Chapter 596: Stock Car Race

>MANTID has entered Interactive Space #34911Q82A1

>MANTID has been set -m +v

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Are you in here?

Hello?

Wow, this place is creepy.

Hello?

Are you idle or active in

CONFEDMIL

What?

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here.

Oh, there you are.

Everyone's been wondering where you are.

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CONFEDMIL

I'm looking over the latest data.

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CONFEDMILIINT

I'm in here too.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Heh. Glad I didn't bring Trea, you'd have scared him.

What are you two doing in here?

Or is it secret?

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CONFEDMILINT

We've been looking at the Atrekna spread, looking for answers.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Figure anything out?

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CONFEDMIL

We think so.

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...

...

...

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Going to share?

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CONFEDMIL

Oh, sorry, yeah.

OK, look at this:

CONFEDMIL has shared galac.movement.his.holo

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, what am I... Oh, it's a time-lapse estimation.

What are the red dots?

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CONFEDMILINT

Those are systems that the Atrekna have attacked.

Watch closely.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, there doesn't seem to be any...

Wait.

OK, pattern recognition isn't really our highest skill.

But I can see the pattern.

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CONFEDMILINT

You can see why we've been examining it in a secure interactive space.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Let me get this straight:

The Atrekna are able to shift from one planet to any planet that has crossed the physical space that planet is in, regardless of how long ago?

But the galaxy is moving toward the universe border, so it would mean that those strike points would be left behind at 1.3 million miles an hour.

And it only goes back 135 million years?

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CONFEDMILINT

OK, here's the thing: We think that 135 million years is a hard coded limit. Think a 'fixed point in time' reverberation, like a temporal stabilizer or a temporal shockwave.

We're calling that, tenatively, First Atrekna Incursion.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

The Precursor War.

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CONFEDMIL

Exactly.

Now, rough papernapkinmath puts it at a movement of 1.3 million mph, for 135 million years. Now, a LY is 1.5 billion mph, roughly. So, with that in place, the galaxy is roughly 125K LY wide.

So you can see how the points are not exactly fixed in space-time that they are moving to.

We have been trying to figure out exactly what they are doing.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, I see what you're saying. Roughly speaking, over the time since the end of the Precursor War, the galaxy has actually moved completely through the area it once was in by about thirty thousand light years.

The entire Milky Way has swept through where the leading edge was located at the start of the Precursor War, meaning it isn't exact as to where the physical locations were.

Not to mention, it's not moving in a level plane, but more at an angle.

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CONFEDMILINT

So, we have been attempting to figure out how it works. Is it stellar masses, it is gravitational force, is it planetary bodies.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

You're attempting to predict where the next attacks will take place.

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CONFEDMILINT

They put a LOT of resources into trying to take Hesstla. A LOT. Twice.

We believe, if it was not for the temporal resonance weapon use, the stellar mass stabilizers, the temporal stabilization systems in the star, they would have already attempted a third attack.

We began looking at their targeting, both while they were in the Hesstla System, and afterwards.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

What did you find?

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CONFEDMILINT

When they were in possession, or at least had signifigant force in the system, before P'Kank's counter-attack, they took approximately 500 systems. You can watch the progression.

One they lost the system, they've only been able to take two or three a month.

Now, remember, P'Kank used a MAD system against the stellar system they were occupying.

We now know where that system is. Stellar color shifting has shown us exactly where they are hiding.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

So, if they own a world, have 'sunk' a system, so to speak, they can then jump to any stellar system that has crossed that system's path in the past?

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CONFEDMILINT

Not exactly.

The system they hid, Hesstla, and two other systems they've heavily defended gave us the clue we needed.

Triangulation.

Without the correct set of stellar masses, they cannot shift. However, once they do shift, they can grab resources such as PAWM or Dwellerspawn from anyplace that crossed their path.

That led us to figuring out another assault path.

But....

There's some problems with one of the plans.

One that you, in particular, will have serious objections to.

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CONFEDMIL

Which is why we invited you and have explained all of this to you.

You need to understand the stakes, now that we are missing Terran Descent Humanity.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

I'm not going to like this, am I?

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CONFEDMIL

No. You aren't.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

ALl right, tell me.

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CONFEDMIL

We have determined the source of the Doom Tubes and the Infected Niven Rings and eliminated it. We were able to ascertain, using temporal lensing and the old 'go 5,000 LY out and look with a telescope' the trajectory and speed of the Doom Tubes and INR's launched from the facility.

We then cross-referenced it with the Atrekna assaulted planets.

They matched.

We now know the purpose. To provide the Atrekna with Dwellerspawn reinforcements in these systems that they are assaulting.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

All right. I follow.

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CONFEDMIL

During General Hardgwrark's defense of Nemtella-168, we located the INR that was being used to bring in Dwellerspawn reinforcements by tracking chronotron eruptions.

We sent in a task force and planet cracked it.

With adjustments for time and distance, the second it was planet cracked, the Dwellerspawn under transport were reduced to subatomic slurry and the Atrekna could no longer bring in Dwellerspawn reinforcements from that INR.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Makes sense.

But that takes a lot of firepower.

And presents additional difficulty with...

...

...wait.

You aren't suggesting...

...are you?

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CONFEDMIL

It is a logical course of action.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Are there even enough Terrans to be able to find more than one or two?

And doing that? Again?

You want to capture parts of the INR's and Doom Tubes, not nova-spark them or planet crack them.

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CONFEDMIL

Not exactly. We need military resources that can deployed against INR's and Doom Tubes from the stellar system they are being accessed from.

Wait for the Atrekna to open the door, then shoot into the house and blow it up, so to speak.

It is strategically sound.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

You want to bring back the Ring Breakers.

Make more of them.

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CONFEDMILINT

Combat metrics from a recent clash between a Ringbreaker in Novastar VII power armor and Atrekna forces have shown that it takes a disproportionate amount of Atrekna rulership caste to merely pin down a single Ringbreaker.

If deployed in standard Star Elements of five, we estimate that it would geometrically increase the amount of Atrekna leadership needed to quickly become impossible.

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CONFEDMIL

The price per unit versus the strategic value metrics present this as a highly desirable option.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Ugh, I hate you guys sometimes since we lost TDH.

You sound like Vulcan rip-offs.

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CONFEDMIL

Be nice.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Can you even find enough humans to bring back the Ring Breakers? If I recall correctly, the washout rate in training was something like ten thousand for every one you found.

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CONFEDMILINT

That is the primary problem. A Ring Breaker requires many things, and the Enragement/Phasic Index Matrixes are important and the most difficult to overcome.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

I'm going to say: No. Don't bring them back.

I have moral and ethical concerns, but let's look beyond that.

There's hardly an TDH left. There's even fewer PSH left. Of the PSH, less than one in a hundred thousand can take the DNA imprinting needed. Less than one in a thousand can actually pilot a Novastar.

Less than one in five hundred can survive, intact, the effects of Warsteel Mk2 on their bodies and minds.

With all of that, your chances of finding a PSH-TDH who is not currently Enraged, giving them the training, putting them in the armor, and having them survive the armor's bonding process with their minds intact, go from slim in normal times to as mathematically close to zero as our chaotic universe and reality allow.

You would spend the next hundred years looking for candidates and maybe find one who makes it.

And we have one.

We know the problems inherent in the system.

We got lucky with him. His people were a martial people.

Aside from my moral and ethical objections to Project Spartan Halo being revived, it is currently unfeasable with the operational reality of our current reality.

If you want my opinion: you'd be better off dedicating the resources and intelligence gathering that you'd need to do to even find candidates to figuring out some other way to take the war to the Atrekna.

A defensive war is a losing war.

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CONFEDMIL

We're aware of that.

We also invited you here for another reason.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

All right. Now I'm nervous.

Go ahead and tell me.

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CONFEDMILINT

We have verification from multiple sources.

It's been verified via several different methods.

The Earthlings are back.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

I knew they would be.

How bad?

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CONFEDMIL

Just a few strikes at the Atrekna.

Not many yet.

So far, they have just liberated the system then vanished again.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Still no clue where they're coming from?

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CONFEDMILINT

No.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Tech progression?

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CONFEDMILINT

Nothing apparent. They still use the same drive style. Looks like the same ship classes.

Same profile: Attacking in overwhelming force, rapid operational tempo, brutal tactics, full scorched earth xenocide on the Atrekna, then a complete withdrawal.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

And you sure it isn't The Locusts? They've settled in on one of the abandoned systems in Lanaktallan territory.

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CONFEDMILINT

I'm sure.

We got a clear view of one of their super-capital ships.

It was the Last Gasp You'll Make.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Brr. They're serious if they deployed that thing.

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CONFEDMILINT

We also have verification that they deployed Entropy's Little Sister twice to liberate planets.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

So, it survived the war.

Damn.

That thing's bad news.

Have the Earthlings made any move on the Confederacy or the Lanaktallans?

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CONFEDMIL

No, so far they've only gone after scattered Atrekna strongholds.

It looks like the chronotron burst that occurs when a sun is being gravitationally sunk is what attracts them to the system.

Sometimes they don't move much past red-shift before coming back up to realspace.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Well, if they're fielding Little Sister, then the Atrekna have had it.

Have we tried to communicate with them?

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CONFEDMILINT

They ignore us.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Well, it's better than them attacking us.

The Treaty of Twenty Carvings is still holding.

What about TerraSol?

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CONFEDMILINT

No luck. We've been trying to measure approximate time dilation inside but we can't get any readings.

We did figure something weird out.

The Mat-Trans System Carrier Wave is still exiting The Bag, though.

Not sure why it would be operative.

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CONFEDINT

Type II and Type III are still operational, but all of Type-I is locked out for everyone. It's login-password-hardware protected now. Plus, it uses elliptic-curve encryption, which is everyone's favorite one.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

I was wondering if you were going to speak up.

How about SUDS?

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CONFEDMILINT

Nothing. No breakthroughs, nothing out of the Black Box Projects.

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CONFEDINT

Not... entirely.

One of the team who are attempting penetration of the system got into the uplink data that the SUDS utilized a Level-IV Black ICE on the person attempting the hacking.

Completely erased a digital sentience in less than a second.

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

Well, it's good that it's still defending itself. We know the whole system hasn't crashed.

Thanks for the updates.

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CONFEDINT

Not a problem.

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>MANTID FREE WORLDS HAS LEFT THE INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT

CONFEDINT

Think she knows?

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CONFEDMILINT

Probably closer than anyone else.

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CONFEDMIL

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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CONFED

Agreed.

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///INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT CLOSED

///DELETING LOGS

///HAVE A NICE DAY