First Contact

Chapter 483

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Have you all taken the time to look at some of this stuff?

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

If by 'look at it' you mean: devoted thousands of researchers to start going through it, then, yeah, basically.

By the Sus'd Amogus, who would thought that they were capable of all of this? We thought we'd seen everything humanity could throw at something or do, then all of this drops into our lap.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

We don't really understand what all this is. I mean, yeah, it's technical, geographical, societal, and cultural data, but why was it just data-dumped on us? Why did they have it? Why was so much of it unused?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

You understand the human concept of "Black Box Project", right?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Yeah. Ultra-secret research and development. Usually for weaponry.

Lots of people do it. But why did they dump it on us?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Do you understand the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction? That wholly human concept of 'lets both put on dynamite vests and hold each other's triggers to make sure nobody pulls a knife' that they follow?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Yes.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

This is part of it. This is part of what they called the "Dead Hand System", which makes sure that anyone that kills them doesn't live to enjoy it.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

By dumping all their raw and refined data, experiments, and research on everyone?

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AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

I get it.

If they got eliminated, then whoever it was had the capabilities to overcome all of the Terran safeguards, technology, martial might, and everything else.

Their allies might still be around, might be able to put up a fight.

The Terrans are betting on the fact that something in all of their data might provide the rest of us with an edge to enable us to take out whoever eliminated the Terrans.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Pretty much.

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

Some of this stuff gives my researchers the heebie jeebies.

At one point they managed to create digital sentiences of us.

They loaded long-sleep ships full of genetic samples, digital sentiences of us, and launched it toward another galactic arm with fake history and a fake disaster they were running from.

Part of something called Operation Stormy Beach.

The reasoning is insanely human.

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

What was the reason?

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

So that our people would not be gone from the galaxy.

That's it.

Because we were their friends.

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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Trust us on this one, being their friend is the most important thing in the universe to them.

They were so lonely for most of their existence.

In a sad and tragic way, loneliness is a defining trait of humanity. Not Terran Descent Humans, but humanity.

They uplifted us just to have friends.

Before that, they pack bonded with us when we were all afraid of the thunder outside the cave.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What's your opinion on all of this, Lanky?

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

I am startled, as are all my people, that we would have been included. This is a wealth of technical data that will take my best people centuries just to catalogue.

Why would they give it to us?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Because you're in here, us Elders voted to release it to you, but most of all...

...because the Terrans didn't believe that you were the ones who would eliminate them. Not even with biowarfare. You got Culture-Cracked, there's no coming back from that.

They didn't want you to succumb to whatever destroyed them.

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

Terrans are confusing.

We were/are their enemy, the war was not yet over, yet they deliver this to us.

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Dead Hand Systems aren't known for their precision.

It determined that you were in danger too.

"Let not the light flicker and die" was the header on so much of that.

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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

We thought we knew everything that the Terrans knew.

This data, though.

By the Digital Omnimessiah.

When Sis said that the Terrans were so twisty they had to screw their socks on, we had no idea they were thigh high socks.

It's more than the weapons, more than the ship types, more than just the fabrication techniques. There's genetic information in here on creatures we've never even met.

I'm not even sure what some of this stuff is.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

There's complete data on my world, I mean, COMPLETE data. There's even annotations that the Unified Council had never gentled us before, that we're newcomers.

They did a Leebaw Genome Project on us within a week of meeting us.

Everyone has always said that cracking the genome was impossible.

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

We told everyone that to prevent their research.

We looked at the genetic data that was handed to us.

Some of it was monstrous.

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DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

I have to say, seeing where some scientist in a Black Box designed a bioweapon to turn all of you into shape shifting unicorn/human creatures using nanite 'magic' was probably the funniest thing I read.

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

I did not understand why that was so funny. Project Blue Adept, Subproject Neysa was terrifying and I am glad it was never put to use.

The fact that the Terrans ran it to its conclusion before cancelling the project alarms us.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Nothing like finding out the Terrans could have planet cracked you right in the face while laughing at you to make you realize you got off lucky.

Trust me, we get it.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

The plan to singularity spike Sag A* if the Mar-gite spread out too far is what scares me.

I mean, what kind of maniac uses a hypernova weapon on a supermassive blackhole with the add-ons that they planned.

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HESSTLA TECHNOBURROW

I didn't really understand that.

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AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

The black hole would explode in a supernova, but the surrounding 'fields' which are layered like an onion, would have taken massive waves of radiation into hyperspace and dropped them back into realspace through the entire galaxy.

Scouring hyperspace with high energy particles, dissolving anything in jumpspace, and scrubbing stringspace.

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

Wiping out all life in the galaxy in less than ten hours.

To destroy the Mar-gite.

The researchers who read that fainted.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

I about fainted.

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DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

I'm just glad we had the correct codes to keep this data from being dropped onto the public infonets.

The idea that our Father would just drop this onto public nets if the governments were gone is terrifying.

"Here, have how to make creation engines and the templates to make planet crackers in your back yard. Be good and don't stick them in your nose."

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

"From Hell's Heart I Stab At Thee" - Herman "Khan" Noonan-Melville

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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Millions of petabytes of data that can be easily summed up in two words.

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TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What two words?

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ALL>FUCK YOU!

ALL>laugh

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Still, you have to admit, this is pretty what the fuck.

I don't think I've ever heard of anything like this in known history.

Someone getting wiped out and then just dumping all their uber-classified data in their allies's laps with the file header "AVENGE ME!" in 72 point bold.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Lanky and Me, we're species that are over a hundred million years old, and we've never seen anything like this. We all know we each do things we don't tell each other about for whatever reason, but it's like Terran Descent Humans were going everywhere in every direction all at once.

They sent recon missions to the Galactic Core of all things. That's not to mention the scouting missions to nearby galaxies.

Hell, who knew that they damn near invaded the neighboring galactic arm to eradicate the Mar-gite till they realized that the entire arm is overrun by them.

What they did...

What they did.

>shudders

I just hope it doesn't come back to bite us all on the ass.

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...

...

...

LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

You know what, I don't even want to know.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Now I kinda want to know.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Trust me on this one. You don't wanna know. Sis, don't tell him. The Mantid shouldn't have told me, but they did. And now I'm tellin' you...

You don't wanna know.

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AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

Wow.

So you guys did vet the data somewhat for us new people?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

No.

But you have to know what you're looking for to find that data.

Trust us. Don't look.

You don't want to know.

It was a purely human thing. Not Terran. Not Terran Descent Human.

Human.

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

brrr... humans.

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...

...

...

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

So, kittens and puppies are the number one searched for item in the whole database for virtually all of our species.

We're doing a ecological impact study before releasing them, but people have already ordered them from BobCo and pirated them off the infonet and built them with BobCo home cloning kits.

We're not sure why everyone wants one.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

Are you kidding? Have you played with one yet?

Tadpoles love them. They're amazing. I mean, even the non-uplifted ones are great. Everyone on Leebaw loves them.

Hell, wars have been fought for less wonderful things.

It's probably the best thing in that entire data dump.

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HESSTLA TECHNOBURROW

Anything that might help me?

CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA

Anything?

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We're with you. I know it's scary, but we're here.

We've got their number now. We know how their tech works, how they're pulling their little tricks.

The data burst should be reaching our troops in your area in the next few days. Once that happens, the Atrekna themselves can't hide, and once we punch out the Atrekna, the Dwellerspawn and Type-III PAWM are next.

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HESSTLA TECHNOBURROW

Won't it take weeks or months to build new weapons?

So many of my people are dying.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Creation engine templates mean as soon as that data hits, they'll be armed with new stuff. Minutes, hours for tanks or the bigger missiles. Not weeks or months.

Second Telkan is with you. We're with you.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

The Confederacy is with you, dear ones.

Things are a little confused, a little dire, but trust us, we're with you. You're not alone.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We'll kick the Atrekna's ass.

After all, all of us learned ass kicking from the best.

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RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Most of us the hard way.

ALL>Laugh

Trust us, little sister, we just got socked in the face. That happens in a fight.

We're used to getting hit back, so we can deal with it.

You don't get swole lifting light weights whenever you feel like it, you get swole through determination, effort, and dedication.

The Atrekna are one trick ponies, and TDH taught us how to break one trick ponies.

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

Trust me on that one.

Over a hundred million years we reigned supreme.

We lasted less than ten years against the Terrans.

But we have learned our lessons well from them.

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

Yeah?

What lesson was that?

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

That together, we are greater than we ever thought we could be.

You can always take one with you.

Victory or death, either is fine.

But they also taught us the most important lesson of all, one that they taught the Mantid before us.

The lesson the entire universe should know.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

What lesson is that you and I have been taught?

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LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

That there is enough for all.