace on the concrete around it. But then he couldn't see the screen, not that the visual aid was particularly helpful or interesting.
She spoke about the starseed as an energy device. Any agent that spent their time in the Negaverse and bothered to learn anything would be familiar with a starseed as an energy device. Why that demanded a preamble was beyond him. But, these were aliens. Maybe she would get to the point later than usual.
Then she mentioned programming starseeds, and Faustite was immediately lost. Artificial starseeds he could understand — that was science fiction s**t for making fake people, basically. It also meant they could put a starseed in anything that they wanted to operate, like a dead body or something. They could have fake people zombies, or just make their own energy cows. But they likely took energy to create, and he didn't know of anything that had more energy than what it took to create it.
Granted, Faustite didn't get to chemistry class (not that he would have paid attention). He never learned computer programming, either, so the entire nature of programming a starseed was lost on him.
He stared uncomprehendingly at the two starseeds on the projected image. Then he asked, "Program a starseed in what way? What's your forecasted end result?" He expected that, if it was anything like computers and the way Aue had complained about them, this could result in an unusable, buggy shitshow for the first several rounds. For some reason, nothing ever went right the first time.
"And the fake starseeds. What purpose do those serve?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2023 7:11 pm
Nodding, Rhysi felt the questions were satisfactory and showed they were listening. "It's about control." Touching a control, the presentation shifted to a series of slides, featuring scenes of both growth and destruction, progress and the rubble of cities, lush growth and wastelands. Many of them were from pulled Earth's collective database, known as the internet. Images from the atomic war lit up the fountain. Followed by the glossiness of imagined futures. The Dustbowl. Modern marijuana farms. Homeless camps. Nurseries. Others were drawn by her own hand, with a very technical sort of skill. A few were from barren worlds, used for resources. "The potential for starseeds is massive, their power is beyond what any civilization can currently create. More specifically, the starseeds of those who belong to worlds and wonders, senshi and knights. A palm sized core of power, representing the entire life and death cycle of a world. And what control over that power do they have here on Earth? An insignificant attack." All that power and what could those with the most direct control of their starseeds even do? "I'd like to enable forces wiser and more efficient than 'Nature' or the Cauldon to fully take control of special starseeds. Who their host is, the presentation of energy output and usage directed at specific advances and benefits. To put it simply, if we want a forest, we direct one to grow a forest. When we want it, where we want it, and bearing precisely the flora and fauna we desire. We should be able to control the host as well, but my understanding of the mental impact of starseeds is currently quite limited." People's brains were just, honestly, less interesting than the nuclear war or humanity's rather charming space race. To be very honest. having never come into actual contact with an actual starseed, the presentation was extremely heavy on the purely theoretical. But that had never stopped her from jumping right into an idea, head first, even in the more restrictive and careful environment of Velencya. "Artificial starseeds would serve the purpose of being something we have full control over their creation, a duplicatable process that allows us to always have one when needed. The survival of a host after the removal of their starseed is the most direct and specific purpose. The ability to create, and recreate ones able to sustain a world would be the ultimate goal. A far off one, but I feel it worthy for a civilization to aspire to."
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2023 3:48 pm
As he listened, her speech reminded him of those scam statements made by pseudoscientists that people only used a fraction of their brains. There was a time that Elex bought into that garbage, thinking it must be true, and that if he could unlock the rest of his brain, then he could spend his days enraptured by a stellar fantasy of his own making.
It was true that starseeds shared a connection to a great deal of power. It was true, too, that there were better opportunities to tap into that power. But, it seemed to Faustite, the great limiter on what one could do with a starseed was the fleshy body in which it contained. Even when senshi ascended, their bodies turned brittle and cracked, held together only by a chaotic energy that was repurposed from their world's own energies. Sure, there might've been bodies made of sterner stuff like she was saying before, but Faustite doubted that any Earth-based technology figured out how to make something like that. He doubted the Mauvians did, too. And considering he hadn't seen s**t out of Lyndin's gang of motley hobos, he was inclined to believe this was all talk as well.
"They'd explode, trying to access that power." He pointed to the forest as it flashed on screen. It was a good show, though. Maybe it really spoke to the science-minded, but that was not part of his wheelhouse. Truly, he wasn't sure which of the Sovereigns made the best audience for that pitch. It was a little too dark for Jet, perhaps too detached for Axinite. Lepidolite was still little more than a rumor and a thirst trap to him, and Hessonite wouldn't have the focus to sit through a lecture.
Faustite breathed a sigh. Artificial starseeds — he wasn't getting the purpose. Real starseeds were pestiferous enough. If they made more, then they'd just have more of the same. If they could rip someone's starseed out and they stayed alive, what good was that?
"How do you expect to make a starseed, or tap into the potential of an existing one?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 12:12 pm
"With full control, things do not explode unless that is the intent. Though perhaps...multiple, connected hosts..." Rhysi's voice trailed off, her script beginning to break down. They looked up at the General King upon their perch, and realized they didn't seem impressed. And had, in fact, been asking good, if overly results oriented, questions. They were a good audience for this first run. "Can't yet." Flicking her wrist band, the screen turned back to displaying the current video recording, giving the General King a view from below of themselves. "Velencians have something close, but it's a failure." An incredibly useful failure that was vital to their lives and survival, but still, not enough to solve their problems. "I'm new. Studying Earthtech. Will study Mautech. Maybe others." It was a big universe, after all. At least it had been, at one point. She shrugged, the flow of scripted words trickling back down to her typical truncated speech and over reliance on body language.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 5:32 pm
"Hope you can get somewhere with that. Then our senshi might not shatter like glassware." Maybe that was the deterrent stopping all the senshi in their employ from considering ascension. While it wasn't like anyone asked him if he wanted to become partially youmafied, he had to accept that it came at a steep penalty to the way he liked to live his life. Basic functions got altered, though he hadn't altogether lost them the way that Alkaid had. Were it voluntary, Faustite would have politely declined. It deserved a loud go ******** yourself and a double-fingered salute.
He frowned at the image of himself. Seemed that all his avoidance of mirrors wasn't saving him from the problem of having to look at himself once in a while.
The something close was more interesting to him, though. They could talk hypotheticals all day and it was just wasting air. With no real means to achieve what they talked about, it seemed like a poor use of their time. But if there was an imperfect version of which she spoke, then that could actually be quite useful. "What's the something close?" For this, he focused on her through her recording screen.
"Save you some time. 'Earthtech' is garbage, social media's a hell on earth. Mautech's always been superior." Even though Mauvians weren't. They, too, were as garbage as the 'Earthtech' of which the alien spoke.
"You still ******** shot me, though. Give me your name."
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 6:51 pm
It sounded like she would need to find out more about the Negaverse's senshi if their connection with their starseeds led to such a fragile state. Knowing the even less usable states of being a vessel was just as important as finding out where other's have had progress. With a wave of her hand, she pulled her source stone out for a brief moment, before tucking it back away. "They only hold. They don't generate." Which was where they fell far short. If source stones were able to generate power rather than simply hold what it was fed, there wouldn't be the current crisis on Velencya. Rhysi felt a little defensive of Earth's technological progress, and insisted, "The duality of nuclear power....is helpful." Arms crossed in front of her body, she tapped her lips. She'd definitely seen the word social media, but nothing about it seemed related to her studies. Maybe she should look into it? But they were right, she should really seek out a Mauvian soon. And reach out to other members of the Vanguard to see what they were working on. Too much Earthtech focus would hold her back. Features scrunching up in confusion, she stared up at the odd Chaos Lord for a long moment before remembering that she had, in fact, shot them. Why were they still thinking about that? They were fine. "Cadet Rhysi." Her expression failed to look sorry at all.
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