NOVEL NEXT Book XXX Prologue - Trade Chat
(NERV Game Site – Official DAtS Offline Forums)
Number5Alive, Golddigger, BurtBacharach, CrazyCelt, Blaze, DoYouEvenLyft?, MarcoPolo, MightMakesRight, l33tpally, Bennie, SEA-TAC_Sweetie, Requiesce-in-Pace, MacD, HaveGunsWillTravel, TheDespoiler, Guardian, GunKitty, Chummer, Inquisitor, Lizard, RedFox, SemiSolidSnake, ElfMama, Not_the_Face!, Scholar, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, Anonymous7, Anonymous9, AggregatorOfSorrows, WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, DigDug, BigGunn, Dolcett, Starwatcher, Backlog, DarkAvariel, Knocker, Hullu_Kapteeni, GrimDark, BloodForTheBloodGod, Queen’s_Bitch, BackDat@55Up, DoYouEvenDPS?, MajorTom, Parca, and DarkAngel are in the chat.
MacD: Damn, this war is getting pretty intense! Whole planets going up!
Number5Alive: But who is winning?
Chummer: No one. No one wins a war like this. There’s no winning this. All you can do is survive.
GrimDark: True, brother. But, by the grace of the Empress, we will prevail!
Knocker: But seriously, what is the tactical situation like?
Inquisitor: The Ihm have had several of their fleets mauled, as have the Imperial Navy. The Empire has lost several key naval bases, making supplying the front a problem.
Lizard: Meanwhile the Imperium has lost their homeworld, as well as several key facilities in core systems. And more core systems are in the process of falling into the Eye of Despair.
DigDug: What is that Eye thing, anyways? Why is everyone so freaked about it?
GrimDark: Oh, my sweet summer child.
Inquisitor:
BloodForTheBloodGod: The Eye is the gateway torn open in the fabric of our world, opening the path to the realm of Chaos, where thought and emotion become reality. And the gods of Chaos rule over all, in their pure chaoticness, without any pretensions or lies.
GrimDark: Bull. They lie like politicians and used car salesmen.
TheDespoiler: Just because they may not tell all truths, does not mean they are speaking lies. What can be true, when seen from one point of view, can be not true, when seen from another. Especially if someone hears what they want to hear, not what is said.
DigDug: So, this is a realm of people who—
Inquisitor: Not people. The denizens of Hellspace, as it is called here, are not people. They are primal emotions made manifest, and they are hostile to all life.
DigDug: Fine, it is a realm of *creatures* that don’t like anyone else. So why would anyone go there?
Blaze: Because it is the dimension that psychic powers come from. Meaning that going there could increase your power.
Backlog: Or making deals with something from there.
GrimDark: You’ll gain power, sure, but you’ll become a slave.
BloodForTheBloodGod: What does that matter, so long as there are battles to fight, blood to spill, and skulls to claim?
Anonymous 4: Hey, circling back to what is happening now, where are the front lines?
Inquisitor: More or less where they’ve been. Chaos Storms from a ritual on Sedara have cut that planet off from the Empire. Something about it disrupts normal drives.
Blaze: Unfortunate in the current circumstances, but could be useful later.
Inquisitor: The Ihm are on the back foot, reeling from the loss of their homeworld and a couple key facilities, but they are still ahead in this war. It will take some doing for the Empire to completely reverse the tides.
Starwatcher: What about the Black Stars? I know they were involved, but I haven’t seen any mention of them since that world got grey goo-ed.
Backlog: Good question. No one has seen them since they jumped out of the grey goo system on some kind of deep strike mission.
Scholar: Actually, yeah, where are they? I haven’t seen any of them talking here, except for the ones that are at Star’s Reach, or one of their defensive positions.
BackDat@55Up: Well, that’s not concerning at all. Think something happened?
SemiSolidSnake: Of COURSE, something happened! They were going on a deep strike mission into enemy territory. No matter how well you plan, the enemy still has a say in what goes down. Especially on their turf!
Inquisitor: Which means that we are looking at potentially something blocking them?
Scholar: What could block them from Nomad channels, though?
M.Mollen: We
Scholar: Wait, what? Did that message get cut off?
ElfMama: I don’t think so. I’m looking at the public data, and there’s some major lag, there. Like, a full minute between when the message was sent, and when it was posted.
M.Mollen: went
Bennie: Huh. Sounds a lot like when everyone was gearing up to bring down Shadowgate. It was hard coordinating things, apparently, because of time dilation.
Scholar: Time dilation? But that wouldn’t keep people from speaking. Ok, it would explain the lag on this transmission.
M.Mollen: into
GrimDark: So, the Black stars have gone someplace where time is acting funky, and, because of that, they haven’t been as chatty as they normally are?
Backlog: Sounds like it. But I wonder where they went?
M.Mollen: the
Inquisitor: I have my suspicions, but I don’t know why Mollen, especially, would do something so stupid.
GrimDark: Yeah, he knows the dangers as well as everyone else.
M.Mollen: Eye.
BloodForTheBloodGod: Hah! A fleet led by a sorcerer entering the Eye of Despair? Let the might of chaos burn within you!
TheDespoiler: I am also curious why Mollen would take his fleet in there, since I happen to know that his ships haven’t been refit to include the system one needs to rip open a rift so they can leave Hellspace, now that they’re in it.
Sea-TAC_Sweetie: You mean they’re stuck in there?
TheDespoiler: Unless they find a natural rift, or someone helps them, I don’t see how it is possible.
Scholar: What about you, Despoiler? Could you get them out?
TheDespoiler: Even if we knew where in Hellspace they were, we’re most of the way towards the galactic core, at the moment, dealing with some X’thari. Or, more like a splinter faction or race from the X’thari.
Dolcett: So, they are trapped in Hellspace, with no way out, and no one can get to them?
TheDespoiler: Pretty much. Oh, I can think of a couple ways they might try and escape, but they’re all suicidally insane.
Scholar: Oh, is that all? Then I expect they’ll be out by the end of the month, at the latest. And that’s only if the time dilation is really bad.
AggregatorOfSorrows: Well, I mean, you’re not wrong…
CrazyCelt: Come on. Mollen might be gutsy, but he’s never come off as insane!
Bennie: That’s because you don’t know half the shit he’s done. Oh, sure, he’s made it all work, but he’s had some seriously lucky breaks here and there.
DoYouEvenDPS?: Well, considering that, from what he’s said, his Luck stat is over 100, that isn’t entirely surprising.
DoYouEvenLyft?: Who puts that much into Luck?
DoYouEvenDPS?: The kind of person who somehow manages to start an interstellar company that now outright owns a couple systems.
DoYouEvenLyft?: Fair enough. So, odds on him getting out by the end of the week?
Dolcett: I’ll give it 20 to 1.