Re: The Great Belligerency [Round 2: New Shambhala]
12-08-2010, 11:18 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.
A few minutes of visual surveillance was all Phil needed in order to decide on his plan of action. He strode towards a door marked "Employees Only" and, as expected, encountered no resistance. No one here would even think of entering a door they weren't supposed to enter, and they had assumed he was an employee himself. He crept a few flights of stairs to where the central control station he had seen from ground level was. It was occupied by two aliens of the same species, which resembled a large yellow ball of fuzz with many eyes and about six arms. In other words, the perfect watcher and button pusher. One of them turned to Phil as he pushed open the door, immediately recognizing him as not being an employee. "Hey, you're not allowed in he--ungh!"
Before it could finish the sentence, Phil had darted up to it and slammed it bodily with his rifle. Before it could recover, he brought the rifle down like a sledgehammer, crushing what he assumed was its skull. The other had by now turned around and was gaping at him in stunned silence; Phil wasted no time in beating it to death as well, with about as much resistance. He noted that there wasn't much blood on the floor. They're either unconscious or they don't bleed very easily. He shuffled around in a closet near the back of the room until he found some maintenance rope, then tied the two aliens together and pushed them in front of the closed door to delay anyone who might try to get in. Phil rubbed his hands together and sat down in one of the now-vacant chairs, searching the control panel for an intercom speaker of some sort. After a few moments he located a microphone sitting in a hook off to one side. He picked it up and pressed the switch on it, turning the system on. The noise level dropped as all the travelers listened attentively to the intercom. "All human patrons, please exit Central Tram Station. Repeat, all human patrons, please exit Central Tram Station. Luggage will remain in custody and will be returned in a matter of hours." A chorus of groans from the crowd accompanied these words, but soon all the humans were moving towards the main doors at a steady clip, until only a few stragglers were left arguing over their luggage, and then there were only aliens waiting for their trams. Phil put the mic back in its hook and poised his hand over a switch. However, he hesitated a moment instead of pressing it. "Suit, identify humans in FOV."
A single outline appeared on his visor, located around the image of the human reporter on one of the vid screens in Central Tram Station that ran news 24/7. Phil nodded in satisfaction. "Suit, abort." The outline disappeared, and Phil decided that he was clear to continue with the next part of his plan. Settling down, he turned his gaze to the television broadcasting news and waited for the signal. It wasn't long in coming.
Less than five minutes after Phil had began watching the news program, the anchorwoman anxiously announced that there was breaking news occurring, after which the view changed to that of some alien species holding a gun to the head of a human. Phil sat up and moved into position, posing his fingers over the buttons and switches he was going to have to use in a few moments. As soon as the alien stopped talking and fired the gun, he flipped all but one of the switches in the section labeled "LIGHTS" to their off positions, and the entire station, with the exception of the control room Phil was in, plunged into darkness. At the same time, he hit a button labeled "LOCKDOWN," figuring there weren't all that many things it could mean. Sure enough, the button played out exactly as planned; thick metal barriers rapidly moved down to close off the station's main gates, and the tram tunnel doors, which resembled bank vault airlocks, all closed and locked themselves, closing off all routes out of the station. The crowd below began murmuring confusedly, unsure as to what was going on.
Phil picked up the mic and pressed the button again, lounging back in the wheeled chair. All noise in the station immediately ceased, leaving an expectant hush in its wake. Phil savored the pregnant silence for a moment before speaking into the microphone, his gruff voice slicing through the darkness. "As you may have noticed, the station is now dark and completely closed off from the rest of New Shambhala at the moment. If you'll take a moment to look around, you'll see that there is still one section of the station that is lit; many of you have probably already noticed it. That section is the control room, which I am currently occupying." Phil wheeled over to the large window and waved jovially to punctuate this. "You've probably guessed by now that I am not staff. Congratulations, you're a winner!"
Phil spun around in the chair, turning his back to the window. "I have placed a number of bombs in key locations around Central Tram Station. I have with me a detonator, so I may trigger them at any time I wish. Failing that, they will all explode within two hours." A hushed murmur filled the station, and Phil smiled malevolently under his helmet. "Please understand that this is nothing personal. I have no grudges with any of you in particular, and I'm not being paid to do this." Phil paused again, and he could almost feel the entire station holding their breath as they waited on each of his words. "I just want all of you non-humans dead." The intercom clicked as Phil hung it back up, and the light in the control room flicked out as he turned off the last light switch. 1, 2, 3, 4...
Screams erupted from the crowd below and all of a sudden the previously-still throng began shifting around like a pond disturbed by a large rock. Phil unholstered his rifle and strode towards the door. "Suit, activate night vision." After yanking the dead-after-all alien corpses out of the way of the way, he pulled the door open and walked down the stairs.
------------
Professor Julio tapped the blackboard with his baton until the class quieted down and turned to give him their full attention. "Now that you have all returned from lunch, let's continue our discussion on failed utopias. Perhaps now we can actually get some work done, hmm?" Most of the students dropped their eyes guiltily, and Professor Julio resisted the urge to chuckle. "Please load page 349 on your desks." The students tapped a few times on their electronic desks until they all had page 349 open for viewing. "Today we will be discussing New Shambhala, often referred to as 'The City in the Sky,' one of the longest lasting utopias to ever exist."
------------
Phil kicked open the door at the bottom of the stairs and was greeted by the luminous night vision display on his visor. The crowd was milling around in terror so much that there had already been several people killed from being trampled to death. Phil began firing into the crowd with glee, dropping alien after alien without discrimination.
------------
"New Shambhala was the product of millions of years of scientific progress. Rapid scientific jumps in the field of anti-gravity made it possible for the entire city to be held afloat by only six anti-gravity generators, although there were more than ten times that number aboard to act as failsafes."
------------
Phil fired a shot clear through the head of a lizard-man, splattering his blood and his brains on a bipedal bug-like creature behind him, which screamed piercingly before being executed as well. Phil thought it might have been female, in a purely matter-of-fact way. In all honesty, he couldn't have cared less.
------------
"The educational system was considered to be one of the finest of its time. People traveled from all over the world to take part in it, and many of the world's greatest minds emerged from the many universities of New Shambhala. All of the schools were equipped with top-of-the-line technology and had excellent budgets."
------------
By the time the crowd had realized that the real threat in the station was not the supposed explosives, but instead the commando ripping through the large cluster like tissue paper, Phil had already murdered at least forty of their number. It was at this point that they started running away from him and screaming, to his immense amusement.
------------
"In fact, the entire city was a technological marvel. Not only were they able to get it to float, but they were also able to keep the entire city of New Shambhala powered through only six power plants, along with four for keeping it afloat and two spares in case of a critical failure."
------------
Phil was carving a path of destruction through the crowd, littering the ground with dead bodies. The number on the top left of his visor increased in count whenever he killed someone, and the number in the top right increased whenever he missed a shot. The one on the top left was resting at sixty-eight; the one on the top right still read zero.
------------
"But even more important than the technological aspect of New Shambhala was the societal aspect. It had a reputation that eventually became close to a slogan: 'Never turn a friend away.' Despite the several day wait usually required to gain entrance to New Shambhala, largely due to the exhaustive background checks run on each applicant, the percentage allowed in was calculated to be 98.74%."
------------
A group of aliens were clustered near the employee-only stairwell entrance, clearly planning to reach the control room and cancel the lockdown. Phil strode over and gunned them down without difficulty, chuckling at the way they scattered when he came near like children trying to swipe an extra cookie after dinner.
------------
"But as great as New Shambhala was, there's a very good reason we're studying it during our failed utopias unit. New Shambhala is different from any utopia we've studied or will study in this unit for three reasons. First, it lasted an incredibly long time. Second, it did it all without having any form of authoritarian government. And third, those responsible for its sudden decline were never apprehended, or for that matter even located. For all intents and purposes they vanished after the major initial events occured."
------------
A group of aliens tried to rush Phil. He acknowledged their courage even as he dropped them mid-run before executing a flying kick into the lower torso of a hairy primate a foot taller than him. It seemed surprised that someone so much smaller than it would even consider attacking it. It died surprised.
------------
"While these catalysts were never located, they were extensively researched. Pictures taken of them were used to search the databanks, along with any information about their them that could be inferred from their actions. Unfortunately, most of them turned up massive numbers of results at best, and nothing at all at worst. However, there were two that did return results, puzzling as they were."
------------
Phil took a moment to survey his handiwork so far. Bodies of more species than he knew existed littered the floor like some sort of morbid cultural variety poster. Hmmm. Phil frowned. Definitely not enough. Grinning wickedly, he took aim and continued furnishing the floor.
------------
Several snapshots of Reinhardt masquerading as Matthew Vanhart appeared on the student's desks. "Matthew Vanhart was one of the key instigators of New Shambhala's decline. After the assassination of Administrator Travin Slott by a Yun guerrilla, Vanhart stoked the growing unrest between humans and other species into a roaring inferno, ushering in what historians have labeled the first inter-species racial cleansing in the history of the entire human race."
------------
A sobbing mother tried to hide her child behind her body while the father launched himself at Phil. Phil shot the father in the chest and he dropped, writhing on the floor in agony. Phil stepped over his body and ended his misery with a single shot in the head. The woman screamed and tried to run, but Phil took aim at her back and killed both her and the bawling child in moments.
------------
The snapshots of Reinhardt were joined by a number of ancient paintings and tapestries. "As strange as it may seem, every search through the databanks connected Vanhart to an ancient tyrant who was recorded as having carried out genocides against several racial groups, accusing them of witchcraft, which at the time was a perfectly acceptable reason."
------------
The station was full of death now. Bodies littered the floor, and Phil had gotten bored with gamely searching for the survivors and had assigned the task to his suit, which pointed him towards any moving objects that were emitting heat. A few of them tried to halfheartedly rush him when it was clear he knew where they were, but they might as well have stayed where they were for all the good it did them. Most were simply curled up in whatever served as the fetal position in their species when Phil came for them.
------------
Professor Julio glanced at the clock to make sure he'd have enough time to finish class on schedule. Satisfied, he shifted his gaze back to the class. "The second result that turned up was a human commando who went missing in action hundreds of centuries ago." The images of Reinhardt winked out, to be replaced by several pictures of a man in a suit and helmet carrying a rifle, and a single picture of him without the helmet, displaying a heavily scarred face.
------------
As Phil shot the last sentient being in Central Tram Station beside himself, he looked around at the gruesome, bloody scene in front of him. Bodies were heaped everywhere, and the floor was slick with multi-colored blood from the various species. Phil grinned widely and, slipping off his helmet for a moment, inhaled the smell of death from the newly-created battlefield, feeling the adrenaline rush slowly fade and allow him to relax ever so slightly.
------------
"Phil Girnham was a top-secret military commando, and at the time of his disappearance he was close to being arrested and put on trial for committing several crimes against humanity. At some point in his history, he was given a near-fatal wound, and spent close to a year in surgery; that's the reason for his facial deformities. After he had recovered, he stole a piece of advanced armor and a prototype weapon, escaped the facility he was being held in, and then vanished. The unnamed commando in New Shambhala was named after him for lack of a better choice."
------------
The peace didn't last long. Sparks erupted from the large metal lockdown doors. Phil blinked, then remembered that there was a world outside the killing zone he had created. Sure took you long enough. As the New Shambhala authorities desperately tried to weld their way through the metal doors, Phil darted across the field of bodies, back towards the control room.
------------
"Girnham's actions were notable in that they marked the first widespread killing of non-human races. Girnham, along with a team of allies, infiltrated New Shambhala's Central Tram Station, taking over the control room and putting it into lockdown. During the lockdown, Girnham's team slaughtered all the non-humans inside Central Tram Station, estimated to have resulted in more than three hundred total deaths."
------------
Phil reached the control room in less than a minute, and wasted no time in canceling the lockdown. As the doors slowly rose up, he darted down the employee stairwell and out the back door which employees entered by to remain inconspicuous, noting the sound of several men, who he assumed to be members of whatever passed for a police force in New Shambhala, vomiting upon realizing the gruesome reality of the killing field they were being presented with.
------------
Professor Julio glanced at the clock once more. "That about wraps it up for today, I think. No homework for tonight except to have a good weekend and enjoy yourselves." The bell rang just then, and Julio smiled as he watched the students rushing out the door. Ah, to be young again. He glanced back again at the lesson plan on his desk. What I wouldn't give to be able to understand some of the mysteries at work in this universe of ours...
A few minutes of visual surveillance was all Phil needed in order to decide on his plan of action. He strode towards a door marked "Employees Only" and, as expected, encountered no resistance. No one here would even think of entering a door they weren't supposed to enter, and they had assumed he was an employee himself. He crept a few flights of stairs to where the central control station he had seen from ground level was. It was occupied by two aliens of the same species, which resembled a large yellow ball of fuzz with many eyes and about six arms. In other words, the perfect watcher and button pusher. One of them turned to Phil as he pushed open the door, immediately recognizing him as not being an employee. "Hey, you're not allowed in he--ungh!"
Before it could finish the sentence, Phil had darted up to it and slammed it bodily with his rifle. Before it could recover, he brought the rifle down like a sledgehammer, crushing what he assumed was its skull. The other had by now turned around and was gaping at him in stunned silence; Phil wasted no time in beating it to death as well, with about as much resistance. He noted that there wasn't much blood on the floor. They're either unconscious or they don't bleed very easily. He shuffled around in a closet near the back of the room until he found some maintenance rope, then tied the two aliens together and pushed them in front of the closed door to delay anyone who might try to get in. Phil rubbed his hands together and sat down in one of the now-vacant chairs, searching the control panel for an intercom speaker of some sort. After a few moments he located a microphone sitting in a hook off to one side. He picked it up and pressed the switch on it, turning the system on. The noise level dropped as all the travelers listened attentively to the intercom. "All human patrons, please exit Central Tram Station. Repeat, all human patrons, please exit Central Tram Station. Luggage will remain in custody and will be returned in a matter of hours." A chorus of groans from the crowd accompanied these words, but soon all the humans were moving towards the main doors at a steady clip, until only a few stragglers were left arguing over their luggage, and then there were only aliens waiting for their trams. Phil put the mic back in its hook and poised his hand over a switch. However, he hesitated a moment instead of pressing it. "Suit, identify humans in FOV."
A single outline appeared on his visor, located around the image of the human reporter on one of the vid screens in Central Tram Station that ran news 24/7. Phil nodded in satisfaction. "Suit, abort." The outline disappeared, and Phil decided that he was clear to continue with the next part of his plan. Settling down, he turned his gaze to the television broadcasting news and waited for the signal. It wasn't long in coming.
Less than five minutes after Phil had began watching the news program, the anchorwoman anxiously announced that there was breaking news occurring, after which the view changed to that of some alien species holding a gun to the head of a human. Phil sat up and moved into position, posing his fingers over the buttons and switches he was going to have to use in a few moments. As soon as the alien stopped talking and fired the gun, he flipped all but one of the switches in the section labeled "LIGHTS" to their off positions, and the entire station, with the exception of the control room Phil was in, plunged into darkness. At the same time, he hit a button labeled "LOCKDOWN," figuring there weren't all that many things it could mean. Sure enough, the button played out exactly as planned; thick metal barriers rapidly moved down to close off the station's main gates, and the tram tunnel doors, which resembled bank vault airlocks, all closed and locked themselves, closing off all routes out of the station. The crowd below began murmuring confusedly, unsure as to what was going on.
Phil picked up the mic and pressed the button again, lounging back in the wheeled chair. All noise in the station immediately ceased, leaving an expectant hush in its wake. Phil savored the pregnant silence for a moment before speaking into the microphone, his gruff voice slicing through the darkness. "As you may have noticed, the station is now dark and completely closed off from the rest of New Shambhala at the moment. If you'll take a moment to look around, you'll see that there is still one section of the station that is lit; many of you have probably already noticed it. That section is the control room, which I am currently occupying." Phil wheeled over to the large window and waved jovially to punctuate this. "You've probably guessed by now that I am not staff. Congratulations, you're a winner!"
Phil spun around in the chair, turning his back to the window. "I have placed a number of bombs in key locations around Central Tram Station. I have with me a detonator, so I may trigger them at any time I wish. Failing that, they will all explode within two hours." A hushed murmur filled the station, and Phil smiled malevolently under his helmet. "Please understand that this is nothing personal. I have no grudges with any of you in particular, and I'm not being paid to do this." Phil paused again, and he could almost feel the entire station holding their breath as they waited on each of his words. "I just want all of you non-humans dead." The intercom clicked as Phil hung it back up, and the light in the control room flicked out as he turned off the last light switch. 1, 2, 3, 4...
Screams erupted from the crowd below and all of a sudden the previously-still throng began shifting around like a pond disturbed by a large rock. Phil unholstered his rifle and strode towards the door. "Suit, activate night vision." After yanking the dead-after-all alien corpses out of the way of the way, he pulled the door open and walked down the stairs.
------------
Professor Julio tapped the blackboard with his baton until the class quieted down and turned to give him their full attention. "Now that you have all returned from lunch, let's continue our discussion on failed utopias. Perhaps now we can actually get some work done, hmm?" Most of the students dropped their eyes guiltily, and Professor Julio resisted the urge to chuckle. "Please load page 349 on your desks." The students tapped a few times on their electronic desks until they all had page 349 open for viewing. "Today we will be discussing New Shambhala, often referred to as 'The City in the Sky,' one of the longest lasting utopias to ever exist."
------------
Phil kicked open the door at the bottom of the stairs and was greeted by the luminous night vision display on his visor. The crowd was milling around in terror so much that there had already been several people killed from being trampled to death. Phil began firing into the crowd with glee, dropping alien after alien without discrimination.
------------
"New Shambhala was the product of millions of years of scientific progress. Rapid scientific jumps in the field of anti-gravity made it possible for the entire city to be held afloat by only six anti-gravity generators, although there were more than ten times that number aboard to act as failsafes."
------------
Phil fired a shot clear through the head of a lizard-man, splattering his blood and his brains on a bipedal bug-like creature behind him, which screamed piercingly before being executed as well. Phil thought it might have been female, in a purely matter-of-fact way. In all honesty, he couldn't have cared less.
------------
"The educational system was considered to be one of the finest of its time. People traveled from all over the world to take part in it, and many of the world's greatest minds emerged from the many universities of New Shambhala. All of the schools were equipped with top-of-the-line technology and had excellent budgets."
------------
By the time the crowd had realized that the real threat in the station was not the supposed explosives, but instead the commando ripping through the large cluster like tissue paper, Phil had already murdered at least forty of their number. It was at this point that they started running away from him and screaming, to his immense amusement.
------------
"In fact, the entire city was a technological marvel. Not only were they able to get it to float, but they were also able to keep the entire city of New Shambhala powered through only six power plants, along with four for keeping it afloat and two spares in case of a critical failure."
------------
Phil was carving a path of destruction through the crowd, littering the ground with dead bodies. The number on the top left of his visor increased in count whenever he killed someone, and the number in the top right increased whenever he missed a shot. The one on the top left was resting at sixty-eight; the one on the top right still read zero.
------------
"But even more important than the technological aspect of New Shambhala was the societal aspect. It had a reputation that eventually became close to a slogan: 'Never turn a friend away.' Despite the several day wait usually required to gain entrance to New Shambhala, largely due to the exhaustive background checks run on each applicant, the percentage allowed in was calculated to be 98.74%."
------------
A group of aliens were clustered near the employee-only stairwell entrance, clearly planning to reach the control room and cancel the lockdown. Phil strode over and gunned them down without difficulty, chuckling at the way they scattered when he came near like children trying to swipe an extra cookie after dinner.
------------
"But as great as New Shambhala was, there's a very good reason we're studying it during our failed utopias unit. New Shambhala is different from any utopia we've studied or will study in this unit for three reasons. First, it lasted an incredibly long time. Second, it did it all without having any form of authoritarian government. And third, those responsible for its sudden decline were never apprehended, or for that matter even located. For all intents and purposes they vanished after the major initial events occured."
------------
A group of aliens tried to rush Phil. He acknowledged their courage even as he dropped them mid-run before executing a flying kick into the lower torso of a hairy primate a foot taller than him. It seemed surprised that someone so much smaller than it would even consider attacking it. It died surprised.
------------
"While these catalysts were never located, they were extensively researched. Pictures taken of them were used to search the databanks, along with any information about their them that could be inferred from their actions. Unfortunately, most of them turned up massive numbers of results at best, and nothing at all at worst. However, there were two that did return results, puzzling as they were."
------------
Phil took a moment to survey his handiwork so far. Bodies of more species than he knew existed littered the floor like some sort of morbid cultural variety poster. Hmmm. Phil frowned. Definitely not enough. Grinning wickedly, he took aim and continued furnishing the floor.
------------
Several snapshots of Reinhardt masquerading as Matthew Vanhart appeared on the student's desks. "Matthew Vanhart was one of the key instigators of New Shambhala's decline. After the assassination of Administrator Travin Slott by a Yun guerrilla, Vanhart stoked the growing unrest between humans and other species into a roaring inferno, ushering in what historians have labeled the first inter-species racial cleansing in the history of the entire human race."
------------
A sobbing mother tried to hide her child behind her body while the father launched himself at Phil. Phil shot the father in the chest and he dropped, writhing on the floor in agony. Phil stepped over his body and ended his misery with a single shot in the head. The woman screamed and tried to run, but Phil took aim at her back and killed both her and the bawling child in moments.
------------
The snapshots of Reinhardt were joined by a number of ancient paintings and tapestries. "As strange as it may seem, every search through the databanks connected Vanhart to an ancient tyrant who was recorded as having carried out genocides against several racial groups, accusing them of witchcraft, which at the time was a perfectly acceptable reason."
------------
The station was full of death now. Bodies littered the floor, and Phil had gotten bored with gamely searching for the survivors and had assigned the task to his suit, which pointed him towards any moving objects that were emitting heat. A few of them tried to halfheartedly rush him when it was clear he knew where they were, but they might as well have stayed where they were for all the good it did them. Most were simply curled up in whatever served as the fetal position in their species when Phil came for them.
------------
Professor Julio glanced at the clock to make sure he'd have enough time to finish class on schedule. Satisfied, he shifted his gaze back to the class. "The second result that turned up was a human commando who went missing in action hundreds of centuries ago." The images of Reinhardt winked out, to be replaced by several pictures of a man in a suit and helmet carrying a rifle, and a single picture of him without the helmet, displaying a heavily scarred face.
------------
As Phil shot the last sentient being in Central Tram Station beside himself, he looked around at the gruesome, bloody scene in front of him. Bodies were heaped everywhere, and the floor was slick with multi-colored blood from the various species. Phil grinned widely and, slipping off his helmet for a moment, inhaled the smell of death from the newly-created battlefield, feeling the adrenaline rush slowly fade and allow him to relax ever so slightly.
------------
"Phil Girnham was a top-secret military commando, and at the time of his disappearance he was close to being arrested and put on trial for committing several crimes against humanity. At some point in his history, he was given a near-fatal wound, and spent close to a year in surgery; that's the reason for his facial deformities. After he had recovered, he stole a piece of advanced armor and a prototype weapon, escaped the facility he was being held in, and then vanished. The unnamed commando in New Shambhala was named after him for lack of a better choice."
------------
The peace didn't last long. Sparks erupted from the large metal lockdown doors. Phil blinked, then remembered that there was a world outside the killing zone he had created. Sure took you long enough. As the New Shambhala authorities desperately tried to weld their way through the metal doors, Phil darted across the field of bodies, back towards the control room.
------------
"Girnham's actions were notable in that they marked the first widespread killing of non-human races. Girnham, along with a team of allies, infiltrated New Shambhala's Central Tram Station, taking over the control room and putting it into lockdown. During the lockdown, Girnham's team slaughtered all the non-humans inside Central Tram Station, estimated to have resulted in more than three hundred total deaths."
------------
Phil reached the control room in less than a minute, and wasted no time in canceling the lockdown. As the doors slowly rose up, he darted down the employee stairwell and out the back door which employees entered by to remain inconspicuous, noting the sound of several men, who he assumed to be members of whatever passed for a police force in New Shambhala, vomiting upon realizing the gruesome reality of the killing field they were being presented with.
------------
Professor Julio glanced at the clock once more. "That about wraps it up for today, I think. No homework for tonight except to have a good weekend and enjoy yourselves." The bell rang just then, and Julio smiled as he watched the students rushing out the door. Ah, to be young again. He glanced back again at the lesson plan on his desk. What I wouldn't give to be able to understand some of the mysteries at work in this universe of ours...
![[Image: zjQ0y.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/zjQ0y.gif)
![[Image: vcGGy.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/vcGGy.gif)