Athol

The Infinite Railroad

@IceHeart A couple other questions occurred to me. Do the tracks run North/South or East/West, and will there be a map of known stations/settlements?

The Infinite Railroad

You've certainly gotten my attention. Since I'm a bit of a gun-nerd I feel compelled to ask, how advanced would the firearms be? Still just single shot cap and ball type stuff, or would things like early semi-automatics (pre-WW1) be allowed?

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

@Dealdric Hope you make it in, but FYI Macklyn is no more (got greedy and made a bad call)

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

Gerad

Gerad ignored Gaz’s crowing in regards to his handmade technical abomination, but he did keep a sensor lock on the plasma spewing monstrosity; mostly so he’d have some warning for when it inevitably exploded. Every time Gaz pulled the trigger, the sensors in Gerad’s armour went wild with massive power spikes, alerts for potential containment failures and other things generally associated with a powerful energy source on the cusp of a total systems failure and overload.

Following the fungai’s lead, to a point, he advanced towards the onrushing Hive, transferring his VLA to his secondary arms so that he could make use of his forearm mounted barrier as well. Beams of coherent light and packets of super-heated plasma burned through carapaces and reduced flesh to ash, while the hammer shattered limbs, mandibles and anything else that got close enough. With Gaz thoroughly distracted and the two humans doing their best, an odd Swarmer or two got through, so to counter, Gerad activated the close combat protocol for his cutter/welder; running a similar semi-autonomous program to his PRP, the tool lashed out at attacking hostiles with a fusion torch ‘blade’, savaging anything it hit.

Moments later Sven joined the fray with the Crimson Fang’s weapons, reducing the remaining Hive to so much smouldering meat, and doing a fair job of running both the hanger and every other remaining small craft as well. While Silas and Sven got the loot loaded, Gerad made a check of the proximity sensors that were a part of his device; seeing that they were clear, he made his way forward to the cockpit. “Oi clanker!” He called out to Sven. “C’n ye keep us de scan shadow of dis tub? Closer those merc haulers stick to it de better…” He added with a slightly sinister tone. “Tha’ said…we gotta be ‘bout five thousan’ kays out, less we get it too.”
---
Sven did his best, but the Fang wasn’t intended for totally covert work. Still they managed to make it half way back to the End before the furthest out merc ship spotted them. Fortunately Legion’s End had been moving towards them to rendezvous under its own ‘aftermarket’ stealth systems, so when it lit off its ECM suite, the merc cruiser was caught off guard. With a poor firing solution, it fired a few long shots at the freighter as it swooped in and snagged the Fang in a rather rough ‘snatch-and-run’ pick up, but none came too close.

Gerad ignored all of this; all his attention was on the readout showing their distance from the Balrog. When he realized they weren't quite going to make the minimum safe distance if he waited, he triggered the device and muttered a quiet prayer to the Ancestors.

When a starship jumps to hyperspace, the hyperdrive creates a ‘bubble’ around the ship that causes it to move out of phase with n-space, allowing it to appear to move faster than light without upsetting what humans call ‘Einsteinian Relativity’. Because creating said bubble is massively power intensive to do in one go, it is instead created by a series of linked generator nodes around the ship’s hull, their smaller bubbles merging together to encompass the ship, this helps ease strain on the ships power systems during the initial jump. If one of those nodes were to fail, that section of the ship would end up out of phase with the rest of it with catastrophic results; needless to say there are many safety features built onto any FTL capable vessel to prevent such things happening.

Gerad’s ‘hyperdrive’ had no such nodes, nor did it even know it should have them; as far as it was concerned, everything was just fine. When the QEC got the command, the computer executed its only directive which was to spin up the drive and jump into hyperspace. The capacitors dumped their loads, the generator hummed and a hyperspace bubble slightly larger than the Armoury where it was sitting enveloped the area. As soon as it reached 100% strength the whole section disappeared into hyperspace, and then promptly fell out again. Maintaining a hyperspace bubble of any size is expensive and usually once a ship has jumped it maintains its bubble by tapping into the energy created at the interface between the bubble and h-space itself, allowing for an essentially free ride.

This was another thing the device lacked. As soon as it jumped, it cut itself off from its only power source, which caused the bubble to collapse, and the Armoury to revert to n-space. Any time there is a translation between one or the other there is a substantial ‘flare’ of energy, larger when dropping into n-space, which is spectacular but harmless when just in the void. This however wasn’t so harmless.

Raw energy ripped the bulkheads and decking apart at the most basic level, the sub-atomic reactions further fuelling the destruction. The Balrog’s battered and abused power systems overloaded, and the safeties failed, allowing a massive pulse to dump itself into the already compromised reactor, which promptly exploded with the fury of a small star. The time between Gerad sending the command and the ruined cruiser disappearing into an expanding ball of super-heated gas was less than 1/10th of a second.

The closest mercenary vessel died in almost the same instant as the near-light speed shock front of energy slammed into it with a destructive force that no battle screen could have turned aside. The cruiser’s own reactor breach simply added to the holocaust as the surrounding asteroids shattered under the impact.

The second ship was far enough away to avoid getting hit with the initial blast or the death throes of its sister, but all that meant was that her crew knew they were going to die. Massive chunks of rock were blasted outwards, and while the helmsman did his best to try and get clear, there just was not enough time. A rock roughly half a kilometer in diameter struck the bow, sheering off a sizable chunk, while smaller ones wreaked havoc elsewhere. The second ship’s reactor safeties did react in time to prevent any breach, but all that it accomplished was to leave the vessel crippled without anything more than basic life support as the debris reduced it to an air bleeding hulk.

The third ship which had moved in pursuit of the Crimson Fang was lucky enough to avoid destruction at the hands of Gerad’s hyperspace ‘bomb’, but it didn’t get away unscathed. The mercenary captain, thinking they were only pursuing a small dropship, had failed to bring up any more protection than the basic particle shields. He’d been in the process of calling for battle screens as the Legion’s End made its presence known, but he never got the chance. While the plasma ‘shock front’ created by the death of the first two ships died out relatively quickly, the super dense wave of neutrinos generated by the explosions kept going. While neutrinos generally don’t interact very much with stuff in relativistic space, on such a small scale, the wave was so dense it caused an intensely strong gravitational ‘ripple’ as it hit the ship. While extremely unpleasant for the crew it was survivable, though it did cause failures all across the ship, leaving it dead in space.

This was nearly the fate of the Legion’s End as well, but it jumped into hyper the instant the dropship was inside it ‘bubble’. The neutrinos still managed to touch the ship though, causing and instability that dropped the ship back into n-space just outside the system’s ecliptic, now well beyond the effect area.

”Bit tight, but no’ bad…”

The total elapsed time from start to finish was less than five standard minutes.

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

@ShiningSector Okay, I've tried to work my post so it could be taken as either there is other crew on Legion's End or that Sven could be flying it under remote control (Which given that he's an AI, should be plausible).

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

I am working on a post (slowly but surely), but I have a for @ShiningSector and/or @Arthanus. Is there other NPC crew on Legion's End? (ie: Someone to take the helm while Sven is flying the Crimson Fang)

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

@CaptainSully@ShiningSector

Would there be any objections to me fast tracking us all to Legion's End? All I can think of for a post involved Gerad activating his construct, and that has a 'Minimum Safe Distance' that we should really be outside of.

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

So, is this thing still going?

Above the Wastes - A Mad Max style RP with airships

@6slyboy6

Let go of the..? Motherfucker… As Captain Oliver spoke the words, Reva’s eyes got colder and harder. ”That. Wasn’t. The. Deal.” She said quietly, an iron hard edge to her voice. ”You said, a hundred Dits for each dead man…” As she spoke, a hand strayed to her belt, not to the grip of her pistol but to the handle of a large knife. Remember my words dockside when I cut you loose?

She gave every impression of being about to strike, when she stopped, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her hand stopped moving, balling into a fist so tight that her weathered knuckles went white for a moment, before relaxing and dropping back to her side. Her eyes opened and she stared at Oliver once again. ”I dislike being dicked around,” She said after a moment. ”But my desire to get the fuck outta this ville outweighs everything else.” The edge to her voice was fading, but it was plain that she was distinctly unhappy. ”I’ll take the job, you keep the Dits, but this doesn’t happen again…savvy?”

Staring at Capt. Oliver for a moment longer, Reva turned away and moved deeper into the Magnificent in search of a place to store her gear.

Above the Wastes - A Mad Max style RP with airships

@6slyboy6@Chronosity@Letter Bee

When rifle fire cracked behind her, Reva dropped to a knee and swung towards the fire…only to stop and realize the shooter was also firing at the airship crew. Moments later the gunfire stopped and the remaining ‘crew’ dropped their irons. ”And here come the roaches…” She muttered as several people emerged from cover.

As the real captain made his way back aboard ship, with promises to be true to his word, the man-mountain bade Reva and the rifleman she’d nearly taken a shot at to come. ”Be there in a tick.” Bending over the man she’d shot, she gave him a quick pat down, coming out with a few Dits, a pistol that might scare a Dock-Rat if they didn’t get a good look at it, and a few spare rounds for the little pop gun. Pocketing all of that, she made her way back to her gear and hoisted it up, before making her way back to the ship. In the time it’d taken her to do that, a preacher-man whom she recognized from around town, a kid, and a surprisingly well dressed woman where all vying for Misha’s attention. She couldn’t help but wince as the kid put on an, admittedly well done, display that took way too many liberties with a ship he didn’t know. ”Stunt like that could get you killed with the wrong crowd.” She said as she moved passed. ”Most captain’s take exception to a man touchin’ his ship without permission.” She ignored the preacher-man and his new ‘disciples’, instead focusing on the other woman.

”Well hello beautiful,” She purred as the other woman made her play to actually hire the ship with a heater the like of which Reva had never even dreamed about. ”And you’re a bit of a looker to.” She smirked as the other woman looked her way. Moving passed all that, she bounded up the companion way and boarded the Magnificent. Form follows function, so even though the ship was unfamiliar, applying a little logic let Reva find Captain Oliver rather quickly. Gear still slung over her shoulders, she rapped her knuckles against the bulkhead to get his attention. ”So, Captain,” She said, propping a shoulder against the wall. ”I’ve got a deal for ya. Since you need crew, and to be honest I want the fuck outta this place, I’ll sign on at the standard crew rate, plus the Dits owed and any ammo expenses.” She raised an eyebrow as she spoke to emphases her point. ”For that you get one mean bitch of a Gunner who knows her way around all sorts of pirate ruses and can keep this ship clear of them. Savvy?”