Not with a Bang Start and Ongoing

[voidtreckermods]

"Good Morning passengers. Today is day seven of the month of Imagination." The voice echoes through the train as passengers wake up in their beds. Not long afterwards their SCA’s glow with the colour of the void and a holographic image will appear.

Preperation

They have about an hour to prepare, a little less than usual but perhaps expected, given the urgency of the task.

The cupboards in the dressing room are open to reveal rows of tents, in all four team colours as well as some basic camp cooking equipment. They are in bags that should be easy enough to carry.

"Shortly arriving on System #6416. All passengers get ready to disembark. Next stop world 6416. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The train rocks and lurches, bright colours of the void filling the space and then fading as they fly downwards towards a very green landscape.

Arrival and Initial Task

The train lands in a clearing, curving round in an attempt to fit. Once everyone who wishes to disembark has done it flies back into the air, vanishing from sight.

The air is heavy and humid, though it is not currently raining. The clearing is open to the sky and looking up will reveal a worrying sight. The sky is an angry red colour, colours shifting as if the clouds themselves were on fire. It's an unnerving sight.

Their SCA's show three points, one Orange, One purple and one that is half blue and half red. The three control centres. Each are a few hours treck through the jungle and it certainly feels like there is no time to waste.

Those that don't want to treck through the forest can start setting up camp, though the darkening sky might be a little distracting. As time goes on flecks of fire drift down, though they extinguish before hitting the forest floor.

Orange are to travel to the north, Purple to the south and Blue and Red must travel together to the west. Each route takes them through thick and unrelenting jungle. Flying is difficult here unless you can get up past the canopy layer, which means vision of the ground is severely hampered.

The control stations themselves are half buried in vines and require cutting into. If voidtreckers are unlucky they will meet their first security robots here, firing on the intruders. They might even meet their first giant Armadillos, the creatures are curious and may wish to investigate. They are not helpful or constructive to trying to power up the stations and prevent the destruction of the planet.

The control stations are simple enough to operate, but there's quite a lot that needs to be done in way of repairs and clearing. It will take a team effort to get it in working enough order to activate the shield.

The shield itself, when it is activated, is mostly invisible but there is a loud humming sound. The meteor, which has gotten more visible throughout the five hours, hits the shield and splinters, fire enveloping the whole sky. It is visibly terrifying, but no fire falls to earth, no rocks get through, the planet is safe.

Ongoing

Once the planet is safe the voidtreckers deserve a rest. But once the next morning dawns it is time to start with their next tasks, to make sure that this planet stays safe from future threats.

Red

The robots at the control stations are not the only malfunctioning security robots around. They roam the jungle, or are more often stranded in the jungle, powering up only when faced with a new threat.

Some are benign, terraforming machines whose only crime is using up precious power. These need to be dismantled so that power can be saved for the shield system. Others are security robots that will attack the intruders to the planet.

Though the machines are scattered they are often obvious, emitting warning alarms or flashing lights. Their SCA's will show some areas where there are larger clusters but machines can be found anywhere.

Purple

Their SCA's are filled with hundreds of purple dots, each a solar stations that needs cleared and brought back online. It's not the most glamourous job, the stations are deep in the jungle, the treck is difficult and most of the work needed is weed clearing.

But once the weeds have been cut away they will need to patch up the station, doing basic maintenance to get it back online. In some cases wires need to be patched back together but it shouldn't take any great feats of engineering to get the stations up and running.

They may run into some of the security automatons, needing to fight their way into the stations before they can begin the clean up operations.

Orange

Like the red team their SCA will show areas where there are clusters of the small insectoid automatons that need to be rescued and restored. However they can be found anywhere throughout the jungle, they are not too suited for the terrain outside of the stations and so they have gotten tangled in vines. They can be found powered down, stranded and in dire need of maintenance.

Tools and spare parts can be found in many of the solar stations that purple team have been locating. Actually repairing the robots takes some engineering knowledge but once they are restored they will go about their tasks in the stations. They will need help getting to the further flung stations as well as the main control centres.

They are very basic in design and follow pre programmed instructions rather than being able to hear and listen to orders. But once in the correct place they are very effective at their job.

Blue

Once the shield is up there is a faint humming that can be heard throughout the jungle if they listen closely and find it among the sound of rain and insects. But once they hear it, it is obvious where it is louder and more prominent.

Their SCA will pin point some of the larger control boxes but there are truthfully too many to show on a map. Not all of them have attracted Violet Pandas, but many of them have.

They are curious creatures, both of the power boxes and the voidtreckers. They are protective of each other but not so much of territory and therefore it is not difficult to move them on. Keeping them away is another matter, the power humming is interesting and they will unearth wires and chew through them. It doesn't seem to do them much harm, there is clearly safety stops in the system for such eventualities. It does however cut power off to entire solar stations and require a lot of patch work.

Good luck voidtreckers!

Comments

[zechs_isonfire]

"In any world where war is prevalent, I'd imagine most die young. It's a natural consequence," Zechs noted, only slightly distracted, because. "Forgive me. Did you say you can control the dead?"

After a brief pause, Zechs explained, "I'm from a reality that has no type of magic to speak of. So its existence elsewhere is ... fascinating."

[xue_yang]

"It's a type of cultivation that I can use. I can control resentful energy and use it against others. A lot of that involves creating and using fierce corpses and the dead to fight." It's greatly frowned upon on his world and not many people have the ability to use it, or the desire. But Xue Yang found this kind of cultivation fascinating and enjoys using it.

[zechs_isonfire]

"I'm considering there's a fault in the translation these devices give us," Zechs said wryly, "because when I think 'cultivation', I'm imagining agricultural crops reaped and processed for consumption, not ... gathering magical energy to animate corpses."

Despite that, though, Zechs looked fascinated. "Resentful energy. So, the remorse and frustration of all those who have fought, and died, failing in battle."

[xue_yang]

"Doesn't necessarily have to be dying in battle but yes, those do make the best fierce corpses. The more anger and resentment they have when they die, the stronger they are when they are corpses."

He won't try to make him understand what cultivation means for them. It's a complicated process and not one that everyone can do.

[zechs_isonfire]

"... And then you would use them to fight for you in turn," Zechs easily concluded. "Soldiers in a fight so the living might not die. To reuse the living that had already fallen. To generate more dead so your army might grow stronger."

He said that neutrally, even curiously, enough, all while thinking ... that was perhaps even worse than the mobile doll program. How he hated the notion. How Treize would despise it. Zechs considered it very fortunate, for Xue Yang's reality, that he didn't exist within it. Such a thing would not be allowed to continue.

[xue_yang]

"The size of the army still fluctuates. Even the dead will die again when in a war. And so there will always be a need to replenish the forces as one would with any army."

And through the use of those corpses there are also experiments with different techniques and inventions that can be used when using the dead isn't possible.

[zechs_isonfire]

"I'd suppose some parts would be made simpler, since there's no question of morale, or need to requisition supplies to keep them fed or their injuries tended," Zechs pointed out, analytical and mild.

[xue_yang]

"They also don't feel pain and aren't going to stop because of some injury."

A perfect soldier and great for many different types of missions.

[zechs_isonfire]

Or terror, or hesitation, or questions, when approaching certain targets. Zechs kept his thoughts to himself. There's many reasons the ideas of using the programmed mobile dolls angered them - he didn't see much difference between them and the dead.

Shades without form, gestures without motion.

"And yet you're well versed in combat yourself," Zechs observed. "Useful and fortunate, considering these machines don't leave behind material you can use."

[xue_yang]

"Generally on my world, we are swordsman first and are there to defeat the dead. My path was just a bit different from everyone else. I didn't care so much about saving the world. I was used more as a weapon against it."

He was the sword when people didn't want to get their hands dirty or get caught doing something they shouldn't. And in order to be even more useful, he used the dead. But mostly his dabbling in the dark cultivation was out of his amusement more then anything.

[zechs_isonfire]

"To what end?" Zechs asked. Perhaps willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, as someone else who had figuratively waged war against the world. He had done terrible things, as well, to meet those ends. "Why fight against the very world?"

[xue_yang]

"Because there are those in control of the world that thought they were better then anyone else. That stomped on the ones below them when in reality they were the ones that should have been crushed like bugs. And so I taught them what it was like to be the bug."

Xue Yang has a problem with anyone that looks down on someone else. People who see themselves as superior are the ones he hates most.

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs thought to his own past, and said calmly, "Vengeance is understandable. But it might not prevent such from happening in the future. Did you find it satisfying, enacting your revenge, or was there always more work to do?"

From someone else, that might've sounded judgemental - perhaps he still did. Or, Xue Yang might hear a thread of sympathy, such as it was. It was hard to tell with Zechs where his feelings lay, since he kept them so close to his chest.

[xue_yang]

"There was always more work of course. Because If I wasn't doing my own, I was carrying out other people's revenge for them. They couldn't get their own hands directly dirty of course." There had to be someone in the middle that could be guilty of the crimes and wouldn't implicate them.

[zechs_isonfire]

For the first time, Zechs allowed his skepticism to show. "To what end? If they didn't have the means to carry out their own tasks, why bother yourself with their affairs?"

[xue_yang]

Xue Yang smirks, "Because it was fun? I like killing. It isn't like I do it because I have to. And it's fun to see what happens when their plans take shape."

[zechs_isonfire]

His expression smoothed out once more. Of course, Zechs didn't feel that it was prudent to reveal that he believed his current comrade was his logical enemy, if only philosophically so.

But if this were his reality?

Well.

"I see. I suppose by comparison this train must bore you."

[xue_yang]

He waves his hand towards the forest around them. "It drops me off in places like this and lets me do what I want. What is boring about that? Besides, I am dead. What choice do I really have?"

[zechs_isonfire]

"A fair point," Zechs acknowledged, at least about his status as the dead. "Oblivion is even without boredom, after all."