[LP CYOA] Epic

[Rex Feral]

A.

And how about no, regarding the jar-heads.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Rex Feral: How about yes?

***

Special Episode


Announcer: Erika Dunamis, Kyrie's cyborg clone, that immortal bitch, the galaxy's most beloved pop star Qin, and Sekhenun's child - last of the gieloth species...

You're the next contestants on...

The Price Is Right - Epic Edition!

Intro Music: Dun a dun dun!

Announcer: With your host...Senya Barker!

Intro Music: Dun a dun dun dun a dee dun dun dee dee!

Audience: *applause*

Senya: Thank you, thank you! Ladies...welcome to the show.

Immortal Bitch: My name is Mere! Mere Tarliss! And just what the hell is this?!

Kyrie's clone: Hoshikawa, you dog! What are we doing here? We were just about to assassinate the Emperor of the Mushu!

Senya: Oops. So was he Marduk after all?

Qin: Senya, you've angered Kyrie! Wait, what *are* we doing here? I was just singing on stage! Well, lip-synching really, but does anyone really expect me to sing while pole dancing and shaking my ass like a stripper for my fans 15 and up? I AM a pop star you know...

Erika: Ugh...

Gieloth Child: Wait. Did someone say Marduk? I though I was the last Gieloth...

Mere Tarliss (Immortal Bitch): Actually it wasn't Marduk at all. In a clever plot twist - uh, I mean a surprising turn of events - it turned out to be the ancient immortal Ean's penis which, after getting sliced off in the void and falling back into our reality, grew into a copy of Ean. A rather angry and sexually frustrated copy - which isn't that surprising considering that in all the legends of your world he *is* portayed as a virgin. His poor penis was starved for attention so it started an interstellar empire bent on galactic domination... Typical.

Senya: Virgin? But he fathered a ch--

Kyrie: WHY ARE WE HERE?!

Senya: Well, I'm glad you asked, Kyrie's clone! Today you're all in a *very* special competition. Rod, why don't tell the ladies what they're competing to win today?

Announcer: Today's contestants are competing to see which one of them will have their head sliced off and put inside...

*curtain pulls back*

A NEW JAR!

Announcer: That's right, this lovely glass container was constructed by none other than the fine folks at Future Jars LTD and features all the latest in modern jar luxuries: Notice the elegant curves, the comfortable glass bottom, the pre-punctured air holes in the solid bronze lid. Why this little beauty just screams "put a human head in me". And it can be yours today. Just be the contestant to guess the closest to its actual price.

Senya: Thanks, Rod. And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, I want to call your attention to our lovely hostess and show model, the former ISC's own top hacker... Miss Anna White!

Anna:

Senya: ...oh...right...

Anna:

Mere: Wow. Ok, that is just sick. I mean your jar fetish, not the pile of limbs over there that apparently used to be called Anna. That's pretty fucked up too by the way.

Kyrie: Is there a door out of here? And who are all these people in the audience? Hello? Why are you staring at me? Do I have to kill one of you to get out of here?

Erika: I take it back. You haven't changed at all, Senya. You're still a weird pervert. You've been fixated on this jar thing ever since you read that book my uncle gave you. Though that glass bottom does look pretty comfortable...

Senya: What's wrong? You'd all survive the process.

Qin: Um, pretty sure *I* wouldn't.

Senya: Pretty sure *I* don't care.

Gieloth child: Riiight. Ima just activate mah hormone powers so you'll all have sex now.

Senya: *sigh* Oh, well. That's all we have time for, folks. Until next time, don't forget have your pets spayed and neutered!


Fade-out Music: Dun a dun dun...

Erika: Pervert.
Senya: How exactly does that make me a pervert? It's for population control!
Erika: Animal pervert.

Anna:

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

And that, my friends, is what happens when you have too much time and a childhood filled with gameshow reruns. Ah, Bob Barker... Your charm and wit were as legendary as your ability to subtly harass your female guests on live national TV. At least Senya didn't have any of the girls reach into his pocket for $100...

 

[Smashing Axe]

A seems like it'd carry too much risk. The White Fangs are wanted terrorists, associating with them will do nothing for our public image. Plus, they're hardly the most trustworthy of companions and may attempt a coup or something at the station. It just doesn't seem worth it for a chance at regaining some power at the risk of loosing to our other self.

B

 

[Rex Feral]

Rex Feral: How about yes?

***

Special Episode


Announcer: Erika Dunamis, Kyrie's cyborg clone, that immortal bitch, the galaxy's most beloved pop star Qin, and Sekhenun's child - last of the gieloth species...

You're the next contestants on...

The Price Is Right - Epic Edition!

Intro Music: Dun a dun dun!

Announcer: With your host...Senya Barker!

Intro Music: Dun a dun dun dun a dee dun dun dee dee!

Audience: *applause*

Senya: Thank you, thank you! Ladies...welcome to the show.

Immortal Bitch: My name is Mere! Mere Tarliss! And just what the hell is this?!

Kyrie's clone: Hoshikawa, you dog! What are we doing here? We were just about to assassinate the Emperor of the Mushu!

Senya: Oops. So was he Marduk after all?

Qin: Senya, you've angered Kyrie! Wait, what *are* we doing here? I was just singing on stage! Well, lip-synching really, but does anyone really expect me to sing while pole dancing and shaking my ass like a stripper for my fans 15 and up? I AM a pop star you know...

Erika: Ugh...

Gieloth Child: Wait. Did someone say Marduk? I though I was the last Gieloth...

Mere Tarliss (Immortal Bitch): Actually it wasn't Marduk at all. In a clever plot twist - uh, I mean a surprising turn of events - it turned out to be the ancient immortal Ean's penis which, after getting sliced off in the void and falling back into our reality, grew into a copy of Ean. A rather angry and sexually frustrated copy - which isn't that surprising considering that in all the legends of your world he *is* portayed as a virgin. His poor penis was starved for attention so it started an interstellar empire bent on galactic domination... Typical.

Senya: Virgin? But he fathered a ch--

Kyrie: WHY ARE WE HERE?!

Senya: Well, I'm glad you asked, Kyire's clone! Today you're all in a *very* special competition. Rod, why don't tell the ladies what they're competing to win today?

Announcer: Today's contestants are competing to see which one of them will have their head sliced off and put inside...

*curtain pulls back*

A NEW JAR!

Announcer: That's right, this lovely glass container was constructed by none other than the fine folks at Future Jars LTD and features all the latest in modern jar luxuries: Notice the elegant curves, the comfortable glass bottom, the pre-punctured air holes in the solid bronze lid. Why this little beauty just screams "put a human head in me". And it can be yours today. Just be the contestant to guess the closest to its actual price.

Senya: Thanks, Rod. And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, I want to call your attention to our lovely hostess and show model, the former ISC's own top hacker... Miss Anna White!

Anna:

Senya: ...oh...right...

Anna:

Mere: Wow. Ok, that is just sick. I mean your jar fetish, not the pile of limbs over there that apparently used to be called Anna. That's pretty fucked up too by the way.

Kyrie: Is there a door out of here? And who are all these people in the audience? Hello? Why are you staring at me? Do I have to kill one of you to get out of here?

Eika: I take it back. You haven't changed at all, Senya. You're still a weird pervert. You've been fixated on this jar thing ever since you read that book my uncle gave you. Though that glass bottom does look pretty comfortable...

Senya: What's wrong? You'd all survive the process.

Qin: Um, pretty sure *I* wouldn't.

Senya: Pretty sure *I* don't care.

Gieloth child: Riiight. Ima just activate mah hormone powers so you'll all have sex now.

Senya: *sigh* Oh, well. That's all we have time for, folks. Until next time, don't forget have your pets spayed and neutered!


Fade-out Music: Dun a dun dun...

Erika: Pervert.
Senya: How exactly does that make me a pervert? It's for population control!
Erika: Animal pervert.

Anna:

Haha

Well maybe I'll reconsider. But not Erika.

 

[Storyfag]

A.

But I want to know what happened to the Gieloth Child.

 

[Jester]

A i still don't know what happened to Gieloth so will pursue this bit more.
As for protecting us Erica don't know we remember about Kyrie and that is something most people would not wish to recall (chopping Erica is to kind of ... yeah and i doubt that mini me had done it cleanly).

 

[treave]

Turmoil in Space

“How old are you now? You run off the moment you get here, only leaving a message, and then bring back home a bunch of stray pirates, fresh off assaulting a Federation colony?”

“When you put it that way…” I can’t keep my eyes off my feet. When she is angry, my mother has a way of reducing me to the awkward child I once was, at times. Clearly this is one of those times.

“I hope you at least had the brains to put them under guard.”

“There’s no need to do that. We are most willing to cooperate, Captain Sachi.” Erika speaks up, giving her a crisp military salute. My mother appraises her, giving her a thorough look-over.

“I’m not convinced. I hear that your brother is quite ambitious.”

“He is a person that appreciates a favour. Senya has done him one by allowing him to hide out here.”

“As it turns out, the Federation are frantically combing every inch of nearby space to hunt them down. There was something in the frame that they stole which was more important to the Federation than they realized.” I explain. What the Federation wanted that badly was probably the mysterious technology that had been built into the Anhur Mk II. The actual function is still unknown, but I’m having Yua devote her time to cracking it.

“That is none of our business.” she says firmly, cutting off my exposition. “My job is to run this base and keep it out of trouble. For your little misadventure, you’ll be under house arrest for a week. You are a part of the Autonomous Fleet now – don’t expect to break the rules and get away with no consequences.”

I nod. It’s not like I didn’t see that coming. “Yes, m’am.”

“As for you… Erika, was it? You’ll report directly to me. As long as your men are with us, they are under my command. Is that clear?”

“Yes, captain.” She salutes again.

“Right, now that you’re working for me… your first order is to take my useless son here and escort him to his room. He’ll be staying in there for a while.”

***

“Nice room,” remarks Erika. She seems to be recovering her original, whimsical temperament the more time I spend around her, like a pet getting reacquainted with its owner. Of course, I don’t really mean it that way. “The bed is fluffy. For a military base.”

“I haven’t slept here even once,” I say. “Practically the first thing I did when I came here was to sneak out again to Londinium.”

“To meet me?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m still not giving you the key.”

“And as I’ve said, I don’t need the key. I do need you around, though.”

“If you were hoping to make me blush, this body is incapable of doing that. So don’t bother.”

“I wasn’t-“

“I understand. That’s how you are,” she nods. “Now, I need to get back to the ship.” Before she leaves, I call out to her. I don’t know if I truly mean it, but I need to make the attempt.

“Erika.”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize. I-” she says softly before the door closes and locks itself shut, cutting off whatever it is that she was about to say. It looks like my mother is serious about the house arrest. Alone again, I flop back on the fluffy bed.

“Yua, how is the decryption process going?”

“Right on schedule, Master.”

“Perfect. I need something to keep me occupied for the next week.”


***


My father returns three days into my confinement, with only half of the fleet. Though I am not allowed to participate in the staff meeting, I use Yua to hack in and eavesdrop on their conversation.

“The diversion requested by Colonel Tarliss went off without a hitch. As per the plan, immediately after the battle, we sent three cruisers of the Autonomous Fleet under the command of Captain Abernathy to the designated rendezvous point,” reported my father. “Unfortunately, on our way back a gravitational disturbance disrupted the slipstream, leaving half of the Fleet stranded along the border. From there they would have to pass through the Imperial fortress world of Susa to return to friendly space. Luckily, the Star League’s Seventh Fleet is preparing an assault on Susa in three days’ time, and we will request to be allowed to participate. I think they will not turn down our offer. Susa is a notoriously hard place to crack.”

“What about Captain Abernathy?” asks one of the lieutenants.

“I have not received word from him. He should have picked them up by now. This is worrying, but our duty to Colonel Tarliss is done. We need to retrieve the Fleet before thinking about other concerns.” replies my father.

They continue talking about fleet logistics, but my attention is already somewhere else.

Yua had cracked the black box technology schematics that we had retrieved from the Anhur Mk II. It was a quantum computer. As far as I know, even the Star League would not be able to construct such a thing – I could barely grasp the theory behind its creation myself. The computing power packed into that tiny cube was immense, allowing it to simulate and predict the movement of quintillions of particles with ease. It was, surprisingly, used to power that rudimentary AI, doing with brute-force what I had accomplished with Yua in a rather more elegant manner. The design of the circuitry is quite different from Star League technology – clearly if this came from the League, it wasn’t something that they invented independently. The elements involved in its construction are extremely exotic... things that I have never seen before. It would be impossible to replicate the computer with the facilities I have. Suddenly, I regret blowing up the Anhur I hijacked.

Putting aside the mystery of the computer’s origin, the computing power it provides finally gives me the chance to put into practice one of the applications of the black hole technology: a wormhole. This is already a functioning aspect of the black hole generator. The problem thus far involves making sure anything passing through comes out where I want it - the easiest and safest way would be to have another generator on the other end opening a hole on their side at the same time. That would be impractical for obvious reasons. With the quantum computer, the generator will finally be able to open a traversable wormhole. Slipspace travel, although energy efficient, is very sensitive to gravitational disturbances - this is why the ships are unable to jump too close to any stellar bodies. They are also confined to certain paths and jump points between systems. Given a sufficiently large power source, wormholes have no such disadvantage.

Of course, there are always risks unknown when dealing with this sort of thing... but this would be an opportune time to test out my theory.

***

A. I offer to investigate the incommunicado Captain Abernathy, who is apparently supposed to rendezvous with Colonel Tarliss deep within Imperial space. They might be in trouble, and this is a good way of dropping in to bail them out.

B. I offer to jump to the separated half of the Autonomous Fleet to bring the word of the Seventh Fleet's plans to them, so that we can coordinate a proper pincer attack on Susa. This will help the chances of us taking down the fortress world, instead of relying solely on Seventh Fleet and half of our fleet to conquer it.

If my calculations are correct, a frame-sized reactor should be able to generate enough energy to carry a single cruiser along with it, if I want to. It does mean that instead of three days, it will take another week for the generator to fully recharge.

1. I have the Spirit of Adventure (New) come along, together with the Dunamis. They will be useful, and I don't really fancy leaving them at the base while I'm not there.

2. I request for a reliable crew and cruiser from my father to go along with me. I need military men that I can trust on this expedition.

3. I go in alone. It will cut down on my energy expenditure and allow me greater ease of movement.

***

C. I keep my mouth shut about this wormhole technology and merely offer to go along with my father as an aide in the battle for Susa.

D. I do nothing. Why go out and risk my life right now when I can be lounging at the base and doing more research into all this nice, new technology?

 

[Storyfag]

C

 

[Kipeci]

D.

 

[Stygian Lurker]

C

 

[Jester]

D time to make our own dimension door for science

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

E - I suggest we upload a copy of Yua into the quantum computer, creating a super AI that we will then use to crack every major computer network in the galaxy and gain total control over entire fleets of ships, venting the crews into space...

Barring that: A1 - It's not that I don't trust Erec and crew, but I don't trust them and leaving them here while the Star League is hunting for them might be a bad idea too, not sure.... And I really don't trust our immortal friend, but I have a feeling we should step in and do something to save her and Twintails or it will bite us in the ass later...

 

[ScubaV]

I'm confused. How are A and B different? I thought Abernathy was with the stranded fleet.

Lambchop, we don't have the quantum computer, it was destroyed when we blew up the prototype.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Abernathy was going to extract Twintails and that immortal bitch from Marduk land:

"The diversion requested by Colonel Tarliss (immortal bitch) went off without a hitch. As per the plan, immediately after the battle, we sent three cruisers of the Autonomous Fleet under the command of Captain Abernathy to the designated rendezvous point,"

Lambchop, we don't have the quantum computer, it was destroyed when we blew up the prototype.

How the heck are we going to use it for wormholes then? I'm confused... Besides, don't the fangs have both of their Anhur MK2s still? We'll just hijack one of them. Consider it rent.

 

[ScubaV]

Abernathy was going to extract Twintails and that immortal bitch from Marduk land:

"The diversion requested by Colonel Tarliss (immortal bitch) went off without a hitch. As per the plan, immediately after the battle, we sent three cruisers of the Autonomous Fleet under the command of Captain Abernathy to the designated rendezvous point,"

Lambchop, we don't have the quantum computer, it was destroyed when we blew up the prototype.

How the heck are we going to use it for wormholes then? I'm confused... Besides, don't the fangs have both of their Anhur MK2s still? We'll just hijack one of them. Consider it rent.

I think the wormholes was Senya pondering what could be done if he had a quantum computer, although you make a good point about the White Fangs' CF. Looking back at the update it seems one of theirs was destroyed, but the other survived. treave?

 

[treave]

They have one left. In A and B you appropriate the remaining CF so that you can use its computer.

 

[ScubaV]

Alright, I guess A1 sounds reasonable. Accrue Erika and (clone) Kyrie points. Too bad we don't have our tentacles to more forcibly persuade Erika to give up the key.

 

[Azira]

Lets gallivant through space, having extraordinary adventures! What could possibly go wrong using wormhole tech? It's not like we'll be ending up in an alternate dimension, chased by horrid white figures, right?

...

Right??


A1

 

[Rex Feral]

That reminds me. We never got an explanation for that white figure.

 

[Azira]

But it seems our other self might know a thing or two about it.. So, maybe once we unlock whatever it is that's hidden in our psyche?

 

[treave]

You don't want an explanation.

Ah, yes, as for the Last Final Gieloth (TM), it's likely to be found with Rei and the remnants of the cult that escaped your massacre, who were slingshotted out into deep space on their asteroid base, Apophis. But it's not certain. There's no data indicating otherwise, though.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Huh. Wonder how those cultists out in the middle of nowhere are dealing with the whole "Gieloth eat people to live" thing... Oh, well.

 

[treave]

Either it couldn't handle its hunger, meaning it or all the cultists are dead, or it inherited the patience of its mother when it comes to feeding. Or it might not be there. You'll find out when/if the asteroid crosses your path.

The way you conducted yourself while freeing it might influence the outcome somewhat.

 

[Azira]

The Inanna flowers... Chock-full of nanomachines?

They are part of Eans legacy, and Senya now knows that nanomachines are what makes the immortals tick. Would be interesting to take a closer look at an Inanna flower. Is there more than one left?