Eternal Game of Games: the Human Focus

[Maharg67]

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EGG: HF

One 1

Zero 1.1[1]{1}

 

The Gamegods created the Game of Games a vastly long time ago and since then have drawn into them a great number of species to play the games, along with their own creations of multiple kinds.

 

The Gamegods became bored!

 

They found dying humanity, of a dying world, and rescued them for a price. In humanity there was a promise to end the boredom of the eternal existing Gamegods.

 

The Gamelords were allocated new tasks. They were to milk humanity of wondrous gaming ideas and then they found them in the fiction of super virtual reality game realms. This was the start but not the only source of creative vision that they would find.

 

Humanity, along with much other life, along with much else, was taken from their home world to a place they were soon calling the Gamehaven though many did not consider it to be much of a 'haven'.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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EGG: HF

Two 1

Zero 2.1[2]{2}

People were busy through out Scattered City with its madness of many OldEarth cities being taken and mingled together almost logically with many other features included. The Great Pyramids, all white and capped with gold, stood well guarded to the distant north while work crews attempted to make useful a freeway that ended abruptly in mid air. Big concrete water canals were flooded with recent rains as the crazy mixture of paved, and dirt, streets took a wild range of traffic. Bicycles were commonly used what with fuels, and electricity, supply still being problematic.

The Gamelords had instigated semiautonomous human rule, sitting in their great bulb topped towers of vague phallic design. Helicopters, and more advanced hubcopters, were busy taking people to the new government centre of the Pentagon and other government structures of the OldEarth. Airships, and more advanced aeroships, did the same. A big subsonic jet airliner was busy landing at a hastily extended airport airstrip fairly close to the new government area. Two people got off the jet and were soon walking through a big, busy, airport terminal.

Scullie, of the XFiles Investigations Agency (XFIA) shook back her silken red hair and frowned softly. "How long before this become just one more political nest of corruption, bureaucratic madness, and factional warfare?" She wore a minidress that accentuated her attractive nature but she did not need it because she was gorgeous though she was oddly unaware of it."

Mulder was also smart casual in his dress. The pair did not wear their typical official suits because they did not want to attract attention to their being there on official business. The XFIA had been reactivated, by the new Gamehaven Government, having regained access to a recently salvaged databank full of XFile cases.

They were husband and wife but also professional working partners. The XFIA accepted this situation because both were needed as very experienced, skilled, investigators in the exotic. They also worked very well together.

Mulder gave a mild grin-smile. "It started before the decision was made to choose this location as the political capital of the Gamehaven."

She sighed. "You are still even more cynical than I am."

He snorted softly. "I doubt that, sweetness and light! We must hurry for our lords and masters await for us."

They did not get far before a suit wearing man came to meet them, wearing a chauffeur's hat and a big smile. His name was Sam and he was, despite his jolly demeanour, a very canny XFIA Agent. He came with a trolley for their luggage though that was not much being two briefcases and two moderate sized suitcases. Like them he had concealed body-armour and weapons including powerful handguns.

Soon they were threading deeper into the city sector.

They were, of course, observed by many trained, skilled, means but so were everybody coming-going in that place.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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EGG: HF

Three 1

One 1.1[1]{3}

Soon it was revealed that there were super virtual reality games turned into what were known as ultra virtual reality versions of the same. People focused at first using special gamecapsules to train first in ultra virtual reality game worlds before they went on to deal with the real, more rewarding, but more challenging and dangerous Gamezones.

Sandra Thomson made her way carefully through the blasted, cratered, ruins of a mutant plant infested cityscape. Fallout NewEarth had been her favourite SVR game back on-in the NewEarth but here the experience was enriched through every sense, was more vivid, realistic, varied and interactive. She moved in light power armour of the Venturer Class Type 5A1S. Her quest was a basic one of survival travel, to get from where she had spawned at the sorry settlement of Meltdown to the more secure, prosperous, larger settlement of Megaton.

Something darted through rubble but it was only a big radroach scuttling away for its life. Such were too smart to attack somebody in power armour being somebody they could not harm but who could kill them easily. A dead radroach could grant useful products, converted through the gaming system into actual items in the Gamehaven. That is such as radroach flesh, shell, and so forth. More importantly it would mean the gaining of some experience points, game credit, and perhaps a minor bonus.

Sandra had no interest in trying to kill any radroaches when her Players13 team was being staled by something dangerous. Her life motion detectors, and sensors, were quite limited being of basic level only but she figured a deathclaw was out there and that it was at least quite large. Unlike a pathetic radroach, a deathclaw could rip open light power armour as her player-comrades and she wore.

She was wrong! Not one but three quite big deathclaws came roaring out of the rubble with shocking speed and power. How they had managed to be so damned stealthy she did not know but she did not pause to think to much about it. Instead she raised her standard international military AKM16A3 autorifle and unleashed a volley of international military standard bullets at the nearest beastie. It screamed out in agonised rage of being a mutie it was very hard to damage.

It smashed into her and she was hurled backwards through the air, her AKM16A3 flying from her power armour hands. She struck the ground, rolled, and came up with a hand-missile. Aiming the odd device, it was designed to be used with power armour, she launched the missile from the actual launcher. A hand-missile could be reloaded but to do so one needed at least a special semiportable workshop.

The chest of the deathclaw exploded, spraying bloody flesh, and it was hurled backwards to strike the ground as a big, impressive looking, corpse. Around her one player-comrade was 'dead', the real player being replaced by a corpse as she 'awoke' in her UVR gamecapsule.

Another deathclaw was dead but the third had escaped. Mutant creatures, like the deathclaws and radroaches, had amazing self-healing abilities but there were also exotic resources they could access to boost that healing. Players gained such special abilities, and others, through game perks but so far those players had yet to gain any but a small number of basic starting perks at lowest levels.

Game data showed itself on her Pipboy screen. The Players13 had made gains through the killing of the two deathclaws but had made losses because one player had died. Sandra stepped in as Players13 Lieutenant and stopped other players squabbling over loot from the dead player. She distributed now spare equipment and supplies, including parts taken from the power armour. They moved quickly away after that. There was no point in trying to bury the 'game-dead' player because the armour would stop any small critters and burying would not stop the big critters that could get through the armour with some effort. They also needed to get out of there before any more deathclaws appeared, of the local deathclaw pack, especially any bigger ones with more power.

Once more they were heading towards Megaton though they were not totally sure how to get there.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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EGG: HF

Four 1

One 2.1[2]{4}

The group went to shelter in a very slowly crumbling building that had not collapsed only because it had been very well designed and built along with being lucky during the Cataclysm and the war that had triggered the Cataclysm. There were savage ghouls roaming outside in the radioactive acid rain but they were not truly harmed by it. Ghouls were not to be confused with the more peaceful ghoulmans or the berserker brutal raider like ghoulers.

They were able to scavenge small tradegoods, bits of junk, and even a couple of survival items. Generally junk was easily found, tradegoods were a little harder to find, and survival items were hidden. There were exotic items like special weapons, tools, armour but also collectables also. The tradegoods, and junk items, they scavenged went into their shared metaphysical inventory. Survival items went into individual inventories after being shared out by Sandra. It had become obvious that she was fair minded, trustworthy, and smart enough to consider team survival. Not all the player-comrades were proving to be so as Brent and Cassidy became increasingly strident and demanding.

Cassidy sat on her power armoured butt on a heavy duty chair. "We should have taken time to get goodies from the dead deathclaw!"

Only Brent agreed with her. "Yeh, right, yeh! That's how it should have been!"

Sublieutenant Hannibal spoke out from where he sat, carefully checking his AKM16A3 and cleaning it lightly. "You should shut up, both of you, and do some weapon maintenance. I haven't seen you check any of your gear since we began the Game Session. You signed the contract after reading the print and the related regulations; or at least you should have done. If you didn't do the reading, the consequences will be on your heads. You don't openly question the decisions, or actions, of any officers or even any subofficer as the sergeant, corporal and I am. You seek to speak with myself, privately, as the sublieutenant and I will pass on your concerns if I consider them to be important enough; I can already tell you that I would not bother passing on your current 'concerns'. We had to get away from that area before the escaping deathclaw returned with deathclaw pack reinforcements."

Cassidy went to get openly angry and with a soft shimmering her body, and that of Brent, both hit the ground in virtual death. Their gear, including power armour and autorifles, were with their UVR bodies.

Sandra scowled. "The two fools discovered an exotic item, a rare hitech laserknife. Instead of declaring their find openly before the team, Cassidy conned stupid Brent into concealing the laserknife in his armoured backpack. Then they began to attack my decisions openly; it was enough for them to be recalled from the game. I was informed that the team is working under special probationary conditions but was only given permission to state so openly to the rest of you if something like this happened. Hopefully a lesson has been learned by the team. Cassidy, and Brent, are going to be banned even from ultra virtual reality gaming for five years. Then they will go before a committee who will assess if they are worthy of becoming probationary ultra virtual reality players."

It was a heavy blow to the two fools for they would not be able to gain a valuable living, of allowances and bonuses, from being UVR Players. They would have no chance at all of being accepted into the Gamezones when they opened up in the future, when ever that would be.

While player-comrades took some survival items, from the 'dead pair', most of it went into the shared inventory of the team. The two bodies remained inside but in a storeroom empty except for some shelving and some items two large to scavenge by the low ranking, levelled, Players.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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EGG: HF

Five 1

One 3.1[3]{5}

The remaining 10 players, of the Players13, carefully threaded through rubble heap dotted streets of NewWashington City, not to be confused with NewWashington DC in general being of the District of Centralia. A few locals called themselves Centralians, especially those of the New Centralian Republic (the NCR). There was on going friction between DC Factions be they supermutants from one of the VaultTek Vaults, the quasimedieval Order of Steel, the related Outcasts of Steel, the nationalistic NCR, the underground ghoulman Subwayers, the criminal DC Syndicates, the brutally monstrous supermutants, the territorial Gangers, the invading marauding Raiders and others either there or threatening to come. Why? Because the area was rich in unclaimed valuable resources hidden away in many ways but also NewWashington DC was of great strategic importance.

Muffled sounds of automatic gunfire reached the Players13. They kept moving because they had been hearing such noises, on and off, since they had begun moving through the area. The hot, bright, sunshine meant that even in their power armour they had to spend times in cooler shade getting away from the heat.

Steeltroopers, in rather bulky power armour, had appeared briefly in the distance. So far the Players13 had avoided getting too close to them because there were swarms of supermutants in the area, making many of the Steeltroopers obviously nervous. Sandra had been considering trying to form some kind of temporary working alliance with the Order of Steel but was wary of their rather heavy focus on gathering hitech. The player power armour, and other tech, was more advanced than Order of Steel tech but she was also wary of giving too much advantage away to the faction in exchange for too little.

So it was that they blundered straight into a paused firefight, despite all of their best efforts, as they came upon monstrous armoured-armed supermutants attacking a cornered platoon of Steeltroopers. Both sides were using old fashioned 12.7mm calibre cased cartridge battlerifles and heavy machineguns. There were also rocket-grenade launchers, fewer missile launchers, and even fewer other kinds of weapons. Some of the supermutants used great big sledgehammers as weapons.

The Players13 came upon the rear of the supermutants and before they could think to retreat, a supermutant on rear guard duty started to shoot at them. They went to ground and unleashed volleys of firepower from their AKM16A3 autorifles being both bullets and grenadeshells. In seconds, having taken the great mutant humanoids by surprise despite their few rear guard sentries, they were blasting down common hulking metamoths, less common bigger hulking megamoths and even less common bigger hulking hulkamoths. Only truly monstrous behemoths were bigger than hulkamoths but they were thankfully rare and none were there.

Supermutants screamed in agonised rage, attempting to turn to charge at the newcomers but this only exposed their backs to the Steeltroopers who opened up with their own weapons. They refrained from using rocket-grenade, or missile launchers, in case they hit the newcomers.

Then it was over!

Still wary of one another, the two groups approached each other carefully. So it was that the player-comrades met Captain Sarah Lyons and one of the elite fighting Lyons Pride platoons. Actually the platoon had more than the standard number of troopers being boosted to carry out a very special mission.

Lieutenant Sandra faced Captain Sarah, both with removed helmets, and they openly weighed each other up. Then Sandra spoke. "We are glad to have saved you from those supermutants. Local whispers speak of most of them being brutal berserker monsters with there being only some exceptions."

Sarah spoke in the same language known as Terran, an old international trade diplomacy language of the OldEarth also known as Terra after the Ancient Roman Earth Goddess. "You took down those supermutants with amazing accuracy and speed; we barely got a few shots in before the supermutants were all gone."

Edited July 15, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

EGG: HF

Five 2

One 3.2[4]{6}

Sandra half smiled. "We took the supermutants by surprise. I suggest a temporary alliance. We are heading towards the settlement of Megaton that is said to be centered in a great big crater. I can not, will not, speak of our reasons for going there except for exceptional circumstances. We have heard that there is a big multiple faction fight taking place in this area, the NewWashington Central Commerce Zone. We do not wish to become heavily involved but we might assist you in some ways in exchange for information that could get us faster to Megaton."

The other woman, with a light scar running down her right cheek, snorted. "There is a large supermutant army between you and Megaton. It seemed to come out of nowhere and is focused in the NewWashington Mall. Perhaps they are seeking to get a way into the fortified government vaults that are buried beneath the mall, that are full of amazing resources of knowledge and artefacts. They are also said to be full of deadly threats. None, who have gone down there even in large well armoured-armed expeditions, have returned except for three wounded survivors from a freelance group. They spoke of robots, turrets, mines, laser traps, all kinds of mutant creatures, and things other than those half seen in the shadows. The group numbered 54 before it went down. Of them three survived and two died later of their wounds while the third lives as a cripple in the settlement of RivetCity. We are intending to go down there and we could use your assistance. You will be well rewarded for your participation. As it is I am very interested in your tech."

Sandra laughed briefly but then had to explain her odd seeming response. "We are on our way to Megaton because below that settlement is a big bunker complex and a secret government subway station not to be confused with any of the public ones. That subway tunnel is said to lead to deep beneath the NewWashington Mall and to the vaults there but it is also said to bypass many of the most dangerous underground areas. The freelance group you spoke of were hardened criminals, brutal scavengers, serving a contract job with the DC Syndicates based in the settlement of ParadiseFalls. Perhaps there was good reason for them being destroyed."

Sarah shrugged. "Perhaps there was but more enlightened expeditions also vanished including one from the older type Brotherhood of Steel that still operates far west of us in the Lost Hills area of Canadia. You seem well informed for strangers so I suppose you know about them also. Where do you come from?"

Sandra shrugged right back. "NewLuna, the biggest moon of NewEarth. We were landed with largely suppressed memories and basic technologies by the standard of our people, for security reasons. We are spacers of the NewSystem Federation. We have our own allied, neutral, and enemy factions to deal with. There are the dangerous alien zetans, the on-off enemies of the NewSystem Confederation, and the friendly Orbitals Coalition to name but three of many. Survival has been difficult for all spacers but now many of us are ready to reinvestigate the NewEarth. Up there Skynet is still active with its orbital forts, weapons satellites, and other facilities. Hunterkillers, and hunterseekers, patrol low orbit above the energy worldbubble that surrounds NewEarth. To get down here, any expedition has to get past Skynet. Our mission appears to be the same as yours."

The two factional groups remained wary of one another but soon a working agreement was being formed.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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EGG: HF

Six 1

One 4.1[5]{7}

The secondary subway station had once been an underground transport hub of secondary monorail, cycle, foot and street tunnels. As a Subwayer Outpost it continued to be so as well as being a small fortified settlement. Subwayers were mostly ghoulmans but there were minorities of humans, radhumans that were ghoulmans with out any obvious ghoulification marks, animaman animal-human hybrid humanoids, some escaped androids from the NewBritain Commonwealth, some friendly supermutants and even some humans. It was said that there where synth infiltrators from the Commonwealth, not to be confused with the androids that were made differently. Synths tended also to be more dangerous than androids.

The newcomers moved through the settlement with no pretence of staying unnoticed; how could they with their power armour and other hitech? The locals had far more lotech than midtech and far more midtech than they had any hitech. That is such as crossbows, clay jugs, candle-lamps, and radpony pulled carts were more common than bolt-action rifles, gas-lamps, basic intercom-telephones, basic body-armour and basic electric vehicles; these in turn were more common than such computer terminals, robots, advanced electric vehicles and power armour. Even the hitech was less advanced than the Orderhood of Steel devices let alone the offworlders' tech.

Sandra realised, with surprise, that her people were slipping smoothly into their roles as NewSystem Federation Agents. It felt as natural to be identified, in that fashion, as it did as player-comrades of a Players13. At that time she really did not focus much on thinking about the implications of these changes; later she was to wonder why this was just as she was to start questioning, more deeply, much else that was happening.

A ghoulman sheriff deputy met them, a woman with light ghoulification marks showing on her exposed skin. She wore radcattle leather armour reinforced with steel and was armed with a powerful revolver-pistol holstered at her side. A large, bullet dented, metal badge told of her rank. "Sarah Lyons, you are no stranger here but you others, where do you come from?"

Sandra smiled. "From the very far west, from lands that I doubt you know about. That is way beyond Canadia, across the Atlantacific Ocean."

The sheriff deputy shrugged. "That could explain your gear but its a convenient story. Still, as long as you are no threat to my people you can pay the toll fees and ticket fees to use some of our subway tunnels. A few are open to citizens only for security reasons."

Sandra nodded. "We overheard somebody complaining about your deradding platform breaking down. We have some well skilled, experienced, techies amongst us. Perhaps we could fix it, along with some other hitech units, and then you could assist us to get to Megaton. There is a big supermutant army between us and Megaton; we need to find a way around them, or under them."

Sheriff Deputy Anston shook her head. "West, beyond the Atlantacific Ocean, are the Euroafrican Continents. People have come from there. You do not seem to be like them."

Sandra nodded. "I see that lying to you is futile though, strictly speaking, I was telling the truth. There are three big Euroafrican Continents but we come from the Friendlies Archipelago where my people have a large colony; apart from that we come from space, being of the NewSystem Federation. We are of the Spacers who managed to flee from the NewEarth before the Cataclysmic War. Survival, up there, has been tough for all surviving Spacer Factions but now some are attempting to regain contact with NewEarth. The Skynet remains active and does not make that easy."

The ghoulman woman frowned. "For some reason I believe you. There is somebody you very much need to meet and to talk with. Please come with me, both of you; bring two of your people with you, each, but no more than that. This old man is very important to us and we protect him very well."

Edited July 18, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

EGG: HF

Six 2

One 4.2[6]{8}

Seven of them went through a small, bustling, outpost markets where Subwayers and outsiders mingled freely. Most of the outsiders were independent settlers, very independent survivalists, seminomadic tribefolk, nomadic gypsies, friendly ghoul like rhouls who were more intelligent than ghouls, and others.

There was a small New Centralian Republican envoy party who were more interested in the newcomers than either Sandra or Sarah appreciated them being; it turned out that the Orderhood of Steel had a wary limited alliance with the NCR. The wariness had grown since the NCR had recently swallowed up the large settlement of RivetCity. The Orderhood of Steel had always traded freely with those of RivetCity but now the NCR were placing new tariffs on any such trade. Only those with full alliance status, with the NCR, did not have to pay the tariffs but any such alliance would contain clauses about science-tech sharing that the Orderhood of Steel found totally unacceptable.

There were some DCRegulators, special law enforcers that enforced special laws against special kinds of crimes including slavery of such as ghouls and androids, superdrug smuggling, Raider attacks, and dangerous synth infiltrations. They wore the famous dusters over body-armour and looked very tough, were very tough, with well earned reputations for being very effective. Only the Federats' hitech allowed them to detect that the DCRegulators were secretly advanced cyborgs with hidden network-systems including defences, weapons, and tools. Sandra decided then-there she would need to inform Sarah of the truth and that the two of them would need to talk to the DCRegulators.

When they got to their destination, an underground laboratory-workshop of one Professor Morningstar, it was only to find that the big chamber was in a mess as if a struggle had taken place there. A damaged MrHandy robot was able to inform them that four figures, dressed as DCRegulators, had invaded the chamber. They had knocked out both the professor, and his daughter-assistant, before leaving with them and a good deal of stolen items such as experimental data and samples.

Sandra spoke to Sarah about the 'cyborg DCRegulators'.

Captain Sarah Lyons scowled. "Far as I know none of the DCRegulators are cyborgs, at least not advanced ones of the kind you detected out in the local markets. The Orderhood of Steel has a close alliance with the DCRegulators, that is the real ones; many of them now use Orderhood of Steel type power armour when on duty. They use those massive type radhorses whose ancestors must have been big war steeds bred-cloned, back to existence, before the Cataclysmic War."

Anston scowled. "Professor Henry Morningstar was doing important work for we Subwayers. With the assistance of his daughter, Scholar Annette Morningstar, he was working on antighoulification treatments. Now both of them have been taken against their will and, with them, much important material."

Lieutenant Sandra shook her head. "No, this is all a lie! It is too neat, too staged, to be real. I would say that the professor, and his daughter if she is really his daughter, tricked the Subwayers into providing important resources and then stole them. How many of your people were subjected to experiments, even painful ones?"

The law enforcer went to dispute what Sandra had said but then visibly relented. "I never did really like, or trust, those two. Perhaps that is why I wanted you here, Sandra. There is something about you, and the others with you, that speaks to me of exotic abilities like you are psykers or something like that."

Sandra nodded. "Something like that! If we hurry we just might catch up with the culprits but we have to get started as soon as possible. We will need Subwayer assistance, of course!"

A side quest had begun but it was one that would greatly influence the on going main quest.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/Terminal%20Pix%202%20Resized/33473fec-9ca4-4fe1-9a74-7c03ab91ef77_zpspdcnx04y.jpg

EGG: HF

Seven 1

One 5.1[7]{9}

The escape, of the conspirators, had been excellently preplanned. They vanished into the Wastelands after leaving strong clues pointing out their departure as going in three different directions. Even with the Players13 assisting, along with highly experienced locals who knew the underground area well, the real escape plan was not discovered until too late.

Sublieutenant Sandra entered the chamber of the emergency cable-teleportation network-system. There were three standard sized cable-teleport sender capsules, three standard receiver capsules, but also a twice standard sized versions of both sender and receiver capsules. The escapees had not bothered to hide that the big sender capsule had been used. Nor had they bothered to sabotage the receiver capsule at the other end of the teleport-cable that they had used.

Except that 'something' told Sandra that it would not be safe to use the big sender capsule, gleaming in its exotic technological glory, because she figured there would be some kind of trap outside of the receiving capsule. "It makes too much sense that they would expect us to go rushing to use the teleport-cable network-systems to get after them. I suggest that we send one of those fanjet using eyebots and, if it survives, to have it return with any valuable data."

The Players13 had no such tech provided, as eyebots, and while the Orderhood of Steel used them sometimes, the Lyons Pride platoon had had both of its eyebots destroyed by supermutants. Supermutants tended to both fear and hate robots as they did power armour and other kinds of machinery; perhaps such reminded them of the agonies of their transformation into supermutants; such transformations were done with 'supermutagenic' based processes involving high does of focused high voltage electricity, intense doses of hight does of high radiation, and the use of Forced Evolutionary Virus, FEV. A large minority of victims died during the transmutation or became so crippled that 'able bodied' supermutants killed them quickly, mercifully.

Reluctantly, the Subwayers allowed the use of a valuable eyebot that hummed through the airs, being lifted by three fanjets projected out to the sides and one pushing it at the rear. What helped the locals to agree was a promise of compensation, if the small robot was destroyed, or heavy repair work if it was damaged.

Yet the eyebot came back with the surprising news that there was a deadly booby-trap, at the other cable-teleport chamber, but that it had been mysteriously made safe. It seemed somebody, something, had intervened to assist them but it was a mystery to who, what, it could be.

Sandra frowned with intensity of thought. "The Subwayers can not use this chamber with out the scientific, technological, assistance of the Orderhood of Steel; both factions could gain much from the starting stages of a stronger alliance to come. There is much to be studied here and perhaps some hardware can be taken apart for purposes of back engineering. I suggest that we get going to the other cable-teleport chamber."

A Subwayer Guardsmen was one of two platoons that had shown up along with militia irregulars and volunteers. The lieutenant was holding, casually, an AKM16A1 that was an older version of the more sophisticated AKM16A3s of the supposed NewSystem Federation Special Forces soldiers. Otherwise he had body-armour over lightly armoured combat fatigues. "Yes, such an alliance would be fruitful but, more importantly, necessary for the survival for both factions and other factions. We guardsmen will go through the teleport-cables, with you, but then we will be stationed at that far chamber."

Sarah sighed softly. "It is about 590 kilometres from here but that means it is on the other side of most of a large supermutant military force. I suggest that you get Subwayer, and Steeltrooper, reinforcements as soon as you can. Or at least the true Subwayers should arrange such matters."

Edited July 23, 2016 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

EGG: HF

Seven 2

One 5.2[8]{10}

She struck out with amazing speed and the fake Subwayer slumped to the ground, with her lowering him. Outside of the chamber her nine player-comrades were speedily, efficiently, taking care of the other fake fighters be they fraudulent guardsmen, militia, or volunteers.

After the infiltrators were stripped down to nudity, then carefully searched, they were carefully handcuffed and otherwise constricted. Happily no real Subwayers had come to harm. Unhappily all of the infiltrators were very dangerous synth doppelgängers with quite limited shapeshifting abilities provided by NewBritish OctiInstitute technologies. Making them 'safe' had meant the use of NewSystem Fed tech to nullify hidden cybernetic network-systems of survival and attack-defence.

Sarah spoke out, with apparent reluctance, of the current state of the Factions of Steel. "The Orderhood of Steel has never gone towards NewBritain, let alone into it. As for rogue, or other lost, related factions we do not know. Stories have come to us that a Brotherhood of Steel faction may have gone that direction after the Great Splintering of Steel. There is only large, well organised, other Faction of Steel that we know of in any certain way: that is the Brotherhood of Steel to the west in the Lost Hills of Canadia. There are the Outcasts of Steel, here in DC, but they are much smaller than ourselves or the Canadian based Brotherhood of Steel."

Sandra nodded. "There is a large Sisterhood of Steel that is south of here, being in an area known as Cape Lookout. There is a moderately large, Brotherhood of Steel like, Knights of Steel close to NewBritain but outside of the Commonwealth's borders. In the Omofra Territories, of the mutated Great Green Belt, are the Sages of Steel who chose to seek ways to more peacefully do research-development to carefully share results with the local Omofrans. The Sages of Steel have a few scattered outposts including one hidden one here in DC but not in an area that the Orderhood of Steel has entered even with its drones. There is a group of supermutants, former Steeltroopers, who call themselves the Steelmutants; they use rebuilt power armour and other kinds of older type Brotherhood of Steel tech. We suspect there is an android type Service of Steel out there, the androids being influenced by the Three Rules of Robotics-Androidics; that is program-conditioning that synths never have gained thanks to OctiInstitute arrogance and stupidity."

The Lyons Pride Officer gave Sandra a look of bemused irony. "You come from one of the moons and you know more about what is happening with the Splintered Steel than we do. Still, we can use such information to start pulling the Factions of Steel back together even if it is in the form of some kind of practical, working, alliance. Do you know much about the OctiInstitute?"

Sandra looked grim. "Only that they have been around since before the Cataclysm War and have always been up to some nasty tricks. They have been working with captured dark alien technologies, back engineering them. They had disturbing links to the monstrous Enclaven. The synths are but one of their dangerous creations. We strongly suspect that the OctiInstitute has hidden complexes not just in NewBritain but at least three other locations. Each is massive and named after a shape; there is a pentagon, a hexagon, and another unknown one along with an octagon one in NewBritain that is not the official OctiInstitute complex in Hassleburg. "

The Steeltroopers, and the player-comrades, went through to the other teleport-cable chamber. They did so only after heavy, wary, Subwayer reinforcements arrived and the semiactive synth doppelgängers were locked into crude, but effective, capsules. No Subwayers went with them.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Maharg67