Chapter 426

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

You down here?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Yes. What is it that you desire?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Wow. I've never been down this far.

So that's the Sleeping Ones? Brrr. It looks like one of those movies with thousands of ghosts moving around behind a clear barrier.

Creepy.

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

There's nothing to fear. They can't hear you or see you, you can't reach them.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

So, we're really far down here. What is this place?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Backbone of the entire system before it disappears.

See that ripple at the end of our 'corridor'?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Yeah. The line just ends there?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

For us, yes. But the data enters and exits that ripple. It goes somewhere else before it comes back out and spreads across the SolNet.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What are these cables?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Gestalt channels.

Yours is the black and tan striped one.

TerraSol is the one encased in smokey black glass.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

So what are you doing?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Activating a non-TerraSol gestalt for Terran Descent Humanity outside the bag.

There's five thousand planets that right now are cut off from the gestalts and SolNet until I can get a gestalt and SolNet channel hooked up for Terran Descent Humanity.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

You mean for the last year the Terrans haven't had any communication with anyone else?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Not through SolNet or the Gestalts.

They've been using hypercom, needlecast, and subspace transmission.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What about the CONFED gestalt?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Have you heard him say anything in six months?

He hit the wall from data time/date stamp and was taken offline.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

For six months none of us have had any idea what Terran Descent Humanity is doing on over 1,500 worlds?

Why didn't the same system that added us, the Leebaw, the Akltak, the Hamoorsans, the Tnvaru just add a new human channel?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Five thousand worlds, not fifteen hundred.

It's not that simple with the Terrans. You have to opt in and can opt out. That and a lot of worlds have their gestalt channels burnt out in defiance of the Senate or the Imperium or the Fourth Republic or what have you.

I'm trying to figure out how to lay down a new gestalt channel without the system automatically adding a new species.

Because I tried laying down a gestalt channel and probably surprised the hell out of everyone.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Scared the hell out of the Treana'ad, that's for sure.

Mantid's trying to coax them through the initial disorientation.

But seeing a Lanaktallan "FREE HERD GESTALT" pop up was startling.

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

I'll bet.

OK. I think I've got the overrides, the filters, and everything set up.

These filters are the important part. There's certain Terran emotional systems we don't want you guys exposed to.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Like rage?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

No. More like lust/arousal. Unmodified humans are pretty much 'in heat' so to speak at all...

wait...

wait a second...

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Unmodified!

That's what's going wrong.

How could I have been so stupid!

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

I don't get it.

What?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

It's so obvious.

They are unmodified Terrans.

At a neural level, they aren't modern Terran Descent Humans!

They're Terrans.

Humans.

Earthlings.

Go back up and keep an eye out. Give me a shout if this works.

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

All right.

>TELKAN FORGE WORLDS have cloned to GENERAL CHAT

WELCOME TO GENERAL CHAT

PLEASE DON'T FEED THE LEEBAWIANS

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

and then we ended up with a dozen channels, all yelling at each other.

Oh, hey, kid, did you find him?

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Was he down in the lower channels?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Yeah. I'm kind of straddling both channels.

How's our newest member?

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TLATSEG DERD EERF

.driew si sihT.

-NO-ING-T-FO-WS-LL----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

You'll get it. It just takes some getting used

//////////

back off those ships out of the resonance zone or you're going to

raising the taxes again? come on

strike strike strike stike

and add on the gravity defying tits because i want them to look good for this skin

because the Confederacy is dead and gone we're on our own out here and

surrender or we land troops

go where no man has gone before

ring a ding ding baby the game was rigged from the start

i got a slippery wormhole for that dong if you know what I mean and I think you do

took out Terra and we're probably next

a military conscription draft are you crazy nobody's done one of those in six thousand years

aw man i just got this body how i like it and i have to reskin?

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

I think I'm gonna hurl

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

WARNING! EXPOSURE TO UNFILTERED TERRAN DESCENT HUMANS DETECTED! WARNING!

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PUBVIAN DOMINION

urk

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LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

Holy crap! That was incredible! DO IT AGAIN!

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TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

MULIT-CHANNEL BROADCAST>IT'S COMING THROUGH UNFILTERED

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/////////

ADDING IN MARTIAL LAW PROTOCOLS

LOAD COMBINE MILITARY PROTOCOLS

LOAD IMPERIUM EMOTIONAL FILTERS

LOAD FIFTH REPUBLIC MATRIXES

soft dolly warm dolly yummy snack tasty juice good podling warm podling safe podling love and hugs and snuggles and love warm podling safe podling happy podling

COMPILING EMOTIONAL DATA - DONE

COMPILING OPINION DATA - DONE

COMPILING HEALTH AND WELFARE DATA - DONE

COMPILING LEADERSHIP MATRIX - DONE

>>>BOOTSTRAPPING HUMAN GESTALT

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Hold onto your panties.

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HUMAN GESTALT

Wow. This feels weird.

And totally illegal I didn't consent to this.

We're at war, dumbass, your right of consent stops about the line of my right not to get planet cracked

We wish to revoke consent.

How about I land troops and you can revoke consent to a 10mm MAW round?

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE HAS LOGGED ON

Did it work?

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We're at war, TerraSol is gone. The Confederacy is borderline gone. You can't stand on the sidelines and expect not to be involved.

I refuse to get involved. It's my right to withdraw consent. The Right of Consent is one of the foundations of the Confederacy.

THE CONFEDERACY IS AT WAR, YOU IDIOTS!

That doesn't mean my people are at war. Maybe if some diplomacy was tried instead of the Confederate standard of push a gun in people's faces we wouldn't be at war.

So you'll just wait for them to gentle you on the sidelines, I take it?

There's no reason for them to try to gentle us, we didn't do anything to them.

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Kind of.

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So you'd rather be like the Talmonous Cluster and just let the Lanks or the Dwellerspawn roll over us? No. You don't get to opt out of a fight for our very survival.

This fight violates my ethics, I refuse to take part or have it fought in my name.

IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT!

I'm sure if you explain very nicely to the Dwellerspawn about your ethics and you don't wish to be devoured in your name they'll listen very patiently before eating you.

You're one of those assholes who said we should just feed a couple billion more people to the Mar-gite, aren't you?

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

THAT'S ENOUGH!

Cyb, see if you can collapse the gestalt further.

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Once they're done there what makes you think they won't do to us what they did to Terra?

The Lanaktallan Gentling theory is just a conspiracy theory. Nobody's monstrous enough to do that.

OH MY GOD SHUT UP!

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Hang on.

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>

>>

>>>GESTALT CHANNEL MELDING COMPLETE

HUMAN GESTALT

Oh, woah. That was... weird. Why does it feel like there's two of me?

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CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Technically, there is. There's something weird happening to Terran Descent Human brains. They're being reverted to pre-Glassing patterning and genetics.

Only a third of Terran Descent Humanity is unaffected and that's why you feel weird.

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HUMAN GESTALT

OK, what did I miss?

We're badly fragmented. We've got a dozen civil wars going on.

Everyone says the Confederacy has had it.

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GESTALT OF THE FREE HERD WHO WILL NOT BE TOLD WHERE TO GRAZE OR HOW TO SPEAK

Here am I.

Learning.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Yeah, that's what about a third of Terran worlds are saying.

It's weird. The Confederacy is ALL of us. Just the loss of you humans doesn't mean the Confederacy dissolves for the rest of us.

We kind of get a say.

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HUMAN GESTALT

There's been a lot of anti-Confederacy sentiment since the Mar-gite War.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Yeah, well, human space took the majority of the Mar-gite attacks when

day is playtime sing with broodmommy dance with broodmommy play with broodmommy square is neat and circle is funny and triangle in happy one leewbaw two leebaw red leebaw blue leebaw swim and dance and run and play broodmommy will play with you all day

they hit the galactic stub and started.

Wow, that's back again.

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HUMAN GESTALT

What is it?

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TELKAN FORGE WORLD

Broodcarrier psychic signal got intertwined with the system. We hadn't heard it since...

since...

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BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Since TerraSol got locked up.

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TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

So the signal is being repeated by humans?

Weird.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Not too weird. You know, without the protections put down on the human mind after the Human/Mantid War, a lot of psychically sensitive species are going to be

ALERT! OMNIQUEEN PSYCHIC SIGNAL DETECTED! ALERT!

Uh-oh.