Art of Domination Thread 04

Please read this first before you go on:

Art of Domination began life on the mspaforums, which as of this writing still remains inactive. I’ve decided to quit waiting for it to come back and instead I will continue this adventure on eagle-time.org

In the event that mspaforums returns, I will update this story on both websites and accept suggestions from both.

If this is your first time experiencing Art of Domination, then I recommend you check out the mirror, though it isn’t up to date with the latest posts before the mspaforums went into a coma:
https://mspfanventures.com/?s=289

Here’s a quick recap:

SpoilerShow

In the year 2234, Vorador Mortanius, Commander of the First Arm in the Saramis Alliance was tasked with annexing a human colony called Planet-117, as well as either the capture or death of the colony’s leader, President Ignatius Smith. The President of said colony was found guilty of attacking a nearby Saramis colony and abducting its inhabitants for inhumane experiments.

Landing on Region 3, Vorador’s forces encountered a creature never before seen: A massive brain capable of inducing its victims to commit suicide. It would only be the first of many monstrosities they would fight.

Vorador learned that there is a book known as the Art of Domination that convinces its readers that they are in a war of extinction, with a designated foe. Its contents were different depending on who read it; a saramis would be told that they must exterminate humans, while a human reader would be told that the saramis are their mortal enemies. These books were completely indestructible, created by a race of beings known as the Ul’nayeth, or Authors, orchestrating mass extinction events throughout the galaxy by pitting species at war with each other.

Eventually, Vorador succeeded in gaining full control over Region 3, hiring a saramis mercenary and explosives expert named Anna ‘Hawkeyes’ Reznov who was once part of Smith’s army. Hawkeyes would become romantically involved with Ghulls Maranis, Vora’s adjutant and cousin.

A second Commander from the Saramis Alliance, Rainhar Kasar, joins the campaign. Though he suffers from extreme libido, he is ultimately helpful in providing advice and suggestions.

Vora continued her campaign despite all the strangeness she encountered: The revelation that the moon was a tomb for an Author, the existence of a creature called Alone, a magical Rat-king named Cheet-Cheet, and the nigh-invincible Dominator form that a person could transform into if they finish reading the Art of Domination.

Cheet-Cheet’s disciple arrives in Vora’s territory, and reveals himself to be the true Ignatius Smith, who was wiped from everyone else’s memories. The one actually in power was his vice president, Robert North. North made a deal with the Authors: Everyone would remember him as the real Ignatius Smith, but the actual person must be kept alive or else the effect is reversed.

All this time, Smith was being held prisoner and consistently tortured in an attempt to make him forget his identity. It failed, and he was able to escape.

Vora receives a distress signal from the enemy’s stronghold region, Region One. It was sent by General Feathers, who was actually an AI abducted from the Human Federation to help Robert North’s military anticipate future attacks. Francoise, another AI, was also recruited.

Two hackers named Linesman and Kuroda also decided to defect, adding more assets to the campaign. Dr. Ushah, a local psychiatrist has willingly joined to help Vora understand the enemy better, with assistance from Feathers and Francoise. Vora’s two sons, Harix and Malco, have also been drafted into the army, and have reached Planet-117.

Meanwhile on the Saramis Homeworld, an organization known as the Saramis Purity Union attempted to commit xenocide, attacking primarily humans who happened to be on the planet. General Lagantis Primevex, Vorador’s husband, discovered that some members of High Command was corrupted by the Art of Domination and had deemed him an enemy of the state. Lagantis began a rebellion, prevented a mass murder, and witnessed a strange vision from the future telling him that Dr. Koda Serivi, a genius geneticist, was key to foiling the Authors.

Lagantis meets up with Intruder, a renegade Author inhabiting a corpse who was hell-bent on stopping the Magnum Opus, the grand plan of the other Authors. After some distrust, the two co-operate.

Though Koda was wounded, she was ultimately rescued. Koda takes the general to her lab, where he finds out that Koda and her researchers succeeded in creating human-saramis hybrids. The two hybrid children were immune to the effects of the Art of Domination, seeing its contents as pure gibberish.

As it turned out, both humans and saramis were genetically modified by the Authors to become more similar to an ancient race known as the Asal, a species that was extremely gifted with traits that would benefit survival. However, they were rendered extinct by an unknown, massive empire. Through exploiting this similarity, humans and saramis hybrids became possible, forming the Asalin.

Lagantis then succeeds in entering High Command’s HQ, and finds himself in a pocket world where a Cosmic Organ was being held captive. Intruder explained that the universe itself was alive, and the enemy had succeeded in capturing an organ which was able to alter the laws of physics. The corrupted foes were deliberately torturing the organ to erase the saramis Homeworld, along with Lagantis on it. Apparently, he was such a high threat that the corrupted High Command saw it was worth it to wipe out an entire planet just to kill one man.

General Lagantis and his allies proceed to attack the fortress holding the Cosmic Organ.

Meanwhile, back on Planet-117…

The Human Federation acknowledges the threat of the Authors and the Art of Domination, and sent Vora a gift: A Doomcat named Grenda, essentially a sapient cat piloting a small but powerful mech.

In the sixth week of the campaign, Vora has decided to directly attack Region 1’s minor labs located above-ground. As Feathers predicted, it was completely unexpected and her forces succeeded in destroying much of the enemy’s research facilities as well as stealing intel from data drives.

Robert North’s army has mounted a counter-attack with a massive horde led by an enemy General with psychic powers, and Vora is trying to evacuate her forces.

Here is also a dropbox link for almost everything I've made for the adventure before this point:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/98cq20heceo0e...T2VAa?dl=0

Quick tutorial on how things usually proceed:

Almost every update ends with a set of choices. If the phrase ‘Something else’ appears, players are free to add their own suggestion as to what the currently-controlled character should do next.

Every in-game week, the players get income in the form of Resource Points to use for building/recruiting new units for their invasion force.

With all that over with, let’s continue!

WEEK 6, DAY 2

The Skyshadows fly away with the intel, and your Spec Ops encounter no problems getting the last bits of data before fully withdrawing.

Cpt. Selev: Commander, the Car of Destiny has been neutralized.

You: Any casualties on our side?

Cpt. Selev: None, ma'am, but there was one hell of an explosion.



Cpt. Selev: The explosion itself was visible on camera though. I thought these things were based in psychics?

Feathers: Bacterial explosion, perhaps. It's possible that the resulting psionic outburst caused surrounding micro-organisms to spontaneously combust.

Rainhar: But they don't even have brains!

Feathers: Quite, but psionics affects all living organics on some level, even if they lack neurons. Whatever the Car of Destiny is made of, it's powerful enough to even affect brainless creatures.

Rainhar: Okay, pause for a second. How, exactly, DOES psionics work?

Feathers: Here is the simplest way to explain it: Organic creatures emit and receive a form of energy that can only be received by other organics. Potential energy and chemical energy can be converted into psionic energy, and can be converted again into a more tangible form once it is received by a living creature. Psionics can be detected by non-living things, but only because the transmission from organism to organism is lossy; a little of that energy can manifest itself into heat or sound.

Rainhar looks exasperated, but still paying attention.

Feathers: We don't fully understand why it works, but psionics affects every living creature regardless of whether they have brains or not. With sufficient power a psionic weapon can cause a creature's cells to ignite by overloading it with energy.

You: NOW you explain this?

Feathers: I only recently understood this after seeing a bit of the data your forces brought back. I had speculation on its mechanics, but not hard facts.

Rainhar: I have to ask this: Is there a unit of measurement for this stuff? Like, how much power would be enough to ignite people?

Feathers: In Region One, they measured psionic strength in Fikir. Fikir was chosen as it is Malay for 'Think', and to ignite a cluster of cells you would require at least 800 Fikir, far more than any ordinary human brain would be able to emit. For reference, an average human being, with full focus, should be able to generate between 10 to 16 Fikir.

You: So there might be a cluster of psychics just conjuring these Cars of Destiny up from thin air?

Feathers: Possible. Psionics can be gathered to form a visible weapon, but it must demand a lot of time and effort to create one. To conjure a weapon that can remain stable for a long time, especially so.

You shift your focus to the troops on the ground.

Grenda: Commander, the airstrikes hit the mark. The sword-portal thing sent one back but the rest wrecked him.

You: Is the General dead?

Grenda: Hard to say, Commander. There’s uh, a big, whirling, glowing vortex of-

You: Grenda, just withdraw!

Grenda: Right away!

You: Ghulls, how are we on the evac? Is everyone upright?

Ghulls: All soldiers and PMCs are accounted for, nobody's gone missing.

You: Okay, good. We'll have to end the operation here. If they got more Generals and Boss monsters, I don't want our troops to stick around and find out.

Rainhar: We should leave booby traps behind, though. Maybe post scouts to routinely check out what's going on.

Hawkeyes: We already got a bunch of bombs hidden under the snow and some debris. If they're planning on rebuilding these labs, it's not gonna be anytime soon.

Ghulls: We'll post scouts later after we've done the evacuation; right now the enemy is on high alert and they've sent more creatures to comb the whole region.

You: Good. Everyone, we’ll leave for now. Let me know if we find any more gaps in their security.

====

Operation Complete!

No casualties on our side

Items Recovered:

Databoxes (Sent to Processing)
Alone (Inactive)
Woman with Green Hair, the Murderhouse survivor (Unconscious)

Notes:
Operation was a success, despite the surprise horde and the appearance of a hitherto unknown enemy. We were able to recover massive amounts of intel and were able to substantially hamper the enemy's research efforts in developing new weaponry.
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====

WEEK 6, DAY 3, 08 33 hours

Dr. Ushah: Commander, we need to talk about the green-haired woman we rescued from the Murderhouse.

You: What about her?

Dr. Ushah: After thorough examination, we’ve all come to the conclusion that she isn’t human.

You: What do you mean?

Dr. Ushah: Her cells have no DNA. They LOOK like human cells, but under close scrutiny they’re not even organic.

You: The hell?

Dr. Ushah: That’s not all. If you give her cells an electrical shock, they actually change shape and texture.

You: Then what does this mean? She's a shape-shifter? Like Max?

Dr. Ushah: More than that, Commander. We analyzed her lymph nodes, and they're actually nanomachine generators. Tiny factories.

You: What do these nanomachines do?

Dr. Ushah: Frankly? Nothing. They're all malformed, either incomplete or with so many parts sticking out that they can't do anything. There’s more, though. Her brain structure is bizarre. Look at this scan of her brain.



You: It... I'm pretty sure human brains don’t look like that.

Dr. Ushah: Yes, exactly. If we were to cut her cranium open, we would find a gel-like form instead of a proper cerebral cortex. Instead, it's a network of microscopic computers, all of it doing their best to behave like a human brain despite having a very different structure.

You: So does this mean she's an Autonomous Nanocolony Operative? Like we saw in the enemy’s files?

Dr. Ushah: Most likely yes, but a failed one. She cannot manufacture any viruses or other form of harmful bioweapons.

You: Is she conscious? Sentient?

Dr. Ushah: Yes. Give her ordinary clothes and she could pass for an ordinary young lady. She is fully aware of her status as an artificial creature, and claims she was specifically created to kill as many people as possible.

You: Is she hostile to us now?

Dr. Ushah: No, and that's part of why they considered her a failure. She was not convinced of their reasoning that the Saramis Alliance posed an existential threat to humanity. Since she was also unable to read the Art of Domination due to her nature as a nanocolony, they couldn't brainwash her either.

You: So, what, they just threw her into the Murderhouse?

Dr. Ushah: Not quite. The ‘house’ just appeared in her holding cell, and swallowed her up without anyone's intervention. They may have expected her to just die off. Oh, and with regards to the house's interior, the subject claims she has no memory of it. She does not know why her feet were severely injured and full of oak splinters, nor why she was suffering from dehydration and exhaustion.

You: Does she have a name?

Dr. Ushah: Emmy. No last name. They didn't give her a serial number or something like that because they wanted her to get used to infiltrating colonies. Having a name to answer to was meant to make it easier. The idea was that these operatives would be sent into colonies as stowaways and give the cover story of running away from Saramis soldiers. Then the nanomachine generators would activate once the subject is in the middle of a large crowd. Any dead skin cells on the epidermis would be re-configured and turned into a plague, spread by touch.

You: A walking virus generator.

Dr. Ushah: Right. Luckily for us, Emmy is co-operative and has consented to give us tissue samples. Though her nanomachines are defective, they are still very sophisticated and have opened up a new avenue of research. We’ve been able to come up with some useable designs and we’d like your feedback on which of these projects we should prioritize on.

== NANOMACHINE PROJECTS ===

(Select one. The project will be completed at the start of next week (Week 7)

1 - Healing-grenade: The nanomachines can be used to heal wounds rapidly, and we’ve come up with a design that would allow these tiny devices to be spread airborne and repair damaged cells. We need further testing and programming to make it capable of saving troops from critical condition without causing trauma or risk the creation of tumors.

2 -Gun-mounted Ammunition Factory: Meant to serve as an emergency device, the GAF can generate ammunition out of almost any material inserted into it. Stone bullets, bone bullets, iron bullets, all possible as long as the material is there. Though they will be less effective than our standard ammunition, it will give our troops a chance if they were cut off from supplies. It will also allow Spec Ops teams to operate for a very long time. In the future, we might be able to create one that can build simple energy cells for laser weapons.

3 - Poisonbane: A pill that can recognize poison inside a person’s body and prevent it from spreading further by surrounding the poison and forcing them out via the gut. Poisonous substances that traditionally have no antidote can now be countered. Might help us foil assassination attempts or installed on our Biochemical Attack Response Armor as filters.

4 - Blob Drone: Remote-controlled blobs with camera-orbs that can move through any hole that’s at least one inch wide. These semi-organic machines can serve as scouts by entering tiny holes as well as maintain surveillance by hiding in tiny nooks and crevices. They have no offensive capability but they are difficult to destroy without the use of fire or electricity.

5 - Cover Blob: The Cover Blob is able to block enemy projectiles and tests have shown considerable resistance to laser-based weapons. It can be ordered via electrical signals to move alongside a friendly unit. The cover blob can be installed onto vehicles and deployed when the unit is under fire, adding another layer of protection behind our energy-based shields. For infantry units, the Cover Blob can also be used to block off paths and create bottlenecks.

6- Synthetic Agent: The Synthetic Agent is our version of the enemy’s Nanomachine colony operative. Our version lacks the capability of manufacturing bioweapons, but has considerable shapeshifting capability. They can be used as decoys or spotters for our units. They can also be placed within civilian communities as spies. However, they lack sentience and require a living pilot to control it from afar.

>_