Into the Black

(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.

MarcoPolo: Oh, fucking fuck fuck fuckity fucking fuck! What the everfucking fuck was that fucking fuckshit?

Knocker: Impressive use of fuck, there.

DarkAngel: Did you all get thrown out of FTL, too?

Scholar: There are reports coming in from all over Known Space. Something ripped the galaxy a new one. Knocked people out of FTL anywhere they were. With varying degrees of damage. Some ships only had to start the engine back up after a quick diagnostic, but there are emergency beacons going off, saying people have been stranded in interstellar space.

MacD: Uh, it is even worse than that. There’s also Hellspace flares going off all over the place, and explosions as well. Any ships or stations caught in them are basically toast.

l33tpally: How bad has the death count gotten?

MacD: Olidia Station in Alliance Space has had 100% fatalities. Something about the Hellspace flare caused organic beings to spontaneously… invert. Explosively so. All over the walls.

Dolcett: Damn. How’d you find out about it?

MacD: I was there. And when I respawned, I was still there. In the middle of it. I need a drink. Or thirty.

DarkAvariel: You’re in Ontharand, right? I have a contact there who can hook you up with a therapist. Probably easier and cheaper than a RL one.

MacD: Thanks. Send me the number and I’ll call them. Once I’m done getting interviewed by the local government.

DarkAngel: They don’t think you were responsible, do they?

MacD: No, not cops. Basically, their version of the NTSB. They want to figure out what happened, and how to keep it from happening again.

Anonymous3: I mean, it is pretty obvious what happened.

Dolcett: Oh? Enlighten us, Anon.

Anonymous3: All the explosions, shockwaves, and flares erupted out of Hellspace, right? So, obviously, something happened in Hellspace that fucked everything up. That limits the number of potential causes greatly.

TheDespoiler: Hellspace was also affected by whatever happened. Our ships were thrown into realspace. A massive shockwave passed through the entire thing. Probably hit the entire galaxy, at this rate.

Anonymous9: So, that means it was probably Black Star pulling something out of their ass to get out of Hellspace, or the Ihm finding some new way to fuck everyone over, right?

Starwatcher: Well, I can report that the Black Star Navy just returned to Star’s Reach, including one MASSIVE new ship.

BigGunn: How massive are we talking about, here?

Starwatcher: You know the old Star Wars movies, specifically the third one in the original trilogy?

BigGunn: Yeah, I mean, it is practically required viewing for geeks.

Starwatcher: So, if normal superdreadnoughts are a Star Destroyer, this thing is a Super Star Destroyer.

BigGunn: Fuck me sideways.

DarkAvariel: How does that thing fit through the Gateways?

Starwatcher: It doesn’t. It came in on an anchor drive. And the shield readings I’m getting off it would be a match for the Harvester.

Knocker: So, I guess the working theory is that Black Star did indeed pull out a trump card, and blasted their way out of the Eye of Despair?

Starwatcher: Almost certainly. And it was something they made, not something they found in Hellspace.

Anonymous9: How do you figure?

Starwatcher: The megaship is way larger than anything the Black Stars have used before, but it follows the same aesthetic, much like how Star Destroyers and Super Star Destroyers follow the same aesthetic. It is bigger, yes, but it is clearly Black Star. Also, it is named the BSN Hades. For a ship that goes into Hellspace, that is pretty on the nose.

M.Mollen: Well, ‘subtlety’ wasn’t exactly in the requirements when the planners got to work.

Dolcett: Oh, you’re back at normal speed, now! So, what were the design requirements?

M.Mollen: Basically, I wanted a fleet command vehicle that could open up a Hellspace portal large enough for a fleet to get through. Since that would obviously make it a huge ass target, it then needed to be big enough to have support ships, and a lot of weapons, and shields strong enough to tell anyone who got too close to fuck off. That made the whole thing bigger, until we got to where we are now.

Parca: Don’t forget that he put a fucking huge gun on the thing, too.

M.Mollen: Well, obviously. That’s pretty much a signature for warships designed by the Black Star Navy. Nothing says ‘fuck around and find out’ like a gun running the length of the ship.

TheDespoiler: I know you didn’t use kinetics or FTL munitions, not with the size of the blast. We felt it all the way by the core! Just what the hell is that thing armed with?

M.Mollen: Well, you know how one of the primary features of Hellspace is that time doesn’t really work the same there, right? It can even run in reverse, in some places. And the energies of Hellspace really fuck with a lot of weapon systems, unless you’re at knife range, practically close enough to swing across on grapple lines like old-school pirates.

TheDespoiler: Yes, it has been a rather constant headache, made only sufferable because our opponents are ill equipped for Hellspace travel.

M.Mollen: Well, we were playing around with some Lost Tech, and came across the concept of a big gun that basically smooths out Hellspace, making it like realspace, at least temporarily.

DarkAngel: And this is what you used to break out of Hellspace?

M.Mollen: Well, there were some unintended side effects. See, the weapon is designed to attack ships or planets in Hellspace, making them safe for normal ships to attack, and driving back the ‘demons’ of Hellspace.

M.Mollen: It turns out that, when you hit the edge of a barrier that holds back Hellspace by burning away souls, it reacts really violently.

MacD: My god! Do you know how much damage you’ve caused across the galaxy with this stunt?

Number5Alive: Huh. I just checked in on some friends in the Abedrra System. Seems the moon of the fourth planet went and turned into a kind of cheese.

BurtBacharach: Wait, really? There’s a moon made out of cheese?

Number5Alive: Yeah. Seems like everything’s crazy over there right now. The moon having less density and mass all of a sudden means that it is threatening to slingshot into space. Right now, they’re working on how to stabilize the moon in a new orbit.

Scholar: How the fuck does that even happen?

TheDespoiler: Hellspace can change the nature of things, especially when unshielded. But this is a rather large, and sudden, change, even for Hellspace.

M.Mollen: Anyways, I’ve gotta go. Have to look at the detailed scans and see what we know about the thing the Ihm woke up.

MacD: Wait, what?

M.Mollen has left the chat.

MacD: Damnit! GET BACK HERE!

Scholar: Well, that was ominous.