Life2.0 - a Broken Shackles Narrative

[HistoryDude]

Ending by breaking the Fourth Wall, huh? Does that mean anything?

I liked this heart-to-heart.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

Ending by breaking the Fourth Wall, huh? Does that mean anything?

I liked this heart-to-heart.

From Naomi's perspective, she's trying to process Ruqayya's interpretation of her life story. It's a leaning on the wall.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Fireball"
23rd Qutrok, 10 (2189)
Buri Of Unity​

Finding Daas and Vorosh is easy - we get out the capital building to find the late evening is lit up like day, and people are fleeing. We follow the screams.

We come to a burning intersection.

Suddenly I understand why MSI had their lackeys on her world purge the mages. She is a miniaturised star, sending torrents of searing white scream at enemy positions. I look at the scanner Wami is using. "Fusion?"

The machine sounds like it is having a fit when he puts the audio on. "Yeah, we... Don't want to be this close."

I think it through. She is utterly furious. That might be the tempest beneath her calm depths unleashed, or, someone has killed her husband and she's letting loose in grief. Either way, finding Daas is the priority.

A man is reduced to just a shadow seared on the path. "Vorosh doesn't need rescuing, let's find Daas."

We navigate around.

They were at the café Alexandra and Thando like when all this started, so we follow the road around, grateful for my wife's city planning making the roads wide enough for a herd of Xenaya in war gear.

We get inside.

Daas is stood with an empty injector. "What did you do?"

"Monica's forces shot Vorosh with a tranquilliser first, then started shooting, I crawled away as civilians returned fire with their own weapons. I had no idea what the right dosage would be so I put the whole injector full of adrenaline into her to wake her up."

I quote my wife. "Goryhell. No wonder she's gone mad."

"How bad?"

Wami hands him the scanner. He cycles the settings. "I may have made a mistake."

I rest my hand on him. "My friend, you have royally-"

Wami hits my shoulder. "She's here."

Vorosh comes this way, melting buildings as she passes. I pick up Daas.

"Buri!"

"You're the bait, we have to get her out of the city!"

"Oh, heck."

I wave him at the star.

That was a mistake.

That was really a mistake.

Run.

Run faster.

She's closing...

I can't run fast enough while on two feet. I look at Daas.

He realises. "Plan B?"

"Plan B."

The key thing about being chased is that you don't have to run faster than what is chasing you, only faster than your friend.

I throw him behind me, then sprint as day turns to twilight.

I turn. Daas and Vorosh are embracing, but I'm looking at the glass road behind them...

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Prison Break"
23rd Qutrok, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity​

With Valerius dropped off at a military hospital, Ruki and I go to meet up with Dad. It's nightfall, and he's preparing to assault the prison. Monica has decided to make a last stand there, planning to capture Mum.

Who's still inside. Which is odd, given she has complete control.

I join the briefing area.

Dad is really easy to find - he's the only one wearing two Humans.

"Dad, you ought to take them off. What will Mum think?"

He shrugs. I lift them off. They are messes of congealed blood sticking to Dad's horns, drained down into his fur... Dad is going to need a really good clean after all this.

I'm not doing it. Instead, I join Wami. He is analysing the prison.

Mum and Daas designed the prison, and it shows.

While it wasn't quite designed as a fortress, they didn't stop too far short of one. It's a maze of separately controlled environmental system sections, airlocks, access shafts, prison cells and secret armouries, with cooling pipes from Hortensus' Folly's main nuclear power plant running through; push a button to redirect the flow and you can make a few sections at a time boiling hot really quickly. You can swap atmospheres too - there are reservoirs of sulphuric acid, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, oxygen, methane, normal air and water.

In short, Monica can make a decent stand there, if she can get to Mum and take her tablet.

Wami looks at me. "My biggest worry is your mother accidentally thinking we are hostile."

"Agreed."

"Sending only environmental suits seems a reasonable precaution."

"Hmm. I think that's what the acid is for dealing with."

"Which others are dangerous?"

"Methane and oxygen are a fire hazard. Carbon monoxide puts you to sleep and poisons you. Water can be drowned in. Pure oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure is toxic."

"What doesn't react with sulphuric acid? Is there time to coat suits with it too?"

I call my chemist. "Thando, what doesn't react with sulphuric acid?"

"Hmm... Why? What do you need it for?"

"Breaking into Mum's prison."

"Ah."

"What do you suggest?"

"Tungsten shields, and running. Do not let it touch you."

"How bad is it?"

"Corrodes flesh, and it's exothermic too, leaves nasty burns. It'll tear your internal organs apart if drunk, and say goodbye to your eyes if it gets in them."

No wonder Mum used it for this. "Ok uncle Thando. We've got osmium armour; any good?"

"Should be fine, even if it is a rather extravagant use of the metal."

"And any joy finding Mum?"

"Still looking."

He hangs up.

Wami has drawn his plans out on the map. He looks at me. "Thando says we should be ok."

"Then let's move."

 

[HistoryDude]

Let's hope that osmium armor doesn't get destroyed. Sulfuric acid would be a painful way to get injured - or to die.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

It's one of the strongest and densest metals in the periodic table, with the highest ultimate tensile strength of any material known barring the fibres or nanotubes of carbon or boron nitride.

The downsides are it's a right pain to do metalworking with, is toxic to Humans, and is extremely rare on Earth, which is why we don't use it. But there's mitigating factors or workarounds for all of that in this situation.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

Prison Break Combat Log
23rd Qutrok, 10 (2189)​

2159 - Donkey Leader: "Donkey Leader to Scarlet One, report status."

2159 - Biter Leader: "Biter Leader to Scarlet One, please report."

2159 - Switchblade One: "Scarlet One, get on the gorydamn line."

2159 - Biter Leader: "Scarlet One, offensive waiting on you. Comm in."

2200 - Donkey One: "No use."

2201 - Athena One: Audible sigh. "All allied callsigns, engage."

2205 - Donkey One: "Engaging Humans on outer walls. Lasing targets for tactical strike."

2205 - Drone Pilot: "Missiles away."

2205 - Donkey One: "Copy pilot. Good hits, Donkeys moving."

2209 - Donkey Leader: "Two injured for medical evac. Wall breached."

2211 - Donkey Leader: "Door breaching charges set. Detonating."

2213 - Donkey One: "Hallway secure."

2215 - Donkey Leader: Waving at security camera. "Scarlet One, comm in."

2215 - Biter Leader: "Interlinking internal sensors."

2215 - Athena One: "Link established."

2215 - Biter Leader: "One hundred foot-mobiles outside cells."

2217 - Switchblade One: "Reservoir access secured. Linking distribution data."

2219 - Donkey Leader: "Contact front!"

2221 - Donkey One: "Barricade breached."

2226 - Biter Leader: "Scarlet One and unrecognised Human woman located, several floors down."

2226 - Donkey Leader: "Biter Leader, do not take shortcut."

2226 - Biter Leader: "Acknowledged."

2229 - Biter Leader: "Stairwell destroyed."

2229 - Donkey Leader: "How bad?"

2229 - Biter Leader: "Unsure of how to ascend afterwards."

2229 - Athena One: "Support team bringing abseiling equipment, ETA twenty minutes."

2229 - Biter Leader: "Leaping. Landed, moving."

2233 - Biter Leader: "Marking this section for water cleansing."

2233 - Switchblade One: "Cleansing dispatched."

2234 - Biter Leader: "Proceeding."

2240 - Athena One: "All callsigns, seventy signatures left to investigate."

2337 - Biter Leader: "Scarlet One plus Human woman found."

2337 - Scarlet One: "Sorry all, equipment failure."

2340 - Athena One: All callsigns, twenty signatures left to investigate."

0050 - Athena One: "All callsigns stand down, all signatures investigated, target has eluded capture."

 

[HistoryDude]

Does that mean Monica escaped?

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Aftermath"
24th Qutrok, 10 (2189)
Naomi Of Unity​

One of the perks of marrying a ten foot tall monster by the time you include his horns is you need a swimming pool for a bath. The downside is we spent five hours getting blood out of his fur...

I'm not sure I want to know how he got it there, whoever he impaled must have died horribly.

And been there a while.

But, in the end, we float together, and relax. "I want peace."

He lounges. Must resist urge to admire his chest. "Don't we all."

"I mean it... I'm tired of wearing armour. I want to wear dresses again."

He nuzzles me. "Hopefully Monica and Heinrich will give up."

"We didn't find either of them..." I sigh. "If they don't, taking Heinrichstadt is for someone else to do."

He throws his head back and yawns. "Who was the other woman?"

"Ruqayya Amah al-Masih. She has some interesting ideas."

"Like?"

"She'd have me install a theocracy, she believes that we have plot armour."

"What is plot armour?"

"The way she put it is that we've come through so many situations that reasonably should have been defeats for us. Take the Flagship. The only other recent loss of a Flagship was to the Lokra-Kitan, and they paid a much higher price for victory. They've had numerous debt collectors come demanding repayment for the Flagship, MSI is suing them for millions of Energy Credits..."

"How much even is an Energy Credit?"

"It's a currency for use in simplifying interstellar empire running costs and conducting international trade. Wages for millions upon millions of people come to about an Energy Credit."

"And Thando has a bounty of ten thousand of them."

"Yeah. His head is worth the energy output of a star, or the amount of energy to terraform planets. We could buy enough Minerals and Alloys for the price on his head to transition to a small interstellar civilisation."

He thinks about that. "We're probably the place in the galaxy he can go safely."

I snort. "It's Thando."

"True. I'll rephrase as without guarding his shoulders."

I laugh. "Probably. But getting back to Ruqayya... When we found out Monica had attacked Valerius, we prayed to get him back."

"And he lived."

"Yes. And I'm wondering if she's right."

He nuzzles me. "What's on your mind?"

I look at him. "I've got a headache from thinking about all this stuff." I slip into his arms. "I just want to be husband and wife for a while."

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Fuel"
24th Qutrok, 10 (2189)
Alexandra HaMaadimi​

My husband looks very nice in his new uniform. We sit discussing our biggest problem.

"Monopoles, pions, plasma, magnetic confinement, laser cooled antiproton/positron storage... It's like some shopping list of sci-fi bits."

He bites his sandwich. No more ration packs now we have ships that have onboard farms. "A lot of them we can't even get."

"I'm honestly not sure what a monopole even is."

He finishes his sandwich. "Magnetic matter instead of nuclear force matter. Useful for catalysing fusion reactions."

"The Arishkan and Prikki ships use lots of them."

"Yeah, there's loads of people who do; monopole conversion rockets are as powerful as antimatter rockets and don't involve the hazards of storing antimatter. We can buy either off the market if we have stuff to trade."

"We need to condense the fuel types down... The only ones we can refuel are our own Orions."

"The Holocron is working on solar-powered super-colliders to produce antimatter."

"So our plan is to jump from nuclear fission pulse propulsion to antimatter rockets?"

"Antimatter pulse units are an awful lot easier than antimatter rockets."

"Presumably less effective though?"

"Yeah."

"Are they an advantage over the nuclear pulse units?"

He snorts. "Yeah. About a million times more sustainable. Did you look over Naomi's refuelling estimates for taking ships like the Ukuikela on an offensive through the hyperlane network?"

"I was more interested in the tactics once we got there."

"To keep transit time low means our ships do a 1g brachistochrone from one hyperlane to an opposite hyperlane, on average for the star systems between here and MSI. This works out as best part of a hundred thousand pulse units. Each of those pulse units is three tonnes of weapons-grade 2% Molybdenum Uranium-233 alloy. And after that transit, each ship docks with a refueller and takes it's pulse units. This happens for every star system."

"Get to the point."

"And don't forget the nineteen refuellers it needed left for scrap along the way. All of which needed their own refuellers in turn, who in turn needed their own refuellers..."

I start working it out. "Hundreds of millions of tonnes of Uranium."

He nods. "We could stripmine several planets for every last atom of Uranium to use for pulse units and still not have enough Uranium."

"So settle for a slower acceleration then."

"The 1g transit takes a few years to get to MSI. Change the plan to use less fuel, and it takes longer. Reduce it enough to only burn one planet's worth of Uranium means it takes decades. Do you really want them to have decades to prepare?"

"Oh."

He sips his hot chocolate. "Now you understand why monopoles futures contracts are so important."

 

[HistoryDude]

Honestly, at this point it would be interesting if the Vultaum were the precursors and got discovered. Naomi and Ruqayya are leaning on the Fourth Wall already, and the Vultaum's "realization" might resonate with them... or at least with Ruqayya. How would she react? Would she see it as evidence that she was right, or would she deny it?

Given this information about the contracts... what's going on with the Galactic Community right now?

 

[CBR JGWRR]

For what it's worth, "Vultaum" returns no results when searched in the original savefile. Only Baol and Zroni do actually, and even then it's only to state which planets are digsite candidates.

Naomi would dismiss it; the simulation hypothesis has a fundamental trans-finite logical breakdown as time tends to infinity. Ruqayya doesn't believe she's in a simulation, she believes that there is an author guiding the story and protecting them in situations that arguably should have worse outcomes than they actually experience.

The Galactic Community as a whole? I was intending the absence of interaction with the Galactic Community to serve as commentary that documents what the Galactic Community is doing. (i.e. nothing) Individual members however are taking an interest in Life2.0, and some have emissaries on route who will arrive in due time.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"A Few Good Ships"
26th Qutrok, 10 (2189)
Naomi Of Unity​

As is the way of such things, most of the Humans who joined Monica were ones who were opposed to my leadership, and were therefore no longer able to vote for the motion of no confidence. As a result, that effort has come to nothing. This leaves me deciding what to do.

Appia and I are negotiating terms for a truce as equal partners, but it doesn't hurt to keep options open.

We captured more than a hundred ships in the battle; one will be taking all prisoners of war we captured on a fast transit to catch up with MSI before their wormhole closes. Some are opting to claim asylum, and some of those realistically we'll have to put on the ship too.

The ships are a right variable lot. But most have delta-v levels with full tanks that Orion can't match. Admiral Leonardo's fleet of ex-Arishkan vessels have monopole conversion grid core engines, and those ships are definitely staying; those have their monopoles bound to a grid inside the ship, meaning they can "refuelled" by just dumping whatever gas we have handy into the tanks. Eventually the monopoles do lose adherence to the grid, but hopefully by then we'll have our own antimatter refineries established.

The downside of course is that each grid masses some ludicrous number of kilotons, as monopoles are denser than stellar matter.

The others...

We have reactionless drive impulse engined vessels, although in practice they are more like special case fusion or antimatter drives, as space-time metric manipulation is very energy intensive. These we'll also keep until they run out of reactor fuel, and then shelve them until we refuel them. Unfortunately, most of the fusion ones are deuterium/Helium-3 fusion process, which is the easiest, but most radioactive fusion type.

We have fusion and antimatter plasma torch rockets. These are the ones with the most variability at a design level, but I'm not too worried as long as we have resources to trade as our fleet travels to buy more antimatter; which could be tricky, as Thando's information for the price of starship fuel was from before the Prikki-Arishkan conflict, and with tens of thousands of antimatter and monopole conversion rockets being used by both sides, fuel prices have spiked galaxy wide as both factions are buying up whatever fuel they can get.

This actually helps us, a lot; Appia knows we can condense the fleet down and leave most of the ships as weapons platforms and take the fully fuelled ones on an aggressive expedition, whereas she spent most of MSI's fuel reserves moving the fleet around on the PDRTC campaign - it's why they dug out the ancient wormhole technology despite knowing it would leave us a direct connection to their home systems if they lost. She is planning to use that information as leverage against the board of MSI to persuade them to accept reforms we want.

It does also mean that I have dozens of ships that I can now send anywhere in our home system, and a little beyond. I've decided to keep my antimatter and monopole ships at Unity. The fusion ships we can refuel from the mining operations I had set up years ago to supply the shuttles from the slave ship, so we need to upscale those facilities further and then they'll serve as the central points for expansion; I want us to explore the nearby hyperlanes.

Ships which are badly damaged we'll scrap for parts and reverse engineering.

In the end, our situation is:

Leonardo has twelve relatively out of date Arishkan interstellar ships ranging from corvettes to cruisers with monopole conversion grid core engines.
Twenty 12m Corvettes survived the battle in an operational state.
The Holocron has four of his 400m Orions in repairable state, plus the MSI Titan he's keeping for himself as a fighting mobile computational node.
Two antimatter ships are in an operational state.
A few dozen are fusion rockets - mainly conventional fusion reactors, but a few conversion monopole fusion plasma rockets too, in operational condition that will serve as our first interstellar ships and training ships as we reskill our people.
The rest of the ships are destined to be reverse engineered and their fuel supplies redistributed, with only eight being antimatter rockets, as the others didn't survive the battle due to containment failures.

I've also been working on developing a uniform for our armed forces. Humans are quite easy, we've got them in PDRTC surplus uniforms for now, but adapting ideas for our non-Humans is a little bit trickier.

Still, I am having fun watching Buri get dressed and undressed again trying on my ideas.

 

[Macavity116]

The Holocron has four of his 400m Orions in repairable state, plus the MSI Titan he's keeping for himself as a fighting mobile computational node.

Yup. I see no way this could backfire on anyone ever.

 

[HistoryDude]

Since Naomi won the vote of no confidence, does that mean she can't step down?

At least the non-rebellious parts of MSI aren't divided, and the negotiations with MSI haven't collapsed.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

Yup. I see no way this could backfire on anyone ever.

Yes, having the guy who's most willing to accept collateral damage in the ship with the biggest gun isn't ideal, but Naomi knows she can't do anything except humour him.

Since Naomi won the vote of no confidence, does that mean she can't step down?

At least the non-rebellious parts of MSI aren't divided, and the negotiations with MSI haven't collapsed.

Yes, which is why she's on very light duties.

That was Valerius' plan all along, give Naomi a renewed mandate to lead.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Professionalism, Part 1"
27th Qutrok, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity​

I open the door. "Leonardo."

He jumps. "You could just turn the handle."

I sigh. "It takes too long. Anyway, I gave my Mum the task of coming up with a uniform, and it wasn't exactly her most professional work, so I asking you instead."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Short answer?"

He thinks it through. "Yes."

"Checked on them this morning, and she and Dad had gotten distracted."

"I see."

I adopt a playful tone. "So, as the person responsible for us having to develop uniforms, you can have the job of figuring them out."

He leans back in his chair as he realises the difficulty. "How many species are in this navy?"

I smile. "Humans and Kyaese compose most of the officers, Kyaese most of the ship crew, Xenaya are common in most infantry roles... But Mum's policy is no one who wants to fight is refused without medical justification for them not to fight, and even that is creatively interpreted."

He looks at me, mulling it over. "What does creatively interpreted mean, exactly?"

I think of Gillian's idea, back before Leonardo re-entered her life. "Well, if someone in a wheelchair wants to fight, we'll build an adapted vehicle for them to operate."

There's a long pause. But he stands. "I will get it done."

"Thank you." I turn to leave. I don't doubt he'll try, but there's reasons why Mum didn't bother and just started playing dress up with Dad.

 

[HistoryDude]

*Wince* Yeah... I'm wishing Leonardo good luck here. Is this Rivkah's revenge for his objection to Naomi's rule earlier? Why don't they have multiple people working on this issue if it's so hard?

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Professionalism, Part 2"
27th Qutrok, 10 (2189)
Alexandra HaMaadimi​

I stand beside my husband as we celebrate the beginning of constructing a full-size painting booth for ships. Rivkah has decided that if we are going to professionalise Life2.0's armed forces, we need a proper facility to paint ships in. The exact paint colour is still being debated, and we may well have the facility ready before the colour selection is decided.

I take his hand. "What colour would you pick?"

"Pink."

"Pink?"

"One, it reminds me of you, and two, no one uses pink ships."

"I'm thinking of white."

He looks at the display. "White and pink then."

I kiss his cheek.

"My sister still wants red with green shuttles."

"Red Dwarf?"

"Red Dwarf. She found it the most funny growing up."

"It was quite disturbing if you stopped to think about it."

He chuckles. "Then you probably weren't watching it right."

I lead him downstairs, and smile to our designers. "Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Today, we embark on the latest set of tweaks to this station. We want a vacuum plating facility so that we can paint all our newly acquired ships in Life2.0 colours, once those get decided."

There's a round of laughter.

"Whoever gives me the best solution gets a ship named for them."

 

[HistoryDude]

Are they going to have a vote on Life 2.0's colors? That could be amusing...