((If you wish to join this RP feel free to do so on the Sign Up thread: http://kh13.com/forum/topic/61942-echoes-and-ash-an-original-sci-fi-rp-sign-ups/ Sign ups will be open until the end of the RP, but the sooner you can get involved, the better))

 

((As a side note to all RPers, the enviornments in this RP are mostly designed by me to make sure the flow of the story works well. When entering a new area or opening a door to an unknown area, please end the post with a "..." and I will quote the post and describe the new area your character finds.))

 

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TrinityNet servers active...

[REDACTED] joined...

[REDACTED] joined...

[REDACTED]: ?

[REDACTED]: Whatya mean "?"

[REDACTED]: Why did you call this?

[REDACTED]:To see if you started...

[REDACTED]: Why would I tell you?

[REDACTED]: Please, as if that kinda info's gonna give any of us a leg up.

[REDACTED]: Of course I did. The fact that you wanted to find out means that you started too.

[REDACTED]: Which just leaves...

[REDACTED]: She's not here. Which means she's busy and doesn't want to talk. Which means...

[REDACTED]: Her too...

[REDACTED]: So the clock's ticking.

[REDACTED]: Guess so...

[REDACTED]: Well I'm going to get back to it, they're waking up, thanks for wasting my time.

[REDACTED]: Hey! That's not nice!

[REDACTED] left...

[REDACTED]: Jerk...

[REDACTED] left...

 

The wind blew softly over the island. Besides the soft swaying of the trees there was little to disturb the idyllic serenity here. The island stretched out for miles, but at the coasts there was nothing to see but water. The island, like the universe in which it existed, was nearly empty, the remnants of life clung, decaying, to its shores and its trees and its fields, but the yells of excitement, of fear, of courage that has once complimented the sound of the wind ha since faded to echoes. Today, however, that changed. Today life returned to the universe. The only question is; what kind of universe would it return to?

 

"C'mon, get up!"

"All of you, wake up."

"Rise and shine, it's a new day."

 

Far away voices entered the hazy minds of those sleeping on the island.

 

Lying on the shore of a short beach was Seraphim Valentine, Derik Absolon, and Samantha Allison, and Rodin Seefull. The wind blew over them as they lay sprawled over the sand in close proximity to each other. Just as they had been placed. Next to the beach was a mix of jungle and swamp that went deeper into the mainland. Besides that the beach was mostly barren. A wrecked fishing boat was rusted and decaying within walking distance, but nothing more. The waves lapped up on the shore softly...

 

Lying in the middle of an airstrip surrounded by jungle was a different group. Rusted machine parts lay strewn about, and any sign of activity at the airstrip had long since faded. On the ground in the middle of the airstrip lay Alex Dimanche, Ferro al'Vere, and Hazimie Azhar.  Two desolate bunkers flanked the airstrip they were on, with a control tower at the end of the strip. Forest flanked the airstrip on all sides, with a single winding road leading out. The wind cut through the trees and sliced past the bunkers onto the airstrip. Only the wind and the trees provided any sound to the desolate military installation...

 

Deep in the jungle was a pair of rusted jeeps parked next to a crumbling house. The jeeps were long past functioning, and their engines were removed recently as well. The house sat surrounded by the trees with a single road leading somewhere further into the jungle. Inside the house were the four people; Rija Mors, Terry Frost, Henko Tenioenai, Koizumi Onnea, and Rin Nozomi Part of the roof of the house had caved in, and most of the belongings and furniture were gone. Remaining in the house were a few pots and pans, and single picture in an immaculate frame on a table in the room where the four people were laying. Silence pervaded the house...

 

The far away voices slowly awakened all of these people. The clouds in the blue skies above moved slowly; the morning was upon them. It was time to wake up and find the future...

Edited September 5, 201312 yr by MDSVeritas

Seraphim began to walk to the bridge. Then stopped.

"First off, where is the bridge? Second, what that dude asked." She frowned. "Third..." she grinned. "Can Genesys make me the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend?" She asked jokingly, hoping the lighten the mood.

"The name's Rodin, in case you didn't know."  Rodin sits in an empty chair and thinks:  I'm not going to say anything on that.  Just wait for something. 

Veridyan sighed.

 

"You gotta just understand; where we're going may not be all candy and rainbows. We'll be racing two other groups of people to find a machine that can change the structure of the life in the universe at a button click. I'm just making sure that we have some ability to do what may need to be done."

 

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Elaryse considered for a moment.

 

"Yes, Rodin, you can remove the armor that's damaged and place it on this workbench here-" she pointed to a small metal table next to her holographic display. "I will use some on board systems to repair it for you. Also, Seraphim, while it technically could, it builds on a biological and genetic scale, so unless you know the alleles you would desire it would be somewhat difficult to craft a perfect person for your own romantic ventures."

 

She paused.

 

"As for the fourth SA... his name was Vergyl. He was different from the rest of us. We all had distinct personalities and were at least somewhat outward, but Vergyl was very reserved and contemplative. He was effective because he seemed to have an extreme sense of empathy. It made it good when dealing with situation involving outside parties, or trying to understand thought processes, but he was sometimes ultra-sensetive to a point of ineffectiveness. He was the least concerned with the opportunities of Gensys of any of us. He disappeared when the humans did. It may be likely that he was wiped away like almost all the SAs besides us other Y-class ones and some older models."

Rodin says:  "Alright, cool."  as he walks to the table Elaryse pointed to.  He took off the torso armor and placed it on the table.  Rodin then says:  "Vergyl huh?  Hm, interesting."  He then thinks:  This Vergyl had more empathy than the others?  Hearing this, something tells me someone, or should I say SA, like Vergyl wouldn't disappear easily or without a more detailed reason.

Edited October 8, 201312 yr by Ultimus Grid

"I know I know we are chasing after these people you told us this. Kill me if you have to Veridyan." Rin snapped at the SA.

"Anyway, don't we need to hurry up if we are chasing after these people?" She asked, looking at Veridyan and tilting her head a bit

Seraphim frowned.

"Elly...Vergyl doesn't sound like our man...so...what if Vergyl was taken down before the rest of humanity disappeared? Is it not plausible that they could have taken out the empathy, then go through and fake his existance for the small timeframe needed to launch whatever?" She paused, conrinuing to walk. "Elly? How do we know that Daerius wasn't the culprit? He was a maniac."

"I am willing to sacrifice myself for any cause I believe is worthy," Rija put in, answering Veridyan. She had been quiet for a little bit, and she figured that she should at least say something occasionally, even if she had nothing to say. Anyway, Rija knew the answer to Veridyan's question before he'd asked it. Being a soldier, it was something she had to think about a lot. Rija knew that she would willingly sacrifice herself for any cause, but never without a fight, and never sacrificing a friend. That was the code she lived by. The soldier turned to Rin. "And don't say that Rin, we're all worth something. They'd have turned you away at the door for cryogenically freezing if they thought you were worthless, so at least there's that." Rija spoke to Rin.

It was clear that Rytt was still somewhat preoccupied with sifting through data, but he took some time to respond to Derik.

 

"Information? You'll see soon enough I think, but Genesys was a project I collaboared on along with the other SAs and the the primary science team I was assigned to. As you have heard, it was supposed to give the ability to creat new life by storing, rearranging, and releasing matter. It was almost complete when the disappearance happened. At the time things were tense- there was a civil war a-foot. It was brutal from the data I saw. A rebel faction wasn't happy with the way the current government- the United Human Collective- handled things, the creation of Genesys was the catalyst for that war. The last straw. People said that the UHC was playing god. It was a rough time all around."

 

He paused as he focused in on something, then came back to the conversation.

 

"The armory is through the red door behind you. It's a small room with light supplies of most metals and two workbenches. This wasn't originally a military ship so it ain't the biggest workstation."

 

He focused again.

 

"I've just about got it, I'm honing in on the signal that Genesys was meant to output. Any questions before we begin?"

 

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Elaryse sighed at Seraphim's request. "Yes, sure. It's not like I would be using the command seat anyway. In any case, I seem to have traced the various signals that seem identical to the output of the Genesys device. Before I prepare travel, do you have any more questions or requests?"

 

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"Got it!" Veridyan was ecstatic. "I finally found the tracing mechanism to Genesys. It's somewhere in... oh, very interesting. I'll set up the engines to travel through the local beacon so we can go faster than light."

 

He paused.

 

"While I'm doing that, I've got a question for you all, it may be something to think about given what we may find; how far would you go to make life happy for people? What would you be willing to sacrifice?"

"Excellent. Just what I need to hear." Derik listened to Rytt's words intently as he walked over to the small room. Plenty of different tools and metals were around, including the one material he wanted the most: led. He hastily grabbed the material, as well as a box of a material called "Madanantium". He pulled it out, finding a store of light-weight and seemingly strong metal. "It takes all my muscle to bend it..." Derik thought, taking the material out. He laied his jacket on the bench next to the led and Madanantium. "Do any of you need repairs to be made before we make our journey?" He asked the others.

Henko sighed and leaned up against the ships wall. "I'm so lost right now."

Seriously, you blank out for a few hours and you've got a cute girl and an apparent mission to save the universe.

He sighed again. Not what I signed up for.

Ferro checked himself. Surprisingly, he had made it through everything unscathed. Ferro silently congratulated himself, then called out to Derik. "Nope, I'm good!" He looked into the workshop. "That madanantium is an extremely inert metal and a good insulator. It's also very strong, as you may have noticed. Actually, my colleagues and I used it to contain the metadimensional core of the D-ppendage." Ferro flexed his claw. "I've studied a bit of materials science in my time. It's one of the reasons they chose me to work on the project."

"It is time for a lot more info from you, Veridyan." Terry said, taking a seat at a near by consul. "Cause right now, I've got as much trust for you as I do a rattle snake. You try to just spoon feed us or hold something back, I am going to find your AI core and ripping you a new one. We clear?"

A bright light suddenly shot out from a relatively small looking construct a ways away from the destroyed station. All three ships immediately began to be pulled towards it.  The approached the small space station construct slowly but as they drew closer gained speed at a ridiculous rate. Finally, just as they were about to hit it, a huge blinding light shot out from it, and in the next second all three ships were gone. The three were now speeding through bent fabrics of space-time, colors shifted around the ship and darkness would morph to brightness in moments and then back.

 

They were now traveling faster than light via the intergalactic beacon system.

 

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"There!" Veridyan seemed proud of himself "we're on our way to Fentralis, that's where I can detect Genesys. It's a super rainy and stormy place, but that's why it make for a damn good research facility, it's interesting that it went here..."

 

Veridyan's hologram jumped off the holographic machine where it had been standing and walked over to Henko. "Confused my friend. Lemme lay it out for ya then, 'cause that's what friends are for. We're gonna find the machine I was working on when humanity went poof. It should carry with it the various data logs from that time period. I wasn't able to access it's location after the disappearance, and now we've gotta find it and learn what to do next."

 

He turned and pointed to Rin energetically.

 

"Kill you? Ha, you're a pretty big dummy if you think I wanna kill you. So far you've been a big ol' joy, and you haven't tried to hurt anyone. I mean, you and Mr. Woof Woof here," he inclined his head towards Henko " are better than all those romantic comedies I watched outta boredom over the couple years everyone was gone. Heck if I wanna have you dead! I'm just saying, though, as much as we all want stuff, the reality we're gonna find ain't necessarily gonna be child's play."

 

He then jumped over to Terry. "And you, mister! That's some rough language doncha think? By the way, you can't rip out my core 'cause I don't have one. The data that makes me up is spread over thousands of serves and moves at a constant rate, making me impossible to mess with if ya ain't got a system built specifically to interact with my functions. In any case, you don't have a think to worry about bucko, I'm an open book, I've told you most everything already, if you want to know something, ya just gotta ask silly. You're an interesting guy, ya know that?"

 

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"It's true," Elaryse began as the ship veered into the wormhole-esque time-curve. "Daerius was crazy. He wasn't always like that though. He was a simple SA, built specifically to teach and relay information. Years of isolation broke him, he wasn't designed for that amount of time to think. He should have been normal at the time of the disappearence. In any case, he lacked both the ability and the clearance to enact any sort of action with such dire consequences."

 

"Oh, and if you were wondering, we're in mid travel because I discovered the location of Genesys- a research planet known as Fentralis."

 

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Rytt watched Derik work a bit as the ship moved into the time-warp. "I've got the signal now, it's from the planet known as Fentralis- a place used as a research base for various UHC projects. It's intriguing that it is there, that will certainly be a dangerous place to explore, so everyone should be prepared. We may need you expertise once in the base, Ferro."

Seraphim sighed softly.

"Vergyl. Could he have gotten a virus of sort....wait. Elly. Did that rebellion you mentioned have any SAs of any degree of function?" She had a theory that could put her heart at ease.

Let's hope it worked.L

"That's good news.  One step closer to finding this 'Genesys' and racing other people+SAs to reach it.  Awesome."  Rodin says with little enthusiasm.  He then says:  "Hey, how much longer till my armor is repaired?  I'd like to have the full set ready."

Ferro nodded assent and settled into a chair to watch the familiar pulsating lights outside the cruiser window. It seemed strange that he was the only person from relatively recent times. The UHC had been around for a couple of decades before Ferro was born, and it didn't seem like there was any sort of large-scale strife going on. That was before Genesys, though. "Rytt, what was the date of the mass disappearance?" After a moment of silence, Ferro asked another question. "And when was I frozen?" Ferro cursed himself in his mind for not paying more attention to his calendar.

Terry didn't react much to Veridyan's talk. He just continued with a blank stare some would find unnerving.

"Keep thinking your invulnerable kid." He said causally. "Just watch where you transfer yourself, eh?"

Terry spun in his chair and started working on the consul behind him.

"Okay, let's start with our next step. You do have one, right?"

After some time with various mechanical systems working on Rodin's armor, they all retracted back into their origin points.

 

Elaryse spoke, "Okay Rodin, the armor is fully mended, you should be fine to suit up again."

 

The hologram shifted to Seraphim. "As for your questions. no; there were no notable SAs involved to my knowledge. Some lesser units may have been used for logistics, but certainly no Y-class to my knowledge."

 

The ship suddenly jolted, and the colors that had been spiralling around it disappeared in lieu of the barely lit blackness of space. They had finished the jump. A planet was before them; dark blue and green in color.

 

"Welcome to Fentralis." Elaryse didn't seem particularly excited. The hologram shifted from her appearance to three different 3d models.

 

"These are the three main ways I can isolate to get you into the facility where Genesys' signal is coming from. The first is to enter from the walter and sewer system underneath the facility. There is less risk here, but it may take longer and I'm not sure what will be down there."

 

The hologram highlighted the second image, which looked to be a helipad. "This is the executive entrance. It's on the roof of the facility. You will be exposed to the harsh stormy elements of Fentralis going in, but it may be faster. I'm not sure about the security you'll face."

 

The third section was then highlighted. "Or you could enter in the recourse bay, I should be able to shuttle you there and convince the security there that you are a resource transport. That will bring you in just fine, but I'm not sure what supplies and resources they kept in the area. There could be hazardous things or technical malfunctions if the items there are too damaged from age."

 

"So..." the three selections were now before them, "Do you want to enter through the sewer entrance, the executive entrance, or the resource bay?"

 

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The Rex jumped out of the colorful FTL space and was suddenly hanging over a darkened planet that looked vaguely like Earth if Earth was in a perpetual hurricane.

 

"To answer your question, bud," Veridyan addressed Terry, "yeah I have a next step; you guys are gonna head into the premier UHC research station here where the Genesys signal is coming from and get there before anyone else. Now I get to show you guys how much I cherish democracy!"

 

Veridyan's holographic display disappeared, and in his place were three 3d models of different sections of a futuristic looking building.

 

"You've got three choices of how to enter. I leave it up to the group decision. Number one-" one of the 3d midels was highlighted- a huge metallix shaft next to the huge research facility "- the missile silo. It's where they did certain weapons testing. I can force open the silo doors and you guys can make it in to make your way through some of the most dangerous weapons known to humanity!"

 

The second model was highlighted. "Here's the second choice- The front door. This is by far gonna give you some building security, but I suppose it's the fastest route to the signal which is coming from the primary labs. Just go through the lobby and through some of the scientific testing areas."

 

"Or..." the third model was highlighted. It was a smoking metallic part of the building, crushed inwards. "I could use the other shuttles I have to crash your way in, that would be the quickest, but once you open up the facility to the weather of this planet, it may literally tear itself apart before the end of the day. The weather you remember from your time is nothing near that of Fentralis."

 

"So! Which will it be? The silo? The front door? Or do you wanna smash your way into the labs?"

 

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Rytt thought for a moment as the Bebop jumped out of FTL space.

 

"The year is currently 2204, the great poof happened in 2185. From what I recall of your records you were frozen a decade or two beforehand. The rebellion began in earnest about 2179, growing exponentially until the disappearance."

 

He turned to the glass that showed the space in front of them, including the dark blue planet before them. "Back to the matter at hand, this is Fentralis. This is where the UHC premier research station was, that's where Genesys' signal is coming from.  Now that we're here, I realize how goddamn big the place is. I'm not the one going down there, so I'll let you guys decide how to approach it. I just analyzed it and I've found 3 spots that are most likely to work and most likely for the other SAs to have chosen for entry."

 

Rytt's holographic projection went away, and three 3D models appeared.

 

The first was a small rectangular building in the shadow of the huge research facility- "This is the tram station, it is a ways from the facility but it's the safest entry point, though I don't know what the state of the underground tunnels that lead from the tram station to the research station."

 

The second was a model of a huge circular building- "This is the chemicals building, where the various chemicals used in the labs. The positive is that it's the closest to the labs, where the Genesys' signal is coming from. The negative is, well, chemicals. It's been 20 years too, which can't mean good things or whatever is in there."

 

The third was a small section of the the huge research facility- "This is the security station for the research building. It's closer than the tram station, but it's also the security station, and I don't know the state of the facility's security systems or defense bots- which are top-of the line."

 

"So... here's the choice for you three; The tram station, the chemical building, or the security wing?"

So I just witnessed inter-stellar space travel. It will certainly make an interesting science-fiction novel, if I were to ever return home. Alex thought, looking over Rytt's massive 3D model. "Not the trams. That's my only advice. If it's the safest way in, I get the feeling at least one other group will try boarding it. While it's impossible to avoid a fight at this point, I'd rather avoid as much unnecessary combat as possible."

Ferro looked at the models. "We could handle any robotic security, don't you think? Then again, we haven't had much success with that in the past." Ferro glanced at Alex's arm. It was healing nicely. "With the help of my D-ppendage, we should be able to avoid pools of chemicals with ease. I say through the acids and bases."

Ferro checked himself. Surprisingly, he had made it through everything unscathed. Ferro silently congratulated himself, then called out to Derik. "Nope, I'm good!" He looked into the workshop. "That madanantium is an extremely inert metal and a good insulator. It's also very strong, as you may have noticed. Actually, my colleagues and I used it to contain the metadimensional core of the D-ppendage." Ferro flexed his claw. "I've studied a bit of materials science in my time. It's one of the reasons they chose me to work on the project."

"Interesting..." Derik said, taking the metal, inspecting it, he moved over to the tools and produced a metal processor, as well as a few other tools =, and he began to melt down the material as best as he could, it achieved a much higher heat than he anticipated, it was well worth it's description, it was by far the strongest martial he had seen. He was able to use an unconventonal tool that looked like a strainer that was able to close it's holes to fish up the metal, he then went to a cooling table and held the strainer-like tool above it, then opened the holes to about the with of a piece of string. As the liquid poured out, it hit the table and quickly cooled. He did the same process from here as he did making his coat first time around, making the material just like cloth. He took his old coat, and then fused the new material to the top, and preformed the same with the led, only placing it underneath his first coat's layer. He placed the coat back on, by this time the path was being decided. It was far heavier than before, the metal his boots were made up took the impact and even seemed to warp under the pressure, but Derik stood tall. Now that's more like it..." he thought, moving the jacket around. "Protection from blows, heat, and radiation. Good armor." He thought, before voicing his opnion on the path.

 

"Smartest path is the chem lab. though the chemicals may be unstable, we should be fine, and we will get in and out faster. My vote is for the chem lab.: He said, then decided to ask. "Do you have any more of the helmets and some high-speed resistant black paint?"

"There!" Veridyan seemed proud of himself "we're on our way to Fentralis, that's where I can detect Genesys. It's a super rainy and stormy place, but that's why it make for a damn good research facility, it's interesting that it went here..."

 

Veridyan's hologram jumped off the holographic machine where it had been standing and walked over to Henko. "Confused my friend. Lemme lay it out for ya then, 'cause that's what friends are for. We're gonna find the machine I was working on when humanity went poof. It should carry with it the various data logs from that time period. I wasn't able to access it's location after the disappearance, and now we've gotta find it and learn what to do next."

 

He turned and pointed to Rin energetically.

 

"Kill you? Ha, you're a pretty big dummy if you think I wanna kill you. So far you've been a big ol' joy, and you haven't tried to hurt anyone. I mean, you and Mr. Woof Woof here," he inclined his head towards Henko " are better than all those romantic comedies I watched outta boredom over the couple years everyone was gone. Heck if I wanna have you dead! I'm just saying, though, as much as we all want stuff, the reality we're gonna find ain't necessarily gonna be child's play."

 

He then jumped over to Terry. "And you, mister! That's some rough language doncha think? By the way, you can't rip out my core 'cause I don't have one. The data that makes me up is spread over thousands of serves and moves at a constant rate, making me impossible to mess with if ya ain't got a system built specifically to interact with my functions. In any case, you don't have a think to worry about bucko, I'm an open book, I've told you most everything already, if you want to know something, ya just gotta ask silly. You're an interesting guy, ya know that?"

 

 

 

"I haven't hurt anyone because I don't want to hurt someone...AND the people I want to hurt AREN'T HERE." Rin muttered.

"Me and Henko aren't together!! Goooossshhh why does everybody think that?! We are kinda friends...yaaa but does that mean that we are together!" she snapped.

"Nothing is child's play" Rin sighed, looking at Veridyan slightly.

 

(Rin sound like me when I'm pissed off....)

Henko ignored Rin's ranting. He pondered the choices the SA had given them. "I feel as if going through the front seems to be our best bet. I'm still a little fizzy on the details of this whole mission but I'm game, may as well bring mankind back to life if I can. I suggest storming in as opposed to facing the storm, or causing one." He had a sinking feeling that people didn't exactly understand what he meant by that...

"If you can get me into the resource bay, we can cobble together whatver is there to help. Plus I can directly link in and attempt a hostile takeover of the security systems. As the servers haven't been maintained or defragged, it will have errors and be pretty vulnerable. I just need to get inside." Seraphim said.

 

She turned to Rodin. "What do you say?"

"I think we should go through the weapons department." Rija interjected. As much as she appreciated the two weapons she had nabbed herself, they didn't seem to have done much good against some of the enemies they had faced. "If we hurry, we can get through there, grab a few helpful items, and still make it to the Genesys before the others do. It's always good to have some security to fall back on." Rija spoke, backing up her points with logic. She looked at Henko. His demeanor had completely changed since she had last been with him. I might be dangerous to have him along, because if he turned into a bloodthirsty tyrant again during something like democratic negotiations, there might be a problem.

"Okay," Elaryse said, "objections to entering through the resource wing?"

 

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"Hmm..." Veridyan pondered "so is it gonna be the front door or the weapons silo?"

 

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"Alright then," Rytt began "so we've got two options; the security wing or the chemicals building. You guys need to decide."