The Nelaga Territories

This gate's code: 18-39-2-15-7-1

At current these gates are only in regions Demon of Fides controls, they are only valid under the Gralun magic system as I cant be bothered to work out the wormhole physics and energy consumption required to make them even remotely realistic. Gates are only to be used in RPs or wars (if they are allowed and you have paid for them). Anyone can have a gate as long as they post this description and the code for that gate. All codes must be 7 symbols and end with 1.

OOC: SGA!

Damn, I really wanted to trick you into a difficult decision...

OOc: I posted that in Gralus, with the following ooc tagline a few minutes ago...

MASSIVE OOC:
Most of the events currently happening (or where we're meant to be writing from) in the Fated War are set a year after Fate was summoned. So if you want to interact with us, the Raven corps need to have spent about a year there. without being detected or killed.

Pfft, that's how we roll.

Incidentally, the whole "wait a year" thing means we can take our sweet sweet time getting ready.

Actually, I assumed that they would enter a year in, same as MANA.

Unless it's actually impossible for the Raven Corps to enter before a year has passed, they'll try to do so as soon as they're prepared. When one of our closest allies broadcasts a message that something has come up that's too hot for them to handle, and their entire nation vanishes, good allies don't sit around and hope everything turns out okay. We may not be sure how to proceed, or what we can do when we get there, but we'll try, darn it.

No, no, I mean I assumed that for story purposes it was Gralus that was distorted a year out, not MANA; and that people entering would probably enter in time as MANA finds it, not Gralus time ....

Well, you'd be distorted on entry, so that would work.

OoC 1: What's it with Fides and dropping floating cities/isles anyway?

OoC 2: Note the note at http://shireroth.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 97#p135897 - this takes place *after* everything in the Council on Gralus thread has been said and done. Just for the sake of consistency, even if a rather retroactive kind...

OoC 3: I'll have to leave and spend the rest of the night offline soonish. But I also want to bring the story forward, and right now what I need is some kind of a message to clearly show that yes, Gralus in fact is in big trouble. So, you get a perhaps a bit poorly researched and slightly godmodish post that ends abruptly... continue as if it were an expedition, please

A continuation from this


Fort Llacheu Air Force Base, Astap

Konstan Ifrostik, Captain of the Nelagan Raven Corps, departed his shuttle flight still disgusted from the events of the past several days. “Lousy Shirerothians,” he mumbled to himself as he walked across the tarmac. “Always gotta pretend they’re the only ones that care, that can come up with a solution. We could have really used their help on this one.”

As Konstan entered the base , an air force officer of approached and saluted. “Captain Ifrostik? Commander Evos Darwin of the NAF, sir. I am here to discuss your preparations to Gralus.”

Ifrostik studied him, “Err, do you have enough security clearance to know about any of that? Or to even talk to me?”

The officer pulled out a security card and sharply handed it to Konstan. It read tripple diamond. That was amazingly high, equal to Konstan’s own rank as a captain of a secret organization. The only rank higher than that was the quadruple diamond, a security clearance rank only held by the President, which strangely meant that the only actual use the quadruple diamond was so a President could leave a future President information. But that was neither here nor there.

Commander Darwin smiled as he accepted his card back. “Taken a bit off guard, I see. In addition to being an air force commander, I am also in charge of this base. I am also an Enhasan-Batavian from birth,” he said, as if it explained everything. Which it did. President Jonas’s homeland pride was legendary.

“Okay, enough chit-chat,” Konstan said gruffly. “What is the status of the Nelagan Hope?”

Evos said, “The President has ordered the ship for full repairs and inspections a week ago. Since your report of the talks breaking down and us being sent without Shirerothian aid, we have begun final preparations for the Gralus operation ourselves.”

“And those preparations would be…?”

“Well, sir, besides the usual checks on the engines and weapon systems and provisions and all that lot, we have reason to believe that we will be fighting three distinct enemies. The first, these ‘Reflections,’ seem to have the ability to manifest within mirrored surfaces. To that end we have made sure that the report issued by MANA officials (before they all vanished, of course) was correct – that the ship is Reflection-proof. Which it is.”

Konstan said, “Down to the last shiny nut or bolt? We cannot take any chances.”

“Down to the last nut and bolt, sir. Everything remotely shiny has been painted over. It’s actually a bit unnerving to be inside.”

Konstan nodded. “All right then. Continue.”

“The second enemy is the Shadows, which may perhaps make up the bulk of the enemy forces. To this end, we needed something substantial. Ah, perhaps it is easier to just show you.”

Evos opened a door into a lab within the base. A man in a coat was writing some reports when they entered. Evos handed Konstan some goggles, which he almost put on until he realized they were awkwardly darkened. Scanning the room, Konstan could see it was some sort of weapon development area, with a firing range full of test dummies and a bizarre, huge rifles in various stages of construction scattered about.

“Doctor Perk, a moment of your time, if you please.” Commander Darwin said.

The doctor turned around. “Ah! Commander, always a pleasure. Things are going well with our tests.”

Evos noded. “Konstan, this is Doctor Necho Perk, one of the engineers on loan from JASO for the work here. Doctor, this is Konstan Ifrostik, a man of title and rank that I’m afraid you don’t have the security clearance to know. “He smiled. “Konstan will be leading up the Nelagan Hope expedition.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Dr. Perk said as he shook Konstan’s hand.

“Doctor, could you give us a weapon’s test demonstation for Konstan here?”

“Of course, of course! This,” the doctor said, beaming with pride as he picked up the weapon, “is one of our newer tricks. The rifle chassis is based on some old JASO designs, as is some of the interior drive mechanics. As for the effect, well… it’s easier to observe. Goggles on, please.”

Dr . Perk waited until Konstan and Evos had secured their saftey goggles, then leveled the rifle at a testing dummy some 25 feet away and fired. There was a blinding flash of light that made Konstan turn away even with his goggles on. Spots danced before his eyes. He blinked them away, shaking his head, until his vision had mostly cleared. When it had, he found that the test dummy was not even scratched!

“What in the…” Konstan mumbled, an incomplete fragment that matched his own through process.

Dr. Perk explained, “This is one of our newest weapons. It is called Mithun Soloral rifle, which is Micron for “Sun Strike”. It was originally designed as a peacekeeping nonleathal weapon. The blast of light that you just saw overloads the eyes but, and I stress this, it does not cause any permanent damage to the optic nerves. When we found out that we would be facing shadowy beings, they were put into mass production.”

“Why the weird name?” Konstan asked.

“Ah,” Evos said. “Interesting story. When our Micron allies found out about the project, they offered their own special touches. In particular, they blessed the weapons with some sort of holy magic. That beam of light actually has a little bit of pure goodness energy woven into it. It won’t have too much affect on humans, even the worst of us really, but against beings of pure darkness and evil the effect is supposedly extremely harmful.”

“And against the Shadows?” Konstan prompted hopefully.

Dr. Perk said, “Should annihilate them. Perhaps. If it doesn’t kill them, it will definitely cause a great deal of discomfort.”

“Brilliant! And convenient, too, given the circumstance.” Evos mused.

The doctor hefted the weapon. “Gralus spent a lot of money making sure we would have access to JASO’s hidden technology. It’s good to use some of it to return the favor.”

Evos said, “We have been working on some larger versions to fit onto the Hope directly, but we’re having some trouble with power issues. In any event, thank you doctor.”

“Always a pleasure, commander,” Dr. Perk said as he turned back to his work.

“Well, you have three days to figure it out, and no more.” Konstan said to Evos as they exited the lab. “Now, you mentioned three forces, I believe?”

“Echoes,” Evos said, biting his lip. “We know little about them other than they have some of mind-including effect. Unfortunately we have not yet been able to come up with a counter.”

“Three days,” Konstan said slowly.

“I know,” Evos replied. “There’s some hasty work being done on trying to unravel some of old President Jason’s notes on Empathy, but they are… scrambled, at best, and use a lot of terms we have never encountered before. It might be a dead end, I don’t know. There’s only so much we can do against an enemy we have never even heard of.”

“Okay,” Konstan said, remembering for once that he had no real authority over the military here and that it was probably a bad idea to push his luck any further. “So the only thing that remains is finding a suitable strike team.”

“Ah!” Evos said brightly as he produced another piece of paper. “This I can help you with. The following candidates would make excellent choices for this expedition. There are about fifty there, ranked in what I consider order from best to worst. The top name is exceptionally well-qualified and even comes at the recommendation of former President Harvey.”

Konstan took the list and immediately groaned at the first name. “Ugh, why did it have to be her?”

Areuhat…

Continued from

http://novatainia.org/Gralus/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=773

*Bump* If you'd like to enter the war, we're ready (I think that's the right word...)

OOC: largely a recap post of the events that have happened thusfar, and probably the last to happen on the Nelagan side of things.


Fort Llacheu Air Force Base, Astap

It had been considerably more than the threatened "three days." Base Commander Evos Darwin appealed to Captain Konstan Ifrostik on behalf of Doctor Necho Perk and the rest of the JASO scientists that certain systems were simply not ready yet, and Konstan reluctantly gave them a week. It turned out to not be quite enough. In the end Necho Perk had to plead to President Jonas directly, citing all sorts of complicated technical issues and promising the wait would be worth it. The President accepted, and Konstan grudgingly pushed the deadline back a little bit more.
Finally, an unfortunate amount of time later, the scientists were satisfied and the launch could proceed.

"I'm not sure I like how the President mentioned our 'sacrifice' right then," Evos mumbled as the flight crew strapped in.
"Considering that this is a top-secret mission, you can consider yourself fortunate that you are receiving a send off at all," replied Aruehat in her typical ever-irritating matter-of-fact tone.
Konstan gritted his teeth, forcifully pushing his personal dislike of Areuhat from his mind. There were too many other factors at stake right now other than arguing with that woman. The Nelagan Hope was airborne now and the various in-flight systems were being checked as it flew lazy circles. All the readings were normal, which was good, because if they had any problems with the basics of the aircraft at this stage there was probably no hope for the larger mission ahead.
"This is Captain Konstan Ifrostik speaking. All right, listen up," Konstan spoke into the ship's intercom. "The Gate facility has received the final go-ahead from the President and has begun their warm-up sequence. I am sure I do not need to remind you of this, but remember that the power device we received from the Kaiser only has enough energy for another twenty minutes of operation, and the majority of that will be used up in stabilizing the Gate. Just to be perfectly clear: we only have one shot at this. This is it. Operation: Gralus Dawn is officially commenced. All stations are hereby put on full alert until further notice. This includes all battle stations. Assume immediate hostile contact when we pass through the Gate. Inception time: T minus 4 minutes."
Though Konstan didn't say it directly, the unspoken message hung in the silent air: the device only had enough power for this one trip. There was no coming back that way if things got messy. It was succeed or die time.

The Gate Facility...
The "Demon of Fides" had ordered its construction only a short time ago, intending it as both as a symbol of the Nelagan-Gralus alliance as well as a practical means of fast movement between the two countries. Based on a blissful combination Nelagan/Universalis hybrid technology left over from the old Matt Dusch days of the plans for a worldwide teleport grid, and fortified with homegrown Gralus magic for stability, security, and safety, it was a marvel of partnered modern engineering.
Yet the entire facility had gone largely unnoticed in the public eye. To be fair, at its most basic level it its most basic function, teleportation, was becoming strangely commonplace in the Renaissance flourishing of Nelagan culture. Teleportation by mechnical means, though cumbersome and expensive, had been around since the Jasonian days, and Gralus mages were infamous for their ability to teleport here and there through the land for business or pleasure. The facility had been just another one of the things cropping up in the ever strange yet increasingly awesome modern climate of Micras.
Then, of course, Gralus and most of its prominent citizens abroad had vanished entirely, making physical contact with the country impossible. And suddenly the Gate Facility, being a non-physical link with the country, had become of great interest. JASO and the Raven Corps had secured the facility immediately and work had begun at studying the puzzling readings coming from the monitoring devices in the Facility. Finally, after much hard work that had nearly put the rest of the nation's production at a standstill, everything was ready for a single insertion.

"This is Gate Facility. We copy you Nelagan Hope. The Gate is fully stabilized and will remain that way for the next three minutes. Advice immediate departure."
"Understood, Gate Facility. Nelagan Hope is beginning our final approach. See you on the flipside."
"Confirmed, Nelagan Hope. You will be in our thoughts and prayers. Godspeed."

In a flash of light, the Nelagan Hope crossed the discontinuity of the Gate's surface projected in mid-air and vanished. Moments later, its power drained, the Gate destabalized, collapsed in upon itself, and vanished harmlessly into the afternoon breeze.
President Jonas himself observed from the Gate Facility as the Hope crossed over, "Well, it's our of our hands now. Good luck, soldiers of Nelaga..."

Continued at: http://www.novatainia.org/Gralus/phpBB3 ... 8658#p8658

I love it, you guys rock!