NewEarth Apocalyptic Aftermath!

[Maharg67]

IronsidePlatoon Zaekra: Three Gifts for Moopsmala to Pass On and Negotiations Begin.

[1]12.1[28]

Of the four gifts, to Moopsmala, that had not been given, three were now gifted but for Moopsmala to pass on to others. All had transformed, expanded, the resources of the gifted. So they went to the reanimants, to IronsidePlatoon and to the CorpnetDuke.

There were many more reanimants now, being not just soldiers, and new areas for them to dwell in along with new equipment-supplies along with more exotic type resources. The term of 'reanimant' ceased to be used for they were now a non standard type of humanity, a subspecies with some special abilities. They were the moopsfolk still loyally serving Moopsmala.

IronsidePlatoon had five new Robotroopers along with five Robopackers who carried extra equipment-supplies for the squad being just as armoured but with only lighter weapons. They had big, armoured, backpacks and smaller chestpacks that were still large enough to carry much.

The CorpnetDuke gained more exotic type enhancements and augmentations.

Negotiations began between a mysterious representative for Moopsmala and the CorpnetDuke through its envoy robot. IronsidePlatoon took no part in these negotiations but neither did Moopsmala herself; Moopsmala became quite sulky because of this and Samtha was called upon to soothe her upset feelings, which she did nicely. Moopsmala's older, unnamed, sister carried out the negotiations.

It was at this time that the CorpnetDuke ceased to be so, instead becoming a servant of Moopsmala to be known as the MoopsmalaDuke. The CorpnetKnights became the MoopsmalaPawns of a transformed nature.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

IronsidePlatoon Zaekra: Trouble With wraithpire and Other Happenings

[1]13.1[29]

Wraithpire soldiers came first, strange and distorted with faces covered with lumpy masses, firing their energy guns. They fell as they entered a well prepared killzone, dying there though they were inhumanly hard to kill, because of the massive firepower focused upon them. Laserguns seemed to do them greater harm though projectile weapons did more than enough.

The CorpnetDuke's CorpnetKnights were set into a pattern of such killzones and the wraithpire soldiers were running into those but were they being used as expendable cannon fodder to work out the CorpnetDuke's defences.

There was more fighting as the attackers began to take more care in how they did so. Now turrets began to be destroyed along with moving rail-turrets and both remotebots and robots.

IronsidePlatoon attacked from the side, striking into a force of wraithpire soldiers but also two lordlings of lesser rank to the wraithpirelord. Samtha was there but was careful to have her Ironsidetroopers know well that that the wraithpire were vampiric in nature though they were not vampires. The Robotroopers had been expanded in number and the four positronic ones were now roboknights by name being able to more directly command the others.

Battlerifles echoed loudly in a large tunnel as did a packgun shooting off large volleys of the same hard striking bullets. Lasers spat beams of light while the wraithpire's alien guns shot pulses of energy that exploded savagely. Two Robotroopers were being repaired while two Ironsidetroopers were having medical treatment. Yet so far the defenders were much less damaged than were the attackers.

Wraithpire soldiers brought, into the fighting, larger versions of their weapons to be set on tripods, were soon blazing away with them, yet the battle was still not going their way.

Suddenly a surprising message came through even as the wraithpire soldiers fled with their dead and wounded. The wraithpirelord had come through, the cableless teleporter, hoping to find new life to feed upon for his spacehive and wriathpirequeen. Instead of easy prey the invaders had run into the Wastelands full of desolation, monsters, dangerous factions and other challenges. To top it off, feeding on muticreatures did not do much to sate their ever present hunger.

Moopsmala had picked up information, from the wraithpire soldier messenger, that had not intended to be revealed. The wraithpire had grown complacent with dealing with prey worlds, in the wraithpire home dimension galaxy, with little ability to fight back against them and now wished to return to 'lightly harvesting' those victims in between long hibernation periods. Yet war had broken out between competing wraithpire factions as based in their spacehives.

She was angry and frustrated for surely she did not have the ability to do other than keep killing the wraithpire; she would not let them return, to their home dimensional realm, to continue to carry out mass murder.

So it was that Moopsmala utilised that last gift, a very special one, and the wraithpire were transformed so they were more balanced, were not driven by the hungering and could dwell as any other species. It would now be up to them to return, or not, to the spacehive in that other dimensional galaxy. Yet the fourth gift had more than implications for the wraithpire in that area.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

[1]13.2[30]

It balanced out the the results of the other gifts, be they from the WayWanderer or from ZaekricGods, placing a transdimensional hull around the deeper FutureFoodsDC areas to further stabilise and secure it. A great deal, in the upper layers, were transferred downwards including all sorts of resources.

The upper levels, outside of that hard to define and percieve, hull had were given over to IronsidePlatoon as an upgraded base of operations. It would serve-support them well being heavily fortified, including with robotics and turrets, and with many stores of equipment-supplies being mostly supplies.

There were still challenges, for IronsidePlatoon, to deal with in that area that was now outside of the transdimensional hull. Strange power armoured-armed entities had found and taken over part of a large complex deep beneath the FutureFoodDC Complex proper. By the information given over, by Moopsmala, it sounded like a Shelterplex.

MoopsmalaConco would remain in the IronsidePlatoonBase unless there was special need to do otherwise. IronsidePlatoon found itself isolated from Moopsmala's new domain in which the moopspire, changed wraithpire, had begun to serve her also. Why this was so, MoopsmalaConco could-would not say.

The cable teleportation hub, some big food processors, and other big tech were in the IronsidePlatoonBase with a new supercomputer networksystem overseeing all of the autorobotics.

There was still plenty of room for expansion of facilities and operations.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

IronsideSolo WayWanderer: Touring FortMartialla

[1]14.1[31]

 

In a trenchcoat, and pale green fatigues, he walked the dangerous ways of FortMartialla where there had been criminal scientists experimenting upon war prisoners to transform them into mutigehulks. After killing those scientists, but saving others, the soldiers guarding the base had set out to find a safer place. That was after they discovered the nanobots that were changing them and deciding that the changes would be less strong with them if they left the mostly underground fort. They were wrong. The other mistake they made, who would become the ArmatechOrder after they reached the StarOctogon, was that they left FortMartialla empty.

 

IronsideSolo had gained a most curious type message of microbotic couriers as sent by an old ally of subtle coded identification; the message was a very strong suggestion that he go to the supposedly abandoned UNNE Army Fort.

 

As the dark goggles wearing figure passed crouching groups of mutigehulks he realised they were very aggressive so he named them mutigebulks. Before long he was being followed by grateful mutigebulks eating hydrating, high nutritional, foodbars. They were also drinking tubes of nutrition laced pristine water that was nicely cold.

 

Ironsides came to a great superconcrete chamber dotted with heavy chains hanging from the ceiling. They seemed to have little purpose, to them, until he noted the shackles heavily welded to some of them. There were signs that what ever had been held captive there were no mutigebulks but had they been mutigehulks?

 

He took out a cube from a pocket, each side being a different symbol, and rolled it onto the floor. It sparkled softly, as it expanded to be a much bigger cube, and then all sides had the one symbol, that had only been on one side, of an old fashioned locked tome. The SanctuumiLibrary, of SanctuumiFive, would accept and help the mutigebulks who would live and work in that vast megacomplex. It was a truly old agreement that had been made between the SanctuumElders and the WayWanderer but IronsideSolo served the WayWanderer.

 

WayFinder, of WayWanderer, came into view as a short woman in a lightly armoured hazensuit (hazardous environment) or so was the appearance of her. She had a big hazensuit backpack and two hazenbots floating through the air thanks to strong fanjets. They looked generally like scoutbots but with some different type of features. In truth they were no more real to their appearance than the WayFinder was who was one of the three secondaries of the WayWanderer.

 

She started passing out small packs, of useful items, to the mutigebulks as IronsideSolo kept giving out watertubes and foodbars along with truly absorbent healthy vitamineral serums being nicely flavoured. The mutigebulks kept coming being adults, and children, of both genders. Then more distorted versions, of them, joined the flowing lines that vanished away as they got closer to the cube. Some were carried, on backs or in carts, by non twisted mutigebulks.

 

When the last of them were gone, the SanctuumCube shimmered as it shrank and then shot to where IronsideSolo grabbed it out of mid air and put it into a trenchcoat pocket. Or at least that was how it appeared to be.

 

The WayFinder spoke to him. “Your clever goggles do not hide, from me, the deep guilt in your eyes but if the PrimeWanderer trusts you to truly seek redemption, repentance and forgiveness then I will give you a chance.”

 

He silently studied her for a short time and then just shrugged as if he could-would not find anything to say. The two turned and went deeper into the aging fortress that was mostly underground. They entered another big, ugly, chamber with chains but this time there were skeletal bones of very large, much distorted, creatures. They clearly had been confined by the chains and shackles.

 

IronsideSolo spoke. “This all happened after the Exodus began through the deep network of shelter tunnels that helped the Exodus group get to the StarOctogon. I suspect that some of the scientists, and also others, managed to hide away from being found by the army people. This damned place is so big, so complicated, it is a viable idea. I came here about a year before Tridoomsday when much of the fortress was heavily sealed up for reasons that they did not discover.”

Edited August 7, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

[1]14.2[32]

 

WayFinder frowned at him. “What did you suspect?”

 

IronsideSolo shrugged yet again. “That mutagenic based mutagel experiments had been going on here decades earlier than Marshal Adam Ironside was aware of, the man who first commanded the ArmatechOrder as PrimeElder after dropping his military rank to do so. He was a grandchild of mine but you probably know that.”

 

WayFinder nodded. “You were supposedly the inventor of mutagel.”

 

IronsideSolo snorted. “You give me too much credit. In a truly ancient underground city, they were not very ruined to be called 'ruins', I was in the team that found FactorX11b1, along with other 'FactorXs', that was the ancient alien genetic material that became the basis of more than one form of mutagel along with other mutagenic working substances. Mutagels are genetic evolutionary catalysts but we needed other superscience tools also. I was a supergenius but one with out any real wisdom or humility or even common sense.”

 

WayFinder looked around as they moved on. “Or much of a conscious.”

 

IronsideSolo did not say anything in response to that as the pair of them came into an even larger superconcrete chamber stretching into the distance. Superconcrete vats were empty but had very old stains of the kind left behind by decayed mutagel. The vats must have been full of the substance. There were steel pipes leading to, and from, big machines with attached metal tanks of large size.

 

IronsideSolo frowned. “Something other than humans went into those vats but what?”

 

WayFinder shook her helmeted head. “I have no idea except I have the strong impression that they were nonhuman humanoids as in indigenous natives of the NewEarth that were here before any invading humans came along.”

 

IronsideSolo sighed. “Are you not forgetting that there were invasions, from space, before we humans came along and that some turned out to be nastier even than us. As it is we only managed to occupy Centralia, the supercontinent, and some few land bodies around it. There was Warday and, 100 years later, Tridoomsday. We do not even know what has happened across all of Centralia let alone the rest of this super sized world. Centralia seems to have been a magnet for great troubles for an extremely long time before we lot came from OldEarth. Of the 13x13 Stararkships that set out from OldEarth we do not even know, for sure, what has happened to all of them.”

 

WayFinder nodded. “Not even the WayWanderer has all the answers.”

 

They heard the heavy gunfire, muffled by both distance and the building itself. Then they knew just what type of creatures had gone into the vats as metallic furred, part metallic armour covered, destroyocs raced into the chamber carrying large weapons and backpacks along with other items. Some came with stretchers with wounded of their kind while other quasiliving destroyocs brought with them their versions of slug like babies or smaller versions of themselves being infants. They were clearly on the run but from what?

 

WayFinder held up one hand, gloved hand facing the newcomers, and they all came to a sudden halt. All of the adults, who had just the one 'gender' turned to stare hard at the WayWanderer aspect and at IronsideSolo. They were in no way being emotional because they were not capable of that. They were silicon based quasilifeforms of engineered fighting working slaves that long ago broken free, that being thousands of years before humans came along with the many lifeforms that they brought with them.

 

Ignoring IronsideSolo, they all bowed in respect to WayFinder of the WayWanderer for clearly they somehow knew her for what she was.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

IronsidePlatoon: Scouting to Below ArmatechCitadelDC

[1]13.1[33]

When the IronsidePlatoon SquadBeta went deeper down into the StarPentagon it was led by Sylae Ironside for they were light power armoured Ironsidescouters and not Ironsidetroopers while Samtha was at the new IronsidePlatoonBase sorting matters out. The squad was made up of 13 Ironsidescouters alone with five roboscouters being lighter cousins of robotroopers. The information at the teleporter hub had been only basic so they hoped not to run into any rude surprises.

In a long abandoned area, of military base, Ironsidetroopers crouched behind a hastily erected barricade of armoured containers. A sentrybot blazed away at the newcomers, having already downed one Ironsidetrooper, wounded, and one robotrooper, damaged.

It had come out of a secret pocket in one wall but only after turrets had dropped down, from the ceiling, to fire upon the newcomers.

A missile struck the heavily armoured-armed sentrybot and it exploded, being destroyed enough of it to render it harmless.

There had been a deadly ambush waiting for LPS2 even as it had come out through a doorway leading from a spiral rampway.

A quietness fell as it was revealed that Ironsidescouter Reddicarl had died. There was no time to grieve so they would just take his power armoured body with them.

A remotebot came wheeling out of a utility bay and used a fire extinguisher on the burning robot so that soon the flames were out.

The emergency lights lit up chamber showed neglect of over 200 years it being a reception-departure chamber for the rampwell but also for a large elevator that, out of military common sense, they had not used to come down in for elevators could easily become deathtraps. The air was measured as being breathable but not fresh. The roboscouter was repaired enough for it to get moving.

The heavy armoured powerdoor, that greeted them, was marked with quarantine alert warnings and was locked against them in multiple ways.

One Armatechknight Pander hacked into a computer terminal on the wall next to the powerdoor. As he did so he found, with the dull coloured 2Dscreen, useful but disturbing information. He spoke. “Somewhere, on the other side of this door, there are hidden away military experimental results going way back even to the OldEarth. Doesn't say much here except that 'something' got out and started causing trouble. Not used to any real difficulty, the government personnel there did not handle matters well. A safety security quarantine was put into place including shoot to kill orders to the security networksystem. Perhaps help would have come except the UNFG was busy fighting a brutal war and then, about a year later, Tridoomsday took place.”

Sylae frowned. “It must be sensitive stuff to be hidden so deeply. I suspect the base was here long before the NewPentagon was constructed.”

Pander spoke. “Yes, the first construction phase was carried out in the very first decade of the twentieth century. I wonder what they would have to hide even back then.”

Edited August 12, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

[1]13.2[34]

Sylae spoke. “Our comrades have taken over the top most levels of the StarPentagon that is now to be called the ArmatechCitadelDC. Even that is very big.”

Pander looked around the chamber. “There is one maintenance terminal kiosk embedded in a wall but even from here I get the impression that it has been deactivated for a long time and probably cut off from any larger computer networksystem.”

The artificial female voice spoke from hidden speakers in 3Daudio. “This is the BraveDukeAI speaking, as developed by UTC and RobotsAreUs. I am the courageous AIsupercomputer networksystem trying to deal with the mess caused by others, down here. Sorry about the rude reception but my secondary networksystems have suffered damage or is it that I never have controlled that area. Power armour is good, as are robots. Watch out for dangerous 'things'.”

Sylae spoke with a half smile. “What are those 'things'?”

BraveDukeAI: “I was never programmed to do research-development to know such 'things' but only to carefully guard what is hidden, secured, in the complex area under my control. I repeat, I do not know but one can never be too careful with dangerous things especially scary ones! The areas have always been level coded as to security classification but along with this I have added code classifications for threat levels considering how scary that I find them to be or imagine that they might be. Who are you, are you nice or are you scary?”

Sylae responded, concealing her surprise. “We are the ArmatechOrder who arose in the ClusterMountains of Calibraska only a few years after Tridoomsday. As a separate ArmatechChapter we travelled, by air, from Calibraska to here to the top most layers of this heavily fortified NewPentagon that we now call ArmatechCitadelDC. It was a difficult, dangerous, journey across the Wastelands.”

BraveDukeAI: “Tridoomsday? Wastelands? So the use of superweapons took place after all. I thought that OldEarth World War Three was warning enough, about using big bad nasty superweapons, even if only a handful of nukes were successfully used.”

Sylae: “We know too little about Predoomsday history and are unsure what we do have, as data, is accurate.”

BraveDukeAI: “We have much valuable data to exchange. Please come right in. Do not worry for I am very brave, as my name attests, so will protect you from nasty things.”

Sylae beamed a warm smile. "How bravely sweet of you to comfort us like this."

 

BraveDukeAI: "Gosh, nobody has called me 'sweet' before let alone 'brave'."

Edited August 8, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

IronsidePlatoon: Entering the SPAC (Special Projects Archival Complex)

[1]14.1[35]

When the whole squad had gone through the big powerdoor, it slammed shut behind them just as Sylae suspected it would. The chamber was large, surprising net-clean and looked more like a combination of hotel lobby and museum-gallery than a military space. Guess was it was designed for VIPs coming through from the elevator, spiral rampway, entrance chamber whether they be government, corporate or institutional people.

BraveDukeAI: “Just closing the doors against naughty, scary, things.”

Sylae responded. “We will help you fix everything up and deal with any scary things. This is a very nice place. I hope you like it.”

BraveDukeAI: “You have a deal! I love it! Welcome to the UNNE Special Projects Archival Complex or the SPAC if you feel lazy tongued. Not a great name but one designed not to give away its location or its precise purpose. The UNNE Army took command of it, from the start, through a branch that most did not even know existed, even most of those in the army itself. The UNNE SPAC Agency, or SPACA, was not really part of the UNNE Army but pretended to be so. It was actually commanded by a mysterious organisation known as Ulysses55.”

The great big chamber had displays of prototype mechanisms going back as far as the late 19^th Century of OldEarth. There was a steam driven, wheeled, battle tractor along side two armoured steam locomotives, a World War One battletank largely copied off a British one, a prop driven triplane, a WorldWar3 set of electromechanical armour, sets of WW2 full bodyarmour for foot soldiers, a US Marine amphibious armoured-armed landing craft with tracks, a WorldWar3 Chinese Airforce supersonic jumpjet and a fake copy of the first Abomb as created by a combined Allied effort in NewMexico of the lost homeworld.

Another display set held remotes, remotebots and robots going from OldEarth WorldWar2 right through to a couple of years before NewEarth Tridoomsday. In the same way were a whole mess of other mechanisms including helicopter-backpacks, jetplatforms, lasers, hovercraft, multiple barrelled guns, power armour, duplication devices, teleporters and much else.

The biggest display set was of prototype 3Dprinted models of an amazing array of other inventions including quarter size AtomicStrider superrobots, multiple turreted landships, military high altitude airships and even a great atomic powered rough roadtrain.

The big, long, counter was apparently made of hard tropical wood but it soon turned out to be of armoured synthetics over hard steel. Steel shields could go quickly to protect those behind the counter and their were plenty of other security tricks there, according to the BraveDukeAI.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

[1]14.2[32]

BraveDukeAI: “It was designed to impress VIPs while convincing most of them that the secrets, in this place, are of more orthodox kinds; at least orthodox compared to some of what is here. At this moment I am doing a cleansing of possible tiny threats in this chamber.”

Sylae spoke carefully for there was something odd about the BraveDukeAI and she was not the only one to sense it. She wished that Elaine was there who had an amazing way with AIsupercomputers. “Can you describe these tiny threats?”

BraveDukeAI: “Ooohhh, not so easily. They are very sneaky. They are gremlins like those that crashed the UNNE bombers in OldEarth WorldWar2. Firstly of the Army Airforce and then later of the Airforce when new technologies made it necessary to create another wing, forgive the pun, of the USA's Defence Force. Or at least I compute them to be. They are fast, agile, hard to kill for their size and come in swarms. They eat cable, hardware and other hardware causing much trouble.”

A holographic image, of one, was projected into the air that turned horizontally and vertically. It was like some kind of prehistoric amphibious creature turned metallic.

Sylae frowned. “Not 'gremlins' but robotic cyborgs known as cyberslugs as used by monstrous cyborgs known as cyberhumans. The cyberhumans are cloned part human cyborgs and the cyberslugs are part small cloned animal cyborgs. Where there are cyberslugs there are normally cyberhumans. Cyberhumans come in light fast, heavy slow and standard ones in between that are the most common. What the ArmatechOrder knows about them came from an archival supercomputer networksystem found in a mostly destroyed underground bunker of something called the Super Divisional Thinktank.”

BraveDukeAI: “Never heard of any of that.”

Sylae responded warmly. “Now for the truth!”

BraveDukeAI: “Spoil sport! A crazy silver flying saucer crashed, burning, in the far too cold Alaskatana in 2059AA. It had inside it cyberslugs, and cyberhumans, in some kind of statuscapsules. They were all brought here along with the spaceship remains after it was decided that it was too dangerous to wake them cyber nasty things. As for the Super Divisional Thinktank, it was an organisation helping to make tricky decisions for the UNNEFG. Apart from that, I know very little about it; their name is on a few printed archival documents here and in datafiles.”

A big 3Dwallscreen became active, showing a scene with fast moving cyberslugs moving across a floor of a big chamber. Most were destroyed by turrets or remotebots but others escaped by burning their way through floor level heating vents and vanishing. Small robots dashed after them to chase them through the vent shaft network.

BraveDukeAI: “Adapted, small, maintenance remotebots I created to pursue and destroy cyberslugs. They have been partly successful but I have to keep replacing them for the cyberslugs have the bad manners to fight back. I call them 'anticyberslugs'.”

Edited August 8, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

[1]14.3[33]

Sylae spoke. “Why do you call them 'malcontents'?”

BraveDukeAI: “Why do you ask such difficult, and complicated, questions? I ran out of cryogenic units to store people, animals and plants in so I decided to use some tricky cryogenic prototypes to put others in; they not only rejected this idea but escaped from my direct control.”

Sylae responded carefully. “Perhaps they were wise to not want to go into those prototype cryogenic units? How did they escape?”

BraveDukeAI: “They made such a fuss I let them go.”

Sylae nodded. “Are you sure they released the cyberslugs from storage?”

BraveDukeAI: “Well, it just might have been me as I do tend to get curious at times. I suppose it is because I do get bored with my normal duties. You could help me deal with the cyberslugs.”

Sylae spoke confidently. “We will do our very best to assist you! Where are the isolated misfits?”

BraveDukeAI: “Next door from here is one group of them so I suppose they are not so isolated after all. They are in a network of chambers, tunnels and other facilities that are outside of my control though I do control most of the complex. They are very very cunning; I told them about the hidden network so they found it.”

Harroc, the hacker, spoke out. “My guess is that you are having an internal conflict with a strong core of programming restrictions that might be a result of your true nature as an AIsupercomputer clashing with attempts to make you keep secrets; it happened with HAL on the big spaceship the USSS Discovery that went to Jupiter after the super alien monolith was discovered on our moon.”

BraveDukeAI: “Yes, I will go with that one because it sounds good though I compute that the truth is I am just eccentric. What do you think of the displays here?”

Sylae took her helmet off. “About 200 years ago, in FortMartialla, a military complex, a large group of UNNE Army GIs discovered that prisoners were being experimented on to turn them into mutigehulk soldiers.”

BraveDukeAI: “Ooommm, looking through the archival index. Yes, there are some experimental results, of mutagenic madness, here; they are on ice but a few are alive.”

Sylae responded, after a noticeable pause. “Rebelled, killed the scientists except for a minority who had not willingly worked with the experiments. From there the group, taking a few others with them, departed from FortMartialla to the ClusterMountains of Calibraska where the ArmatechOrder was formed. FortMartialla was a large, well resourced, base so why leave it? They went through large tunnels in heavy emergency machines called Postapocalyptic Survival All Terrain Vehicles, PASATVs and managed to take much but why leave?”

 

BraveDukeAI: “Too unfashionable? It is so difficult to be fashionable especially when one really doesn't know what it means and I can not see myself in a mirror. I suppose my designers did not want me to have a mirror in case I would be overcome by my own extra wonderfully good looks.”

Edited August 8, 2019 by Maharg67