trans_9 | Screw the height restrictions

Entry tags:

Screw the height restrictions

Allenby hated the Sensoriums, a fact she was willing to make known to all and sundry whenever the topic came up. They gave her the absolute creeps... one of the benefits of being ejected from Starfighter Command was that she didn't have to show up for PT in the hated chambers every morning. If she had to go in there for any reason, she could yell at Stacy for as long as she wanted before getting on with it.

Besides, why did anyone need Sensoriums for training on foot when there were so many great places in the City for it? Hell, there was everything from the Great Wall of China to a whole amusement park! And it was easy to get around the little helmeted robots that ran the place to shut down the rides. The roller coaster, for instance, made a great running track, and was damn fun to ride when she wanted a break.

So for much of the 'day' Allenby could be found either running along the rollercoaster track and doing various martial arts moves in mid-air, actually riding a ride, or sitting on one of the benches glowering (because she always made sure to spend at least half an hour a day thinking hostile thoughts at Stacy).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I am a genehanced human, known as an Astartes. I am too large for these rides."

He clangs a hand off his breastplate for emphasis.

"No kiddin'." Allenby looked him up and down again, wondering just how tall he was. Well over two meters, that was for sure. "That sucks... I've been modified, but it didn't change how I look at all," she said, holding out her hands and studying them. "Are Astartes some kinda supersoldier where you're from?"

"And how were you modified, then?" He looks down at her, his body language betraying more interest than he might normally take in a mortal.

"Well, I had treatments and stuff done so that I built up strength and stamina faster than uh--a girl normally would. Or any kid. I think there might've been some genetic things to do that," she said, thinking of the weird word that this guy had used to describe himself.

She also noticed that he hadn't answered her own question and wondered if it was some kind of secret thing. But Allenby was nosy, particularly about stuff like this. "So what kind of stuff did genehancing do to you besides make you really big?"

"It make me into a warrior of the Emperor, one of his Knights. I am far stronger and faster than an unmodified human, and will not die unless slain in battle, or possibly a strong poison. I can heal swiftly from wounds, go a week without sleep, and interface directly with my armor through neural linkages that have been surgically implanted into my body."

"...Wow. They gave you the works." It almost sounded like the stuff Zouichi was able to do, except that he'd been built that way from the start. And sure, it was useful stuff, but did he mean he was immortal? Being immortal wouldn't really be any fun, in Allenby's opinion, not unless everyone else was too.

But there was another matter poking at her mind first. "So when did you get all this crazy stuff done do ya?"

"When I was in my thirteenth year, after the trials which all aspirants undergo. It required many years for the full program of modification to be enacted. Such changes are not lightly wrought upon a human form." He clenches a fist briefly.

"But the result... when it works, is to provide humanity with the best possible weapon against the Xeno, the Heretic, and the Mutant."

"Thirteen? Geez, that's pretty young." Allenby would have scowled except for the word 'aspirants.' She actually... hadn't heard it used before, but it wasn't difficult to guess. "But you signed up for it yourself? And who the heck are those guys you're fightin'?"

"You would be old and dead before I could list every foe of humanity, and I would grow tired and wish for war far before getting through the list. But the short answer is that there are many people who wish to destroy, devour, enslave, or corrupt humanity for their own ends, out among the stars. To them, we bring illumination." By which he means the burning flame of destruction.

"...Wow." That sounded like one hell of a ~~grimdark~~ bleak universe he came from. Humans were already good enough enemies of each other without dragging other species into it too. And probably, it didn't keep the humans from fighting each other either.

Which made the idea of illumination seem pretty weird. "Uh, just what kinda illumination are we talkin' about here?"

"The kind of Illumination that is brought by bolter, blade, and fire."

Allenby groaned. "Of course." It really didn't matter if the humans weren't killing each other if they were going at alien races instead--and having aliens go at them.

Really, was her Earth the only one that had it right? "So how did that war get started?" It was a grim kind of curiosity.

"What did you expect? Monsters are monsters. But the war for humanity started when the brightest son of humanity turned on his Father, the Emperor of Mankind. It was ten thousand years ago, by our reckoning, and Humanity had begun to rise from the ashes of the Dark Ages of technology, and step out amongst the stars."

He pauses, as if amused. "I enjoy telling this story, though it is a sad one. It explains the reason I wear the black, after all. I suggest you sit down, it is a long tale, though one full of honor, treachery, glory and brutality."

Oh, good. Allenby plunked herself down on a bench--on the one hand, she didn't think she would really enjoy hearing a story about blood, pain, war, and killing. The fact that this guy was acting like it was not just normal but admirable was seriously not right, either... her brief experiences with war and killing had all been totally awful.

On the other hand. She was curious, and it was strange to meet a created soldier who had actually decided he wanted to be that on his own, and... well he was putting it pretty poetically. She might be, very technically, a pacifist (very, very technically), but part of that was wanting to know why people who weren't were that way. And it sounded like this Earth had taken a particularly unhappy turn of history.

"All right. Let's hear what happened."

"The first thing that happened was the Emperor. He was the prime mover of the whole affair, a scientific genius the likes of which has never been seen before, or since. He unified Terra with gene-engineered warriors called the Thunder Warriors, the predecessors to Astartes like myself." He touches his breastplate briefly for emphasis. "One by one, the petty dynasts bowed before him, often without a fight, as they realized that he could bring about a new era of peace and prosperity through Unity."

He pauses, and his stance shifts, as though he's smiling.

"And so he did. For 200 years and more, the Imperium of man spread across the stars, re-uniting the lost branches of humanity with one another, spreading a fair and equitable rule as far as the Astronomican blazed. Hostile aliens were exterminated, new planets explored, exploited, or colonized, and we reclaimed much of our old technological prowess."

He takes a breath, a natural halt in the narrative coming, waiting for questions from Allenby.

...Huh, well. Allenby was pretty sure the descendents of those 'petty dynasts' would probably have a different version of the story. The whole bit about ushering in an era of peace and prosperity for humankind sounded frankly more idealistic than the Federation's aim, which had been more of a frantic scramble to stop wars on Earth and keep all the space colonies from destroying each other with mobile suit warfare. And as much as the Gundam Fight was supposed to be a fair system, there had sure been a lot of underhanded methods used. Her own existence as a Fighter was an example of it.

But she also picked out the words exterminated and exploited and he'd also said often without a fight instead of always.

"I ain't sure what an Astronomican is, but it sounds a lot like the crappy stuff I learned about Earth's old history. Grabbin' different places and saying they're yours just because you've got a flag, right? Betcha some of those hostile aliens wouldn't have fought you at all if you hadn't tried walking all over 'em first."

"I have never seen a xeno willing to peaceably coeexist for any period of time in my own world, except for the Tau, and even they were corrupting and subverting our worlds in the Damocles Gulf Region. I undertook part of the crusade against them, and while we briefly stopped fighting and fought side by side against the incoming extragalactic scourge of the Tyranids, who are not dissimilar to the Ohm. The Tau showed individual honor in battle, but we of the Imperium have not successfully negotiated a peace with an Alien race at any point in living knowledge, though there is a legend that such a thing almost happened during the Great Crusade, before it was doomed by treachery."

He is quiet for a moment, then continues, "In 200 years, I have never fought an alien that would have shown humanity quarter, succor, or even conversed with them except to exchange insults." Which is to say he never fought anyone like the Eldar aboard this ship, but his brothers were busy righteously kicking butts of creatures that basically lived to eat, fight, and kill.

"Hooo boy. So everyone in your universe is lousy to each other?" Allenby groaned. The fact that humans had united with an alien race to fight an outside threat was sort of encouraging, but not the fact that it didn't last.

It made her wonder. Would her Earth eventually go back to being that way, when it was restored? They'd managed to find a way to channel the need to battle into something that didn't result in millions of lives constantly being lost, but even then people constantly jostled and schemed for power.

Well, it wouldn't happen in her lifetime. That was what the Shuffle Alliance was for, and she'd help them fight that kind of evil every step of the way.

"So in two hundred years there hasn't been a time at all when you guys haven't been up against someone... what about that legend about the Great Crusade? Tell me about that."

"This legend is only fragmentary, as it has passed through ten thousand years from the inception of it until now, but it is as follows: During the Crusade, Horus Lupercal, Warmaster of the Imperium, the brightest son of our Emperor, wandered the stars with his Legion, the Luna Wolves, as they were known, and came upon a human culture that was not only human, but with Xenos mixed in with the human population. This was seen by some among his party as anathema to our culture as the EMperor decreed it, but Horus...." He halts for a moment, and then seems to growl out the rest. "Horus chose to interpret his responsibility from his father as being the burden of making a decision about how best to engage this culture. He chose peace negotiations which were... surprisingly enough fairly civil. They would not be drawn on joining the Imperium, but there were signs that an understanding could be reached."

His shoulders lower, slightly, and the vox-assisted voice becomes very soft. "But it was not to be. A traitor among his men, we don't know who, sabotaged the negotiations in their most delicate stage, stealing something of great value from the Interex, as they were known, and provoked a war that spread across the quadrant."

He looks over the amusement park, then continues, "Some say this was the beginning of the fall of Horus. As for me, I can't say. I wasn't there, but I believe the seeds of hubris were always within him. Arrogance can be a dangerous thing in a war-leader."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Screw the height restrictions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

inexcusably late

no subject

no subject

no subject