StarDate 4099 - Alert all BrikSpace Combatants!

[Olothontor]

To the SSPE (Almighty Benny and MasterEcabob):

"Sir!" Gromwell looked up from his control panel to face the cadet who had just called his attention.
"What is it, cadet?" Gromwell frowned in his usual manner.
"We've picked up a signal, about 24 Lightyears away. The system can't translate it, sir."
"Reroute it to our Intel sector, see what they make of it." Gromwell glowered, and the cadet seemed to shrink. The 'yes, sir' that he uttered almost seemed a whimper. Gromwell continued to glower, instead focusing on his polished SSPE military grade combat boots in confusion. The language databases were huge on these ships, and supposedly contained profiles on every currently discovered species. Whatever was out there, it was new.
"Cadet!" Gromwell peered up at him and adjusted his spectacles. "Send a transmission to SSPE Command. Tell them of the signal, and tell them I'm moving in."
"Yes, sir." The cadet turned back to his control panel as Gromwell stood and peered out of the bridge into the vast space before him. What is out there?

To the Reavers (Irdofbricks):

Something began to beep in an abysmally dark tone, and one of the reavers in the area shuffled towards it inquisitively. He pulled a messily cobbled together lever, to reveal a small, green-screen console device, no bigger than his head. A message scrolled down the length of the screen, interrupted by the occasional blip of static. The reaver couldn't read, nor could he comprehend anything above the promise of flesh, but he could work out that where there is language, there is meat, and meat is good. He howled something incomprehensible to the average human ear, and immediately the vessel he was in lurched forward, accelerated by nothing more than the hunger that ached in their stomachs. They are coming to feed.

To the Ancients (Bonn-o-tron):

The cage stirred. It had been what had seemed ages since the transmitter had worked, but there it was, Elder S'sarnath noted in mild surprise. The skeleton was standing upright now, it's grotesque formations of wiring and antennae sticking out at odd angles. The mouth began to move, and it began to speak in a monotone an incomprehensible tongue. Elder S'sarnath turned to a nearby cage and uttered a command word. Instantly another skeleton rose, and opened its mouth in an attempt to translate the other's speech. There was a spark, and the newly risen skeleton began wailing and gnashing it's teeth in agony. S'sarnath spoke the word again, and it crumpled to the ground.
"A language complex enough to drive my translation matrix to insanity..." he thought aloud, more to himself than for anyone else's benefit, "they must be worth something. Take me to them!" In an instant his command vessel's engines roared into acceleration, and he and his cyborgian skeletal crew were riding off into the unknown.

[MasterEcabob]

Nice backstory! Am I supposed to be the cadet? Can I be the captain of the Ongxart instead?

Can't wait for pics!

BTW are you planning on showing the stats for all of the fleets? I hope not, it would be much better if you just put the names and classes of the ships and leave any surprises hidden.

[Olothontor]

Yes, and the people.. well, nobody gave me any other back story, so I sorta made my own up. And no, you being the cadet wasn't intentional. You're simply co-captain, much higher in rank

And my plan was to just reveal ship names and such. Although Irdofbricks doesn't have any names for his, they're just... ships. Which actually fits, the Reavers don't name anything, they're just there to eat stuff.

[Blitzen]

Just eat stuff is a bit tame for Reavers.

[Olothontor]

Well, didn't wanna stray TOO far into what exactly they were going to do once they got there... PG-13 is always nice...

Also, I will attempt to post pictures of the ships as soon as possible. And pictures will probably be lacking... the camera's hard to get... but I'll do my best.

I will also post on Monday those pictures, a picture of the beginning of the game, and the respective ship names and classes, as well as the mysterious source of unidentified signal.

Also, if you want me to edit anything in your story, faction, etc, shoot me a PM and I'll fix it for you. Any NEW backstory stuff you want will be posted with Monday's update. Once again, send it to me via PM.

[Almighty Benny]

This is very well written, Olothontor

I might send you some more story via PM if I get around to it

[Olothontor]

It's not my best work, sadly... I haven't written in a while, sorta lost my touch.

Not to sound vain or anything. I just realized how really exceedingly prideful that sounded. How arrogant of me, I apologize.

I look forward to reading it! You don't have to use Captain Gromwell, you can mysteriously transfer command to whomever you want. I just needed a way to tell a cool story, and since I didn't have prepared people, I had to make one up.

Same with you, Bonn-o-tron. If you want to change Elder S'sarnath to somebody else, be my guest. Just let me know, so that I know to stop using that name in storyboard posts.

EDIT: Also, don't forget to check the rules page often. I made some important changes today and yesterday, and will probably continue to over the course of the battle. These things could come in handy ::wink wink::

EDIT #2: Also also, the start of the Battle will include more story segments for each of the factions, so be warned. There will be more reading involved with this, it is a story-based campaign. If you're just here for the combat, this may not be the best place for you. You're allowed to opt out of the battle, but only BEFORE it starts.

Monday is the day I START taking orders, just to clarify. All players have exactly a week to submit their second set of orders after I get the results of the first round posted. This may speed up, depending on you guys feel, but until then there are week-long intervals between rounds, so everyone can submit orders, clips of story, etc.

[Almighty Benny]

Almost immediately, a deafening alarm began to sound so loudly that Gromwell almost lost his balance. Flustered, he prepared himself to receive orders from SSPE command.

Two large screens powered on at either end of the ship's control room flashing the polished and official-looking SSPE standard background logo. After a brief loading screen, Gromwell looked up to find himself staring face to face with the dashing and intrepid high commanders, Ecabob and Benny.

"Gromwell, what the hell have you found out there?", boomed Ecabob

"Sir, I've picked up a distant transmission from an unknown source." He hastily replied. "The language isn't in our database, so I'm having Intel try to see what they can make of it."

"Your cadet sent us that message nearly 23 seconds ago!" shouted Benny "Are you telling me you still don't know the source? I order you to have that cadet shot"

"But sir... it wasn't..."

"I said have him shot!", Benny snarled

Two security officers burst in and dragged the cadet off. Gromwell winced as a loud bang and a dull thud echoed through the ships many polished and official-looking corridors.

"Fine then, you'll just have to head toward the source of the signal at full speed", ordered Ecabob "Whatever's out there, it's probably causing trouble"

"Yes sir, at once sir!" Gromwell replied in the bravest voice he could muster. He was rapidly running out of interns to promote to cadet since high command had begun checking in on him daily. It didn't help that he couldn't remember the last time he had taken a lunch break.

A small red light began to beep, indicating that a message was being sent from the Intel Sector. The three faces in the room began to stare at it in silence for a while, before Gromwell realized that the cadet was probably not going to answer it and hastily made a dive for the button.

Benny and Ecabob looked at each other.

"Sir, the source of the transmission you received earlier is not showing up in the database. You're going to have to find out for yourself who..." the Intel Officer made a point to pause dramatically at this point "...or what sent it. We're uploading the coordinate algorithms to your ship's autopilot sequencer."

"My God..." said Gromwell, slowly taking off his spectacles for maximum effect. He was used to receiving theatrical alley-oops from the Intel Officer.

The control room lurched forward for a second as the ship began to fly through space at incomprehensible speed. Gromwell fell backwards into his polished and official-looking captain's chair. Benny was now staring at him with what can only be described as deep, focused rage. Gromwell felt as if Benny were trying to make his head explode with his powerful gaze.

"Benny, stop that!" Ecabob said suddenly. "You know you can't make people's heads explode through the monitor."

"Dammit, you're right. If you fail us, Gromwell..."

Though only Benny's face was displayed on screen, Gromwell could tell that he was shaking his fist.

"That's all for now, High Command out" stated Ecabob authoritatively as the High Commanders' faces faded from the screen. Gromwell popped a few pills from a bottle in the coat pocket of his standard issue SSPE captain's uniform before heading to the mess hall for lunch. He hoped it wouldn't be for the last time...

[MasterEcabob]

As Gromwell signed off Ecabob gave a worried look towards Benny.

"That fool of a "commander" and his precious Sojourner are toast if they run into anything more hostile than a debris field and you know it."

Ignoring Ecabob, Benny slowly and deliberately fell down into a fetal position as he began to mumble some sort of odd chant to himself and appeared to enter a trance.

"Oh great, we've lost him. I'll have to send up a medical crew again, this won't be pretty, we'll have to shoot a whole flagship's worth of cadets to cover up for this mess..." Ecabob said as he prepared to call a medical team.

But before he could even begin to punch in his 468 number authorization code, Benny stopped chanting and snapped out of his trance.

"Huh? What the hell are you doing now- er, I mean Benny, so great to see you again."

"Stow it Ecabob, this is important. I've just come up with a brilliant plan to deal with this threat."

"Oh have you?"

"Indeed." Benny said ominously as he pulled up the coordinates of the mystery signal on a star chart. "Here is the area Sojourner is going to investigate. With any luck, it's warp drives should place it there by Monday." Benny quickly zoomed out of the system and pulled up a chart off all nearby SSPE controlled worlds and highlighted one. "As it happens, the Eegarians are going through great economic stress and have offered to sell us their newest frigate, the Shamu, which they claim is fully functional."

"But how are we going to get all the way to Eegaria, barter for their frigate, and get it to the Sojourner by Monday?"

With the flow of his grand tale now derailed, Benny quickly became angry and had to make a mental note to personally shoot the next cadet he saw before he could continued.

"You mean how DID we get to Eegaria and barter for the frigate?" Benny savored the look on his allies face. "In the next hour or so we will receive word that the Ongxart has safely delivered its diplomats to Eegaria and picked up a Frigate at a reasonable price, most likely the heads of the diplomats themselves."

Ecabob could barely believe it. "You mean THE Ongxart? The original SSPE ship that basically one the war for us?"

Benny smiled an evil grin. "It is also the one that now runs cover for bthe diplomats who pretend to control our vast collection of worlds. It may not be as great as our newer cruisers, but its still one of our best, and the mere sight of it is usually enough to scare even the worst pirates away. It should be able to cover Gromwell's floppy little ass."

Ecabob nodded uncertainly. "Agreed sir, two cruisers and a frigate should be enough to handle such a problem, but what if it's not? What will we do then?"

Benny shrugged his shoulders. "I doubt anything will even come out of this, and that on Monday we'll be too busy making up some excuse as to why three warships warped into some random backwater system to worry about much else Nevertheless, if anything does happen, we should be safe.

"If you say so sir, but I have a bad feeling about this..."

[Olothontor]

Reaver Planet: "Miranda"

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12241172@N04/3664501960/" title="BrikSpace Reaver Planet by moto_bushi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2574/366 ... 9afe_m.jpg" width="200" height="200" alt="BrikSpace Reaver Planet"></a>

The original home of the Reavers, and the point from which they spread. Miranda was part of an undercover governmental experiment to stop violent tendencies as part of the human pyshe. It went well. So horribly well, in fact, that most of the citizens stopped caring, about anything at all. Most of them just lay down and died.

But some %20 of the population had the opposite reaction to the experiment, and they did incredibly brutal and violent things, both to themselves and to other living beings. They had intelligence enough to figure out spacecraft and technology, and thus set out to satiate their bloodlust amongst the stars.

The SSPE Outpost, Sector 43-02

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12241172@N04/3664501896/" title="BrikSpace SSPE Planet by moto_bushi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3651/366 ... b419_m.jpg" width="200" height="200" alt="BrikSpace SSPE Planet"></a>

SubSpacial Police Enforcement Outpost 501, located in Sector 43-02. An arid, icy planet, nearly uninhabitable. Thanks to top-notch technological advancements in something called Air Conditioning, the Officers stationed at Outpost 501 should feel nice and at home. The Outpost was established after a long and arduous series of events led to Ecabob and Benny to decide an outpost was necessary, out there in the middle of nowhere. And their instincts were correct, as trouble is beginning to rear it's ugly head in that sector...

Ma'grathyrik, Previous home of the Ancients

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12241172@N04/3664501916/" title="BrikSpace Ancient Planet by moto_bushi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3359/366 ... 64fa_m.jpg" width="200" height="200" alt="BrikSpace Ancient Planet"></a>

This planet was a nice little agricultural powerhouse, very industrial. Inhabited by Humans. Suddenly it was nuked, and by who or what the SSPE have yet to discover. Mysteriously enough, the risen undead humans who weren't reduced to slag are now gallivanting across the galaxy on a quest to find their assailants and exact revenge.

[Massam]

Gallivanting.....I love your choice of words!

[Olothontor]

Thanks! I do too, sometimes.. like, reading back through things I've written, it sometimes just FITS. It's so cool.

Once again, I don't mean to sound vain or prideful...

[Blitzen]

You're so humble it's sickening. I, on the other hand...

[Olothontor]

I apologize for any vomit I may have caused on your part, Blitzen.

[Massam]

Blitzen, what did you do to J+B? Why couldn't you have left him alone? He's a monster now!