Walkers of Worlds

[Maharg67]

QUESTIONABLE HISTORIES OF CENTRALIA

FACTIONS OF THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS OF CENTRALIA

 

TEKVAULT0087 FACTIONS (DEALT WITH ELSEWHERE)

 

LAMPLIGHT CYCLE FACTIONS

 

LITTLE LAMPLIGHTERS: Children only settlement to which babies appeared mysteriously and from which 15 year olds departed to go to Big Lamplight.

 

BIG LAMPLIGHTERS: Adult only settlement to which 15 year olds from Little Lamplight went and from which Big Lamplighters vanished when they reach the right age.

 

LOST LAMPLIGHTERS: Those Lamplighters of the Cycle who failed to make the grade either as Little Lamplighters or Big Lamplighters.

 

CLANSFOLK

A network of settlements, outposts and facilities being of the Waykin of the Wayclans and allied groupings. Included the Orderhood of the Service of the Light, Clansguardia, Clansguilds and others of the Clansfolk

 

GUIDEMARA TRIBALS

Descendents of people working, researching, visiting etc. the Lamplight Caverns who became the tribals during a long period of survival struggle. Have both ghouls and rhouls amongst their number.

 

SLASHMORIES

 

Savage gangers who moved into an outer part of Lamplight Caverns to use it as a base for their territories but who are refugees from other gangers seeking revenge against them and the Regulators seeking to bring them to justice.

 

THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS ARE GREAT IN SIZE AND MORE FACTIONS WILL BE ADDED IN FUTURE NOTES

Edited November 10, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

13 of 1 (014)

 

COOPERATING WITH MOTHERHUB

 

OrbisTransZia surprised Johnnie when OrbisZiaMind, the mentality that controlled OrbisTransZia directly, assisted by securing the wire-teleportation link between the Utility Hub Outpost he was in, along with his group, and a wire-teleport booth in a chamber in Little Lamplight.

 

OrbisZiaMind did more than this, infiltrating Motherhub in a way that Johnnie himself could not have done through the 3Dtelescreens. Thus Johnnie learned that MotherHub was being deceptive but that MotherHub did not know this, was being manipulated by another, more powerful AI-supercomputer network-system hidden somewhere else in the Lamplight Caverns. The controlling link of LamplightHub was cut and the various hidden control and other programs inside MotherHub AI-supercomputer network-systems were hunted down and deleted or otherwise made harmless.

 

MotherHub quietly accepted that it had been manipulated and tricked. At once it set out to track down and take over hidden chambers inside Little Lamplight and the facilities in them that LamplightHub no longer had any control of or any real access to at all. Motherbots and BigSibling androids went on hunter-seeker missions along with cavetron robots and teen-children with special equipment.

 

Leaving the three replicant androids and robots in the isolated UHO, Johnnie teleported with Lucy and other children, including the neobabies, to Little Lamplight. It was not a comfortable experience, leaving all of them a little dizzy and, as the neobabies would put it, sickety in the tummy. They appeared in the UHO at the edge of the Great Cavern and came out onto a big metal platform rimmed with a metal safety fence. The glowcavern was huge, stretching into the distance, and was partly filled with great structures of poles and genetically engineered trees with rampways, balconies, walkways, platforms, chambers inside the great columns and much else besides. There were safety nets, safety fences and much else to protect the children.

 

Children, there were hundreds of them and with them were fewer but still many motherbots like slimmer versions of protectrons and the BigSibling androids like young men and women in appearance, wearing friendly multiple coloured jumpsuits. There were cavetrons also and dogs, cats, canaries, small monkeys along with some other types of animals. The children were doing many types of activity from running around to sleeping on comfortable wide mattresses, to swimming in the big bowl shaped pool that was not very deep even at the centre, to learning in small class groups and much else besides. It was amazing barely controlled chaos or so it looked.

 

Yet something did not feel right and Lucy spoke. "All the children are here in the Great Cavern. So are nearly all the robots and androids, the animals."

 

:sweat: Aaahhh, something is not right alright. I can sense it in my bones.

 

:laugh: What bones?

 

:sweat: Never you mind that petty detail; I can sense something is not right.

 

:ermm: Ooommm, you know for once you may be right.

 

:sweat: What do you mean, for once?

 

Which was when a BigSister came to meet Lucy and Johnnie, her perfect face smiling. Then she spoke. "MotherHub is most concerned. She has lost contact with five external outposts and with one roving patrol of eyebots. She had eyebots brought out of storage and sent out in trios to look out for danger to Little Lamplight. No messages have come from Big Lamplight in some days or from Lost Lamplight."

 

Lucy frowned. "So there is such a place to where vanished children go to from Little Lamplight. MotherHub lied to me."

 

BigSister-098 responded. "MotherHub was controlled secretly by something called LamplightHub and did not lie to you."

 

Lucy seemed mollified by this and yet still concerned, which was understandable. She went off to speak with Mayor MacCready and some other of the more influential children in the exotic settlement. Johnnie wanted to look around and the android started to take him on a guided tour of sorts.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

14 of 1 (015)

 

SEEKING ANSWERS IN LITTLE LAMPLIGHT

 

"It was a time of chaos even though their were quieter areas." Johnnie was responding to one of Joseph's many questions, the boy being very intelligent by normal human standards. They had found some hidden chambers, being altered caverns with added artificial antechambers of smaller size, with banks of machinery including computer mass-towers, hulking and metallic, great big 3Dflatscreens, large half circile consoles with swivel-chairs built in and other network-systems.

 

He was sitting at the big central console, more of a circle than a half circle, looking down over the rest of the large main chamber. "The FreeAlliance had vanished and a scattered FreeResistance kept fighting the Martians and the Enclaven traitors. The Patriot World Government rose into power. The construction of the bubblecities began as the Martians continued to colonise the deep oceans of Earth. The tripocs, the Aquatic Martians, were having troubles in the oceans, especially the deeper oceans, but all I know are some strong hints that they had enemies down there that were powerful enough to resist their expansion."

 

Joseph looked in wonder around at the computer and other hardware. In a row of rest-recharge bays were worktron, protectron and some other Tron Series Robots. The chambers were semiactive only and were not directly linked to either MotherHub or LamplightHub AI-supercomputer networks of network-systems. They had been part of a much larger network of network-systems, or NNS, not just running through the great Lamplight Caverns but into other parts of Lamplight Mountain, a large tabletop mountain, but even up to Lamplight Tower and LamplightCity on top of Lamplight Mountain.

 

Joseph nodded. "The Clansfolk were a large part of the resistance."

 

Johnnie nodded right back. "Yes, but not the only one. The FreeAlliance had left behind a well organised FreeResistance Network that the Clansfolk here in Centralia cooperated with but there were also other resistance forces around the world. The Brotherhood of Steel rose in California in North America. The NeoSoviets came out of the rubble of the USSR to fight the invaders and traitors. Germans turned against the Nazis who became part of the Enclaven and spear headed the Euorpean Rebellion, a strange turnabout as they fought to liberate peoples they had once conquered. The Chinese and Japanese formed a reluctant alliance against the invaders and traitors. It is said that the various rebel groups were getting a wide range of forms of assistance from unknown sources that were often disguised, if only to hide their real identities."

 

Joseph nodded. "You mean they did not pretend to be from known places but they did not say where they were really from."

 

Johnnie's hands flew over a keyboard and datasymbols flowed across a large flatscreen inset into the console. Joseph, the Little Lamplighter, became quiet with his many questions for a moment. He had come to realise both that Johnnie was far more intelligent than himself but that none of this mattered. Johnnie helped Joseph feel important anyway, somehow.

 

:wink: Johnnie knows we are all brilliant.

 

:D Yeh, we are all very geniuses.

 

:pinch: Yeh, and modest about it, as well.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

15 of 1 (016)

 

BATTLE AT THE ISOLATED UHO

 

Johnnie returned via wire-teleportation back to the isolated UHO when it was suddenly attacked by EagleEnclave forces, a mixture this time of Stormtroopers in power armour, robamoth supermutants but also lasergun using eyebots and bigger minigun using gunbots, both being metallic globes lifted by fanjets. They came hard and fast across the cavern outside the UHO even as Super87s, Little Lamplighters and Johnnie's group began to wire-teleport to Little Lamplight.

 

Johnnie aimed his weapon and shot down a plastic skinned robamoth supermutant. It collapsed backwards even as a Stormtrooper stepped over him and then onto him with out any seeming concern at all. The act was done with no apparent inhibition, no conscious. The Stormtrooper raised a missile-launcher and aimed it at a battling pair of supermutants, one of which was another robamoth, seeming with no concern that the missile would kill both supermutants. But then the woman inside lowered her weapon as if ordered to do so and also stepped off the suffering robamoth.

 

Johnnie sensed then that the humans in the power armour were a subspecies of some kind with out emotion, or at least none known to common humans, and with out conscious. He also sensed that these subspecies of humans were not pleasing their masters with their behaviour and that the robamoths were getting dangerously angry with their Stormtrooper comrades. But then he had to focus on the savage skirmish taking place as more of the enemy were entering the big cavern.

 

He shot a gunbot out of the air, blasting it into a burning chunk that fell into clear cool waters.

 

A megamoth Super87 fired off a rocket-grenade and it exploded over two robamoths, hurling them backwards.

 

Bullts, shells, rocket-grenades, grenades, pulsebeams, pulses and other nasty weapon fire continued to criss cross the space but most of it was not hitting doing any real harm. This was because most of the fighters were supermutants giving into berserker or semiberserker rage. Then he was slipping into the UHO and to the wire-teleport booth and to escape back to Little Lamplight, this time all of his companions going with him.

 

The enemy took over the UHO but by the time they got to the WTB, the wire-teleport booth, the teleport-wire linkage was cut and the cut off was secured by MotherHub.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

QUESTIONABLE HISTORIES OF CENTRALIA

WASTELANDERS DEFINED, HOPEFULLY

 

Wastelanders were defined as existing on the surface and immediate subsurface of Centralia.

 

Wastelanders of that period were mostly transformed humans being of the ghoulified, of the patchworked ones (FEV effected), of the roughskin ones (a different form of ghoulification), the lopers, the gillers, the carnilers, the norm appearing neonorms, the wingers, the borgtari, the spikeskins, the mudskins and others. Settlers tended to be neonormals and were a very large minority. All others were either large, medium or small minorities or even very small or tiny minorities.

 

Ghoulified such as mainghouls, subghouls, semighouls or demighouls, were another very large minority roughly the same size as that of the Settlers but add to this the 'feral' ghoulers and the fully twisted, transformed zhouls, and it became the majority grouping.

 

Other Wastelanders were genetically engineered and-or FEV wild transmutations such as the savage predatory handclaws, short adorable looking wozzles, aminatori of animal-humans, tribelurks and others.

 

Add to that zipocs, ghoulified tripocs or Aquatic Martians, drifting in terrible packs across the Wastelands, and one can quickly see that the more intelligent subspecies and species were in the minority.

 

This became more evident with all those creatures that were not seen as 'Wastelanders' but Wastecritters such as mirelurks, deathclaws, killclaws, radscorpions, radants (giant ants), muttbears (yao guai), muttdogs, loperbeasts, molerats, molemice, squirrels, owls, goats, horses, rhorses, brahmins, radtermites, radroaches, radrats, cuteclaws and many others. It should be noted that creatures with PreDD names, such as horses, were also transformed and were not like PreDD creatures of the same names. There were also transforemed plants and other lifeforms.

 

One should add robots, roboremotes, androids and other such units.

 

Then there were THEY and the OTHERS.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00051-1.jpg

Edited November 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CHANGING NUMBER SYSTEM FROM '0' TO '2'; I HOPE THIS DOES NOT CAUSE ANY TROUBLE

 

2 of 2 (017)

 

INVADERS FROM MARS: TRIPODS IN CENTRALIA, 1945

 

The armoured car drove fast along the gently winding dirt road as above the horizon line emerged the tops of great, slightly swaying battletripods. The thunder of howitzers and cannons mingled with the horrific sound of ripple-rockets as human and allied forces struck against the approaching invading army.

 

The Aquatic Martians had learned some lessons from previous battles. They had given up on using both brain implants to try to enslave humans with dubious results and had stopped so brutally exploiting their human soldiers. Perhaps realising their own weaknesses fighting on land, especially against a species with a long military history of land warfare such as humanity was, the tripocs were becoming more reliant on true human traitors. That meant the Enclaven of the various lesser Enclavens such as the PatriotEnclaven, the EagleEnclave, the BearEnclaven and others. Martian mechatripods of varied kinds, tripocs in new enhanced power armour, Enclaven body-armoured Landtroopers and both power armoured soldiers and warmachines of the Armagrenadiers were on the move. For every Armatrooper in his or her power armour there was at least a hundred less well armed and armoured Landtroopers.

 

In the distance were nonhuman allies, dragons, flying low and agile over the broken, hilly landscape with its gullys, cracks, rocky outcrops, untidy looking heaps of big boulders and scraggy, tough thorntrees. Dragons were a mystery to NonClansfolk, a mystery that Clansfolk refused to discuss even with each other most of the time, let alone with outsiders. Contrary to the belief of many, dragons were not ridden but some dragon like creatures were by Clansfolk who were bonded to them in a special way. True dragons were their own semiautonomous faction of the Clansfolk.

 

As dragons used exotic energy projectiles to explode open a battletripod cabin, sometimes clawing open metal armour with apparent ease, the high ranking officer in the armoured car was pleased they were fighting for the FreeAlliance and for the Great Exodus. One of the last convoy of refugees was moving along the dirt road, further along, in a mixture of cars, buses, trucks and any other vehicles that could carry people and essential stuff including livestock and even pets. It was the Clansfolk who insisted that animals, even seemingly useless pets, be given refugee status.

 

A dragon was killed, struck in the chest by a heat beam at close range. The officer scowled and somehow he heard an echo of the dragon cries of triumph, pain and sadness that came seconds after the death. He turned away from the distant scene and focused on the convoy ahead. Despite having some armoured vehicles and soldiers protecting it, the column was quite vulnerable. Then he saw the convoy passing a spread out cluster of Brothers of Steel in power armour and, fewer of them, in larger hulking mecha powered armour.

 

There was always hope.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

QUESTIONABLE HISTORIES OF CENTRALIA

FACTIONS OF THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS OF CENTRALIA

 

TEKVAULT0087 FACTIONS (DEALT WITH ELSEWHERE)

 

DRAGOONA

 

Dragoona, a subspecies of non flying dragons that are less intelligent but bigger and more physically powerful than true dragons. They have special abilities but are far less powerful and versatile than true dragons of the air, earth, water, land-water and other realms. They are closely allied to the Clansfolk where they have their main population but they do have some scattered outpost populations. With dragoona live other entities, both dragonfolk and of other kinds.

 

WOZZLEDARIA

 

Wozzles colony but also with cousin peoples of wazzles, wezzles, wizzles and wuzzles. Many complain that wozzles and their kinfolk look far too cute and adorable for the Wastelands or Sublands but they have lethal surprises for those who are foolish enough to take them as weak. With the wozzles live a great mix of other folks because their is something about the wozzles that attracts others to visit and then, often, to stay. Wozzles, one metre tall humanoids with silky curly fur . Wazzles, more savage, less sociable and intelligent but more cunning wozzle like humanoid. Wazzles have long retractable wrist-claws of amazing hardness and sharpness along with hidden spinedarter on their heads that shoot venomous spinedarts. Wezzles are amphibious wozzles. Wizzles are lighter, flying, gliding wozzles. Wuzzles are slower, big, stomping wozzles both more powerful but less smart than wozzles. Wozzles tend only to be defensive aggressive.

 

 

ATOMICUS ADJUDIKIARUS AND FOLLOWERHOOD OF THE BELOVED NUCLEAR DESTINIES

 

Despite the grand names, this faction consists of a loosely organised double group who are warily allied for the sake of survival. The colony consists of mostly ghoulified folk though many of them have the 'normal' appearance of demighouls. An offshoot of the Children of Atom and hunted exiles of the fanatical madness of the Knights of Atom, these people are quite paranoid of strangers but for good reason. Atomicus Ajudikiarus is a glowing one, one of the subspecies of ghouls, and he is quite insane and is leader and guru in name only. But these people have three great secrets hidden in their colony.

 

THE LAMPLIGHT CAVERNS ARE GREAT IN SIZE AND MORE FACTIONS WILL BE ADDED IN FUTURE NOTES

Edited November 10, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

16 of 1 (018)

 

SEEKING THE MISSING LITTLE LAMPLIGHTERS AND OTHER ACTIONS

 

From TransOrbisZia had come basic equipment and supplies replicated on that generally used by the Little Lamplighters. There also came more replicants and duplicants, androids, the replicants being more sophisticated and intelligent than duplicants but the duplicants being easier to grow, process and program. So for every replicant there were three duplicants and for each duplicant there were three orbbots, floating orb shaped multiple functional modular adaptable robots.

 

To TransOrbisZia went some misfit Little Lamplighters who could find no happiness in Little Lamplight, samples of moss, captured radroaches, a single Super87 supermutant of the zenamoth kind with surprising intelligence who was named Kareth, other samples and other items including more smaller, captured critters. Lucy went with the Little Lamplighters for a shorter term than they, to help them settle into their new home.

 

As this took place, armed and armoured search teams went out seeking the lost Little Lamplighters or at least good clues to what had happened to them. They collected samples and other items along with data including recordings of various kinds. Each team was made up of three older Little Lamplighters, one replicant, three duplicants, nine orbbots and three supermutants along with one or more dogs to assist in the tracking, messanger bats and a single motherbot. Messanger bats were gen-engineered bats that made excellent homing pigeon like messangers in the caverns.

 

Johnnie was feeling some frustration as he stood in the UHO at the edge of the Great Cavern. He also felt slightly annoyed for Mayor MacCready was standing there looked one moment annoyed and the next with clumsy lust at the three female figures in their special capsules that had been brought, with some difficulty, from the other UHO. Something had blocked them from being sent to TransOrbisZia, something that not even Johnnie or TransZiaMind could overcome.

 

Johnnie sighed. "Mayor MacCready, your eyes will wear out."

 

The short mayor blushed and Princess giggled cruelly. MacCready scowled at Princess and the girl backed off a little with a humph. She was clearly jealous of MacCready's attention of the three women of the Beautiful Ones though she tried to hide it and the small mayor was oblivious to her feelings.

 

Johnnie spoke again. "BeautifulOnes, false immortals that were for ever youthful and beautiful, fit and healthy until the death period came. Then came sudden agony, aging and multiple collapse of physical and mental nature. The Beautiful Ones emerged from a supposed gift technology of the tripocs but how much of a gift was it really. The tripocs themselves never seemed to use that or other dubious gifts that they gave the Patriot Family, the Patriot Party or the Patriot World Government that controlled the Enclaven. Then again I could be wrong. I was one of the BeautifulOnes before I died and became somebody else, something else."

 

:yes: Johnnie has had such an amazing life plus another life and now another life.

 

:nuke: There is great power in Johnnie; once he slew armies of demons and other monsters and he could do so again, unleashing death and destruction upon his foes.

 

:wub: It is better to love people. I love Johnnie!

 

:mad: Yeh, right, somebody has to.

 

:excl: It is all very confusing but we must collect our thoughts and work together to assist Johnnie.

 

:ninja: Ninja the enemies of Johnnie.

 

Johnnie smiled to himself, turned and gave MacCready and then Princess each a gentle firm hug and a kiss on the forehead. Both pretended to be annoyed but did not do a very good job of it. Then Johnnie turned back to the Beautiful Ones as he spoke. "I am going to wake these three. For your own safety, please leave. The new toilets, bath-house and other facilities of the Great Cavern can serve your needs now."

 

Princess snorted and pranced off.

 

Mayor MacCready nodded. "Those women are good looking sorts but they are dangerous, I can feel it in me guts." Then he turned and departed quickly.

 

Johnnie sighed. "Never was a truer word spoken. MotherHub, please prepare for Operation Waking Succubi."

 

MotherHub spoke from multiple speakers. "The UHO is now behind isolated and heavily secured. Are you sure you will be safe."

 

Johnnie sighed and shrugged. "I am sure this must be done. These Beautiful Ones have knowledge that I need, that we need, and I must deal with them anyway. They will either become a positive part of our society or I will destroy them.: I want to know what they were doing here in the Lamplight Caverns so very far from the Bubblecities of Centralia. I want to know what was going on here in the Lamplight Caverns before and during Doomsday itself, a day that was one day that lasted over a thousand days, a day when the very fabric of time-space became distorted."

 

Then he began the process of waking the three Beautiful Ones who called themselves Prue, Piper and Pheobe.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

17 of 1 (019)

 

THE CHOSEN SISTERS ARISEN

 

The Chosen Sisters were dangerous but only to those they had come to think of as their enemies. Of the Beautiful Ones, they were of the minority who had come to rebel against the ways of their people, against their own fale immortality, and they formed the so called Whitelighters. As Whitelighters they managed to become linked with the Light and their powers shifted so that they lost some old ones, kept some but also gained some new ones. They had half sisters (Paige, Palma, Pepita and Peri) who they sensed were in suspension capsules fairly close by.

 

They were beautiful, were not quite identical as triplets, were brunnets for the moment, had warm brown eyes and wore the immodestly tight capsulesuits with unconscious attractiveness. They approached Johnnie with friendly wariness after he quickly revealled that he knew a great deal about the Beautiful Ones, enough to indicate truth when he casually indicated he had been one. Something must have told the triplets not to hassle him further about this at that time for they did not though he sensed they were curious.

 

Pru, Pheobe and Piper picked up their stuff from a hidden, locked chamber that was actually carried by some MrPortys floating through the air on quiet fanjets. Like all MrBots, the MrPortys were bigger tna slower than eyebots or gunbots or others of that kind by far. MrBots had become, like the Trons, a more common type of robot in the Bubblecities and in the Enclaven but also in other places serving the TekCorps and even some others including rebel and survivalist forces. Rebels actively fought the Enclaven while survivalists hid way inside armed and armoured hideouts. Survivalists only joined fighting with the rebels for self defense reasons and the two groups did work together in other ways with the survivalists selling, or even giving, goods and services to the rebels.

 

When Mayor MacCready and Princess came visiting, along with Bumbles and some other Little Lamplighters, they got charmed at once by the three Charmed Ones. MacCready was soon to forget such things as how 'sexy' the sisters looked and Princess forgot to be jealous or aggressive. With Johnnie, they went into the Great Cavern along with their robots full of stuff. They soon were given over a smaller but still fairly large semicavern on the edge of the Great Cavern, for their use. Firmly but warmly, they got the children to stay out unless given permission to go into there.

 

Johnnie had a semicavern almost next to that given over to the sisters but he allowed children to wander in and out, had even set up some facilities for them such as a small library of preDD books and other books brought from OrbisTransZia, a holoprojection area with lots of cushions and cushionseats, some spare toilet portable cubicles and spare shower cubicles along with others. Two BigSibling androids and two motherbots were stationed there now and one of the older Little Lamplighters named Bristtle who was strong willed but warmly so. Johnnie even set up a museum of sorts in a cave chamber out from his semicavern, being his in 'theory' only, and soon items from the history and ways of Little Lamplight were there.

 

It soom became clear that not only did the Charmed Ones love Little Lamplight and the Little Lamplighters, in a compassionate fashion, but that they wanted to stay and nobody seemed to want to stop them from doing so, not even MotherHub. With out really knowing it, the Little Lamplighters had gained powerful, reliable and nurturing companions.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

18 of 1 (020)

 

WORKING IN THE CAVES OF COMPUTERS

 

Johnnie returned to the big, altered caves with much computer hardware but this time he took the Chosen Sisters, a motherbot, some of his androids and some Little Lamplighters. Joseph was already there and was doing some lessons in computer history that Johnnie had given him to do; joseph had the use of a computer terminal complete with 3Dmovies and interactive datalibraries. Androids and robots were active or semiactive against walls or passive inside bays.

 

Pru studied datasymbols flowing over a large 3Dflatscreen for a short while before she spoke. "The term, the Dharma Initiative, keeps coming up. We have never seen this term before but it sounds like the name of some obscure project as carried out by one of the more exotic and secondary factions of the Bubblecities. We grew up in NeoAngeles. Where did you dwell."

 

"Centralis." He shrugged. "In the Presidium. World President Jack Patriot Jackson was my father but he fathered many children so it far from a claim to fame. None of that is important. What is important is that back then I did hear hints of something called the Dharma Initiative. It seemed to be a rogue research and development program of some kind that the Patriot Family, Patriot Party and Patriot Government were not keen on. How not keen? They sent the dreaded Patriot Police to crush the Dharma Initiative and it seemed at first they were successful for they destroyed a fairly large DI base. Yet later I picked up the impression that the Patriot Network had realised it had been fooled but they could not find the real Dharma Initiative. The Dharma Initiative was linked to something called the Islands of Mist and something else called the Dharma Projection."

 

Piper smiled. "Yes, we did hear of the Dharma Projection. We found a datafile fragment in one of our efforts to hack the Patriot NNS so as to learn more about we Beautiful Ones and our true origin, along with some other secrets. We had our own priorities and sought no further clarification of what the term 'Dharma Projection' indicated. We were busy trying to discover other truths and the Patriot Network was starting to try to crush the WhiteLighters as they were other factions. Life became rather too interesting."

 

Pheobe was examining an open metal drawer full of active hardware components on a big motherboard that took up all of the big drawer. Then she carefully closed the drawer before she stood up. "I would say that the computer hardware here is mostly made up of exact duplicates of TekCorp manufactured items, which would be highly illegal since the Patriot World Government made it illegal for anybody else to manufacture anything of any real value, at least in modern terms, as did the Enclaven."

 

Pru frowned softly. "Question is, if this is some kind of section of a much larger, well hidden NNS, then I suggest strongly that the Dharma Initiave was based in the Lamplight Caverns in some important fashion but had their network of network-systems carefully spread out and hidden."

 

It was a nice theory that rang true and yet it was so far just a theory. They were searching around in the dark and did not even really know what they were looking for.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Maharg67