TGMC Talk:Lorebits

"Nagasaki, this is Theseus, what's our plan?" "Straight run at the planet, dumping missiles all the way. So, the good news is that there was nothing at the jump point other than 2 reconsats, which we obviously burned. The bad news is that one of those ships is a battlewagon." "Shit." "Exactly. We shoulda expected it, being as this is a pretty big SoM colony, but Intel hoped all of them were committed to the front." "So, one... what, heavy cruiser? Battleship? and a converted merchie? At least that gives us their strategy." "Use the warship as the shield for the merchantmen while trying to flush it's tubes at us, before we get into range and slag it. Think it has a beam engine, or just tubes?" "Dunno. Most don't have lasers, but we're WAY out of effective energy range. Doesn't matter, though, once we get any sort of missile hit on it, it's gone." "Cool, so the merch... one sec." QUERY- NUMBER AND ALLOCATION OF INBOUNDS TARGET ALPHA-1 1.0 GRAVITY-PREDICTED INTERCEPT WITH TASK FORCE IN 5.3 HR TARGET ALPHA-2-17 5.0 GRAVITY- PREDICTED INTERCEPT WITH TASK FORCE IN .47 HR TARGET BRAVO-1 1.3 GRAVITY- PREDICTED VELOCITY MATCH WITH ALPHA 1 TARGET BRAVO 2-33 5.0 GRAVITY- PREDICTED INTERCEPT WITH TASK FORCE IN .49 HR ASSUMPTION- ALPHA 2-17 AND BRAVO 2-33 WILL GO BALLISTIC IN ~.08 HR FOR INTERCEPT IN 5.0 HR "JESUS, they're dumping missiles!" "Yeah. Nothing from the planet yet, just those 2 generating a cloud. They're probably trying to empty the merchant, then it'll break off. Thoughts on dodging?" "Waste of time, they'll just re-target the missiles unless we go WAY off course, and that'll cost us more than a day." "Agree. So, we just ride in, slash their cloud up with our PD, and nail them with missiles in a driveby." "Looks best, but I don't like high rvelocity engagements." "Shoulda joined the marines, then." "~snort~ Aanyway, we're slaved to your control, fire whenever you're ready."

Luyten's Star, outbound jump point to Procyon- "Theseus, you ready?" "Yeah, all systems green on our end. Ready for jump." "Roger that. Feels good to take the war to the enemy." "How bad do you think it'll be? Hesperus is a key world." "Shouldn't be that bad, most of their ships are trying to push our core systems." "But they're gonna have something." "Undoubtedly. Jumping now, wait 30 seconds, then follow us through. CYANSPACE TRANSLATION SIGNATURE DETECTED- CYANSPACE TRANSLATION SIGNATURE DETECTED- "And that's both of them. All stations, rig for jump." "Weapons here, fire control disconnected, autoloaders disabled, capacitors drained, ready for jump." "Life support here, manual disconnect sealed and system offline. Cryopods sealed and in manual control, ready for jump." "Engineering here, reactor shutdown enabled, cyanspace core at 90% and awaiting final commit, ready for jump." "Propulsion here, main drive offline, pre-startup checklist complete, ready for jump." "All stations report ready for jump, sir." "Very well. Triggering jump autosequence and main computer shutdown." WARNING!- TEN SECONDS UNTIL JUMP- WARNING! "I hate this part." "Everyo- DISCONTINUITY "Oh go..." "USE THE TRASH CAN!" "All stations, report!" - "ALL STATIONS!" "blergh- engineering here" "And?" "Gimme a minute, initiating startup... core discharged, jump complete. Bringing reactor up now." "THANK you. Life support?" "Everything's coming up green here, but Blomberg missed his can." "Hah. Have him get a mop. Weapons?" "Point defenses are enabled, just need engineering to get me more power for them. Everything else is green. Looks like the 'saki and Iwo found something to shoot at, though." "Awesome. How bad?" "Looks like 2 ships and a planetary defense grid. Missiles are away, and they're heading out to match us, but both were in low orbit, so we lucked out there." "Great. Propulsion?" "Main drive's up, and engineering's fully up now as well." "Very well, give us a 1g course to match with the Iwo Jima and match helm control to keep us in their PD shadow. Weapons, turn over missile control to the Nagasaki once we're in formation." "Aye, sir." "You got it!"

"Theseus, what's your status?" "All systems green, cyanspace drive spooling down, jump shock passed, thankfully. Star tracker confirms we're in CLASSIFIED. Ready to get dropped, Canterbury?" "Let's see, umbilical's sealed, consumables are at maximum, and planetside weather looks good. I don't like our velocity and distance, though, can you give us a better starting vector, Theseus?" "Yeah, we'll give you another 300 g/seconds of thrust insystem, that work, Canterbury?" "Much appreciated." THRUST WARNING!- ALL HANDS STAND BY FOR AXIAL ACCELERATION- THRUST WARNING! "So, how bad's it supposed to be down there?" "Pretty bad. Entire colony wiped. Honestly, if we didn't have to deal with the Crucis invasion, we'd be down there with you." "Yeah, I know, entire TGSF and TGCM's stretched thin. Too many bugs-" "-And not enough ships. How's your vector look now?" "Much better, thanks. Ready to be released whenever you're ready, Theseus." "Roger, Canterbury, transferring drop controls to you. Blow that sucker and go do your job!" "Oh, please!" WARNING!- ALPHA ASSAULT BOAT DETACHMENT- WARNING! "Got a clean seperation on our end, you?" "Everything looks good, Theseus. Damm, already heading out?" "Yeah, gotta get to Crucis, they need our firepower in orbit. We'll be back in a few days, maybe a week." "Understood. Good hunting!" "You too, Canterbury! Make us proud!" CYANSPACE TRANSLATION SIGNATURE DETECTED "And now it's just me. Autonav locked onto colony beacon, weather's good, five minutes till atmosphere, then 10 min to landing from there. Time to wake up the troops."

Silent video. The watermark says "June 15, 2415, REILLY'S RAIDERS IP FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY" Obviously, with you having this, it's a little moot. Hell, pretty much everyone, TGMC or not has seen this film. It starts off pretty tame. Just a guy (Donovan) putting on his helmet cam and checking that it works, surrounded by his squadmates in an armory. Fast-forward through all the cameraderie, the eating and talking. You can't tell what it's about, and it doesn't matter anyway. That's not what you're watching this for. Additional footage inserted, a mixture of archival stuff about the ICC Reilly's Fortune and Refueling Station 084. Blueprints, camera views about where it all went down. Useful, but also not what you're watching this for. Skip forward to 16:24.25. Donovan's with 2 others in an airlock. They're suited up in softsuits, an indistinct unit emblem on the shoulder. The lock's been opened, and Refueling Station 084's clearly visible. No power, but a section lit with flares near windows and with something crudely drawn on the inside. That was the survivor holdout, but that comes later. Fast-forward through the boarding, how they powered up an airlock and walked in. One of the other 2 (Smith? Or is it Conway?) looks at Donovan and says something. Pause as the video clearly shows smashed light tubes, which they saw, and slashes in the wall, which they missed. Fast-forward. 17:07.52. Pause! There! Top left. That's a drone. It sees them and hides. No one in the squad notices it, though it wouldn't have made much difference in the end. They're on the clock now, but they don't even know it. 30 seconds later, and there's a Runner shadowing them, though we don't see it until 17:12.11, when it lunges in and slices Smith and darts off. Smith's limping, and everyone's mouth's moving, but there's no sound. Suddenly, muzzle flashes light the room, and a Sentinel's scurrying off. This is the last clear view we get of any aliens for the next 5 minutes, though you see some spit coming in. The crew were lucky. Their suits blocked all the neurotoxin, and it wasn't even recognized as a danger until far later. Skip to 17:18.27. Go to slow-motion. Light up ahead. It's the red glare of flares and muzzle-flashes. Donovan rushes forward, aand there. A Crusher. You see it's faceplate come out of NOWHERE, and toss him like a ragdoll forward. Those crushing legs come down to stomp, but he manages to roll and avoid it, as it runs off. Smith and Conway run up and grab him, and our viewpoint's backwards for a while. There's an indistinct picture of a Hunter for a few seconds, but nothing relevant until they get inside the holdout. Red light and screaming people, civilians with small arms. The full transcript's here somewhere, but it doesn't matter for now. They want OFF. The rest, while heroic, isn't relevant. They sealed doors and used the main weapons of the Reilly's Fortune to punch a hole in the station, and evacuated the entire team and survivors through hard vacuum with only breath masks. Most of them made it. You take a deep breath and run it back to the beginning. Everyone's done this before, trying to glean something useful from the few seconds of information on tape. It's probably useless, but it'll help pass the time until first drop.

The creation of bunny girls. When Dr. BunnyLove43 started tinkering in the realm of god. He had only two things. A stack of old pre-war Playboys and a dream....

"Hurry up and get with the HaCkiNg, man!" "I can't." "Why not?" "I'm running on a remote terminal here, over a wireless connection. The colony mainframe's in a locked subbasement running on backup power." "So? How does that change anything! BACK, get BACK!" Flamethrower SFX "Thanks. It's the colonial safety lockout. We don't have the credentials, and whoever had them's long-dead by now. We're using generic TGMC credentials." "Aren't those goo- JOHNSON, WELD THAT BARRICADE!" "No, not quite. Every time I hit a command, it sets off alarms and gives a one-and a half minute delay before executing ANYTHING. A safety measure so the admins have time to override in ca- GODDAMMIT FUCKING SPITTERS I HATE THIS PLANET SO MUCH". "Kelotane?" "YES PLEASE. I'mma keep standing here and imputting commands. Could you please..." "Make sure we don't die? On it."

"Missiles coming into range, PD beams fire at will." "Firing, but negligible effect, sir. It'll get better as they close." WARNING!-HULL TEMPERATURE INCREASE- WARNING! "You were right, they do have a beam engine on one of them. Looks like the merchant." "Why are they hitting us?" "They know we're the troopship. Helm, coordinate with the Nagasaki to put us in their shadow relative to the Pride of Independence." "Aye, but we're only gonna get partial cover, sir." "That's fine, just wanna minimize the amount of burning we'll take. Guns?" "We've taken out 14 missiles so far, there should only be 20-25 when they reach attack range." "only 25. Great. Our salvo?" "Still at 70%, same goes for us." "15 seconds left. Weapons, hit them with kinetics, Propulsion, 5G lateral burn, random-walk evasion!" "Executing!" WARNING!- KINETIC SHOCK DETECTED- WARNING! "MULTIPLE hits!" "On us, or them?" "Both." "The Hephaesthus's Fire's WRECKED! It's a drifting hulk!" "What about us?" "Uhh... looks like CIC's slagged and open to hard vacuum, with decompression as far aft as the medical area. Also Charlie prep's depressurized, and Delta prep's... gone." "Gone?" "Gone. Looks like it got physically sheared off the side." "Welp. Sucks for the marines. Engineering, you on it?" "Yeah, sent my SE's to start welding doors in place. What're our escorts like?" "Nagasaki took light damage, but the Iwo lost thrust and got hit bad. It's almost as bad as the SoM cruiser... aand they're launching escape pods." "Which one? Or both?" "Both." "Shit. Wake the PO's, we'll send the Alamo out. What about the merchant?" "Got hit, but still has thrust, accelerating away from us towards the jump point. If the CO has any sense, he'll jump out rather than stay and die." "Great. Engineering?" "Doors welded in place and atmos lines sealed off. Final tally is that we lost CIC for at least the next 4 hours, upper medical's held together by inflatable walls, and Delta prep's gone till we reach somewhere that can weld a new one in place. Everything else's re-pressurized." "Oof. The ungas are NOT gonna be happy. I'm glad we use astronav instead of CIC." "Sir, the Alamo's ready for SAR." "Launch it, then get me a line with the Nagasaki's bridge. And start waking up the marines. We have a drop to make."