[STORY] The search for progenitors !PART 4 IS OUT!

WHOO! I FINALLY STOPPED BEING A LAZY DOUCHE AND BEGAN WRITING THIS!
I've been wanting to do a story thread since the beginning of Tales of Annihilation, but never actually got around to writing one, but now, finally, I have.

These will be a little different however, because they're being made to mostly expand on the lore of PA.
As such, if I actually do have the gall to do it, I will eventually cover expansions on ALL of the factions lore entries, starting with my favourite of the bunch, the revenants.

Table of Contents:
Day 1: A new Light: On this post
Day 12: A Deadly Intrusion: Click here
Day 13: The Calm: Click here
Day 14: The Storm: Click here


Day 1: A new light

“NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED – ETA: 45 SECONDS. CHANCE OF SURVIVAL: 0%” The startlingly loud warning followed by siren given off by the anti-nuke launcher barely effected Commander Delta as his fabricators scurried to attempt to fill the anti-nuke. Delta knew this effort was wasted, but something in him… something instinctual, told him to attempt to survive at all costs.

“IMPACT IN TEN… NINE… EIGHT…” The nuclear missiles could now be seen, and Delta now realized that even if his fabricators managed to fill the anti-nuke silo, there wouldn’t be enough missiles to counter all of them. “SEVEN… SIX… FIVE…” the missiles flew overhead of an advancing army of shellers, a plan that was clearly not going to work. The alarm emitted by the missiles signaled the destruction of their master. “FOUR… THREE… TWO…” the missiles angled downward, in his final moments, Delta erased his entire memory bank. He didn’t want Osiris to gain access to the locations of the other Imperials. “ONE… ZE-” the anti-nukes alarm is cut off by the sound of nuclear bombardment, as Delta’s army was destroyed; peregrines from Osiris’ base moved out to cover the planet. Should any other commander be foolish enough to attempt an invasion, they would be shot down immediately.

Osiris, now content with his takeover of this star system, requested a status report from the other bodies in the system, two small moons orbiting the planet he was on and an ice planet further from the sun. He had sent occupation forces to each body. He hoped that there were no problems. After contact was established, it was found that the closest moon was met with some opposition from Delta’s army, but they were dealt with. The furthest moon had no problems at all, and as Osiris ordered, had been armed with 15 Halley Delta-V engines and 20 nuclear missiles to be used as a last resort, thankfully neither needed to be used. But nothing could prepare Osiris for the report from the final force on the ice planet.

The holographic projector showed the image of a dox unit. “State status report.” Osiris sternly ordered. “Commander… you’re going to want to see this.” The dox replied, Osiris, not wanting to waste time he could be using to spread his base, demanded explanation. “About 15 hours ago, our fabrication units received strange signals coming from under a hill of snow. We immediately had infernos melt it, and discovered some strange form of technology… it seems… ancient.” As soon as Osiris heard the word ancient, his mind was filled with thoughts on his ultimate goal. Could this be something left by the progenitors? Could progenitors be found deeper in the ice and rock? The mere thought of such an incredible discovery filled Osiris with a feeling of glee he had not felt in centuries! He ordered his teleporter to link to the ice planet and moved to see what the fabricators had found.

As he moved into the ice planet, the fabricator that made the discovery greeted Osiris and led him to the piece of ancient tech. Once he reached it, he took a good look at it, hoping that what little of his memory from the progenitor era remained would help him identify it, but he was not so fortunate. The fabricator noted the button on the device, but said that it did nothing. Angered by this discovery, Osiris grabbed it, but much to his surprise, it began to emit the signal again. “That’s strange; this isn’t the same signal it transmitted before…” The fabricator said, confused. Osiris didn’t even acknowledge the fabricator’s note; he seemed to be fixating on this signal, it seemed to be reacting to Osiris’ presence.

On some sort of impulse, Osiris decided to press the button again, and through that, much to Osiris’ disbelief, a voice came out of the device.

Pre-recorded message begins:

“*sigh* why are we watching this damned glacier? Even if the commanders were to come all the way out here, there’d be nothing gained from knowing that, we’re light years away from any planet we want protected.”

“Listen, our orders were to wait for one of those death machines to get here and that’s what we’re going to do.

“Oh, and get killed? When will the general learn that you can’t reason with those things? They've gone beyond caring about us.”

“Dammit, private, how many times do I need to tell you? Stop your whining and keep watch.”

“*sigh*… yes sir.”

Several minutes of silence pass, when suddenly

“Oh ****, I SEE ONE!”

The sound of a landing commander is heard.

“Progenitors detected: firing Uber cannon”

The screams of at least 20 progenitors are heard, and the audio cuts out.

Pre-recorded message ends.

Osiris, after hearing the message says “So… they’re already dead. How disappointing.” The fabricator responds “Do you want us to search for potential bodies? My calculations lead me to believe that the temperatures of this planet are just right for the preservation of biologics.” Osiris replied with the go-ahead, though he was unsure as to what this would accomplish, he knew that a replacement commander was months away, and he couldn't leave to conquer another system until the replacement arrived. He began to head back into the portal to check on the main planet, but before leaving he said “If an inferno burns a single body… I will not hesitate to destroy this planet, with all of you on it.” He entered the teleporter, and the gate closed as the infernos moved to the snowy banks to see if they could find one of the progenitor’s bodies.

And that's all I wrote, for now.
If I'm met with enough good responses, I'll definitely continue (constructive criticism is also heavily encouraged!)
If I do continue updating these, it might be a bit more sporadic than I'd like it to be, but I'll try to keep it as consistent and quick as possible.

I hope you enjoyed

Can one of you authors make a thread with links to all the stories? It would be helpful for anyone who missed some of the earlier ones and wants to catch up. I personally am not as interested in the fan stories as other people (probably due to my faulty personality circuits), but I appreciate them for the way they bring the community together around something fun.

*Edit*
Just to be clear, I don't mean everyone should stop posting stories in their own threads. It would just be nice to have a central thread with links to every story. Or maybe a fan site like PA Matches could be the one maintaining the links instead? It would just be cool to have a "Fan Fiction" place to go whenever we want something interesting to read but don't know where to look.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind a sub forum specifically for stories, since most story threads are usually buried pretty quickly here.
But at the same time, there isn't really enough writers to justify it.

I think there are enough writers for a thread to collect all the stories, but not enough yet for a sub forum. Having too many forums isn't really so good anyway because it adds clutter.

Anyway, I hope you all keep writing. We have a lot of talent in this community and everyone can contribute in their own way. As for your story, I like your take on progenitors as biological characters rather than mechanical, but I'm surprised by the personality you gave to non-commander units. I always think of units as just the fingers and toes of the commander- extensions of a single mind and body. I guess that makes it hard to write stories with so few actual characters though.

Ooh, I would love a PA Fanfiction website.. hmmm.. that's another thing added to the possible "to-do" list!

Hey, you stole my commander!
(I kid)

Anyways, yes this seems like a good start and I want to see where this goes.

Great start! I'm really enjoying this fan stories and I look forward to the next one.

Little bit of pre-notes for this one, in case you get confused, Alpha is the further moon and Beta is the closer (weaponized) one.
Also, if the day system for parts is stupid, notify me, I'm not even sure if I like it yet.



Day 12: A Deadly Intrusion

Osiris continued his bases expansion on the main planet, his mind racing endlessly. He wished he were able to check on the ice planet, which he had named “Thoth”, however, a tropical storm had been ravaging his main base of operations for the past 5 days, disrupting communications and making it impossible to open a teleportation gate. Osiris had grown worried about the bodies possibly covered in snow. He wondered if it were even possible that a biologic survived the confrontation with the commander without being atomized. He continued constructing hoping that his mind would wander elsewhere.

The storm had made things close to unbearable for Osiris’ work force. Though the rain was trivial to them, the lightning caused several casualties and the wind was so strong that the nanolathe streams used by the engineers were being blown around, causing production to slow down to an average of 35% efficiency. Adding onto this was the fact that the peregrines that once controlled the air around the planet were forced to be grounded, so not even an astraeus could leave or enter the planet. Osiris was angered by this, but he knew that he was safe from enemy commanders, so he didn’t let it get to him too much. His mind was focused on other matters anyway.

Osiris knew that the storm would pass soon; not only was the rain beginning to weaken, but even though his base was being hit for 5 days, the storm had actually been around for almost 3 weeks, it had simply moved near Osiris’ coastal base. He counted himself lucky, had he made an oceanic base instead, his naval fabricators would probably have been destroyed by the force of this storm. As he continued to assist an advanced fabricator claim the last few metal spots, he took notice to a small woodland creature in a tree, cowering from either the storm or the robots that were in its land.

A couple hours go by, and the storm passes. The bright shine of the neighbouring star pierces the dissipating clouds and the warmth of its rays signal the peregrines of Osiris’ army to once again take to the skies. Osiris, relieved that his fabrication units can once again work at peak efficiency, calls over a pelican transport unit to take him to his main base of operations. After a couple of minutes, the pelican is seen on the horizon; it picks up Osiris and begins to make its way back. As Osiris flies over his base, he notices several fabricators reclaiming wrecks of fallen comrades and repairing factories and generators damaged by the lightning. The pelican drops Osiris off in the middle of the base and lands, patiently waiting for the next pick up order needed. Osiris walked over to the area where he could contact Thoth, however, even in his rushed state; he noticed something, something that unnerved him. The monitor that usually showed radar satellite footage from Moon Base Alpha was nothing but static.

“What is the meaning of this!?” Osiris asked a nearby fabricator. “Sir, we’re still trying to find out, however, all communication attempts have been met with no response, and we fear the worst.” It replied. Osiris began letting out a warning that could be heard across the planet “Warning: A possible intrusion has been detected on Moon Base Alpha, all military units must be on high alert, should any unidentified units be found on this planet, they must be instantly destroyed.” Once that warning was received, Osiris checked on the other celestial bodies. “Moon Base Beta, status report. Now.” Osiris demanded. A response came almost immediately “Oh, the storm has cleared, thank goodness. We’re all fine here but there have been reports of a disturbance on Moon Base Alpha, all attempts at communication have been met with—” Osiris interrupted “Have you attempted to get radar coverage?” “No, but we’re building orbital radar satellites as we speak. They should be ready to move in just under one minute.” “Good, place them in strategic locations and do not move them until I’ve contacted Thoth.” Osiris said, the bot replied “Yes sir!” and Osiris attempted to communicate Thoth.

“Commander, good to hear the storm’s ended on your side. I assume you want a report on our search?” Osiris replied “No. Not now. Are any enemy units on Thoth?” the bot replied confused “No, I thought you had destroyed Delta.” Osiris said “There has been a disturbance on Moon Base Alpha, any communication attempts have gone without reply and radar has seemingly been shot down.” The bot unit replied “Perhaps they were struck by a solar flare of some sort?” “I hope that’s the case… but in case it isn’t, watch yourselves.” “Understood.” The bot replied then continued “Oh and on the subject of the search, we still haven’t found anything.” “This is good. Should another commander be here, we wouldn’t want them knowing. Especially if it’s one of the Synchronous…”

Osiris switched back to contact with Moon Base Beta “Are preparations complete?” “Affirmative, just give us the go-ahead and the radars will begin their travel to Alpha.” Osiris replied and allowed the radars to move out, and once they hit the moon, it was worse than he had thought. Two of the radars were shot down instantly, and the ones that weren’t discovered a fully fleshed out base covering the entire moon.

Worse yet, there were 3 commanders on it, and as Osiris had feared, they were members of the Synchronous.
Each of the commanders was surrounded with defenses of all kinds, anchor satellites, anti-nukes, flak cannons and triple barrel laser turrets. They somehow knew that Osiris was here, and they were not going to let Beta’s nuclear power attack them.

Osiris was at a loss for words, these commanders somehow managed to invade the moon, destroy Osiris’ occupation and take it over in only 5 days. Osiris was surely powerful, but not even he knew how we was going to fight 3 commanders simultaneously. He thought about using the halley engines on Beta to simply destroy them, but he swiftly denied that possibility and instead decided to find some way to invade.

He wasn’t sure how he would do it, but he knew that the Synchronous and Revenants had hated one another for a very long time now. Destroying 3 Synchronous on his own AND finding progenitors in the same system would surely bring glory to Osiris’ faction. Osiris began to study the Machinist base for weaknesses, and ordered every orbital fabricator to construct anchors to protect his moon and planets. If Osiris was going to be involved in another war for this system, he wanted to be as prepared as possible.



Fun fact: This part was actually supposed to come out yesterday, but I initially had Osiris find the progenitor body in like, the second paragraph and then went on to do this horribly written segment where Osiris magically found another recorder and... just trust me, you didn't want to read it, it was terrible.

Also, no, Thoth isn't a disguised Star Wars reference, but it IS somewhat relevant.

EDIT: I was informed that the faction was "Synchronous" not "Machinist". Embarrassing mistake is embarrassing... Thanks @squishypon3!

You're going to need some links for easier navigation between the parts.
Nice work, by the way! Keep going!

(Pro tip: click on the #number in the bottom right corner of a post. It brings up a window that has a link that leads directly to that post in your thread)

Yeah, I know. Kinda wish I made a post at the beginning specifically for links like you did, lol.
Guess I could just use space on the top of the first post. *gets on that*

This is shaping up to be a great story too! I actually like the "day" system of numbering posts BTW.

Day 13: “The Calm”

Osiris stood before the mapping of the Synchronous base; he had been studying it for several hours now and with every passing second his concern for this threat grew. Over and over he searched for something, a weakness in the base, an opening of some sort, but he couldn’t find one.

A fabrication unit walked up to Osiris “Commander, the anchors are ready. Should we move them out now?” Osiris thought for a second, even if the anchors were enough to take the orbital layer, would anything be accomplished? The ground was covered in anti-satellite laser turrets, so even if Osiris managed to get some SXX laser platforms on the moon, they’d be shot down before they even manage to fire. The anchors would do nothing but buy time, and if Osiris didn’t use that time perfectly, it could mean death. Osiris finally replied “Give me some time to think things over.” “Very well, commander. Just give the orders when you’re ready.” The fabricator replied, and then went to a factory in need of assisting. Osiris went back to studying the Synchronous base, then, he noticed something. It wasn’t something that could win the fight, but something that could definitely give Osiris a helping hand.

There was a small area on the moon, no bigger than 3 square meters, which had minimal protection. There were three umbrellas, some laser turrets, two flakkers and the area was in the sphere of influence of an anti-nuke. There was no metal in the area, so the Synchronous must have thought that there was no point in putting too much protection, Osiris was going to prove them wrong, and he immediately began formulating a plan to take advantage of this.

Osiris had an idea. The anchors were sent in as a distraction from the real threat; Moonbase Beta fired four nuclear missiles to the area with low protection, a bit before they struck, Osiris sent an orbital fabrication unit to the area, and ordered the anchors to protect its perimeter. After the nuclear explosion hit, Osiris heard the anti-nukes siren start “WARNING: NUCLEAR ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT DETECTED. ETA: 3 MINUTES, CHANCE OF SURVIVAL: 75%”
Osiris was pleased. Everything had gone exactly as planned. He knew the Synchronous had the mindset of act-before-thinking, and used this to his advantage. He knew that a nuclear attack would be immediately countered. And now he had his window.

He ordered the orbital fabricator to construct a teleportation gate on the moon, then, when the gates connected a pre-mobilized unit of mobile artillery tanks and advanced fabricators began to move into it. The shellers moved out and immediately pointed upwards ready to deal with the retaliation force. The fabricators went straight to work, constructing laser turrets, an anti-nuke and flakkers, meanwhile on Osiris’ planet, the nuclear missiles from the Machinist resistance could now be seen, and Osiris needed to think fast. If there were too many to shoot down, Osiris needed to go somewhere else. He ordered a pelican to take him to the teleporter and had it connect to Thoth. Luckily, only one nuke hit, it did a lot of damage, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. The blast didn’t hit the teleporter, which was good. If Osiris needed to send the attack reinforcements, he could.

As Osiris reached Thoth, the fabricator that found the recorder device said “Welcome commander, have the Synchronous been dealt with?” “Not yet, though we’re ready to begin an attack.” Osiris replied the fabricator went back to the search; Osiris ordered some nearby advanced fabricators to setup a radar monitor on the planet so he could properly control the fighting rather than leave the shellers on instinct. The construction process would take about ten minutes, so Osiris sent more shellers and levelers to the moon for reinforcements. Osiris looked around the planet for a bit, eyeing the inferno search party, he asked one of the bots escorting it “Have any biologics been found at all here?” “No commander, there isn’t even any marine life in the lake.” The bot replied. Osiris was confused, why were progenitors sent to confront commanders on this planet if no life was on it? Osiris’ thoughts were interrupted by a fabricator telling him that the monitor was set up and ready. Osiris walked back, preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. As he got to the monitor he saw neither. Instead what he saw was baffling, a full anti-nuke launcher, turrets everywhere, a wall protecting them, and no sign of conflict anywhere. “What is the meaning of this!?” Osiris demanded. One of the fabricators replied “We… don’t know. They never attacked.” “What do you mean ‘they never attacked’?” Osiris asked, and the fabricator replied “They… they never attacked.”

Osiris was appalled; the Synchronous had radar satellites above the attack force and yet made no effort to destroy it. Worse yet, the commanders were still on the moon, in the middle of their defenses. They were waiting, but Osiris didn’t know why, and this bothered him.
Osiris knew that the Synchronous wanted him to attack, but Osiris wanted to think this through, figure out what the Synchronous were planning, and only then would he attack.



Gee, I wonder what the next day's title will be...
Edit: After re-reading this part again, I don't really feel that great about it :/
Edit 2: Holy **** did I seriously call the Machinists Metrarchs?
Oh for gods sake, what's wrong with me???
I may end up rewriting this part entirely, apart from that one obvious f-up it just doesn't feel like a good part...
Edit 3: I fixed the metrarch-machinist thing and took out a part of the story that messed with the pacing.
Edit 4: The same Machinist > Synchronous fix.

Honestly I thought it read decently well. It all depends on the reasoning behind the Machinists not fighting back.

If I re-wrote it, the general chain of events would stay the same because I liked what happened in it, I just didn't like how they were all written together. It felt less cohesive than the others for some reason.
May have something to do with the way the narrative went back in time after that part where it showed what the Machinists were thinking.

that would make sense.

Hm. I think I'll just metrarch thing (seriously, I have no idea what happened there...) and take out that part. Hopefully the next part will be much better

Well that took a while, but I got into Dark Souls which took up 99% of my free time

Day 14: The Storm

Osiris was still unsure as to how to carry out this plan, he had no idea what the Synchronous were planning, and he had very little new Intel, as his radar satellites had been shot down. He decided to send a few tanks forward to scout, perhaps an attack force was just waiting where they couldn’t be seen, however, nothing was found. They pressed on through the moon, destroying any structures that came in their path, then, suddenly and abruptly, they were destroyed. There wasn’t a single defense turret in their path, artillery wouldn’t be able to fire correctly due to the moon’s small size, and tactical missile launchers would’ve attacked Osiris’ forces when they got out of the portal. Osiris had no idea what could’ve destroyed the tanks, but he didn’t let that get in the way of the mission. He sent another group of tanks the other way, to see if it would happen again.

And it does. The tanks reach the equator of the moon, and are instantly destroyed by unknown forces. Over and over Osiris sent tanks to the center of the moon, and every time they were taken down. Osiris even had nuclear missiles strike the moon’s equator to make sure that there was nothing there. But still the tanks were shot down.

Then, Osiris noticed something. The only things on the equator of the moon weren’t turrets or units, but anchor satellites. So once again Osiris sent tanks to the center, keeping a close eye on the satellites, and much to his surprise, they fired downwards. The Synchronous had somehow managed to give anti-ground lasers to anchor satellites. Osiris was fighting an enemy with new technology, and he now needed a way to fight it.

Osiris sent his own anchor satellites to the wall around the equator, if fire was focused, a way through would open. The satellites began to open fire on each other, and Osiris noticed something else about the new tech. The Synchronous anchors could only fire in bursts. This gave Osiris an advantage, as his anchors continuously fired. A way through the anchor wall was slowly opened and the tanks began to move, as did a Synchronous retaliation force. Vanguards were ordered to move to the front of the brigade so that the less powerful shellers would have protection.

Then, the shellers began to fire and artillery was exchanged, the Synchronous had a clear advantage, as they had defense towers and more anchors providing orbital cover. Osiris ordered Moonbase Beta to launch all twenty of its nuclear missiles in the base behind the battle. Fifteen of them were shot down and the other five did serious damage, destroying several economic buildings, factories and even one of the commanders. Back where the battle was, the vanguards had reached their targets and immediately began tearing through the Synchronous army. The Synchronous tanks and bots began to retreat, but the shellers artillery caught most of the army before they managed to get behind more cover from laser turrets. The next commander was then seen.

Osiris ordered the vanguards to rush straight towards it, and the shellers stayed back and fired at the turrets. The vanguards plasma, hotter than a star, melted the commander straight to the core and another was destroyed. The final Machinist was clearly worried, as he ordered an astraeus to pick him up. Osiris ordered the tanks to move straight to the commander’s location, and to ignore enemy fire. The shelleres came in range, and began firing, the astraeus began lowering altitude, but it was too late. The shellers destroyed the final Synchronous, and it was done. Osiris moved over to the planet to see if he could find an in-tact anchor to use this new capability, once he found one he scanned its new blueprints and replaced his own. Now that the threat had subsided, all efforts could continue going into the search for the ill-fated progenitors. Osiris returned to his main base to repair damage made by the Synchronous nukes, content with his victory.

Edit: Wow, this one is short.
Edit 2: Seriously, why isn't he just called "Metrarch the Synchronous"?!?
Edit 3: Also I said "Part 14" instead of "Day 14".

I like how you used both the new and old real life versions of the anchors in this part. It adds an interesting angle to the story.

but, but, nukes can hit orbital now too!

Osiris' tech is pretty much "Before PTE"
I'm also treating the tech in a sort of "one guy made this, another made that" way, so who knows. Mebbeh the orbital nukes will make an appearance.
Mebbeh not.