Shattered Planes Archives (Seasons 4 & 5)
Milky Way Galaxy => Violet => Topic started by: @Pokemon Master Red on July 24, 2012, 05:27:16 AM
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"Good morrow, High General Valdamee." Gregory said, walking onto the bridge of the First Battalion. It honestly didn't look like a starship bridge. In fact, it looked quite a lot like a conference room. Mostly because much of the actual manipulation of the ship took place in Cyberspace, after all...This room was just a meeting place for the minds of the highest echelons of the Mechera's government, both military and civilian, and for those who operated the hardware of the ship to calibrate most of the settings of the entire ship. It honestly was only called the Bridge because the servers that contained the highest functions on board the First Battalion-that is to say, tge functions that keep it running and where the High Admiral conducts his duties- were located in the room itself. There were a few other Mechera in the room than Gregory, most of them Royal Guard members who took their places with their lance-like weapons at the door, and all around the edges of the room. Not that they were needed, of course-They were here purely in the contingency of a siege of tge bridge from the city on the Titan. Again, unlikely, but you can never be too careful.
"You all may be wondering why you've been called here today. Well, as you may already know, our scientists have several theoretical designs up for the block of the Chronomancer's abilities, however, we've no chance to test them against real data, which our...Friends, in the DAIS Armada were unable to provide." At these words, the clear-metal pane at the opposite end of the Bridge, normally showing space and, as current, the rapidly redeveloping ecosystems of Violet(thanks to the Mechera's bioforming technologies), was overlaid with a image of the Chronomancer as given by the DAIS along with greyed out schematics of the various Pseudo-Magic systems to jam his Chronomancy. "The fact is, we cannot build any of these technologies without data gathered in the field. While I do not wish to go into battle against a foe we are not certain we can easily defeat, we have no choice if we are to at all. I have called you all here so that a plan may be devised, in order to minimize the loss of life by our troops...Which is a very real danger when one goes u p against a foe that can manipulate time. Now, does anyone have a plan of action?"
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Gregory blinked in Cyberspace. One second he was telling his aides of his descision to go ahead with the active recon, to get data on their Enemy's chronological powers, then as soon as he was finished he was sitting in the cyberspatial control console, used for nonperfect synchronization with their bodies. And the cyberspatial screens all around him showed a message, signed by a 'Alpha'.
He attempted to use the normal routines to shutdown the console, but nothing happened. Frowning, he got up from it, and floated in his body's cyberspace. He tried a trick of his out-A specific code, designed to allow the King of the Mecgera Empire total mastery of the Mechera networks, embedded into its core Operating Systems. The Sovereign's Right. A emergency code, of course, but a useful one. Through it, he forced the console to shut down, before attempting to access his body's camera functionality.
. . .
Nothing occured. His frown grew deeper. Whatever was stopping him wasn't a glitch in the networks, it was some form of lock on the functionalities of it. He tried to check the status of his connection with the rest of the Mechera's Cybernetwork, but found that his body was locked. He once more exercised the Sovereign's Right to unlock the connection to the nearest Network, which was the Titan's Cyberspace. This time, it worked, the flag of the Empire briefly showing up in cyberspace in front of him before a terminal took its place. The software was designed so that Software Locks were weaker than Hardware Locks, made specifically to prevent a criminal from locking themselves within a Cyberspace while keeping them from looking into the Real Space while police forces broke the security...There wasn't any way to utalize the Mechera's systems to stop the Sovereign's Right from allowing access to that Data, though Hardware Locks were a different Story, of course. The terminal appeared to simply be a circular platform with a large chain at the bottom falling away from it, the chain fading the further from the platform it was until it wasn't there anymore. Also, the top of the platform faced Gregory, for what it matters. He pressed his hand upon the Data Chain, and its surface rippled slightly, before he was no longer there.
Gregory appeared in what looked to be a sprawling cityscape, standing on the side of a building, which more buildings were built from in perpendicular directions. Cyberspace was a funny thing, no laws of reality to constrict one from designing it how they wished, molding it to the whim. There were other sectors of the First Battalion, of course, not cities where buildings rise from buildings and walkways between them angled to allow on to travel straight from one surface to a different one at the side, or above them. There was also the Naturescape sector, and the Uppernet within the First Battaloon. But as yet, every window upon every building showed the message of Alpha, and the only people shown wandering the cityscapes looking confused or forlorn. One was banging a terminal, her face in shock as she screamed a name, it seemed she was in the middle of a conversation with a loved one when the locks went in place, and...Well, most often when a connection is terminated it means that the Cyberspace the other was in was destroyed by some means. Another appeared confused, attempting to use a Data Chain to Link to another net, but inable because of the Locks. A few Mechera saw Gregory and recognized their King, and walked towards him. He not out of some purpose, but...He was their leader. Surely, King Gregory would know what to do, right? Even though they all desperately hoped that, their eyes betrayed their fear. A wave of crimson spread, as Mechera looked to one another's faces for reassurance, but saw only the color of Fear in each other's eyes...And fear beget fear. As more joined the crowd, he looked through them, before saying,"I am not certain what is going on, my people. But what is clear is the a emergency situation, a second attack upon our territory...Though I shall admit, this one is much closer to home. I wont try to ask you to stay in your homes, or to tell you that this is under control. It isn't...Not YET. I will ask that the civilians within this area stay here, and to try to find any loved ones and family while we are here. This is a trying situation, and I do think you should be with those you know, you trust, you love. However...I must ask any officers of the Law, on duty or off as well as any military personnel currently here to leave the crowd so that I may speak with you. The task I have is not dangerous, rather time consuming, and it is what you signed yourselves up for-To uphold peace throughout the Empire, and to protect its people and its allies. If you will form a seperate crowd, I should speak with you all."As he spoke, which I shall note was spoken in the language his people had in the time before they were machines(still well known, but kept secret to non-Mechera. Not even their closest allies know it exists, even though its the language primarily spoken within Mechera cyberspace as opposed to the mechanical noise language they speak to one another in Real Space), many of those in the crowd looked to their family they'd just found, or their friends, or rivals. Hesitately, they left the now-massive main crowd, and formed a smaller but still sizeable crowd nearby.
As they formed into ranks and more went from the Civilian crowd to the Military and Police crowd, Gregory invoked the Sovereign's Right to open up the Networks once again, unlocking the many bodies of Mechera on board the ship. And as this happened, the messages from Alpha covering on each window of the structures was replaced by the symbol of the Mechera Empire, the symbol on their flag. To any other race, it was a meaningless emblem, but to the Mechera, well, it meant the same thing as their own race's name. Contrary to what one might think, 'Mechera' doesn't mean 'machine', or even have any connotation to the mechanical in their language. A more accurate, though still quite rough, translation would instead be "The United". After all, at the end of the Convergence War, while the nation of Landora was the victor, their nation was no longer Landora, in truth. It was all four nations of their world...They were no longer the Innovators. They could only be said to be the United. And the Emblem of the United appeared upon every window, every screen, in the entire sector, before the windows upon each building came together to show a single, building-sized version of the emblem. Almost instantly, the members of the Royal Guard appeared a little ways off, before seeing and running towards their King. As they reached Gregory, they knelt before him, to which he simply said,"Im afraid that we have little time for formality, my friends. If you would join the smaller of the groups, that is the one I must speak with at this moment."At his words, the Royal Guard rose with a "Yes, Milord!" and joined the Military/Police crowd. Gregory walked over to it once the crowd looked like it was getting all the members it would. Almost all of them had switched the ClothesData from whatever they'd been wearing to their UniformData, making it a large mishmashed crowd of soldiers, Royal Guard, police grunts, RIOT forces, officers, seargents, admirals, operators, and...Non-Law or Military personnel. It appeared that many police and military soldiers had convinced a few of their friends or allies to join them. Not much matter, it served to bolster their forces, which were still quite small for the task he had for them. "The task I have for you all is simple, but arduous. It will take a long time, even with all of you. What I ask is for you all to comb through all traces of Mechera-Controlled Cyberspace. Unlock every Data-Chain,, every Gate-Link, every last connection of every last sector of every last Cyberspace we have within this Dimension. I want you to look for every citizen of the Empire within any of these connections, any of these Cyberspaces, and I want for you to send them to the Cyberspace of the First Battalion, the Cityscape Sector. The Battalion should have enough memory for all of our people, though it will put a heavy strain on its servers. Tell them to expect Network glitches as the Battalion fills, these are normal and will not become too severe to become harmful. I will temporarily grant you all a limited form of the Sovereign's Right to break the Locks put in place by this 'Alpha'. When you find military or police personnel, you are to recruit them into your forces and grant them the Sovereign's Right. All of you are to operate in independent squads; form into squads and choose a leader at your own discrimination. Each squad is to keep a constant Map Window with the group designation XL4T92 open at all times, and mark any connections and areas cleared out so that other squads will not clear a area that has already been done. Once all connections that do not lead to foreign Data anetworks are cleared out, all squads are to head here and join the civilians. If this is understood, then I shall leave you all to it." Gregory said, applying the limited Sovereign's Right to them as they formed ranks, then squads, and then dispersed. Gregory then turned to the crowd left, and said,"If there are any hackers, programmers, Data-Analysts, or the like within this crowd, whether you are legally such or criminals who use these skills for your own gain, I ask that you please form another group. I have a task for you all as well that requires your skills. If you are criminals, I can promise you a pardon for any of you're actions for helping with this extremely important task, or if your crimes are too great for a pardon, a massively reduced sentence." A different group trickled together, some moving from the crowd with conviction, others with a sheepish look on their face as though they were being judged. Even so, the yroup formed together, around the same size as the police/military crowd had been. Gregory looked to them, and said,"You all have my utmost gratitude. My task for you is a bit more complex than the task I had for the forces of military and law-I wish for you all to analyze the nature of the Locking attack we have just experienced. I want you to look through its code, to find where it originated, to reverse-engineer it, to find a way to not only counter all of its effects but to completely block it from all of our networks! You all have what may be the most important job there is-I want you to protect us from this 'Alpha's attacks, and I want you to tell me where he is!" And as this was said, he applied a different limited Sovereign's Right to the programmer group, allowing them to break open any Software Locks there would be, to allow them to see the remnants of the attack within the Core Software Systems of the Networks. He did realize that he was allowing criminals access to basically the Operating Systems...But it was a limited format of the Sovereign's Right. Specifically made to block out any dara unnecessary to what they were doing, like the Core Code itself, and prevent them from changing anything in place. Right now they were just analyzing, and writing their findings about the Changed or Forced Data, sharing the findings with one another and going off of one anothers insights about this all. If nothing else, they would find this person, and while Gregory wanted the Mechera Cyberspace completely protected, finding him would be enough. As he waited for his Police and Soldiers to finish their mission, and for his Programmers and Hackers to finish theirs, there was one thing Gregory focused on, kept in his mind, and planned about...
Whoever this Alpha was...He'd declared War upon the wrong people.
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Thel stood up in surprise as Gregory's body shut down along with the rest of the Mechera's in the room. Then the lights went out, and finally Alpha's message. Thel turned to the screen which displayed the large symbol and his jaw dropped. "Alpha, you fucker!!!" he screamed at the screen. Within seconds he was over at Gregory's body shaking it.
"Falzone!" he yelled at it. "Gregory!" he yelled again, but to no avail. He was trapped on First Battalion...