(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.
Knocker: What the hell
is this about these “X’thari”? What are they?
Number5Alive: Ooh.
They’re nasty buggers. No one really knows what they look like, since they
always walk around in those technorganic suits of theirs, like some kind of
chitin.
Anonymous4: Are you
sure they’re suits? Could be actual insectoids.
Number5Alive: Yes, I’m
sure. Unless they’ve changed things from Beta.
MacD: Ugh, that was
some seriously nasty shit.
CrazyCelt: What
happened?
MacD: You ‘wake up’ on
a ship, and alarms are going off, and you have to try and get off before the
thing goes boom, while landing parties of X’thari try boarding the ship.
CrazyCelt: How tough
are they?
MacD: Individually?
Not impossible. Their armor is tough, and they’re good fighters, but a combat
spec could take one down. Problem is, they’re pack hunters, so there’s never
just one.
Number5Alive: Yeah.
But you can get a group of them, if you know how to rig traps.
MacD: So one of your
traps knocked them out of their suit, and you had time to take a look?
Number5Alive: All of
about 20 seconds before the thing came to, noticed I’d removed its helmet, and
self-destructed. Took out half the ship with sympathetic explosions.
CrazyCelt: Suicide
vests?
MacD: No one knows for
sure. But whatever it is, it is like a pocket-sized nuke. Very nasty, if you’re
within about 20-30 meters.
Guardian: 5, that was
you? I heard talk on the boards about someone in Beta getting a look under the
hood.
Number5Alive: Yep.
Nasty shock. Didn’t really have time for more than a quick look, and the Beta
license didn’t let us save images, for obvious reasons.
Backlog: Man, that
would have put you in one of the top spots for the beta, if you didn’t get
yourself blown up, right?
Number5Alive: Yeah. Fastest
time on the Beta was actually some guy with the Engineer spec. But he showed up
on the other specs, too, though with slower times.
M.Mollen: I used to be
an engineer in real life. Out of game skills helping game skills, and all.
Backlog: Used to be?
M.Mollen: Medical
discharge. I was in an accident, and was left paralyzed from the waist down. Suddenly
had a LOT of time for gaming.
Knocker: So are you
why the X’thari are showing up all over the place?
M.Mollen: Yes and no.
No, I didn’t send them. Yes, they’re showing up because of something I did.
l33tpally: What did
you do?
M.Mollen: Led the
defense of Nuevo Edo against the X’thari raiders who targeted it, and won.
Knocker: Why would
they go off attacking elsewhere, then?
Parca: Because we
stomped their asses so hard their mothers felt it. Close on 200 ships and we
killed them all, without a dreadnought in our group.
Hullu_Kapteeni: Well,
the Boss did call in a favor and get some Imperial assistance to take out the
one group.
Parca: OK, fair
enough. But we’d already damn near killed them all. That last group would have
bled us, but we’d have won.
GunKitty: But now you
won, and you don’t have to replace half the fleet.
Anonymous9: So that’s
why those Black Star ships ran to the Gateway, and came back today looking they’d
been put through the wringer?
M.Mollen: Yeah, had to
call in all hands. The Assassin-class corvettes and Reaper-class cruisers are
simply not built for slug-fests, and the gunboats are badass for their size,
but they’re tiny. Sending that kind of force against a group that included
dreadnoughts would be suicidal if that wasn’t our only choice.
BackDat@55Up: Could
have cut and run, right? I mean, it wasn’t like you HAD to stay.
M.Mollen: Sure, if you
count leaving a planet full of people to die as a viable option. And maybe if
there were more of them, I would have made that call.
MarcoPolo: So what
does this have to do with raiding in ‘Known Space’?
M.Mollen: Because they
had a stealth probe in the system that watched the gate traffic, so they know
where we came from. And they now know we have abilities allowing us to fight
above our weight class.
Knocker: They’re
looking to do tech steals?
M.Mollen: That is what
our analysts believe, yes.
Guardian: ‘Analysts’.
Heh.
M.Mollen: Technically,
I do have several analysts.
HaveGunsWillTravel:
That exist primarily so you can say ‘analysts’ with a straight face, and in
case they make a jump a more logical mind wouldn’t.
MajorTom: We prefer to
think of her as the IT department.
Parca: Chief navigator.
GunKitty: You guys are
so bad!
Anonymous4: You have
some kind of super-analyst? Is that how you’ve managed to jump ahead in
different tech fields?
M.Mollen: The tech jump
happened because I got a bunch of clever people together, gave them some tech I
‘acquired’, and told them to go wild designing new things.
Anonymous4: And this
super-analyst?
M.Mollen: Is a secret.
One that I will torment you with so you won’t think about what else I’m doing
while you’re distracted.
Golddigger: That’s
cold.
DarkAvariel: So, if
most of your fleet is in for repairs, where’s that leave you and Black Star?
M.Mollen: Well, the
tech guys are working on some new ship designs, and the Nuevo Edoans are very
happy with their investment in Black Star products so far, so we’re going to be
building up their fleet for a while.
MajorTom: Don’t forget
R&D on the captured X’thari ship.
M.Mollen: Ah yes, the
X’thari launched a new ship type at us, so we captured it. R&D is being
shared between us and Nuevo Edo, but we may be able to do some contract work
for the Empire and Confederates once we unlock a few of their mysteries.
l33tpally: You
captured an entirely new type of X’thari ship? How did they not blow it up?
M.Mollen: We kept
hitting it with ion cannons to disable the systems and keep them down, and I
have Marines, so why wouldn’t I toss them at a problem like capturing an
entirely unknown ship type?
MajorTom: That’s why
we’re Marines. It is what we do.
M.Mollen: Yep. Oh, and
if any of you guys are looking to get thrown into a lot of action, by now any
major power will be looking to get as many Nomads into highly lethal roles as
possible. Soldiers, spies, fighter pilots… the guy they send into the fusion
reactor.
MajorTom: Hah!
Parca: That’s a good
one.
Hullu_Kapteeni: He’s
not wrong, though. But only for grunts. People like me, who are captains, they
prefer we stay out of trouble. Is not like Star Trek at all. A very
disappointing lack of sexy green women.
M.Mollen: Don’t give
me that crap. That lady last week with the cosmetic mods…
Hullu_Kapteeni: Yes,
yes. But is one ever really enough?
M.Mollen: Well… ok,
you got me there.
ElfMama: And now I
need a cold shower.
Dolcett: Hah!
Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter
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
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rules-free-vrmmo-life-stuart-grosse/1128941349?ean=2940161995297
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rules-free-vrmmo-life-omnibus-i-stuart-grosse/1128953195?ean=2940162052081
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
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR
The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T
No comments:
Post a Comment