Kevin's Watch

Seareach wrote:Don't worry LM: I'll write a nice acknowledgement to you!

Spring wrote:

Seareach wrote:Don't worry LM: I'll write a nice acknowledgement to you!

I can imagine that:

And I thank Mr. Michael Rowlands for providing me with all the mateial to steal. I wouldn't be here today without you!

Avatar wrote:

I guarantee benevolence...but I can't speak for SeaReach...she uses children. *horror*



--A

The attractive Loremaster was trapped by the two nasty ogre-like aliens. The stoned one, Avataragor, was prodding him with a rather large and hot poker. Entering the dank, tiny chamber, Seareachagor was trailed by her retinue of children, teeth sharp and glistening in the faint light.

"Bite his legs, my children," she cried. "He WILL finish chapter three. And sign it to my name, or my friend will rodger you with a well-oiled rabbit!"

The amazing hero, Loremaster, whispered, "Help me, Kevinswatch! Help me!" as the hungry flood of children swarmed over his legs, chittering as they gnawed his flesh.

Loremaster wrote:*Loremaster looks terrified and starts writing*

The attractive Loremaster was trapped by the two nasty ogre-like aliens. The stoned one, Avataragor, was prodding him with a rather large and hot poker. Entering the dank, tiny chamber, Seareachagor was trailed by her retinue of children, teeth sharp and glistening in the faint light.

"Bite his legs, my children," she cried. "He WILL finish chapter three. And sign it to my name, or my friend will rodger you with a well-oiled rabbit!"

The amazing hero, Loremaster, whispered, "Help me, Kevinswatch! Help me!" as the hungry flood of children swarmed over his legs, chittering as they gnawed his flesh.

Loremaster wrote:*Loremaster looks terrified and starts writing*

"Bite his legs, my children," she cried. "He WILL finish chapter three. And sign it to my name, or my friend will rodger you with a well-oiled rabbit!"

Loremaster wrote:*Loremaster looks terrified and starts writing*

The attractive Loremaster was trapped by the two nasty ogre-like aliens. The stoned one, Avataragor, was prodding him with a rather large and hot poker. Entering the dank, tiny chamber, Seareachagor was trailed by her retinue of children, teeth sharp and glistening in the faint light.

"Bite his legs, my children," she cried. "He WILL finish chapter three. And sign it to my name, or my friend will rodger you with a well-oiled rabbit!"

The amazing hero, Loremaster, whispered, "Help me, Kevinswatch! Help me!" as the hungry flood of children swarmed over his legs, chittering as they gnawed his flesh.

Mendina then looked up to see the vast orbital towers reach from the equator – most of them seated atop the mountain ranges there – into deep space. They seemed too slender, fragile, and seemingly unable to bear the weight of the hundreds of vessels docked at the many port branches. Vertical trains ferrying passengers or freight ascended or descended constantly, as though the vast industrial complexes and cities at the bases of the towers could not sate their hunger for goods and people nor ever stop their vast exportation of materials and passengers into space. Further out into space, a busy halo of orbiting facilities generated their own traffic – hundreds of freighters riding the ghostly plume of their ion emissions towards other facilities, the towers, ships in orbit or into deep space towards the distant mega-facilities or stellar refineries, or into the immense hulls of the scheduled interstellar jump transports. Regularly – according to an vast and intricate mechanism set out by greater powers – other interstellar vessels arrived in vivid bursts of light like small novae, seemingly teleporting into the gravity well of the planet.

Confined to her domicile, or exploring the intricateness of her mountainous world, Mendina seemed, until now, oblivious to the vast machine that was the Inner Union. To her, it seemed the complexity of it all stretched far into deep space – as it did – to the Constructs, merchant and defense fleets, encompassing billions of lives and deaths. A perfect mechanism that permitted the diverse utopias, and an engine of war, that has been functioning for six-hundred years.

The gel started to smother her body in preparation for the deceleration process, while oxygen tubes wormed their way into her mouth and nostrils. Before the material obscured her sight, Mendina became overwhelmed with a feeling of the loss of individuality. On this day, less than two hours ago, she was told that her journey to Soul – to Effacement – had been planned before her birth. That perhaps the reason for her not receiving the serum could be explained in the Grey Agency’s grand scheme. She felt that she was no more an individual than a single component in a starship was important outside of the scheme of the vessel’s function. She was simply a tool to be used for the noble purpose of the Inner Union.

Avatar wrote:But necessary I think. No doubt you'll come out with a good solution. I look forward to seeing it.

--A

Effacement.
On August 17, 2442, almost five hundred years ago, an immense alien vessel of unknown origin appeared in high orbit of Earth. Within seconds, it unleashed a barrage of vicious energy lances and cataclysmically-effective fusion shards. Unfortunately, the primitive defenses of the warships in orbit were unable to stop the vast ship as it obliterated cities and tore into continents, exposing the livid magma underneath. Twenty hours was all it needed to erase centuries of progress, and billions of years of natural evolution. In twenty hours the Earth’s surface became disfigured and grotesque – a volcanic wasteland choked by a rain of ash and a haze of noxious gas.

The alien warship then vanished, leaving a shattered planet.

Only two years earlier, the Inner Union had completed its first Utopia Construct. The few survivors from Earth were relocated to the construct in orbit of Alpha Centauri, and Earth was renamed Effacement. The planet’s catastrophe was bad enough, but the effect on humanity was even more tragic. As though seeking to deny or forget the event, the survivors accepted the utopia of their new world with eagerness. They deliberately forgot about Earth’s past – its rich history, varied cultures, and wildlife – accepting the paradise that was Construct I. Effacement was forever regarded as ‘that hell’ or ‘the wasteland’. No one wanted to remember; within a century, Earth’s history was drowned out in a culture of material and sensual excess. Five hundred years later, Effacement represented more the obliteration of times past than to signify Earth’s ruinous surface.

Mendina, however, found it odd that not a single person besides herself wanted to know who was responsible for the siege of Earth. So far, humanity had encountered four alien species, none of which was held responsible for the event. Staring at the shattered surface with its many unending volcanoes, storms of ash and acidic snow, its grey seas, and plains of cold ash and dust, Mendina began to wonder if the Inner Union did not benefit from the devastation.