Art of Domination Thread 04

I'm just a little jarred from the gap from now and where the adventure left off on the mirror. Things have escalated quickly. I'm certain it was very well paced, but I just found out the Art of Domination was an actual magic book that can make Ghulls all pissy.

Oh you' just missing ...about... oh... two threads and a half worth of updates, I think ?

.. Yeah the MSPA forums disapearing so suddenly and without warning hit this adventure hard as there was apparently no backups, sadly.

I really want to type a summary of everything you missed in details and files of all the character and bestiary for people new to the adventure but it'd take a while and i'm really feelng tired so uh... sorry, latter.

That said the little summary in the first post does sort of say the most important details. Namely that the art of domination is a major element of the plot

And the stakes of the adventure have been gradualy shownto be much bigger than just planet 117. Wih basicaly most of the high Saramis hgh command and monarchy being infected by the AoD while part of the human federation is as well, pushing both species to a genocidal war, which would be just the last of a long of a long sring of such conflicts where two species suddenly anhilaed each others and vanished without leaving any traces.

And behing this are the 'Authors', full fledged eldritch bomination who warp lives to create storries (usualy involving death war and murders) for a cosmic publishing house (we also know that 'Redactors' and 'Auditors' are a thing even if they don't appear directly, only through proxies), lest the 'Audience' gets bored and hungers... (annd whatever /that/ means, even the authors seem to find it ominious)

And the Aod and the string of mutual genocide is the Author masterpiece in production...

Still while the stakes have augmeted quite a bit, plnet 117 still seems to be at the /center/ of the conflictfor now, so hence why it's still sorta important.

And, yes it's a fair assessement to say that even with knowlege of the full storry, the pacing had got a little progressively faster and a little hectic at some point. So with so much of it missing, yeah I can understand it's seriously jarring.

It seems Enderfist's orbit is geosynchronous, in order to give constant monitoring to regions 3 and 4.

To clarify in case it necessary, the Enderfist is not just a satelite, it's a warship (as in full fledged space travel tech spaceship, not a rocket). So it's orbit and position can be ajusted and changed pretty much as will.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been any attacks on the Enderfist directly, considering that orbital mechanics is much lower on the tech tree than fully functional nano-bot AI.

1) As mentioned, the enderfist is a fully functional flagship made to be the lynchpin of a planetary invasion force, it likely has some point defenses and shields so counteract such atempt.
So unless they were sure to take the Enderfist out with their attack (or really desperae, which for example would have been the case had we chosen to attack region 1 on our first day), it'd be just a waste of resource

It's not like the bigger warships evar, there was amoment where we knew a federation 'fleet killer' class warship was comming and it could have destroyed the Enderfit in a snap. But thankfully it turnd out to be friendly, gave us grenda and some intel

2)It's not just a a matter of tech lelvel but also a matter of avaliable resources. By comparaison, planet 117 is a small colony on the brink of economic and social colapse with a laughaubly oudated millitary (well outside of the weird science that is)

And everyhing that was high tech and was pulled into region 1 to participate into the superweapon research

3)
Basically a good part of the tech the enemy deploys comes from the AoD who is indeed a Lovecratian magic book. Basicaly people who are 'scientifically inclined' enough who read the book become:
1)Complelty amorral with a sadiditic streak
2)'Inspired' by the book to create things that borders of magic and can break physical laws as they are known or run on psycic powers.

The thing is, the creatures who wrotte the AoD are definitively called "Authors" and not "Engineers", for a reason.
They tend to have a near fetichistic love for the gory, the psychologcal harmfull and spectacular over the bluntly efficient (after all what makes for a better 'story' ? Fighting a horde or fleshy monsters or mind controlled people or just a bomb that explode and kill everyone in an intstant)
and it does tend to reflect on the scientist they 'inspire' and their creation

But dodn't think it means they can't create things that are bluntly efficient or jsut sheerly destructive, (for example weaponized wormholes) it's in fact their end game and their strategy is buying time for it.

As for 'Author tech', well.. it's closer to psychic narative driven techno black sorcery than outright science...

I know this isn't the focus at the moment, but are all regions covered in clouds?

Seeing as we've made extensive use of the enderfist orbital strike with no probs, presumably not.

Region 5 is kind of a special case due to the braintrees and Stromdrones (okay the drone never got an official name)

Basicaly soon after we invaded region 4 (so around week 5), some weird fleshy trees with eyeball and brains isntead of fruits and leaves appeared in region 5 (from the coast facing region 1, suprise, surprise). they very quickly started to multiply, but while hey were weird no one really payed attention because they were very busy fighting.

Then after a while, sudden stromclouds appeared out of nowhere and deadly lighting storms started happening, triking not only unaturaly often but also with deadly precision peoples and habitation alike around the braintrees who kept multiplying.
The population went from 4 millions to a few thousands in a matter of weeks

That also explain why everyone not afiliated with Smith triple cores are now hudled against the border to regions 3/4 where the braintrees haven't advanced yet (mosty because we tanks patrolling that shoot molten metal to burn anything looking even remotely like a braintree in a miles radiius) in zinc huts.

breaking or cutting braintrees is no good, they jsut regrow or worse, they explose in cloud of spores that stick to skinn and clothes (hence why the strict border control). Only way to get rid of them is burning (qick freezing ?) or lots and lots of deadly chemicals

As was dicovered later however, the braintrees don't work alone, there are actualy drones flying over region 5 that actualy produce stormclouds around them (the exact way of how they or the braintree work in tandem is not known)
But the drones can be easily shot down, which is why a number of cheap 'shaterking' rocket launchers (with special mesure so they can be remote desativated if turned agaisnt us and can only be used for a limited numbers of shot tho) where produced and distributed to the 'Freedom' local resistace group so they may clear things.

The walking factory is a new things tho, first we hear of it.

Did we ever find out what the deal was with those electromagnetic creatures that apparently really want to help destroy those magic books?

the creature (single actualy even if it an create 'projections of itself, which are refered as 'limbs')) is known as 'Alone'.

As far was pieced out:
It comes from another universe (which it refers as 'Seas'). It is unkown weither it was already 'Alone' then or if there were more of it's kind at the time.

the authors founfd it, it welcomed them and they tried to use it in their stories (details are unknown). Alone ...didn't take it well.. at all.

It litteraly teared an author called 'Nadir' apart and killed them. Nadir's mind/tomb (it's weird) is the moon of planet 117 and it's body is somewhere inside planet 117, undeground..
(possibly even the core, ...which would go a long way to explain how such a small pant can yet support an atmosphere or the condition for life and also why it's the start of this whole of this whole mess in the first place.)

It doesn't just want to destroy the Aod, it seems to genuinely want to kill all Author as well as everyone it deems twisted by them, in a mixture of rage and 'mercy'.

It came in our universe through a blackhole and it's presuably the only way to send it back ,as well.

It's been captured by Smith forces and kept in check by Magnetic fields which seems to be the only thing that can affect it.

Recently, earlier during the attack on region 1 on which this threads opens on, it seems to have escaped it's magnetic prison but hasnt been able to go kill Nroth or even go on a rampage, not that it wouldn't want to but it has been considerably weakened.
According the the AIs, whatever sustains it doesn't exist in our universe so it's been starving to death slowly.

Supposedlywhatever left of it is in our custody now. Unless we find how to send t back home, it'll die soon-ish.

Intruder the rogue author's likey knows more and will soon fill in the gaps.