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, Guardian, GunKitty, Chummer, Inquisitor, SemiSolidSnake, ElfMama, Not_the_Face!, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, Anonymous9, AggregatorOfSorrows, WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, Dolcett, Backlog, DarkAvariel, Knocker, Hullu_Kapteeni, GrimDark, BloodForTheBloodGod, Queen’s_Bitch, BackDat@55Up, DoYouEvenDPS?, MajorTom, Parca, and DarkAngel are in the chat.

GrimDark: *sigh*

Knocker: What’s wrong, Grim?

GrimDark: Just sad that the war is over already. No one else seems to be gearing up, and the Imperials are too busy recovering.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: Well, I wouldn’t say everything is peaceful. Confederates are shifting resources to try and deal with Imperial refugees, and increased raiding activity all across their space.

MarcoPolo: I can tell you that the Gauz Consortium is up to all kinds of tricks, just not the kinds you want, Grim. Looks like most of the crafting-focused players went to the Consortium, and they got inspired by the Black Star fleet. There’s been a lot of interesting developments out here. A lot of explosions too.

ElfMama: Explosions?

MarcoPolo: Sometimes great advances in science only come after great setbacks. Like having your lab turned into a smoking crater after you learn that some substances REALLY don’t react well to certain conditions.

Backlog: LMFAO!

DoYouEvenDPS?: There’s a couple guilds… sorry, companies out here in the Free Worlds Alliance that have started putting together a merchant fleet. Well, the each have only a couple ships, but they’re hoping to grow.

SEA-TAC_Sweetie: Trying to take the spot of top earning company from Black Star?

DoYouEvenDPS?: Maybe eventually. That bastard just got too big a head start, having his first ship come to him free.

M.Mollen: If you want to be technical, with the rest of the money my ‘friend’ earned in that card game, Lord_Kickass basically paid her to give his ship to me.

BurtBacharach: You’ve been damn lucky.

M.Mollen: Some luck. But most of it was cheating. Oh, not hacking the game or anything like that. But reading minds is very useful in card games, or when you’re trying to make an arena fight look good.

M.Mollen: The rest was just taking advantage of the opportunities I made for myself. Finding Shadowdancer was the big break, since her capabilities make her ideal for a quick strike force.

BackDat@55Up: So, what is this I hear about your company going on some kind of expedition?

ElfMama: Ooh, yes! That expedition has been the talk of Dimiya ever since you started building up for it!

GrimDark: Is there another war on that I don’t know about?

M.Mollen: Well, no war just yet. We’ll see about the future, but yes, I can confirm that most of my fleet has left Dimiya, and Confederation space altogether.

GoldDigger: Where did you go?

DoYouEvenLyft?: He was tracked as far as the Desolace System, but that is deep in Confederate space, and he hasn’t been spotted at any of the gateways since.

M.Mollen: Any of the KNOWN Gateways.

l33tpally: What the actual fuck? There aren’t any unknown gates!

MarcoPolo: Actually, the are. There have to be. The X’thari wouldn’t be able to do their hit and run attacks if there wasn’t at least one Gate we didn’t have an address for.

l33tpally: Then why haven’t we tried random numbers to find them?

GoldDigger: Because you can’t just dial up and ask if the X’thari can come out and play. There’s literally millions of potential addresses.

M.Mollen: 127,512,000 potential addresses. 16 of which are in Known Space.

GoldDigger: Right, so you can’t just dial the gate and see what happens. Mainly because the only way to tell a good address from a bad one is to go through the gate.

l33tpally: What happens if you hit a bad address?

GoldDigger: No one knows.

l33tpally: C’mon, seriously though.

Requiesce-in-Pace: He’s right, though. No one knows. And even if nomads can return from death, no one is willing to invest in 127 million shuttles to send them through to random destinations and only lose most of them, if you’re lucky.

MacD: So how did M.Mollen find a 17th gate address?

M.Mollen: I was stealing things for a client, and while I was in the fancy part of the vaults, I looked around for anything fun that I could take for myself.

SemiSolidSnake: Hey, is anyone else on Earth right now?

Blaze: I’m in the Sicilian Enclosure, why?

SemiSolidSnake: Then you might want to let them know that there’s some crazy bastard driving from Berlin to Sicily.

Blaze: Wait, driving? All the vehicles should be gone by now!

SemiSolidSnake: Oh yeah, everything more complicated than a steam engine is gone all right, but this fucker made himself a steam engine. After he made himself a smoker to make jerky as ‘travel rations’ for himself and his ‘pet’.

M.Mollen: How are things behind the lines, Snake?

SemiSolidSnake: About as you’d expect. Never thought I’d use those survival classes in a video game, but there you go.

Blaze: So what’s up with this guy that I need to warn people about? Other than the fact that he can apparently make tech from scratch?

SemiSolidSnake: Well, his ‘jerky’ is made from the bodies of people who had too much tech in their heads, and he basically has a Gauz girl chained to him whenever he goes out.

M.Mollen: Real piece of work, then.

Blaze: I’ll let them know about the incoming. How long do you expect?

SemiSolidSnake: Well, they’re basically going about the same speed as a horse. Give it a month?

Blaze: All right, I can work with that.

MacD: So where did the new gate address take you, M.Mollen?

M.Mollen: Oh, I’m pretty close to the galactic core right now.

Requiesce-in-Pace: Haha. That’ll definitely make it difficult for future assassins to find you.

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Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X

Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y

City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1

Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF

The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T