[Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Completed: 06/04/2018)

A spot for collections of Outsider-related original fan fiction and related works.

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 07/22/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

raistlin34 wrote:
dragoongfa wrote:
PS: The Soians were run of the mill Ascendants in this regard, others are more benign, others are far worse and far more self serving.
:shock: :shock: :shock:

How high would The Ethereal of X-Com register in the "Ascendant jerk-o-meter"?
About equal or slightly below the Soians depending on why they were actually doing what they were doing, if they were doing it just to save themselves from their disease then they were self serving in their nastiness and as such slightly below in their jerk-o-meter since they didn't actually wipe out their failed experiments.

If they were doing it so they would become strong enough to combat a greater evil than them as it is hinted? Then about equal.

The benign type of Ascendants are the kind which uplifts most lower species with little to no exception with the idea being that 'everyone should share'. They intervene in the lives of those below them but they don't outright wipe out the problems they see, they just put them in some short of cage and move on. The end result is a bunch of stagnated species who got provided everything they needed and thus fail to innovate and properly ascend on their own resulting in a clusterfuck when they do ascend with the help of their 'benefactor'.

The run of the mill are the Soians, species who want to bring order to chaos via the establishment of a carefully laid out social order under their rule. Those who can work within the confines are well and good, those who cannot? They are fucked. The Soians replaced the troublemakers with Soia-Liron copies, others just wipe everything out and seed something else.

The bad ones are split into two categories:

First is the 'Order through homogenity' type that intends to create a singular super state with the forced biological and social conversion of all sentient and sapient races they run into. The end result is that everyone looks, thinks and acts the exact same way.

The second is the 'I did it for the LoLz' type, see Dark Eldar from Warhammer 40K mixed with the benign type from above. Their goal isn't exactly to gain pleasure from the misfortune of others but to see what will happen if they alter certain stuff in a way that would force a radical reaction. Imagine someone suddenly giving our giant squids lungs, bullet and bombproof skin and an appetite for human flesh.

The main problem that all Ascendants run into (bar maybe one depending on your point of view) is that all of them end up without the deep seated biological drive to strive due to the way they changed themselves. Entities that function through cold logic and its divergent ways of application with little empathy and remorse is the rule, in short almost all Ascendants are the definition of a psychopath which is why they don't last very long.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/14/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

Chapter 3, part 3

“Unfortunately we will have to postpone the end of this game Mizol Parat Tempo.” The Senator’s sending took her completely by surprise as up to that moment her telepathy has been blocked by an intense jamming field, she instinctively prepared herself to attack him telepathically but her instincts warned her that he was way beyond her strength which provided her with enough time to finally sense that he wasn’t alone.

“They have upgraded us Mizol Parat!” Tozet Beryl’s tone was rife with worry and urgency, wanting to warn her from making a mistake. “Our telepathy and minds, they upgraded them somehow and…”

“Upgraded?” Tempo and in an instant her mind was filled with Beryl’s recollection of past events as if the two of them were touching. She tried to force the torrent of information aside before it would overwhelm her but failed, yet for some reason she wasn’t disoriented at all, in fact she could recall everything clearly the moment after the intense sending was finished.

“This… that should be impossible!” She broadcasted as she tried to comprehend everything she just received.

“What is Parat Tempo? The fact that we humans are that far ahead of you Loroi or that you didn’t realize that we were working on you the whole time?” The Senator sent as he laughed heartily.

“What did you do?” Tempo asked as she prepared her mental defenses once more.

“What Tozet Beryl told you Parat Tempo. We upgraded you in order for you to be of some use to your kind on its road to Ascension.”

“How?”

“Figuring that out is up to your kind if you wish to successfully ascend.”

“What kind of ‘upgrades’?”


“Upgrades is not an accurate description, we just partially removed some fail safes that the Soian’s put in place while streamlining certain aspects for proper ease of use. Everything will be subconscious at first and their use restricted but for now the restrictions on your sensing have been fully lifted. Try to sense everything you can for the next few solons.”

“That’s…” Tempo partially turned her mental focusing on sensing and she instantly noticed a vast difference in everything telepathic she could perceive. She was selected to be a Mizol for her well above average telepathic strength and sensitivity but her raw abilities now were orders of magnitude greater than before. She focused herself on Beryl and she was shocked on how easily she was able to sense the Listel’s thoughts even beneath her mental barriers, turning to Fireblade she realized that the Teidar’s mind simply wasn’t there at the moment, she could still sense it but her mind seemed to be connected to someplace else. She then turned her attention to the Senator but his mental barriers proved impossible even for her newfound strength to pierce through.

“We humans value our mental privacy deeply Parat Tempo. The ‘discussion’ I had earlier with Tozet Beryl was truthful in that regard. Many of us choose to keep their Lotai up at all times for this very reason but this does not mean that we don’t protect our minds when we do bring it down.” He smirked at that. “Now try to see what your current range is.”

She did as she was told and instantly found herself able to sense everyone on Tempest, both the 800 strong Loroi crew and the…80 humans aboard. She spread her mind a little bit further and immediately sensed the crews of four human ships that surrounded tempest.

“You aren’t anywhere near close to your current range Parat Tempo.” She spread her mind more and was momentarily taken aback when she sensed the entirety of the 51st strike group and the humans division sized fleet that was all around them.

“You can still go a lot further…”

She went further and further until she finally sensed three Shell division sized fleets that were covered with a jamming field that she could easily bypass as well as several dozens human ships that were following them.

“Push a little bit further.”


She kept spreading her mind until she suddenly found herself sensing an incalculable number of humans, millions upon millions of them. It was as if she was sensing a small planetoid.

“That’s a mothership, one of our dread stars if you wish. The ones you sense are those who are currently with both their Lotai down and otherwise unoccupied, the overwhelming majority of the crew is currently undetectable to you.”


She couldn’t bring her mind to believe any of it, yet to discard what she sensed was impossible to her. Beyond all reason she now had the sensing of a farseer and he was allowing her to sense all this.

“Why?”

“I told you that this ship is the safest ship this side of the Wastelands and I wanted to prove that to you. I also wanted you to understand the position that your whole race is now in. Why do you thing that we have mobilized to such a degree?” The Senator asked. “And don’t flatter yourself with the reply you are going to give; humans are interested in you but not to this degree.”

“You are either at war or preparing for war with other Ascendants.”


“The later. You Loroi have drawn unwanted attention on yourselves and we want those that are snooping around to not even suspect of our true capabilities. What we are doing here on this and the surrounding systems require all this.”

“Then why even contact us at the first place, why take the risk?”


“We are laying a trap for them and your kind will be the bait. You need some… preparation to serve even as that.”
Suddenly her enhanced sensitivity simply ceased to exist and she was left almost as she was before meeting him. “Do not worry about them, we already know the full extent of their capabilities and we are more than able to kill all they send without any of the lesser races, including the Loroi realizing what was going on.”

“What will this bait entail, why would they even bother with us?”


“You will know soon enough, for now lets say that all of them will have no choice but to move in force if they believe your kind is about to Ascend.” He replied.

“How are you going to do this? Will you just upgrade us all?” He just laughed at that.

“Do you really expect me to explain the true workings of telepathy and how you will open what is now locked away?
” The Senator replied. “Everything will be yours to figure, we will just provide someone who will serve as a shining example for the rest of you to follow.”

“But what you just did, I was a farseer and I could fully control it!”

“That wasn’t something extraordinary. That was the sensitivity of the average human, your kind as our copy has the exact same potential; as I already sent the only thing we really did was to remove the failsafes and streamline the control. Both of which could be done with multi generational mental focus but your kind chose to forsake the legacy they intended to give you.” His contempt towards them rose to his mind’s surface again but he quickly forced it aside before continuing. “We managed to find them and their teachings, we expanded on what they had attained and even used it to wage a war among ourselves that made your own seem like a brawl between unruly dirals in comparison.” He finally stood up and that and made for the door. “Follow me, with the exception of Pallan Fireblade full control of yourselves will now return to you.” The senator broadcasted as she finally felt able to move herself again.

“What do we do Mizol?” Tozet Beryl asked as both of them stood up.

“We are completely powerless against them. We do as he says and hope for the best.” She replied to the Listel and looked at the Teidar who was already moving to follow the Senator.

“She is well, her abilities and the work needed for them are such that she requires more time and effort that you two and Lashret Stillstorm, she will even receive some training for what she will need. She should be ready and with us when we will be about to begin.”


“Where are you taking us?” Tempo asked as she and the Listel fell in line behind him.

“At Tempest’s fresco near the bridge.”

“What is there for you to show us?”

“How your kind came to be.” He replied and laughed when he sensed their shock and surprise. “We could do this at any other place on the ship but I believe that it would be inappropriate in its own way.”

“Do what?”


“Time travel…”
His truthfulness and honesty were real, if only for a fleeting moment before he begun laughing again at the shock they felt for a mere instant. “I am sorry but I couldn’t stop myself. Time travel is impossible; what has already passed cannot be altered while time relentlessly moves forward even when we manage to slow our access to it to a point that it seems to have stopped.” They had already passed more than a dozen warriors on their way to the elevator, all of them seemingly stopped in time.

“What is it Beryl?” Tempo asked as she sensed the Listel’s apprehension to the alien’s explanation.

“This time slowing effect, I think that there is more to it than we see or understand. I am afraid that we will suffer some dire side effects from it.” Beryl explained.

“There won’t be any side effect Tozet Beryl.” The Senator replied as they reached the elevator. The doors opening on their own as he walked inside without breaking stride.

“If time here runs slower by a factor of 12 million then I have to assume that for every Solon that passes in this system 12 million solon pass on Deinar.” Beryl insisted.

“That wasn’t a precise explanation Tozet Beryl.” The lift begun moving up to the command deck on its without anyone inputting a command to it. “In fact it’s a partial lie.”

“Then what exactly is happening?” Beryl asked and the alien chuckled in return, not out of a sense of ridicule but from a sense of… amusement to the Listel’s honest obliviousness; much in the way a warrior reacts to their own young child when they ask about their life and battles. It's common sense that a child won’t really understand the answers but a mother just wants to give them because she will never know if she will ever she meets her offspring again before it goes to its diral.

“I can’t tell you Listel Tozet.” He replied. “But I can give you a hint. Time is not a singular dimension that ebbs and flows due to the effects of the universe at large; instead think of time as an infinite amount of sub-dimensions.”

“Then…” The Listel has surprised her many times already with how quickly she could process the information given to her and this time was no exception. “Then we are currently using a different temporal subdimension? One that simply runs 12 million times slower or perhaps quicker than the one we normally use.”

“Very good answer Listel Tozet.”

“And why are we the only ones able to experience all this?” Beryl asked again.

“Because they don’t have the necessary Ascendant ability unlocked. Palan Fireblade had managed to break the fail safe which allowed her to experience temporal tampering and be able to slow her time by a few fractions but in return she sacrificed her fine control of all her other abilities.”

“Then… Chronokinesis is the ability to simply manipulate the temporal subdimensions and experience the effects of the manipulation?”

“Indeed.” He remained thoughtful for a moment after acknowledging that. “There is also another aspect and that will be exactly what we will soon partake in. When one manipulates the temporal dimensions they will notice some background ‘garbage telepathic noise’, it is extremely hard to filter that noise because it requires precise calibration and knowledge of where each minor segment of that noise originated from but when one manages to decipher everything they will be able to partially experience past events in which advanced enough life forms where present.”

“I don’t think that I fully understand.”

“It’s abstract reasoning but it’s the best way to explain to someone like you. Imagine the universe having its own historical dimension and that every life form advanced enough to be telepathically sensed at range writes on that dimension for their entire life. Every sight, every noise, every step, every breath, every emotion, everything that can be consciously or unconsciously sensed and sent telepathically is written without fault.”


“But telepathy doesn’t allow for all this!” Tempo interjected. “We cannot sense or send something so complicated!”

“The fact that the fail safes put on you have limited your available bandwidth doesn’t make this impossible. All life is intimately linked to the… dimensions that telepathy works with and true telepathy allows for much, much more than you can imagine.”

“So telepathy can transcend time itself?” Beryl asked.

“In a way yes.”


“That’s vague.” Beryl commented.

“I will try to explain it to you as you experience it.”

“Is what you want to show us something that you witnessed in the past? Our kind’s past?” Tempo asked.

“Yes, the past of both our kinds.”

“And why do you want to show us this?”


“Because it’s the necessary first step to either your Ascension or extinction. Which is the exact reason as to why I forced myself into being your ‘guide’ in this. You four will be the first four Loroi to witness the truth of you past and the true heritage that you were left with. There will be many others afterwards and it will be up to all of you to guide your kind into the future where the decision between your life and death will be taken.”

“Why? Why is witnessing the past so important? Why is our Ascension so important? Why do you feel that we have to prove something to you in order to live or die?” Tempo’s anger finally flared out, the whole idea of her kind’s future being dependent on this whole charade was something that she couldn’t let go.

“Because there is something fundamentally broken within all Loroi. Not on your bodies but your collective minds. We don’t know if this is because of us being your template, the Soian not understanding the fine balance that true Ascendants need in order to function properly or the way your kind came to be.” He replied and paused to look at her and then at Beryl. “Make no mistake, you Loroi are dangerous; not for being a caste based warrior society but because your bodies are modified copies of the only known natural Ascendants. Almost all who artificially Ascend cut off their sentient side for a reason and that reason is their belief that they would never be able to properly control their newfound powers otherwise. This realization from all those Ascendants was based on hard earned experiences and observations, we humans may have proven the error of that way by our mere existence but so far we are the exception that proves the rule. Your kind won’t perish until we are certain that you won’t be able to handle the true extent of Ascendancy and there is not enough time for us to find other alternatives, be they invasive or benign.” He turned again and begun walking up the sloped corridor that led to Tempest’s Sanctum. “There is also the fact that your kind’s crimes are severe and you have committed them in a semi Ascendant stage, if our common history wasn’t there we would have exterminated you already. Honor dictates that we make sure that you are indeed the out of control animals with Ascendant abilities that we believe you are and the only way to confirm this is for you to reach the cusp of Ascendancy and witness your kind’s reactions to everything.”

They reached Tempest’s sanctum the moment he finished sending that only to find Lashret Stillstorm staring at them as she stood in front of 5 recliner chairs at were placed around the star projector at the center of the room.

“YOU!” Lashret Stillstorm broadcasted angrily. “You disappeared without sending anything and now you show up again!”

“Tozet Beryl and Parat Tempo please brief your commander so we can begin.” He broadcasted calmly before walking up to Tempest’s fresco as if studying it.

“Lashret Stillstorm are you unharmed?” Tempo sent immediately, the show of concern catching the Lashret by surprise if only momentarily.

“I am unharmed Mizol. Can you explain to me why there are dozens if not hundreds of aliens on my ship while a Shell armada is bearing down on us?”

“Things are far worse than they seem Lashret.”

“Worse? Explain.”

“A whole human fleet is among the 51st and they have a dreadstar in the system.”

“What? Are you believing its lies?” Stillstorm snapped back accusingly.

“No…” Tempo replied, without being sure on how to explain everything. “They did something to all three of us, perhaps even to you. I don’t know exactly what but the best way to describe it is as an upgrade, after ‘upgrading me’ he allowed me to sense them as if I was a farseer. It could be another of their tricks but even if it is, it only serves to demonstrate how advanced they are compared to us.” Tempo felt her commander forcing her anger back and almost let out a sigh of relief at that.

“Listel Tozet, your throughts?”


“They are Ascendants my Lashret.” Beryl replied only to cause Stillstorm’s anger to flare back once more. “It’s the only plausible explanation.”

“They claim to be Ascendants and the abilities they have demonstrated surpass those of even our more ludicrous epic sagas.” Tempo added

“I agree, just their ability to manipulate time is beyond anything we have heard of and their telepathic abilities are far beyond ours.” Beryl added and Stillstorm’s anger subsided once more as she reluctantly nodded in agreement.

“Alright, they are Ascendants. What do they want from us?”

“They claim they want to show us our common history. They believe that it is of extreme importance that we become aware of it.” Tempo replied hoping that Stillstorm wouldn’t pick up the minor mental evasion she did.

“He did say that they want to make us their puppets and that I would somehow agree on it after witnessing something.” Stillstorm added.

“They believe that we becoming aware of our past will aid us in our Ascension but if we fail at it then they will exterminate our kind.” Beryl commented, turning Tempo’s mental plan on how to pass that information without infuriating the Lashret obsolete.

“What!?” Stillstorm’s rage rose again at that and she immediately stared at the Senator with killing intent, the only thing stopping her from lounging at him was the knowledge of the ridiculous futility of the gesture.

“It would indeed be futile Lashret Stillstorm.”
He sent without looking. “The truth is that your kind hasn’t been erased from existence because of our common history and the fact that we humans find you pleasant of all things. These are the reasons as to why we are now interfering in your favor. Any other lesser race in your situation would be left to fend on its own as per our non-interference laws.”

“So we should be glad that you are threatening us with extinction?”


“Yes, unlike the treatment the Shells have in store for you we will do our best to make it instantaneous and painless. Of course there is also the fact that your little war with these vermin is over in your favor. Some token loses from your side will have to be suffered of course, all in order to maintain the lie that we Humans are just a tech level 14 race which provided only reluctant passive support to your war effort.” He sent with an impossibly calm mental tone.

“More lies and more trickery. Why should we trust anything you send?”

“You shouldn’t, your kind’s Ascension is purely yours to deal with; we are just expediting matters. Beyond that, everything I send to you is done so with the consideration that your kind will end up being a threat to all life the moment your Ascension is done.” The Senator replied without taking his eyes from the fresco. “Listel Tozet, please brief the Lashret in the same way you briefed the Parat so we can begin. Parat Tempo can you tell me the quick version of the Legend of Tempest while they do that?”
Tempo glanced at the Torrai, the Listel and then at the Teidar who had already sat on one of the recliners and had closed her eyes as if meditating before turning to the Senator.

“Tempest was a magnificent warrior who was envied by everyone in her city. Her sisters in their wickedness sought to take what she had earned for their own; they ambushed her, stroke her down and left her for dead at the wilderness far away from the city in order for her to be consumed by the elements. The wicked sisters returned to the city and were welcomed despite their treachery because everyone expected them to share Tempest’s riches and estate. Thus the city was consumed by the debauchery of Tempest’s wicked sisters. But Tempest hadn’t perished, slowly she nurtured herself back to health and returned to the city after recruiting the help of the avenging spirits in order to reclaim what was rightfully hers. But the debauchery of the wicked sisters had gone on for too long and her city was irrevocably lost to it. She and the spirits razed the city and killed everyone within its walls before leaving that cursed place to burn and rose to the stars to find a new home among them.”

“I am aware that the three sister worlds have variations of the exact same legend.”


“It’s true, the Tabenese variant that is depicted here has the avenging spirits being born out of the deepest depths of the seas. The Perrein variant has the spirits being born by the darkest and most dangerous parts of the jungle. Deinar has several variants of its own but the theme is identical.” Tempo replied.

“You will be surprised to know that this legend and the vast majority of your other epics have a sound basis in past events but not in the way any one of you Loroi has ever realized.”
He sent at that.

“Is this what you want to show us? The truth behind our legends?”


“Yes but the truth will come with its own weights to those who become aware of it.”


“Trickery and lies all of it!” The Lashret broadcasted furiously while staring at the senator who just smirked back at her.

“It’s good to see Tempest’s commanding officer carrying the full meaning of her ship’s name with her character.”
He broadcasted with an irritatingly teasing mental tone.

“I don’t know how you can lie with telepathy but everything you send is a lie, there is no other explanation!” Stillstorm snapped back. “I won’t be part of your schemes so kill me now and have the caste jumping mongrel Ashrain take charge as you have planned. The Mizol Emperor would love nothing more than to witness that!”

“You mean that Greywind will love one of her grandnieces becoming her staunchest political opponent? Ready and able to start a Union wide popular revolt to ease the tight rule of the Emperor after the final victory of the war is fully accredited to her?” The Senator’s reply visibly caught the Lashret by surprise. “If there is one thing in common between humans and loroi beyond the high mating drive of their respective males, it would be the fact that our respective young ones have a habit of revolting against their elders. Torret Ashrain could certainly be the one who would lead the Loroi Axis faction, she certainly has the brilliantly dashing and adventurous personality needed. In fact with her at the lead its more than probable that Greywind would relent in the face of overwhelming public pressure and step down from her current position peacefully but this is not what we want. We want the Union to be at the verge of a civil war that would outclass all others that your kind has ever fought, with Greywind and you leading the Imperial and Axis factions respectively. It won’t come to a war however, in fact a third party will emerge and decapitate both factions in a quick and brutal fashion. The next Loroi Emperor won’t be the Tabenese Soroin who led the Loroi fleets to victory against the Shells, the next Loroi Emperor will be the first Loroi Ascendant. A young Teidar from Seren whose telepathic, telekinetic and other powers will easily surpass those of your legends and the irony will be that she won’t act in such a way out of a thirst for power but because her respected elders would be too proud and foolish to solve their differences in any other way than a civil war that could very well mean the end of the Loroi as a species.” All three of them were stunned at that and stared stupidly first at the alien and then at Pallan Fireblade who still looked as if she was meditating.

“Do you… think that we will allow you to manipulate us in such a way?” Stillstorm blurted out angrily.

“Manipulate? No Lashret Stillstorm, that used to be the prevailing forecast of ours provided that you, Parat Tempo and Palan Fireblade received what you have now received. You would win this war with our discreet assistance and then choose to consume yourselves with your usual politicking when peace would finally return to you. The Loroi Axis and the disgruntled civilians would rally around you en mass, the conquering hero who won the war. The Imperial faction led by the Mizol caste would be unbelievably bolstered by Parat Tempo’s near supernatural clairvoyance and diplomatic skills while the Teidar will see an unprecedented cult of personality form around the greatest Teidar that has ever lived. You Loroi are predictable like that.”

“You believe that we would act that way now that you have told us all this?”


“Do you really think that you will remember any of this while you do all that? Besides, I have already used my authority to invalidate the previous prediction by including someone intriguing into the equations.”


“Then what’s the point to this entire farce if we won’t even remember anything?” Tempo finally cut in.

“There are a few reasons; many of us believe that it would be monstrously immoral of us to have you do your part in your ascension without your consent. Others believe that this is the only way for us to know if we have picked the right people for what’s to come. Some naïve idealists believe that future Ascendant Loroi will want to witness the first step of their kind's Ascension provided that your kind doesn’t turn into out of control beasts at the process, which is the most likely scenario considering the base nature of yours.”


“Do you truly expect me to believe any of this?” Stillstorm snapped back at him.

“You will believe it Lashret Stillstorm, everyone who witnesses the truth in the way you are about to witness believes it.”
He broadcasted as he turned his gaze back at Stillstorm. “I will expect your answer after you witness everything that there is to witness but know this: You Loroi will be far stronger and better to face the coming wars after you willingly sit on that chair and make what you will of the truth after you have become aware of it. I am not going to force you on this so decide now, sit on that chair or tell me to get Torret Ashrain here because my patience with misguided pride has its limits, in fact the only reason that it hasn’t run out is my respect to you as a commander.” Stillstorm just stared angrily at him for a few moments.

“What is it that you want me to witness so much?”

“The namesake of your ship, Lashret Stillstorm. The legend of Tempest.”


Chapter 4, part 1: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 602#p26602
Last edited by Guest on Sun Nov 20, 2016 2:13 am, edited 3 times in total.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/14/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

The next chapter and a half is already written and will have it posted as soon as I copy the manuscript and it will be the first part delving into the 'truth' of it all.

Krulle
Posts: 1413
Joined: Wed May 20, 2015 9:14 am

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/14/2016)

Post by Krulle »

SpoilerShow
dragoongfa wrote:Chapter 3, part 3

[...]

“Because it’s the necessary first step to either your Ascension or extinction. Which is the exact reason as to why I forced myself into being your ‘guide’ in this. You four will be the first four Loroi to witness the truth of your past and the true heritage that you were left with. There will be many others afterwards and it will be up to all of you to guide your kind into the future where the decision between your life and death will be taken.”

[...]

“Tempest was a magnificent warrior who was envied by everyone in her city. Her sisters in their wickedness sought to take what she had earned for their own; they ambushed her, stroke her down and left her for dead at the wilderness far away from the city in order for her to be consumed by the elements. The wicked sisters returned to the city and were welcomed despite their treachery because everyone expected them to share Tempest’s riches and estate. Thus the city was consumed by the debauchery of Tempest’s wicked sisters. But Tempest hadn’t perished, slowly she nurtured herself back to held and returned to the city after recruiting the help of the avenging spirits in order to reclaim what was rightfully hers. But the debauchery of the wicked sisters had gone on for too long and her city was irrevocably lost to it. She and the spirits razed the city and killed everyone within its walls before leaving that cursed place to burn and rose to the stars to find a new home among them.”

[...]

“You mean that Greywind will love one of her grandnieces becoming her staunchest political opponent? Ready and able to start a Union wide popular revolt to ease the tight rule of the Emperor after the final victory of the war is fully accredited to her?” The Senator’s reply visibly caught the Lashret by surprise. “If there is one thing in common between humans and loroiLoroi beyond the high mating drive of their respective males is the fact that our respective young ones have a habit of revolting against their elders. Torret Ashrain could certainly be the one who would lead the Loroi Axis faction, she certainly has the brilliantly dashing and adventurous personality needed. In fact with her at the lead its more than probable that Greywind would relent in the face of overwhelming public pressure and step down from her current position peacefully but this is not what we want. We want the Union to be at the verge of a civil war that would outclass all others that your kind has ever fought, with Greywind and you leading the Imperial and Axis factions respectively. It won’t come to a war however, in fact a third party will emerge and decapitate both factions in a quick and brutal fashion. The next Loroi Emperor won’t be the Tabenese Soroin who led the Loroi fleets to victory against the Shells, the next Loroi Emperor will be the first Loroi Ascendant. A young Teidar from Seren whose telepathic, telekinetic and other powers will easily surpass those of your legends and the irony will be that she won’t act in such a way out of a thirst for power but because her respected elders would be too proud and foolish to solve their differences in any other way than a civil war that could very well mean the end of the Loroi as a species.” All three of them were stunned at that and stared stupidly first at the alien and then at Pallan Fireblade who still looked as if she was meditating.

[...]


Thank you.
Now I'm looking forward to your version of the legend of Tempest.
Sounds biblical.
A city erased because of the debauchery being lived there....
Vote for Outsider on TWC: Image
charred steppes, borders of territories: page 59,
jump-map of local stars: page 121, larger map in Loroi: page 118,
System view Leido Crossroads: page 123, after the battle page 195

User avatar
dapple26
Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Jul 24, 2014 9:59 pm

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/14/2016)

Post by dapple26 »

I'm actually quite interested in were this is going.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/20/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

Chapter 4, part 1

Fireblade felt deeply conflicted, on one side she knew that all that she had experienced there so far was not real but on the other she appreciated the peace that this dream world had given her. At first she found herself confused and alone at her dormitory in the Teidar Academy on Deinar; she instantly felt watched and lashed out telekinetically, only to be shocked at the destruction she wrecked upon her surroundings, destruction that made her realize just how strong she truly was now. She thought that it was all a lie; in fact she wanted it to be but she somehow knew that it wasn’t. The dream world wasn’t real but they made sure that she would learn from it and that everything she would grasp would be applicable once she would return to her real body.

It wasn’t by sending, but they taught her everything she needed to know; it was as if she always knew about all this and yet she could never fully grasp it. They somehow let her know that this was how they now taught their young, the only safe way for everyone involved to be trained as an Ascendant; nothing was real in the dream world and yet everything was as real as it should be. Sight, touch, noise, smell, taste and all the ranges of sensing; everything was geared to teach new Ascendats the true depth of their power including the repercussions of failing to properly apply those powers. She felt the true recoil of improper mental defenses, the painful boundaries of unbound telekinesis, the maddening sensation of finding one’s self losing control of their grasp of time. She howled in agitation at the mental pain of her failures and yet her successes brought results that she wouldn’t dare to consider before.

Successes that brought her into an unprecedented state of mental serenity. It wasn’t the complacency of the one who knew that they could now face the impossible that finally put her at peace but just being able to witness everything from a perceptive that made the incomprehensible comprehensible and the sensible ludicrous. There was no real point to things that used to agitate her in her previous state; she just knew that peace within herself could easily be found even among them.

Now that the lessons had stopped she gave in to the leisure of peace and found herself sitting at the edge of a mountain cliff of Taben, with the sea peacefully extending in front of her beyond the horizon. She took everything in at the fleeting moments she still had, the salty scent of the slight breeze, the slight moisture of the ground, the minuscule movement of the waves far below, the setting sun at the horizon, the myriads of stars at the darkening skies. She let herself lost in those singular moments as if it was a lifetime.

“Are you ready Pallan Fireblade?” She was surprised by the alien’s sending, she had been left alone for so that she had almost forgot about him.

“Do I have to leave just yet?” His laugh at that was pleasant as his mind was filled with understanding.

“All of us felt that way when we had to leave this place for the first time.”

“Is this how you all learned how to use all these powers, even the first among you?”

“It’s complicated, the first Ascendant humans a little less than two centuries ago knew nothing about how to be an Ascendant, we had all simply forgotten how to use these gifts. We even debated on if we should maintain the mental locks or not but some pioneers managed to find what was left behind and used it to build all this.” He replied as he sat down next to her. “Our species was fractured at the time, only some of us had managed to Ascend but thanks to what we found we realized immediately what to do in order to maintain ourselves without getting lost to our self-destructive tendencies. This simulation or dream world, as you think of it all, was the solution; carefully crafted and maintained, all humans are able to access it provided that the equipment necessary and enough of us are around.”

“Is that why I felt watched?”

“A few teachers were assigned to you but you weren’t really watched over nor were the places and events you experienced directly affected by anyone other than yourself, some discrete direction was provided because your life has been traumatic but everything was yours.” He replied and looked around in silence.

“I must have shamed myself then. When I was taught how to properly harness telekinesis my mind immediately wished for Shells for me to kill. I knew that all of it was not real despite how accurate everything was and yet I allowed myself to be overcome by my rage. I destroyed those fakes in numbers beyond counting and in ways I couldn’t comprehend before, I felt joy in the fear, pain and agony they projected. I kept going until everything around this fake body of mine was littered with broken husks as far as I could see, their black blood having drenched all in its wake as if it was a tidal wave. They tried to harm me and I knew that this dream world, this simulation, would allow even the most excruciating pain to be felt but it was beyond futile with what I am now capable of. As I found myself in that field of bloody death I could only think of how unfulfilling it all was, I could feel and sense everything as if it was real and yet their destruction didn’t fulfill me in the way I had thought it would. I felt shame at the realization that I held contempt, anger and rage against beings so beneath me. They need killing but they are not deserving of anger in the same way maddened animals are not deserving of it.”
She turned to look at him at that, only to see him smiling as he looked at the setting sun. “I believe that I can now compare what I was before with what I am now and the only thought that comes to me is if you thought of us Loroi in the same way I thought of the Shells after my realization?”

“No, never!” He replied almost instinctively. “Your kind is worse and greater in equal measure. We hold contempt and disgust against you for what you did with the few gifts that you were left with but we also hold an admiration for how your kind avoided some of the crimes that we have committed among ourselves. We humans are a species that is fractious by nature, much like you Loroi; we have always warred and fought with each other and the past half of a century is actually the first time that we as a species have been truly free from organized conflict. This unity through Ascension was brought forth by the greatest war humans had fought with each other, before that war was waged only two relatively minor factions had become truly Ascendant. The faction I was part of had Ascended first by using our own tools and minds, the faction that followed soon after Ascended after using Soian technology that they had managed to salvage. Ascension is a delicate matter and beyond reason we hoped that our brethren that would Ascend after us would come to the same conclusions as we did; unfortunately we were wrong and many humans suffered greatly as a result. The Soian philosophy of forcing order to chaos poisoned their minds, their form was still human but they tried to strip themselves of their humanity in the same way the Soians ripped away their sentience. By taking the easy way and thinking themselves superior they proceeded to war on the still Unascended human factions. The lesser humans had the technology necessary to mount a resistance but they weren’t fighting Ascendants that were working with emotionless and calculating logic, they were fighting something monstrous that couldn't be reasoned with in any acceptable way. We pleaded with them, we repeatedly tried to show them the error of their ways but it was to no avail, they had deemed the Soian mission of bringing order to chaos as their absolute divine mandate that should be accomplished by any means necessary. They had to be stopped and I planned the operation that did exactly that.” The alien looked up into the sky at that. “We made sure that not even their deaths would be seen by other Ascendants. Most died but some surrendered when the inevitable came for them; we still debate if we should have killed them regardless of that, rather than keeping them quarantined until they can somehow make up for their mistakes.”

“Is that why you are doing all this? Why you chose me to Ascend?” She asked, she hadn’t been told anything so far but the implications were plain to see now.

“Yes. Your kind would never willingly follow anyone without a good reason; we concluded that someone from the universally respected Teidar caste would be an ideal baseline for a paragon for your kind to look up to. Then we looked up for individuals with peculiar abilities and personal histories, you stood up from among them in an instant; a tragic life, an unparalleled strength and intentionally sidelined because of rotten coincidences and bad luck. You Ascending in the most dire moment of the war and being there to turn its fortune in your kind’s favor will be enough for you to get the attention of many of your caste mates who will be the first to swear fealty to the first Loroi Ascendant, the warrior who rose above all else by force of will alone.”

“I never wanted any of what you describe.”


“No one worthy ever does.” He said as he turned to look at her. “A millennium ago one of my ancestors, who bore the same name as I do, became universally known for being the greatest human explorer who had lived up to that point. He was forced into a difficult situation and decided to forgo his dream of exploring the stars until he found sapient life in order to make sure that he wouldn’t witness the worlds he discovered be consumed by war. He succeeded in that, the seemingly inevitable war of that time breaking out a decade after his death; the last words he left at his death bed being ‘I never found them’. I am certain that he would have found your ancestors if he kept himself on the path he wanted to tread instead of doing what was necessary at the time. Perhaps it’s for the best that he didn’t; perhaps it’s for the worse.” He looked away and shook his head at that. “Your kind has to Ascend, we cannot protect you from those whose attention your kind has attracted without you being worthy of the sacrifices necessary for us to do so; nor can we tolerate a repeat of the madness that we put a stop to half a century ago. You will be the first Loroi Ascendant, if not by choice then by the necessity borne out of you being the best possible candidate for the task. There will be other worthy warriors that will be provided gifts, they may use those gifts to help you or hinder you but know that we won’t provide any further aid to anyone and we will make sure that no other Ascendants will interfere with your Ascension whatever form it will take. You will all be Loroi and it will be up to all of you to act as you see fit.”

“Why do all this for us? If your kind had a Lotai forced on you by the Soians then you should be hating us with all your being. I can barely conceive the rage that we Loroi would feel if someone stole our telepathy from us; the Soians stole far more from you and yet you plan to see us Ascend and it doesn’t take a lot of thought to realize that you will exterminate us if we turn into the ones you fought before.”
Fireblade pointed.

“I have repeatedly told the other three that honor demands this much from us. If it’s one thing that you Loroi understand then it’s this: Honor demands for us to see you succeed or die by our hands.”
He stood up at that and looked her straight in the eyes. “Now come, it’s time for you to understand.”

She felt something powerful and irresistible grip her whole being before dragging her someplace faraway with unimaginable force and speed. A solon later she felt herself in control of another illusionary body and she opened her eyes to find herself standing amidst a forest the likes of which she had never seen before.

“Where are we?” Tozet Beryl broadcasted the instant Fireblade could sense her. Parat Tempo and Lashret Stillstorm appearing next to her after a few moments.

“You are on Earth, the Human homeworld, approximately 400 tozons before the fall of the Soians.”
The Senator broadcasted as Fireblade turned to look at the others, their bodies were perfect illusions but their minds where still there.

“Palan Fireblade knows it already but these aren’t your real bodies, they are projections necessary for maintaining a sense of mental being while experiencing all this.” She sensed the other three turn their attention to her, their subconscious littered with barely controlled emotions and thoughts that brought forth a singular question from all three of them.

“I have Ascended.” There was no other way to explain it, she knew that they hadn’t unlocked or taught her everything but she was more than she was before and she knew that the rest were wholly up to her. She sensed Parat Tempo’s intention to raise her mental defenses, Tozet Beryl’s curiosity overcoming all reason and Lashret Stillstorm forming the belief that she had already turned traitor; they were so slow in all this that she had already formed an answer for everything but elected to reply to the one thing that her pride couldn’t stand.

“I am still Loroi.” She knew that this alone wouldn’t be enough but ones so limited couldn’t hope to sense the full truth behind it, how different and yet the same she was now.

“I don’t believe you!” Stillstorm sent accusingly and Fireblade felt a tingle of anger rise up inside her but another sentiment rose up to swallow it whole as she sized up her commanding officer.

“Pitiful…” All she could do was pity them, all three of them. So limited in their perception, so guarded; so… lesser in every conceivable way. She looked at the alien and wondered if that’s how he still saw her.

“No.”
He replied instantly and raised his hand to point at something. “These ones are the first ones that we want to show you.”

All three of them turned to look at what he was pointing at, about a couple of dozen of mannals ahead of them was a small group of pink humans that wore primitive leather clothing, their mental signatures were seemingly weak but as Fireblade focused at them she realized that they were just distorted to them by something.

“Even with the measures we have taken it’s very hard to sense people from the past, it’s almost impossible to intercept their sendings but one can monitor their state of mind and the telepathic network they have set up.” The alien explained.

“They are telepaths!”
Beryl broadcasted excitedly as she walked up to them. “What are they?”

“They are Neanderthals, one of our human ancestors.” He replied. “It’s a foraging party of 5 females, 2 children and a young male to provide security.”

“They are shorter and they look like they have a larger skull and a slightly different body build than you.” Beryl commented as Fireblade with Tempo and Stillstorm walked up to them as well, it felt eerie to look at them as close without them even realizing that they were being watched. All of them were shorter than she was; their females were about as short as a Loroi male while the lone male was about the height of an average Loroi female. Their heads were definitely bigger than the alien’s, with bigger noses, a smaller chin, with slightly protruding brows and a forehead that immediately bent backwards.

“They are ugly.”
Stillstorm broadcasted.

“Your stone age ancestors after the Soian fall weren’t pretty to look at either, Lashret Stillstorm.” The alien replied with a laugh. “The Neanderthals were a human subspecies that evolved to thrive in the often frozen northern continent of Eurasia. Their bodies were geared to survive in cold and high altitudes; they had stronger muscles and bones than the other humans of the time while they also had eidetic memories, unlike the other humans who only sparingly had that ability while still having all other gifts.”

“Their telepathic network is laid out oddly…” Tempo commented. “As if the eight of them have two leaders at the same time.”

“Indeed, it’s all down to the main evolution dynamic of Earth’s mammals where the males are geared to be dominant and females are geared to be submissive. Human sapience didn’t change this evolutionary directive but it has given it an interesting twist in regards to the social dynamics between the sexes. In this instant the young male has been given the de-jure leadership of the foraging party by his father who is also the patriarch of the extended familial unit of which this group is but a small part of but the lead female of this group is his mother who is the mate of the patriarch and as such she is the de-facto leader of this group. In fact she should be considered the co-lead of the entire familial group as every last female in it looks up to her and does what she tells them to do.”

“They are too clean, both their bodies and their clothes made of hides.” Beryl commented. “In fact the clothes seem to be better made than their stone tools and the crude spear the male is carrying.”

“They are also very well fed.”
The alien added. "What do you think of that?” Beryl frowned in thought at that.

“The low quality of the tools doesn’t coincide with such prosperity for a hunter gatherer society. Unless they aren’t actually relying on their tools. In fact they don’t seem very proficient in using them if I am to judge by how the females are gathering plants with what they have. It makes no sense… they are telekinetics!”

“Indeed they are, very strong and proficient telekinetics whose main weakness was their lack of scientific understanding in order to draw out the full potential of telekinesis; all humans of the time had almost the full arsenal of Ascendancy available to them but due to this lack of scientific understanding they couldn’t really be called Ascendants in the way we describe ourselves now. Now as for the stone tools you see them using, they are purely ceremonial, in their culture the food for celebratory banquets, religious offerings or for honored guests had to be collected by female hand or killed by a male hunter’s weapon. In this occasion they are gathering food to offer to the gods who live far above the height where one sees the curvature of the Earth, where it is very cold and breathing is hard.

“The Soians!” Beryl realized.

“Indeed. All humans of the time saw their ships at the night sky when they were close enough and could collectively sense them once they focused themselves at the task. The Soians kept their
distance as a matter of course which led to the human belief that the Soians were gods. This ridiculous cultural epiphany from all humans lasted for far longer than it should.”
He sent before pointing at the matriarch of the group that was still going about their business of gathering food with their stone-age tools. “It’s time for us to be somewhere else but remember this female well.”
The invisible force took hold of them again, this time the transit was instantaneous but they didn’t find themselves on a planet but inside what looked like the inside of a space station, with telepaths all around them.

“These are…” Beryl begun as she stared at the identical aliens who were going about their business.

“Soians.
” The alien finished with clearly felt hatred at the mere sight of them. “They became what you now see after deciding to forfeit what they once were. They chose a form they thought would maximize the Ascendant potential while simultaneously rooting out all of their sentience and everything they considered superfluous. They were just one of the many Ascendants who followed this path.”

“They seem weak.” Fireblade thought as she observed them closely.

“They are weak, in more ways than you can realize just by observing them in this way.” The alien replied. To Fireblade the Soian form looked like a mockery of theirs, blue skinned and slightly taller than her, with long arms and legs, a small torso, a featureless face with bland blue eyes, a small slit like mouth with no lips and two small holes where the ears should have been.

“They have no noses.” Stillstorm commented as she too was taken in by the bizarre sight they offered.

“Their mouth serves that purpose with only a rudimentary sense of taste and smell remaining.” He replied.

“They don’t look able to put much of a fight, or even survive in the wild.” Stillstorm added.

“They didn’t need to suffer any of that, they were Ascendants. They had the technology and abilities necessary to be beyond all such trivial matters. They also had several specialized servile races ready to do their bidding at all times, should something beneath needed to be done.”

“I had trouble sensing them at first but if these are indeed Soians then I cannot sense any kind of emotion from them, their minds are hard to discern but they seem focused to a singular task at all times. I find this hard to believe considering that even the minds of Shells wonder in small ways when they are working.” Tempo commented.

“What is a living being without sentience? What is someone who turned themselves to emotionless beings of logic? What truly limits them from acting on every thought that seems logical but is actually monstrous?” The alien pondered in a manner that reminded them of Loroi males. “Most Ascendants followed the route of the Soians in regards to the choice of Ascension, becoming beings of cold calculating logic that are universally focused on a single overarching goal without much consideration of even their individual selves. The beginning is almost universally the same but the ‘logical’ path they choose to follow are usually vastly different. The Soians chose to bring order to chaos by creating a finely tuned eternal empire with them as their task masters; nothing would get in the way of that goal and those who were problematic were simply replaced by Soian Liron copies that were fine tuned to fulfill specific tasks. Of those still living you know of: the Barsam fulfilled the role of shock troops, the Neridi the role of engineers and the Pol were living repositories of knowledge.”

“What about us?”
Beryl asked.

“You… will witness what you were intended to be soon enough.” The alien replied. “Let’s say that you accomplished the task that you were created for, for now sate your curiosity by witnessing what happens when Ascendants like the Soians miscalculate.”

They waited for some time, as hundreds if not thousands of Soians passed by them as they stood and waited in the massive and quite spacious corridor that he had brought them to, Fireblade easily sensed Stillstorm’s impatience growing by the moment which served to increase her own when an impossibly strong telepathic shout swept their minds asunder, by all accounts they should be dead but she felt something protect her and the others from the worse.

“Consider this a warning for your own kind’s forays into the past.” The alien sent after recovering from the shock. “Certain Ascendant abilities affect all, even those from the future who choose to snoop in. We took some pretty obvious precautions for this endeavor but you will be on your own on your future attempts.”

“Why didn’t you warn us?” Stillstorm sent angrily after collecting herself.

“For the same reason you let your dirals out in the wild with little to no help.”

“What was that?” Tempo asked as she just stared at the reaction of all the Soians around them, the vast majority of whom now laid mentally dead with only a fraction able to flail around both physically and mentally.

“The beginning of the first human revolt.” He replied and the invisible force again dragged them to another place in an instant with the result of witnessing something that shocked them to their very core; they looked almost exactly like him, hundreds if not thousands of males like him but Soia-Liron!

“What you see here are human males that had their biochemical template forcefully changed into its Soia-Liron equivalent for two very specific reasons. The first being for the Soians to test if the one to one change in regards to biochemistry as well as the subsequent upgrades would affect natural Ascendant potential and the second to extend the life span of their captives so they could train their Soia Liron copy when it would be finalized.” He replied with a sense of subtle pride emanating from him about what was happening around them. “They thought of the Soians as gods to be honored and cherished but instead they were abducted, put through torturous experiments, had their bodies and minds shackled while ending up with blue blood instead of red. Massive Ascendant galactic empire or not they knew that the Soians had to pay for all this, not that they had much of an idea of the true abilities and resources the Soians had at their disposal but they were wronged and they would do everything to put that right.” He pointed at a small number of blue humans that went from one to another and telekinetically ripped away the collars and shackles that their comrades were wearing. “They are violently revolting after being trapped in this stockade deep within a Soian dreadstar for decades. It took some time but a handful of them managed to find a way to disable their mental shackles which allowed them to shout in unison and take out the vast majority of Soians on this part of this dreadstar. Now they are freeing the rest of the captives here before the Soians manage to activate the fail safes put in place.”

“Biochemistry aside they look almost exactly like you while your Neanderthal ancestors were obviously different from you.” Beryl asked as the blue humans around them cheered in droves.

“The Soians didn’t see much worth to the relatively specialized physical form of the Neanderthals and many other humans of the time, electing to make some modifications in order to have the Soia-Liron copy be able to thrive in a wide range of environments. These early prototypes that the captives were transformed into represent these changes which ironically are the exact same changes that natural humans went through after our Ascendant abilities were locked away. Earth has a wide variety of natural environments and some nasty natural predators used to walk on it at the time, the ability to thrive on all these environments was the key to our success as a species after our primary evolutionary weapon was forcefully taken from us.”

“You said that the Neanderthals were your ancestors.” Beryl pointed out.

“Our ancestors that were anatomically modern humans coexisted with Neanderthals for some time which resulted in lot of interbreeding between the two subspecies when they weren’t busy bashing each other at the head with clubs and rocks. Most humans today have Neanderthal genome in them so they technically are our ancestors even if they proved to be an evolutionary dead end when the cold north they evolved to thrive in became warmer.”

“What are they doing now?” Stillstorm asked as all the blue humans around them stopped cheering and stood in silence as if they were concentrating on something.

“This stockade they are trapped inside has no known way in or out, everything that went in was handled via teleportation technology. They may have freed their minds and abilities but the hurdle of getting out is still there.


“So they are trapped then?”


“Are they really?” He asked but his thoughts made it obvious that this wasn't the case.

“Their minds!” Tempo realized. “They are synchronizing with everyone else and… That’s impossible, even if they don’t need to touch each other the mental conflicts alone wouldn’t allow this!”

“They are not mind melding, not in the way you think at least. The highly disciplined telepathic networks you Loroi employ allow you to coordinate in highly complex and difficult endeavors, however the mental outlook you have is too proud and self-centered to reach the logical conclusion of such networking. Human males are, on average, result oriented altruists in their way of thinking. As long as every single one of us understands that something has to be done then we will do everything in our power to do it, even if it means sacrificing everything we are in the process.”
Even with the inherent difficulty in sensing them Fireblade felt the minds of all the blue humans move in unison, the telepathic wake of the effort alone being enough to sent shivers down her spine. As one they concentrated on a single spot on the walls that contained them and launched a single massive telekinetic attack that shattered everything in its wake as several mannals of armor just gave way from the sheer pressure.

“We humans had mass drivers mounted on our warships a millennium ago, weapons that were weaker than the telekinetic attack of these two thousand men.” The alien commented as the captives rushed into the open gap and into the rest of the dread star.

“What are they going to do now?” Stillstorm asked.

“Fail.” He replied and shook his head. “They will succeed in freeing their females but they have no avenue of escape. They have yet to even realize that they are in a Soian dread star, they will tear everything they can from the minds of any Soian unlucky enough to be caught alive but there was simply no way for them to escape this place even if they knew how to operate a spaceship. It took two nanapis but the Soians managed to kill every last one of them and recapture the females.”

“It was futile then.”


“The first revolts usually end in failure but they are never truly futile. More Soians died in this revolt than the combined death toll of the previous 8 millennia while this dread star was left crippled, with its surviving population dispersed into the remaining 7 dread stars the Soians had until enough resources could be allocated to repair all the damage that was done to it. The various servile races suffered dearly as well, since the Soians took great care to have the majority of the key manufacturing capacity that their empire needed to run come from their own dread stars, taking out one of them even for a little while caused friction among the ranks of those beneath them. Funnily enough it wasn’t the Soians who managed to stump the first rebellion but the Barsam, the Soians sent thousands of them in suicide attacks in an murderous battle of attrition that exchanged blood for mere mental fatigue as the Soians were otherwise unable to compete with the natural Ascendant abilities of humans, especially the naturally combat focused males.”

“The breakout cost them as well.” Beryl sent with clearly felt distress as she pointed to the couple of dozen dead who littered the now empty stockade.

“That’s the way it works Tozet Beryl; we do or we die trying to bring forth the desired result. This time the result they gained was two nanapis of violent freedom with plenty of dead Soians added as a bonus.”

“They are…males.”
Beryl continued, drawing a sense of amusement from the alien, amusement mixed with appreciation.

“We feel the same when we witness dead Loroi warriors.” The alien commented. "The first human revolt was bound to end in failure but it did force the Soians to radically change their approach in regards to the planned Soia-Liron copy."

Chapter 4, part 2: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 642#p26642
Last edited by Guest on Sun Dec 11, 2016 6:59 pm, edited 5 times in total.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/20/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

On the next part that is now half done: The first Loroi.

User avatar
dapple26
Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Jul 24, 2014 9:59 pm

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/20/2016)

Post by dapple26 »

You really work fast.

Sweforce
Posts: 546
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:00 am

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/20/2016)

Post by Sweforce »

Nice, you are getting there thou there is a minor scientific error in that not all humans got Neanderthal ancestors. White Europeans got the most and Africans got none, providing they are racially pure individuals. Not that it would really affect the story one bit, except perhaps it would leave Africans with no natural path to ascendancy if those Neanderthal genes are necessary. Perhaps it was eager people among them that choose the artificial method to ascend? Perhaps explorers from some pan African empire that found those artefacts? Other less intrusive methods could have been used later to aid others ascend regardless of Neanderthal genes, most simply race mixing if nothing else.

What is written below are highly volatile non politically correct facts but we are just deluding ourself if we keep ignoring this:

A sad fact regarding Africa is that large portions of the population have relatively lower intelligence mixed with high testosterone males making for a harsh conditions trying to build stable societies. You do not need to be very intelligent to use a kalashnikov and with it you can steal the fruits of smart peoples labour, ruining their efforts to create. Now if there was to become an "pan African empire" sad society have to be non democratic and rather brutal, perhaps grown out of some actually smart warlords that realise what works and then do it.

My suggestion is to look at today's South Africa, massive use of affirmative action have ruined the country when well educated whites are pushed out from their jobs to be replaced by less capable local blacks. This is also happening in Zimbabwe with the same ruinous result. The same goes on in the school system. If the South Africans realised that they are ruining their country this way and accepted that a higher percentage of the white population then the blacks are capable of absorbing higher education much could be done. Due to the sheer differences in numbers one would still see black people dominate in society but the whites would have a higher percentage of their people up there. There would be no need for race laws, just a simple intelligence based cast system and a century or two later they could be leaders of such a Pan African empire.

I suggest looking at this Norwegian program for inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOnQPXuU81Q

I found it linked to from this blog, apparently run by a coloured person: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-r ... a-q-f-r-b/

South African affirmative action: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-01/w ... id/7676764

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/20/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

If there is one thing that one can call me that is: Non PC.

I didn't want to dwell into it so I just wrote: 'Most Humans have Neanderthal genome' all in order to cover the currently known scientific facts.

Perhaps I didn't dwell in it enough but it is directly pointed out that the main mental difference in this story between Neanderthals and the other human sub-species is Eidetic memories. Neanderthals are universally eidetic, the rest are not but are still naturally Ascendant; i.e. are still able to toy with the universe at will.

Absalom
Posts: 718
Joined: Sat Sep 24, 2011 4:33 am

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/20/2016)

Post by Absalom »

Sweforce wrote:Nice, you are getting there thou there is a minor scientific error in that not all humans got Neanderthal ancestors. White Europeans got the most and Africans got none, providing they are racially pure individuals. Not that it would really affect the story one bit, except perhaps it would leave Africans with no natural path to ascendancy if those Neanderthal genes are necessary. Perhaps it was eager people among them that choose the artificial method to ascend? Perhaps explorers from some pan African empire that found those artefacts? Other less intrusive methods could have been used later to aid others ascend regardless of Neanderthal genes, most simply race mixing if nothing else.
You skimmed, all the human races appear to have been naturally Ascendant, not just Neanderthals.


The race subject:
SpoilerShow
Sweforce wrote:What is written below are highly volatile non politically correct facts but we are just deluding ourself if we keep ignoring this:

A sad fact regarding Africa is that large portions of the population have relatively lower intelligence mixed with high testosterone males making for a harsh conditions trying to build stable societies. You do not need to be very intelligent to use a kalashnikov and with it you can steal the fruits of smart peoples labour, ruining their efforts to create. Now if there was to become an "pan African empire" sad society have to be non democratic and rather brutal, perhaps grown out of some actually smart warlords that realise what works and then do it.
You also skimmed here. Intelligence & testosterone are partially related to genetics, but mostly linked to behavior, including what you're thinking; testosterone is semi-actively controlled (literally, if you are anticipating competing against someone, or even just holding a gun, your testosterone levels increase), and intelligence is boosted by certain mental patterns (hating to think is a great crippler of learning & thereby intelligence). The problems that Africa has had have mostly come down to social structures: they were feudalistic for as long as Russia, and afterwards they were still dominated by "euro"-supremacists and "secret" feudalists. The "warlords" that you refer to are just as smart as they need to be, because their goal is not and never has been the improvement of their people, unless it's specifically their own tribe. They've been in it for themselves, so forcibly keeping most of the population down has been perfectly satisfactory for them.
Sweforce wrote:My suggestion is to look at today's South Africa, massive use of affirmative action have ruined the country when well educated whites are pushed out from their jobs to be replaced by less capable local blacks. This is also happening in Zimbabwe with the same ruinous result. The same goes on in the school system. If the South Africans realised that they are ruining their country this way and accepted that a higher percentage of the white population then the blacks are capable of absorbing higher education much could be done. Due to the sheer differences in numbers one would still see black people dominate in society but the whites would have a higher percentage of their people up there. There would be no need for race laws, just a simple intelligence based cast system and a century or two later they could be leaders of such a Pan African empire.
The problem in South Africa is a microcosm of societies in general: the rulers haven't been overthrown, but also are ruling mostly for themselves, with the result that all of society gets distorted in favor of a small elite to the disfavor of the majority: another take on apartheid in essence, but favoring a "politician black" class instead of a "Dutch" class. If they'd actually cared about improving the situation of the black races present in South Africa then they would have instituted an affirmative action apprenticeship & active assimilation (of the black population, for the sake of speed) program in the trades to start building up black participation in the economy. Regretfully, regardless of what their initial motives were, they mostly care about power now.

Zimbabwe is another example of the same thing: regardless of initial motivations (which a quick Wikipedia search suggests to me were really no different), Mugabe & co mostly care about power right now.

France was every bit as bad during it's initial revolutionary period, the reason it doesn't seem the same is the passage of time, and the availability of previous superior social structures to fall back on while rebuilding their future. If France had been a colony of Han Chinese until a hundred (or fifty, for that matter) years ago then it would have much the same problems even now.
Sweforce wrote:I suggest looking at this Norwegian program for inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOnQPXuU81Q

I found it linked to from this blog, apparently run by a coloured person: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-r ... a-q-f-r-b/

South African affirmative action: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-01/w ... id/7676764
Dogs, it turns out, are a perfect example: the "pit bull" breeds are commonly thought of in America as being vicious breeds created for fighting, but truly vicious specimens are almost uniformly trained to be such. Those dogs that are genetically vicious are not typified by most looks, but by inheritance: they have recent inheritance from actual wolves. The "wolf" analogues of humanity, however, have largely been eliminated by millennia of their neighbors getting tired of their nonsense and descending on them in a mob: those populations simply don't exist anymore, even in Africa, leaving only geographical specializations in their wake. Furthermore, their aggressiveness produced an innate disability in cooperation, making it highly difficult to form large mobs: any human race that you see exhibiting group behavior in large & violent mobs does not contain "wild", but instead "domesticated" specimens, because the wild specimens of group hunters are too aggressive to work in groups larger than maybe a dozen: counter-intuitively, the more docile a specimen, the easier it is to get them to work towards violence as a group, because docility makes it more likely for them to mimic the group. Innate intelligence is similar: there's a genetic component, but "geniuses" and "genetic imbiciles" are exceedingly rare, most of the difference in intelligence being mostly experiential (my sister-in-law has a sister that is effectively illiterate, because she was allowed to be); Benjamin Franklin even had a saying about geniuses: "genius without education is like silver in the mine".

Jews, for what it's worth, are also a good example: because they had no choice. Jews were the favorite boogeymen of Europe, so they were chosen for the jobs that the video talking about, because these jobs were disapproved of (merchants and bankers were both considered a form of barely-legal thief). Jewish presence in those fields is not related to intelligence, but instead to history (a third of a point intelligence increase per generation is perfectly within the abilities of selection of the fittest? It's also completely within the capabilities of social pressure).

And about blacks? For a long time, blacks from Africa scored higher in New York City tests than blacks from the city itself. The reason isn't genetics, or even the education system: blacks in that part of Africa were expected to learn, whereas blacks in America have traditionally been punished for learning.


At any rate, this really belongs in another thread.

User avatar
Imperator Sylvor
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2016 10:47 pm

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 11/20/2016)

Post by Imperator Sylvor »

For some reason this fanfic gives me an Interstellar vibe.

Could just be me, though.

Please do keep up the good work, I find myself strangely entranced by this fanfic.
"A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that'." - Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane." - Philip K. Dick, VALIS

User avatar
Durabys
Posts: 117
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:57 pm
Location: Czech republic

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 07/22/2016)

Post by Durabys »

dragoongfa wrote:
raistlin34 wrote:
dragoongfa wrote:
PS: The Soians were run of the mill Ascendants in this regard, others are more benign, others are far worse and far more self serving.
:shock: :shock: :shock:

How high would The Ethereal of X-Com register in the "Ascendant jerk-o-meter"?
About equal or slightly below the Soians depending on why they were actually doing what they were doing, if they were doing it just to save themselves from their disease then they were self serving in their nastiness and as such slightly below in their jerk-o-meter since they didn't actually wipe out their failed experiments.

If they were doing it so they would become strong enough to combat a greater evil than them as it is hinted? Then about equal.

The benign type of Ascendants are the kind which uplifts most lower species with little to no exception with the idea being that 'everyone should share'. They intervene in the lives of those below them but they don't outright wipe out the problems they see, they just put them in some short of cage and move on. The end result is a bunch of stagnated species who got provided everything they needed and thus fail to innovate and properly ascend on their own resulting in a clusterfuck when they do ascend with the help of their 'benefactor'.

The run of the mill are the Soians, species who want to bring order to chaos via the establishment of a carefully laid out social order under their rule. Those who can work within the confines are well and good, those who cannot? They are fucked. The Soians replaced the troublemakers with Soia-Liron copies, others just wipe everything out and seed something else.

The bad ones are split into two categories:

First is the 'Order through homogenity' type that intends to create a singular super state with the forced biological and social conversion of all sentient and sapient races they run into. The end result is that everyone looks, thinks and acts the exact same way.

The second is the 'I did it for the LoLz' type, see Dark Eldar from Warhammer 40K mixed with the benign type from above. Their goal isn't exactly to gain pleasure from the misfortune of others but to see what will happen if they alter certain stuff in a way that would force a radical reaction. Imagine someone suddenly giving our giant squids lungs, bullet and bombproof skin and an appetite for human flesh.

The main problem that all Ascendants run into (bar maybe one depending on your point of view) is that all of them end up without the deep seated biological drive to strive due to the way they changed themselves. Entities that function through cold logic and its divergent ways of application with little empathy and remorse is the rule, in short almost all Ascendants are the definition of a psychopath which is why they don't last very long.
Are there any Close-To-Ascension species that went: Okay. Fuck..This..Shit. No Ascending if this is what happens to us after it..also..Best Science Team! Enter our super tech archives and design a Dimensional Jammer that block any Ascended and their Dimensional/Psionic Fuckery out of our territory. We are going full isolationism. Tune out the noise lads and lass!
Si vis pacem, para bellum. - If you wish for peace, prepare for war.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 07/22/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

Durabys wrote: Are there any Close-To-Ascension species that went: Okay. Fuck..This..Shit. No Ascending if this is what happens to us after it..also..Best Science Team! Enter our super tech archives and design a Dimensional Jammer that block any Ascended and their Dimensional/Psionic Fuckery out of our territory. We are going full isolationism. Tune out the noise lads and lass!
Most Ascendants were gradual and extremely slow in their way of becoming so, not in the span of centuries. Not in the span of dozens of milleniums but in the span of hundreds of thousands of years; some took even around a million years to make the way from tech level 14 to 16 where Ascendants are. On that level of slow progress, the gradual cultural changes combined with the tinkering of their bodies down to the molecular level make some stuff seem reasonable and even moral. The Soians didn't wake up one day and said 'lets cast aside our form and sentience and rule lesser races with the iron fist of cold logic'; it slowly crept into them and by the time they made that decision they were already completely alien, both physically and mentally, to their ancestors of old.

Also bear in mind that the vast majority of sapient races do not get anywhere close to Ascend, most go extinct or technologically regress long before reaching tech level 14. Ascendant interference of all kinds does play a large part in this regard but the key reason of failure and extinction always lays with plain old stupidity.

Humanity in this fan-fic Ascended almost instantly all things considered, mainly due to the fact that they were natural Ascendands who just had their powers locked away. All of the non-Ascendant major human powers before the Unification war had the technology necessary to undo what the Soians had done, in this regard tech level 14 is where someone first has the technology necessary to realize what Ascendancy is and to offer some resistance to Ascendants proper.

These non Ascendant humans had taken notice of the observable side effects of the Soian tampering but chose not to investigate further for a variety of reasons. The Old worlds begun researching into Ascendancy after becoming aware of the Loroi, almost 200 years before this story takes place. The Serene republics that were the big bads of the Unification war? These ones discovered relatively intact Soian tech and reversed engineered it, thus jumping two whole tech levels in the span of a century.

And no you can't jam Ascendants in a meaningful way without fucking up something important since all dimensions are intimately connected with one an other. Imagine something akin to this:

Researcher: "So we have figured out a way to completely nullify telepathy in a small area..."
Politician: "That's great, when can you mass produce it?"
Researcher: "The side effects are dire however."
Politician: "It can't be as bad as letting those maniacs run loose."
Researcher: "After even a short exposure in this anti telepathic field, bio-electricity becomes irrevocably unstable and as a result everything simply dies."
Politician: "What? HOW?"
Researcher: "We are theorizing that bio-electricity and telepathy are inseparably connected in the dimensions that telepathy works with."
Politician: "Damn... How about telekinesis."
Researcher: "Unfortunately we have yet to make headway with an anti-telekinesis field, the key reason being that our most successful attempts also somehow ended up breaking the atomic bonds of the devices themselves."

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 12/11/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

Chapter 4, part 2

There were so many questions that Beryl wanted to ask that she didn’t even know from which one to start; every time she thought to ask a particular question her mind just brought forth eight more question that were just as important and yet she didn’t dare ask any of these because she feared delaying the next revelation ever so slightly.

The force took all of them again, another short trip through time and space; this time they found themselves amidst a place that every single one of them had been before.

“A telepathic classroom!” Beryl thought as they saw 16 students sitting in a large circle meditating, with a teacher standing at the center; obviously monitoring and probing their minds.

“Blue female humans this time?” Lashret Stillstorm asked with a hint of annoyance in her mind.

“Only one of them is human.”
The Senator replied. “The teacher.”

“The others are not Loroi, they have round ears.” The Lashret pointed out.

“They have four fingers!” Beryl broadcasted as she knelt in front in front of one of the meditating students.

“These are… the end result of the Soian experiments with humans.” The senator explained. “What you Loroi think you are.”

“That’s impossible!” The Lashret shouted angrily only to be laughed at by him.

“So predictable…”


“If these ones are the end product of the Soians then what are we?”
Beryl begun, ignoring the Lashret’s angry glare. “How did they call themselves? What happened to them?” Beryl asked all at once without caring anymore.

“You are… something different… cruder but greater. As for how they called themselves? It never really mattered for your ancestors who simply considered them their wicked sisters. In fact that’s how your kind called them throughout your existence.” He replied.

“From the Legend of Tempest?”
Beryl asked before she even realized what the name implied about their fate.

“Yes. Almost all of your legends have a large degree of truth in regards to past events. Your low tech ancestors couldn’t understand the higher concepts behind them but they did keep the underlying truth intact.
” The senator explained. “Human legends are similar in their foundations but the truth was radically altered along the way. All of our major legends and past religious dogma revolved around the deep seated, species wide trauma that the Soians inflicted on our Stone Age ancestors. For some reason all of our post Soian ancestors felt themselves fundamentally broken, as if something important was missing from them; they explained that sense, the vocal traditions of our resistance to the Soians and the near extinction of our species at their hands as divine punishment over a great Sin, a war between Heaven and Hell for the dominion of Earth and a divine cataclysm meant to counter human debauchery. Little did we know that all that was the action of an advanced civilization who did all that after they got what they wanted from us; which was a sufficient number of specimens that would be experimented on and subsequently convinced or coerced to train our Soia Liron copies.”

“I wanted to ask you about that.” Parat Tempo cut in at that. “Why would the Soians need Humans to train the copy? Were they unable to do it themselves?”

“Indeed they were unable to offer any meaningful training. As far as we are aware, and we are aware of a lot more than the Soians ever were, we Humans are the only natural Ascendant race to emerge successfully. Our evolution into natural Ascendancy was sudden in cosmic terms; which allowed us to gain our gift without losing the non-Ascendant aspects of our bodies while also being slow enough in social terms in order for us to properly adapt to these new gifts without going insane or extinct from misusing them. The Soians who had cut off their sentience were completely unable to grasp a way to properly train the… copies they crafted out of our image. For them simply being able to control your emotions and natural impulses while also being an Ascendant was incomprehensible and went against everything they knew about Ascendancy. Despite all this they believed that they needed a servile race with natural Ascendant abilities, even in the limited capacity they would allow, and they took the risk of keeping a small number of Humans alive for training purposes. A risk who’s worst case scenario became a reality two times too many as far as the Soians were concerned.”

“So if I understand you correctly; the blue humans, male and female alike were the only human Ascendants left by the time of the first revolt?”


“Yes.”

“Which means that at the time this classroom was taking place only the females remained?”


“Yes, with the natural humans back on Earth blinded and hunted close to extinction and with the captive males dead the remaining females, which at this time numbered 2135, were the only potential teachers available. The key problem the Soians faced was having them live long enough for the final product to be ready since adapting natural Ascendants was a far more complicated matter than making a one to one copy to Soia-Liron biochemistry, then have the various evolutionary garbage cleaned and then streamline various aspects of the end product. The adaptation was further delayed by the first revolt since the Soians concluded that the form of the human male was far too dangerous to keep as it was; they had to get somewhat creative because of that and turned their focus in breaking the male form while adapting the female form to be the core of the new race, discarding the natural cooperation of the two sexes. They did so after mistakenly concluding that our females are naturally docile and non-violent because of the natural domination and submission mechanics of Earthen mammals and how it translated into the human societies they observed. It was a mistake that cost them more than they could comprehend because of their complete and utter failure to understand that human females were never unquestionably submissive while human males were never unquestionably dominant. They first adapted the female reproductive system into what you now have, it offered much needed emotional stability and allowed a far longer reproductive life. Then they introduced increased hormone production that induced increased aggression and competitiveness; the initial prototypes weren’t allowed to live for more than a day because of the almost extreme aggression they exhibited. Subsequent behavioral adaptation slowly netted better results which lead to further adaptations, including a large array of hair colors and the universally pleasant smell you Loroi are known for. I should point out that all human females in history would kill without hesitation to have your reproductive system, your hair and your perfume of a bodily scent. We human males would settle for our women having your reproductive system if we ever had the choice, although the scent would be a nice bonus.”

“You say that to consider your females submissive and docile is a mistake yet all I am seeing is one of them teaching a class of your copies, the supposed final Soian product.”
Stillstorm pointed out.

“Indeed, they look like they are cooperating with the Soians, in fact they cooperated so well that they were allowed some limited freedoms but looks and actions can be deceptive…”
The Senator replied. “If the average human male can be described as a result oriented altruist then the average human female can be described as a social oriented egoist and egoists hold grudges.”

“What was the Soian goal for creating this new race? The wicked sisters?” Beryl asked out of turn and felt joy and a sense of accomplishment from him; not for her asking that particular question but for her finally asking what she wanted to know most at that moment.

“They had… many functions but they were not warriors in the way we humans and most aliens describe the term. Out of all the Soia Liron species only the Barsam were copied and adapted with war in mind. You Loroi however have a very influential warrior caste that perfectly encapsulates what they were intended for; in fact your current Emperor hails from that exact caste.”

“The wicked sisters were Mizol?” Beryl asked in disbelief as the Lashret burst into laughter, with Palan Fireblade barely holding her own laughter back while Parat Tempo just stared at him in disbelief.

“Yes, they were even named Mizol by the Soians as they were designed to be the Sentinels of the Soian order.” He replied as he looked Parat Tempo in the eyes. “By monstrous coincidence the very nature of Perrein caused the Loroi of that world to forge a warrior caste which not only bore the same functions as your wicked sisters but also bore the same name as that now extinct race. Perhaps it’s the universe’s sense of irony at work or perhaps your ancestors unconsciously wanted to spite the wicked sisters even in their graves.” He spread his arms as if he wanted to encompass everything around him. “If there was one thing that the Soians found to be a waste of time with the running of their Empire; that would be them constantly having to deal with all the lesser races and their foolish sentiments. As Ascendants they only had to sense the minds of the lesser races to know everything that there was to know but that didn’t mean that they could really understand them. They couldn’t comprehend why so many were against their order or how they could hide their thoughts of sedition for so long. They policed the lesser races themselves and made examples of those who planned to rebel but the Soians were horribly outnumbered and couldn’t be everywhere with sufficient numbers while certain measures they had taken were deemed to be counterproductive on the long term. They needed loyal Sentinels of order to do their bidding and watch over the lesser race; these Mizol were exactly that. A Semi-Ascendant lesser race, which had the few Ascendant capabilities necessary to fulfill the task. They were physically non-threatening and sentient telepaths, able to fully understand the intentions of all lesser races that the Soians held dominion over. They policed the Empire far more efficiently than the Soians themselves, in fact they managed to surpass the best estimates of their creators; managing to uncover and root out numerous long running seditious plots in seemingly loyal territories. The Soians would be ecstatic if they were still sentient since they were able to now shift their focus fully on the development of their empire of eternal order, even if that meant the replacement of a few more races that were not as loyal as they initially thought they were. The Mizol were active for a little more than a century but they had already excelled in the Local bubble where the Soians had their initial and relatively limited deployment; who knows what would have happened if the Soians had given them the free reign they had planned to give them on all of their territories.”

“If the Soians had created the race they wanted with these ‘Mizols’ then how were we, the Loroi, created?”
Beryl asked again.

“You will soon see exactly how you came to be, for now pay close attention to this human female Listel.” The Senator replied. “She arguably is prettier now, with a nice soft orange for hair color, with Soia-Liron biochemistry and sporting several ‘upgrades’ that the Soians tested on her and all the other surviving captives.”

“The Neanderthal female from before?”


“Indeed. At this particular moment she is 312 Tozons old and she is biologically immortal because the Soians had wanted them to live for as long as possible. At this moment in time she and all the other captives were considered superfluous inventory by the Soians but they still had potential uses, they were cooperative and the Mizol had grown rather fond of them. In the end the Soians elected to keep them alive and out of harm’s way in a small Mizol outpost on an out of the way dusty planet that served as an environmental training ground. Of particular note in that star system was the recently Soian-Liron terraformed planet that was given to the Mezerot.”


“Deinar! So this happened on Mezan?”

“Indeed.”


Suddenly the mind of the blue human female tensed up and a moment later the heads of all 16 of her students were crushed simultaneously by powerful and precise telekinetic strikes.

“They bid their time by cooperating with their captors, willingly doing anything and everything imaginable to survive. They were the perfect test subjects for centuries, going through unimaginably cruel experiments that resulted in the Mizol but all that time wasn’t for naught. Each one of them learned all they could and the eidetics among them became their repositories; they didn’t know everything but they knew enough to be considered proper Ascendants.” He sent while looking at the female’s back who was walking towards the door without paying any heed to the carnage she had wrought. “The Mizol had been intentionally downgraded which was one of the three key reasons as to the initial success of the second revolt, the others being the fact that they were taken by surprise and that the human females that slaughtered everyone on Mezan had the scientific knowledge necessary to make full use of their natural Ascendant potential. Two thousands of them killed twenty times their number in the span of 8000 solons, within half a day they had interrogated all of the commanding officers and specialists they captured; a day later they had ‘liberated’ the small flotilla that was stationed on Mezan and were on their way to Taben.”

“Taben?” Beryl asked as she sensed the Lashret’s interest being picked at the mention of her own world.

“The Soians had deemed it appropriate to not provide the Mizol with a world of their own; something that would allow Mizol numbers to grow beyond the few hundred million Mizol that the Soians intended to be alive at any given time. Instead a few small enclaves were built on various worlds and Taben had a handful primary enclaves where their creations would be allowed to be among their own, even spend some time with males should their numbers be in need of bolstering. And no, Perrein was never settled by the Mizol, in fact it was classified as an inhospitable death world by them.”
The senator replied before the force took them again, this time taking them amidst a very crowded room where numerous males that looked like Loroi, with the exception of the ears, were hiding in fear as nearby explosions shook the whole building.

“Mizol males? No they have five fingers.” Beryl sent without thinking.

“After the first revolt the Soians deemed the natural form and mindset of the human male to be extremely dangerous and impossible to control. They also wanted to be able to perfectly control the population growth of the Mizol and as such they elected to both severely downgrade the male form and make the births of males rare. The body was downgraded; shorter and without the muscle mass one would expect from a human male. At first they were also made somewhat emotionally unstable; mirroring in a way the emotional instability of the human female during the menstrual cycle but that was catastrophic in the early prototypes, resulting in pitiful violent outbursts and suicides. Later attempts had their emotional and mental stability return before their gametes had their male to female ratios changed from 106 males for every 100 females to about 10 males every 92 females.” He pointed at the cowering males before continuing. “These males were from one of the final prototype batches before production of the finalized Mizol males was initiated. They still had some small genetic issues to be taken care of, as well as having the number of fingers lowered. Normally they would either be terminated or upgraded to the finalized form via teleportation but this particular batch had an interesting mistake occur in their telepathic Ascendant abilities.”

“Are they all farseers?”
Tempo asked after realizing something.

“Indeed they are. The Soians had deemed the average human level of telepathy to be far too potent and dangerous and as such the Mizol had no individuals with such abilities, this particular batch however were all farseers despite all attempts and fail safes to limit such potential. The Soians elected to keep them alive for study before being disposed of; one of those experiments involved them being transported on Taben to be observed while they interacted telepathically with the sizeable Mizol enclave here.”

“Did the females revolt to rescue them?” Beryl asked.

“Yes and no.” He replied as he waved to the 36 males in the room. “It’s true that they revolted after learning of these obsolete, five fingered, males that were on Taben but they did so because they thought that these males were somehow survivors of the first revolt. Beyond all reason they hoped that would be the case and they wouldn’t have acted if they really knew what these males were.”

Suddenly five heavily armored warriors appeared in the room with a flash of light; one could easily mistake them for Loroi if they didn’t knew any better.

“The Soians, for all the restrictions that they imposed on them, trusted the Mizol far more than the other races they created and allowed them access to warships and otherwise forbidden technologies; one of those being teleportation. These women were teleported here to secure the males and quickly take them with them before the flotilla that normally patrolled this system returned from investigating the intentionally delayed distress call from Mezan.”

“They seem to be hesitating…” Beryl sent as she observed what was unfolding in front of them.

“These weren’t the males they were looking for Listel Tozet. They may be blue but they are not Loroi; human females are geared to be attracted to strong, successful and dominant males. The archetype of the Loroi male is not alluring to them at the slightest, they find your males ‘effete’ and as such they don’t have the same outlook towards them as you may have. These five seriously considered abandoning them on the spot or even killing them outright but these males managed to salvage the situation they were in because they didn’t have any particular affection towards their creators to begin with.” One after the other the 36 males disappeared with the same flash that the 5 armored humans appeared before they too were teleported somewhere else. The invisible force then suddenly took them to the place those five materialized again. “They just told them where the Soian science team that observed them was.”

The eight Soians didn’t manage to react as blue gore was just sprayed everywhere as the eight of them were telekinetically torn apart the same instant the 5 humans materialized among them.

“Pieces of shit, we will make it slower the next time!” One of the five yelled angrily in Trade before a relatively small black metallic box caught the attention of all five of them.

“They learned Trade?” Beryl asked as she observed a weird telepathic exchange between the five of them.

“Of course. It’s obvious by now that they weren’t idle during their captivity. They may have been completely uneducated Stone Age people but they were still intelligent sapients and Ascendants. It took centuries but they learned all they needed to know to do all this.”

“What’s in the box?” Tempo asked. “I sense an extremely feint life form in it.”

“That’s a Pol, or rather the brain and mind of a Pol that was used as an archive for these 8 Soians. Unlike the crude cyborgs that you and the Shells are able to create, the Soians were more than able to permanently store and maintain living brain matter in such a small device.”

“What kind of archive and why would they use a living being for such an archive?” Tempo continued.

“This particular specimen holds all information regarding the creation of the Mizol as well as the research data of the observed males that were just ‘liberated’. As to why they were using the Pol in this way? It’s because of the Pol’s incredible ability to maintain their collective memories across multiple generations, coupled with telepathic expertise and fail safes the Soians had an eternally self-replicating, loyal and faultless archive at all times. This specimen is now in this state but they could easily give it a new body with teleportation technology and allow it to procreate should they need more copies of its memories.”

The five humans and the black box disappeared with the same flash they had appeared; the invisible force took them again immediately after that, another very small trip that brought them amidst another relatively crowded room as several of the blue human females were discussing something telepathically in obvious heated arguments.

“What are they doing?”
Beryl asked.

“They are despairing. They hadn’t thought this far ahead, they managed to hide themselves amidst the great wastelands but beyond all reason they hoped that their males would lead them to safety in the same way they did back on Earth but as far as they knew at that very moment all human men were dead; murdered by the Soians.”

“Weak minded fools then…” Stillstorm commented.

“A Loroi warrior such as yourself would certainly see a human female in such a way and in many cases you would be right but these women are far beyond such a description. Weak minded fools would never be able to trick the Soians in the way they did, to tolerate brutal experimentation, to suffer being artificially inseminated and then have the fetuses aborted so their captors would test the new reproductive system on live specimens that knew about human pregnancies. They knew that the lives they carried in them were meant to be killed and experimented on and yet they still went along obediently as they shut their righteous rage inside them as tightly as possible in the hopes that one day they would act on it.”

“Very capable liars then…” Stillstorm sent making the Senator laugh.

“Indeed Lashret, our females are exactly that.” He replied and looked at the unfolding events in front of them. “They lied in the hopes that they would somehow find their males and be saved but that hope is now lost; all that is left in them is despair and the bottomless hate within them.”

The mood of the blue human females suddenly shifted as they all turned to face a small group of five that just entered the room they were all in; among those five was the orange haired human from before.

“Our women work with consensus among themselves, unlike you Loroi, and there were plenty of small factions among them who vied for different things as to their next course of action but none of those offered anything to look forward to. They knew that they were trapped amidst the Soian Empire, that there was no way to escape and that the Soians and the Mizol would come for them. The ships they had commandeered were advanced enough to provide for them and last for decades to come but that didn’t mean anything to them. They were the last of their kind, sterilized for tozons and time worked against them. It took them a while but they agreed in a course of action.” The force took hold of them again and brought them to witness something that Beryl, Tempo and Stillstorm had experienced themselves.

“She is giving birth?” Beryl asked. “Didn’t you just say that they were sterilized?”

“They and the rescued males were but not in a way that the medical technologies of their ships couldn’t repair, especially when combined with the almost surfeit amount of information that the Pol they ‘liberated’ contained. The main issue was that the eggs the females produced were of an earlier prototype than the gametes of the males; the few tests they were able to run indicated that the offspring would be viable but they didn’t really know what would come out of them. They did know that the female early prototypes were extremely… ill-tempered; while the males had some… issues. Fortunately for the soon to be born males the Y chromosomes of their fathers carried almost all of the ‘fixes’. Unfortunately for you they also carried the fail safes of the later prototypes.”

“I wouldn’t call our males without issues…” Beryl broadcasted without thinking only to draw more laughter from the Senator.

“If there is one more thing that Loroi and Human males share that would be the fact that we are both eager to commit stupid acts if it ends in a mating encounter. Your males have it easy when compared with us, if only because of the lopsided numbers.” The Senator commented before taking a serious demeanor again. “I am glad that you realized what is about to be born.”

The orange haired female yelled in pain as she pushed with all the strength that her body allowed while the two medics overseeing the birth were undoubtedly encouraging her telepathically.

“Despairing raging hatred is a sick driving force but it does bring forth results; you Loroi may find it odd but our women always knew, either consciously or sub-consciously, that if they weren’t able to fulfill their grudges themselves then their children would be the ones to carry their will. As our nurturers they knew how to impart everything on all of their children and if the sons somehow failed in their tasks then their daughters would give birth to more sons to act on that grudge. These ones knew that the few weakly sons they would give birth to would never be able to act on the hatred their mothers held but their numerous daughters were completely different. They knew why the Soians considered them dangerous and they held the perverse hope that they would be what they wanted them to be.”


The baby slowly came out, first the head, then the shoulders and then the rest of the body. It was a girl with blue hair, five fingers and two nicely pointed ears; the two medics quickly cut the umbilical cord, one of them then held the baby upside down by its two feet and slapped its buttocks lightly until it cried. The other medic then wrapped the baby with a white cloth before giving it to its mother.

“The ears of the resulting births were shaped as such because of an anti-mutation fail safe that the Soians put in place in order to guarantee no evolutionary divergence for the Mizol. Any child exhibiting pointed ears would either have its mutation repaired or it would be discarded but soon the ears would end up signifying something completely different.” The Senator broadcasted.

“That’s a… Loroi?”
Stillstorm asked, with disbelief clearly at the forefront of her mind.

“That’s one of the first of your ancestors yes but she and the others never called themselves Loroi, your kind started doing so much, much later. They described themselves with the name their mothers gave them which was the descriptor of the very purpose for which they gave birth to you, the Trade word for vengeance: Porei.”


Chapter 4, part 3: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 907#p27907
Last edited by Guest on Sat Jul 01, 2017 9:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 12/11/2016)

Post by dragoongfa »

Now I either jumped the shark or blew some minds; probably both.

Absalom
Posts: 718
Joined: Sat Sep 24, 2011 4:33 am

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 12/11/2016)

Post by Absalom »

dragoongfa wrote:Now I either jumped the shark
Not unless it degrades after this.
dragoongfa wrote:or blew some minds; probably both.
I'm not sure what was supposed to be mind-blowing? The thing with the Pol & teleporters is vaguely interesting, and you narrowed down some stuff, but that's it. If you've got something mind-blowing, then it probably won't show up until you exposit what Jardin considers reprehensible about the actions of the Loroi.

User avatar
Durabys
Posts: 117
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:57 pm
Location: Czech republic

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 12/11/2016)

Post by Durabys »

And this entire explanation will have no meaning because they will get mind wiped and then everyone but Fireblade gets killed by Fireblade.
“You mean that Greywind will love one of her grandnieces becoming her staunchest political opponent? Ready and able to start a Union wide popular revolt to ease the tight rule of the Emperor after the final victory of the war is fully accredited to her?” The Senator’s reply visibly caught the Lashret by surprise. “If there is one thing in common between humans and loroi beyond the high mating drive of their respective males, it would be the fact that our respective young ones have a habit of revolting against their elders. Torret Ashrain could certainly be the one who would lead the Loroi Axis faction, she certainly has the brilliantly dashing and adventurous personality needed. In fact with her at the lead its more than probable that Greywind would relent in the face of overwhelming public pressure and step down from her current position peacefully but this is not what we want. We want the Union to be at the verge of a civil war that would outclass all others that your kind has ever fought, with Greywind and you leading the Imperial and Axis factions respectively. It won’t come to a war however, in fact a third party will emerge and decapitate both factions in a quick and brutal fashion. The next Loroi Emperor won’t be the Tabenese Soroin who led the Loroi fleets to victory against the Shells, the next Loroi Emperor will be the first Loroi Ascendant. A young Teidar from Seren whose telepathic, telekinetic and other powers will easily surpass those of your legends and the irony will be that she won’t act in such a way out of a thirst for power but because her respected elders would be too proud and foolish to solve their differences in any other way than a civil war that could very well mean the end of the Loroi as a species.” All three of them were stunned at that and stared stupidly first at the alien and then at Pallan Fireblade who still looked as if she was meditating.

“Do you… think that we will allow you to manipulate us in such a way?” Stillstorm blurted out angrily.

“Manipulate? No Lashret Stillstorm, that used to be the prevailing forecast of ours provided that you, Parat Tempo and Palan Fireblade received what you have now received. You would win this war with our discreet assistance and then choose to consume yourselves with your usual politicking when peace would finally return to you. The Loroi Axis and the disgruntled civilians would rally around you en mass, the conquering hero who won the war. The Imperial faction led by the Mizol caste would be unbelievably bolstered by Parat Tempo’s near supernatural clairvoyance and diplomatic skills while the Teidar will see an unprecedented cult of personality form around the greatest Teidar that has ever lived. You Loroi are predictable like that.”

“You believe that we would act that way now that you have told us all this?”

“Do you really think that you will remember any of this while you do all that? Besides, I have already used my authority to invalidate the previous prediction by including someone intriguing into the equations.”

“Then what’s the point to this entire farce if we won’t even remember anything?” Tempo finally cut in.

“There are a few reasons; many of us believe that it would be monstrously immoral of us to have you do your part in your ascension without your consent. Others believe that this is the only way for us to know if we have picked the right people for what’s to come. Some naïve idealists believe that future Ascendant Loroi will want to witness the first step of their kind's Ascension provided that your kind doesn’t turn into out of control beasts at the process, which is the most likely scenario considering the base nature of yours.”

“Do you truly expect me to believe any of this?” Stillstorm snapped back at him.

“You will believe it Lashret Stillstorm, everyone who witnesses the truth in the way you are about to witness believes it.” He broadcasted as he turned his gaze back at Stillstorm. “I will expect your answer after you witness everything that there is to witness but know this: You Loroi will be far stronger and better to face the coming wars after you willingly sit on that chair and make what you will of the truth after you have become aware of it. I am not going to force you on this so decide now, sit on that chair or tell me to get Torret Ashrain here because my patience with misguided pride has its limits, in fact the only reason that it hasn’t run out is my respect to you as a commander.” Stillstorm just stared angrily at him for a few moments.
If you kill Beryl and Tempo in this I am going murder you across the internet! :evil:
Si vis pacem, para bellum. - If you wish for peace, prepare for war.

Krulle
Posts: 1413
Joined: Wed May 20, 2015 9:14 am

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 12/11/2016)

Post by Krulle »

Durabys wrote:If you kill Beryl and Tempo in this I am going murder you across the internet! :evil:
Well, I would strongly advise you to not do so.
For one, this would be illegal, and I'll make sure the authorities will find you.
Second, he's my current favourite fan fiction author, and comforting me over my "no new Outsider page" time right now. I would kill you over the 'Nets for that.
Thirds, I do not want to be an avenger. Please do not make me be one.
Vote for Outsider on TWC: Image
charred steppes, borders of territories: page 59,
jump-map of local stars: page 121, larger map in Loroi: page 118,
System view Leido Crossroads: page 123, after the battle page 195

User avatar
Durabys
Posts: 117
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:57 pm
Location: Czech republic

Re: [Fan Fiction] The pale horse (Updated: 12/11/2016)

Post by Durabys »

Krulle wrote:
Durabys wrote:If you kill Beryl and Tempo in this I am going murder you across the internet! :evil:
Well, I would strongly advise you to not do so.
For one, this would be illegal, and I'll make sure the authorities will find you.
Second, he's my current favourite fan fiction author, and comforting me over my "no new Outsider page" time right now. I would kill you over the 'Nets for that.
Thirds, I do not want to be an avenger. Please do not make me be one.
And some people have the sense of humor of a piece of rock. News at eleven!

Still, fuck him if he kills Beryl and Tempo.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. - If you wish for peace, prepare for war.

Post Reply