An RP challenge

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Kostemetsia
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An RP challenge

Post by Kostemetsia »

Your challenge is the following:

Your own troops land in your (OOC) home town/state/country, going after some purpose which - within the limits of your nation - they would see as valid, pretty much sacrificing your peace for what appears to them a vital war. RP the chaos caused, the destruction incurred, your OOC government's measures taken to aid or stop your IC nation's work, and what you (your name here [names editted out; this is indexed on Google]) do against or for the rampaging forces of [Central Facehuggeria / Megas / Kreshh / Ald Rhun / Arizona Nova / Siesatia / Otagia / The Mindset / Arenumberg / Zerstorendar / Trailers / Telros / Kostemetsia]. This forum can be used as a plot device - coordination of efforts and such.

Let the chaos begin! My intro follows.

---

God... another day spent moping about an empty house, nothing to do and the school holidays fast approaching. I can't even bike up to the shops, such is the meteorological chaos outside. Still, it's good to see some rain for once and not listen to [ ABC / [ Seven / Nine / Ten] Network] reporters moaning worriedly about the lack of moisture.

The picture window out in the front room is spattered with rain, and the distance is hidden in a calming, almost pleasurable mist of pouring rain. No car sits in the driveway, my fellow house-occupant having left for whatever he habitually does during the day.

I note the copy of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars sitting on the piano and decide something along the lines of 'what the hell', removing it from its undeserved solitude and slotting it into the groaning old release-model Xbox 360 on the TV bench. Flicking on the similarly uncooperative old TV, whose infrared receiver burnt out a while back, taking with it the reliability of the console controls, I make to flick to AV1, but the panicky-sounding Seven Network news anchor's voice catches my attention. Text flicks along the bottom of the screen, and-- wait, is that the City Hall clock tower, broken?

A cold feeling comes into my stomach, and I drop onto the carpet, staring up at the screen. The stump of the clock tower is remarkably calm-looking for an edifice that had its top half smashed off, the news anchor nigh-incoherently informs me, less than half an hour ago. As it is, the peak is lying down the nearby commercial street, looking like a piece of Lego accidentally broken apart by a gigantic, careless child. The scene flicks to what appears to be a home video of said tower, and a dark shape appears in the distance - the news anchor, regaining some calm, picks out where the slow motion starts, about a tenth of a second later. The shape dementedly glides in, becoming more and more distinct - multiple turrets of some description making themselves visible at the sides and a searing blue glow from the object's topside lighting up the scattered rain. It calmly smashes away the top of the clock tower, which actually seems to float a few metres - spraying tiny people from its observation deck - before crushing a block of commercial facilities. The camera drops as the holder no doubt stares at the devastation.

Another view: apparently another hand-held camera, almost exactly opposite the first. Familiar engine banks become visible on the shape as it bulldozes the clock tower, and I abstractedly note: a) that the object's engines are flickering in a very familiar fashion, and b) that I think I can see the other amateur cameraman.

Finally, a view from below. I can see a parachutist coming down in network-applied slow motion, until the shape passes under him - his fate is likely that of incineration in the engine banks. All I need is the conformation that the shape's underside provides: shielded swords, topped with four stars; the distinctive ensign of the Kostemetsian Navy. If I was in an incredulous mood, I would have wet myself - as it is, I simply wait until the footage finishes (showing the small capital ship's engines regaining strength and propelling it back into the clouds), then drop my head into my hands and groan. Kostemetsia is my creation; it follows that I must somehow be responsible for my "children".

---

Across the continent, one Anthony Sabino, known in the NationStates community as Kewen, is playing Star Wars: Empire at War. As he walks to the kitchen, he hears an odd hum, and wonders where he's heard it before; suddenly, he realises. It is from his imagination, and it is a sound he has privately heard many times before - the hum of a Kewen ship soaring overhead.

He hits the duress button, barely getting out a warning to his parents, and the automatic roller systems come down across the windows. The system was meant as a stand-in bomb shelter, emplaced out of sheer paranoia (Anthony himself has repurposed it somewhat - a few inches of steel can be useful), but it might serve equally well as an anti-Kewen defence; he knows his "children" well, and he knows what they will do - or perhaps have already done - to his beloved home, Adelaide.

The steel has locked him away from his parents (a foolish move, one might think), but he is prepared. Telling them not to worry, he makes his way out of the house, staring up at the sky the moment he moves out of the front door. A very, very familiar object hovers some way away - it is a Kewen ship. He is distracted by a scream, and looks to the right: a familiar being is dislodging its blade from between a newly-dead woman's shoulder blades.

(OOC: The section of the post describing Kewen was written by Kewen and interpreted by me for syndication into this RP. :mrgreen: )
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Trailers
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Re: An RP challenge

Post by Trailers »

Shouldn't this be in the RP section? e.e
Traileric Empire

Guide our souls to the Elysium Fields
Bear us home upon our shields
Lay coins across our brows and sound the bells
We're paying our fare on the river to Hell
And when our sons and mothers lay us upon the funeral pyre
Tell them we died Hellenic soldiers with our faces to the fire
Kostemetsia
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Re: An RP challenge

Post by Kostemetsia »

Not exactly interstellar, is it. >_>
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Kostemetsia
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Re: An RP challenge

Post by Kostemetsia »

I bike up to the shops in a daze. The weather has dried up somewhat, and everything has the normal semi-quiet of suburbia; people drive about happily, chattering about everyday matters in a manner that makes it blatantly obvious they don't watch TV or listen to the radio. One would think that by now someone would have at least called them.

My mobile phone - which I happen to be out of credit for (damned Optus) - has a neat little radio feature which tells me all I need to know. The ABC classic FM newsflash anchor (a stand-in, I think), is chattering worriedly about how other news sources are describing the City Hall "attack" as the start of World War III. I get an odd flash of disconnection as I reflect that Kostemetsian forces would (mostly) never willingly destroy a civilian populace. Another flash, this one of reasoning, occurs:

I wrote the baseline for these people. As a Writer, the closest one gets to God in a metafictional universe, I can safely assume that should I quote a random, not-previously-defined code, it will mean exactly what I want it to mean, thus making matters much, much easier. I may also be the only one about the place who knows what the Marines' shoulder insignia means.

Securing the bike to a curvy bar of metal which serves as a rack, I power-walk inside, glancing left and right at the shops. There has obviously been some of the news filtering through in this area, it being more densely populated, and people are chattering on, excitedly and worriedly, in the chemist and op shop to my left and right, respectively. The OutpostTV monitor up ahead, above a couple of ATMs, is showing familiar footage of the rain-drenched catastrophe, and people in black and urban camouflage uniforms are milling worriedly around it.

I have a sneaking suspicion I know who they are, but I pass without comment, a small, perverse smile attempting to twist one corner of my lip. Up ahead, the communal food court beckons, the smell of kebabs still floating out despite very recent events. More of the spec troopers are sitting in the food court, obviously being trained in the art of blending in. One, a lieutenant from his shoulder bar, takes out a datapad and starts recording data onto its clear, faintly blue surface - that would be a breach of the Non-Interference Protocol, but I feel it is not my place to interrupt this Multilevel officer. Except for one thing.

At the start of my time as Kostemetsia on the NationStates forums, I created an alternate version of myself - James Bovill, General Secretary of the Commonwealth. It stands to reason that, given that he is designed around me, his passwords should match mine. When I nab an unattended datapad, however, this does not appear to be correct - the passwording is based around a series of World Assembly phonetics and numeric "phrases". A minute of thinking brings to mind a starmail address (Earth apparently has StarWeb coverage, probably broadcast from what I would assume are fleet carriers overhead) and a series of phonetics. I enter the address - a string of characters before an "@eo.kostemetsia.gov" and begin primary authentication, entering "WHISKY ALPHA 5434 8844 6722".

The screen explodes into life before me, virtual atoms spinning around a centre and slowly merging into it as my authentication is accepted. Behind me, the trooper whose datapad I have stolen is checking on the floor, a frown on his face - slipping the small electronic pane under my shirt, I make for the back of the nearby game store, where I retrieve it and sort through a list of things.

Obviously this interface was not designed for high-volume typing, as the only instrument of manipulation I can find is a stylus clipped to the pane's side. I tap away at the menu before me, coming to a list of operational objectives for a force designated "Confederate at Arborea-S934". 'Confederate' I recognise as meaning a full Kostemetsian incursion, and Arborea-S is... I think... the designation for a Sol 'clone'. Military and civilian losses are neatly tabulated, and as I watch a glowing red mark slips into the civilian column - the loss of King George Square and hundreds of people on the streets and inside the buildings in the debris' path.

Military losses are noted as fifty-four engineering personnel, scraped away cleanly from the bottom of the multirole battle vessel Victor Yushchenko when it entered an "anomalous, excessively low flight path over a local landmark". I groan - my fellow Terrans are going to have a field day with the technology on the Yushchenko's munitions control deck. There must be some way to lock this down.

Making my way back to 'my' bicycle, I pedal back home, mind spinning. A thought occurs - maybe the PDA will fit into my laptop's memory card slot? The computer is almost two years old and not well looked after, but it should do the trick. A couple of commands shrink the PDA to a prism neatly fitting into the slot, and standard OPSEC protocols have loaded the appropriate interfacing software and hardware-design onto the PDA. It optimises to link up with my (by its standards) unimaginably slow processor, and a neatly antialiased window pops up, commands throughout.

>> WELCOME, GENERAL SECRETARY JAMES BOVILL. YOUR COMMAND?

I click on a linked command.

>> NAVY OPERATIONS DIRECTORY OPEN.

>> OPENING EXECUTABLE FILE "COORDINATION".

>> ESTABLISHING CONTACT WITH COORDINATOR AI ON KOSTEMETSIA PRIME.

I flap frantically. The Coordinator, being an AI, must almost immediately realise I am not its true master.

>> CONTACT ESTABLISHED.

Another personality takes over the console.

>> HELLO, GENERAL SECRETARY. HOW MAY I HELP YOU TODAY?

How does one reply to that? I type a response.

<< HELLO, COORDINATOR. LOCATE THE VESSEL "VICTOR YUSHCHENKO", PLEASE.

>> LOCATING...
>> THE VESSEL IS IN MULTIPLE LOCATIONS - IT HAS LOST ITS MUNITIONS DECK.

<< I'M AWARE OF THIS. PLEASE LOAD UP THE MUNITIONS DECK SYSTEMS.

>> AS YOU WISH, GENERAL SECRETARY.

The screen rearranges itself into a morass of icons and windows. The windows are camera views and system post-mortem diagnoses, and I can see green-camouflaged figures making their way in, Australian Army insignia glinting on their hats. A click of a button, and their small 'contaminated' section of the munitions deck flies out across the square at titanic speed, smashing away a raised garden, flying a few inches over a car, and landing in a thankfully empty street. I activate that section's landing gear and the soldiers come rolling off the crazily tilted surface almost comically. Another click of a button and the section dissipates quickly and gently into atoms.

Oo. That button looks nice.

I call the same feature on the main section of the munitions deck, and some curious thrill-seekers inside it suddenly find themselves a few feet off the ground with no visible means of support. They collapse to the ground, extremely surprised.

Now that the Yushchenko is disposed of, I have another matter to attend to. A button marked '[ONE] QUEUED OPERATIONALLY RELEVANT BROADCAST' flashes invitingly at me, and I click - a stand-in ABC news anchor pops up on the screen telling me how there's another alien incursion in Adelaide. I groan - not more misguided Kostemetsians, please.

But this appears to be something different. A huge object is hovering over Adelaide, according to a camcorder just outside the outskirts. Satellite footage says it has dug a ring approximately four kilometres wide and a hundred metres deep around the Adelaide city centre. My nagging instinct begins to stir uneasily, and the ship design looks extremely familiar. Not one of mine, but definitely a kindred designer.

The camera pans down, jerkily zooming out at the same time, to focus on a tiny human figure doing things no human should be able to do against what appear to be...

Holy shit.

Are those things Kewen?

Yes. Yes, they are. So this isn't just isolated then.

This is probably the point where I should be crapping my pants in shock and fear, but I don't. The shock and fear remain, though.

And I have a sneaking suspicion I know who the guy is. He appears to stab the Kewen-thing in the base of the neck, in what is indubitably a crazy move - right up until he grabs something in its neck and pulls. The thing appears to weaken as he pulls the something out, which turns out to be a long squirmy thing of some description. Given that the thing almost immediately collapses into a puddle of liquid, I would assume he crushed the squirmy wormy thing.

The camera man has frozen, intrigued - here's what looks to be a teenager, fighting off Kewen in the streets of Adelaide using tactics no human should rightly know. He retrieves an oddly beautiful rifle from the puddle, shaking off the clingy Kewen-stuff before doing something that makes the threatening barrel blades retract. He squeezes off a few shots, and the cameraman jerks back almost reflexively before he realises the lone rifleman isn't aiming at him; instead, the bolts hit a stop sign and leave a large steaming hole in the centre. Its support gone, the thing clangs to the ground.

I'm starting to admire the ballsy cameraman, and my respect for him increases even further when he zooms in on the middle-distant rifleman's face. The features are familiar, and I feel insanely elated.

Thank you, Mister Anthony Sabino, for stabilising the universe somewhat.
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Kostemetsia
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Re: An RP challenge

Post by Kostemetsia »

Anthony glances down at the unjustly killed girl.

Poor bitch.

Still, she has some, shall we say, operational resources he can use. A black mobile phone lies a few inches from her pocket, and he remembers a certain, possibly useful number.

Hah. Optus. Just my luck.

He ducks around a corner and quickly dials a ten-digit number into the phone. The ringtone sound emits faintly (fate, by a fortuitous coincidence, not having had the Kewen destroy the communication towers) and Anthony sneaks a peek round the corner as he waits. The phone continues to ring.

Come on! Come on, Bovill - where the hell are you?

He grins, a kind of nervous rictus twisting his face. The grin, though, is quickly obliterated by his jaw dropping after a few seconds of peeking. The entire area is densely infested with Kewen, centred around the body of their dead, disarmed comrade. How the hell did I not notice them...? Jesus. I think I made them too good.

Clipping the phone to his shirt, he rushes into the middle of the street with his rifle (another crazy move). Taking a deep breath, he raises the deadly, elegant gun and starts taking shots at the Kewen. Three are dead before they hit the ground - the remaining twenty, however, are quite alive, and stare at Anthony for a second before charging up the road roaring vile obscenities in their strange, hissing language.

Anthony backpedals, keeping the gun focused on the Kewen through what might be called sheer balls. He fires more shots, making hits with the accuracy of one feeling mortal fear, and more Kewen drop. Some stomp quickly to cover, feeling some fear themselves - how does this puny solid know all their weak points?

The gun's scope flashes, and Anthony raises it to his eye. The power meter reads forty-five percent. He waits, trying to impress a thought into Bovill's mind: Pick up the phone.

---

Across the country, my ringtone starts playing - a low-quality rendition of the Halo theme. I eye the display with some irritation - the number is one I do not know. A telemarketer perhaps?

This thought, however, is quickly quelled as I realise it is from a mobile number (it is yet unknown for telemarketers to call from such devices). A strange impulse compels me to pick up the phone and wearily listen to whoever it is on the other end, out of the myriad of people who know my phone number. The rarely-used pickup button yields - as if this is routine - to my thumb, and I raise the silver device to my ear.

"James Bovill speaking," as I attempt to keep a calm tone. I wait for my mysterious caller to ident.
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Kostemetsia
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Re: An RP challenge

Post by Kostemetsia »

"Bovill, thank the fucking Lord! You took your time... no time to explain -- it's me, Anthony -- KEWEN ARE HERE -- I repeat, the fucking KEWEN are here -- there's a dead gal lying not much more then a few meters away from me, and there's a whole horde of them -- the Kewen, I mean -- charging up the road -- Dear God -- I'm hoping it's not an isolated incident," the mysterious caller spews out. I can hear the whining and thumps of stereotypical energy weapons in the background.

I respond with equal agitation, being only human, as it were. "Alright -- what the hell? Anthony who? And I already know the Kewen are heee... Wait. Anthony Sabino?"

"Yes!"

"The man himself! I'm not sure whether I should be happy, or wanting to kick your arse to Mars! Why the hell are the Kewen here?! I already know there are Kostemetsians out my way, because they wreaked ownage on the Brisbane CBD, and I'm seeing some very, very familiar logos...!"

"That's the thing--! They wouldn't and shouldn't be here, unless -- Oh Jesus, no time -- they think it's a seed world -- they're going to take all the information this planet holds -- going to kill everyone!" Ear-shattering static WUMPs across the phone line, and I miss Sabino's next word.

"-- down to twelve percent charge -- still four or five left -- can't hold on forever, running out of -- OH CRAAAAAAAAAAAA-" Another static WUMP. "-- how did I miss that one?" The line cuts out, redirecting me to a ridiculously pleasant Optus IVR who's telling me the person I was talking to has been 'disconnected'.

Sanity attempts to take hold, but my subconscious knows the blend of fiction and reality is not sanity's ideal battlefield. "Sabino? You there?!" But the conversation has fallen into the depths of quantum fabric, where no mere verbal pleading can bring it back.
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Kostemetsia
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Re: An RP challenge

Post by Kostemetsia »

I affix my fingernails to the edge of the pad and pull it from the slot. Unsurprisingly, it automatically decouples itself and slides out like it's made of gel. Its local operating system takes over again, and I navigate my way through the context menus to an oddly prominent 'Post a Bulletin' option. Should I post a bulletin, I assume it will have more weight than even a general staff bulletin - after all, it purports to come from the General Secretary himself. The people of Kostemetsia may be a noble people, but in an unfamiliar context they tend to become sheep, easily rounded up by the metaphorical sheepdog of perceived authority.

And, of course, it helps that Bovill's bioscan matches mine. This is always a good thing.

I tap away at the screenboard, formulating an acceptable-looking bulletin in Kostemetsian milspec legalese. Finally, I wrap it up in a starmail and distribute it to the Kostemetsian military mailing list. It only takes a few seconds to process, oddly enough - one would think that a bulletin to what the deployment forms say is a full brigade of five thousand would take longer to process. Still, they've quite likely moved slightly further than my insignificant little homeworld's Simple Mail Transfer Protocol by now.

Which brings up a completely different question. I wrote the Kostemetsians as being from Sol, but obviously they are not - they are in at least 3050 by their internal timeline, given the level of technology and the news items flicking across the pad's newsbar. I decide I must either relinquish my own uniqueness or that of my characters, but then this is a bridge to be crossed after Queensland and, by extension, the rest of the world are restored to some degree of normalcy.

My internet connection thankfully still works, and I log into MSN with the laptop - which, incidentally, appears to have had excess iFat cut away by the pad and is now running much faster. Several contacts remain online, with the notable exception of one Anthony Sabino, who is, for obvious reasons, appearing Idle. I groan as I realise that Darwin, Sydney and other cities are probably seeing similar scenarios to my own, albeit with less gratuitous accidental destruction. Come to think of it, any city with a NationStates player - which is to say most of them - is probably seeing some of the same things; I decide to limit my mindmap of doom to the Extra-Solar Union of Systems only, although this could be somewhat unjustified, what with the Kewen expeditiously and energetically disassembling Adelaide. No more conspiracy theories, for this is the real thing.

My attention is pulled away from the Microsoft Network's instant messaging service by some rather loud thumps and muttered curses at the door. I move out of the direct sight range from my front door, frantically working out a plan of action - armed with nothing more than a stolen, hacked datapad which is likely sending out alarms across the galaxy, I must be a prime target for what the Earth's military commands, and I assume their descendant, the Kostemetsian Multilevel Command, like to call 'beneficial and necessitated expeditious neutralisation'. Which boils down to a nice way of saying 'death by plasma burst'. Would the Multilevel Force be uninhibited enough to kill a mere teenager, or would they simply kidnap me, as it were, under the Commonwealth's auspice?

The door creaks open and some loud metal boots - and I happen to know that nobody of my acquaintance owns metal boots - thump across the floor, quite possibly wreaking expensive damage to expensive tiles. I would wince, but I simply file this away as a minor expense and continue sliding away from the sound. An idea strikes - I have reflexively taken my laptop with me, what with it now being a potential gold mine of data - and now is its moment.

---

Corporal Carl Hughes awkwardly opens the tiny house's door with one metal-encased fist. His orders are quite clear - to capture the hacker who's compromised the Kostemetsian Government's administrator-in-chief's account, and to shoot to kill if any resistance is offered. He clomps in through an abode that looks like something out of a history vid, ducking aside from moth-decorated ceiling lights and turning to where the datapad says the hacker is. All he hears is a loud squealing side and something fast rattling down a sloping driveway, and the datapad is lying on a work bench, still logged in.

His "target" waypoint is rapidly moving away, and as he strides briskly to the roller door from which his target escaped, he can see why. The waypoint is hovering over a backpack-wearing figure on a bicycle riding for his life - Hughes' rifle shots miss, through an incredible fluke, and the figure rides on, turning left and taking the speed advantage of a slight slope.

Hughes sighs and calls in a 'forcible extraction', but is informed there are no dropships left for such an incursion. The hacker will have to wait. There are possible Kewen incursions afoot towards this by-modern-standards-"tiny" city, and one hotshot's worrying but undoubtedly lucky strike can wait against the possible decimation of an innocent population by ravaging aliens.

There is the matter of a call log between one 'James Bovill' (undoubtedly an alias of the hacker) and a caller marked as Anthony Sabino, but, again, that can wait. It doesn't appear to be related to the current conflict, but it appears the hacker - who probably stowed away on one of the destroyers in cloaked orbit - is corresponding with a friend in Adelaide, whose method of insertion onto the third planet was probably something like the same.
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