Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or Worm. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not created with commercial purpose. It is not for sale or rent.
Chapter 12
=MK=
Interlude: PHO Experiment the Second
=MK=
Topic: Aliens are real! Mandalorian Knights – Alien Mercenaries!
In: Boards – Topic – News – Events – America
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted on January 10th 2011:
Well now, I'm not really sure what to say. This happened. Ahem, for those of you living under a rock or dealing with blackout, check the President's press conference – LINK, LINK, LINK. To summarize the latest insanity all of us on Earth Bet have to deal with, the PMC Mandalorian Knights who set up shop a few weeks ago in Brockton Bay and became famous for waging and winning the Battle of Brockton Bay (LINK) against the local Parahuman gang the Merchants, well it turned out that their name wasn't an accident. They're real Mandalorians, like from outer space… and I'm beginning to ramble. Just watch the press conference and if you're like me and in a need of a drink or ten, I won't blame you. I'll probably edit the post for better readability and to make more sense later, but I digress.
Yes, boys, girls and you other people, you heard it right. The Mandalorian Knights are real Mandalorians. Apparently, some of their scientists working on enhancing hyperspace travel accidentally opened a dimensional portal that links up Mandalore itself with our star system. How that makes any amount of sense no one currently knows, however it's also largely irrelevant.
Yes, that means Star Wars is a very real thing on the other side of the portal and from what I gather from the press conference, we're all in a very interesting position. Like potentially fucked up even more than all our assorted villains and the Endbringers together manage to do it all year long, every year for decades now. Timeline wise, apparently the Mandalorians have just come out of the Clone Wars two years ago. Yep, you heard me, the Clone Wars are over and were apparently both nastier and different from what we know from either our SW franchise or that on Earth Aleph.
First the "good" news, Palpatine, A.K.A. Sidious, also know as the Emperor from the Original Trilogy and the Prequels is very much dead, assassinated by the Jedi in what might have been a partially successful coup. Just don't go cheering anywhere a person from the other side of the portal might hear, because he apparently died a martyr for democracy, the Republic and all that was good and nice in the galaxy, before the war fully went off the rails.
There is an Empire, which is possibly the current galactic super-power, a Federated Empire instead of the Galactic Empire we're familiar with and many love to hate. What the differences are in practice we don't really know, beyond a few obvious facts. Palpatine is dead and thus not running the show. Instead, and I kid you now, you can hear about it in the press conference, the current Emperor and Empress are Obi-Wan and Satine Kenobi, which I really don't know what to make of.
Now, I probably should stop writing and making a full of myself, edit this post once I'm more or less sober and act as the Guy in the Know you all love! Cheers and welcome to our new alien overlords!
Char (Veteran Member)
Replied on January 10th 2011:
Wut? I've been at work all day long and we've been pretty damn busy so until now I didn't have a moment to check up on my mail, much less listen to any press conferences or the news. Is this for real? You aren't fucking with us, are you, Bagrat?
AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know) (Mandalorian Knight) (Welcomes our new alien overlords)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
Answer Key, as I wrote last week, joke's on you. I can confirm that the Mandalorian Knights are indeed, well real to God Mandalorians, duh. I've been working for them since this Christmas, when they offered me and my crew a very lucrative proposition.
I'll explain a few things while Bagrat is too busy drinking himself to sleep and hiding below his desk. As he and the press conference, which is still in progress by the way, say, the Federated Empire we'll have to deal with isn't the Galactic one we know from fiction. I don't currently know how Star Wars exists both here and on Aleph and how a lot of backstory up until the Clone Wars is practically a dead ringer to what actually happened. The best guess of people looking into it is that someone had either created or stumbled upon a portal to our galaxy, found Earth and possibly leaked historical data. Either that or some weird power or tinkertech shenanigans were involved even before powers as we know them were a thing, so please keep speculation out of this thread.
From what I gathered, the Federated Empire is a constitutional monarchy established late in the Clone Wars when the Republic cracked and began to fall apart under the strain of the conflict. It is true that Obi-Wan Kenobi and his wife, the Duchess Satine Kenobi, formerly Kryze from Mandalore are Emperor and Empress. Speaking about Mandalorians and their presence here, the reason is simple – the solar system somehow correspond to the Mandalorian system, the capital world of the Mandalorian Freehold, one of the new powers that rose from the ashes of the Clone Wars and a large player within the Federated Empire.
While the Empire isn't run by the Sith this time around, we aren't so lucky. The current leader of the Mandalorian Freehold is Mandalore the Redeemer, a Dark Lord of the Sith, former General in the Grand Army of the Republic and now a high placed officer in the Imperial military to go with his political power as a head of state. That's the bad news. The good news, Void Cowboy, is that Earth simply isn't important enough to invade and the primary interest people have with us is both due to location and the fact that we're a version of Humanity's lost homeworld, because no one in the Star Wars, the galaxy, properly called Corcusca, remembers Humanity's origins.
I'll be posting more info and answering questions after the President's press conference is dome. The commander of the Mandalorian Knight's detachment in Brockton Bay might be available online to answer a few question as well later today.
Space Zombie (Wiki Warrior)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
God, this is for real. As I type this, I had the youtube live stream of the press conference open, though it just crashed… We're all fucked, aren't we?!
XxVoid_CowboyxX (Persistent Menace)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
I told you, didn't you?! But you had to mock me for pages on end! We're about to be invaded by the Sith and the Mandalorians! Flee for your lives! I'm grabbing my go to bag and getting out of the bay, now!
And what's with the that tag?! I'm not that bad, am I?!
Char (Veteran Member)
Replied on January 10th 2011:
I'm not believing I'm writing this, but I might owe XxVoid_CowboyxX of all people an apology. In other news, Hell has frozen, Sith, aliens and most importantly, Star Wars are apparently real… I don't even… To AllSeeingEye as well, you were right, ma'am. Please don't sick the Mandalorians on me!
As far as the tag go, well what did you expect, Void?
AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know) (Mandalorian Knight) (Welcomes our new alien overlords)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
I promise as long as you're a good boy, Char.
Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
Fuck this city, we've got ourselves an alien occupation army controlling the docks. What's next?
You know, I wrote a long ranting post, because I'm at the end of my rope here with everything that has been happening, then I had a thought… Can the Mandalorians, Imperials, whoever, do something about the rest of the villains in the Bay for starters? They already rid us of the Merchants, which honestly had been a long time coming. What about the Endbringers? Can they, you know, sent a ship to shoot the Simurgh or something? Blow up Behemoth or Leviatan the next time they rear up their ugly heads?
AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know) (Mandalorian Knight) (Welcomes our new alien overlords)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
I can confirm that there have been talks about those monsters on some levels. While we in the Mandalorian Knights would like to offer our assistance during the next Endbringer attack, I'm not sure what would it take to risk a ship against the Simurgh potentially giving her the tools to wreck either a whole continent or the planet. Needless to say, any such call for action is so far above my pay-grade, it's not even funny.
As far as the other villains go, the eradication of the Merchants and Coil's organization speak for themselves. Neither the Mandalorian Knights, nor their parent corporation, Mandal Motors, much less the Mandalorian Freehold as a whole would bow down to mere criminals, no matter their abilities. It's up to the so called Empire 88 and Lung's ABB what happens next.
XxVoid_CowboyxX, if my new employers really wanted to invade Earth Bet, there would have been a battle fleet in orbit a few weeks ago and army groups ready to hit the ground to keep order and take possession of the planet. Both the Federated Empire and the Mandalorian Freehold operate on a galaxy wide scale. The resources they have available, well let's say that I needed a lot of painkillers and drinks to cope once those properly registered.
In the Inquisition we rust! (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
The End is night! Repent and prepare yourselves! The legions of doom will soon descent upon us and only the righteous would be spared!
Space Princess (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
And the crazies are coming out of the woodworks in droves now. This is going to get worse before it gets better.
Hey, AllSeeingEye, what about the Jedi? What happened after the so called coup? Was Order 66 called? Were they murdered all? What about Anakin, Padme and the others we all love?
AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know) (Mandalorian Knight) (Welcomes our new alien overlords)
Replied On Jan 10th 2011:
Apparently, Anakin Skywalker is still happily married, doesn't need all the cough medicine, neither does he wear a certain very distinctive helmet. That said, I have it on good authority that if he hasn't already, Skywalker will be soon receiving a very expensive replica of Vader's infamous suit.
Senator Padme Skywalker is very much alive and a happy mother of a girl named Leia, so far we have no news about Luke being a thing. She's representing both her homeworld of Naboo and something called the Mid-Rim Alliance, Naboo was a founding member of during the war along with Eriadu and a number of other important systems in that area of space. For details, you'll need to ask either my current commander, Aria Astra or wait for more information from either the Freehold or the Empire.
As far as the Jedi go, that appears to be a touchy subject for everyone. People see them as heroes, terrorists who contributed to the collapse of the Republic and anything in between. Anakin Skywalker is still a Jedi Knight, and while Obi-Wan Kenobi had been kicked out of the Order shortly before the so called Jedi Coup, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, he still considers himself a Jedi Master. How that squares with Order 66 and it's aftermath, I'm not sure.
=MK=
Part 1
=MK=
10 January 2011
White House
Washington
Earth Bet
While the President was busy facing a room full of journalists backed by his Press Secretary, Hayes' Chief of Staff and the Foreign Secretary were cooped in the situation's room. Marlene Graves was busy watching multiple TVs turned on the various large news channels and taking notes, while Michael Winters was on the phone with his people in the State Department, making sure that as many potential international fires would be put down before they could properly flare up due to today's revelations. The only good news was that so far people were too busy watching and listening to the President to cause trouble, however even the most favorable predictions pointed to very "interesting" times in the days and weeks to come.
Nearby, members of Marlene's staff were busy monitoring social media, where the news about the Mandalorians being real aliens and that Star Wars was not only real but linked with the solar system was already spreading like wildfire. The saving grace was the same – there hadn't been enough time for people to pass through disbelief and shock, perhaps even awe, into fear, panic or worse. Give it a few hours at best and then all odds would be off. Predictably, everything began going downhill on the internet first, even before the State Department began fielding calls from every allied and neutral country on the globe, including the few friendly governments which should have received a head's up over the past few days. Needless to say, Winters and his people were going to more than earn their salaries in the days to come.
"We're seeing a lot of disbelief, talks about conspiracy theories and the first hints of fear and backslash." One of the aides monitoring the social media announced.
A lot of news channels were broadcasting the press conference live, often accompanied with commentary and the way a lot of people were handling the revelation was grimly amusing. Graves would take anything she could right now, because it was a given that things would get much worse before becoming better. It was a given that the usual suspects, conspiracy theorists and crazies would be up in arms, then there were the various militias and such, some of which did have the odd Parahuman on board.
The real source of trouble was going to be the Parahuman criminal element, which was one of the reason why in the end the President vetoed the idea of mobilizing the National Guard and having it ready for action before the press conference. They simply weren't ready for a potential confrontation with the various Parahuman villains all across the country if they got it in their heads that the US government would finally try to clean up house in a manner that had been a long time coming. While avoiding such a mobilization was sure to avoid large scale confrontations with the villain contingents, handling the expected protests and potential riots that might erupt as a worse case scenario without such backing would be much harder to say the least. And that was before taking the Parahuman element into account.
It was an imperfect situation all around, and a tactic acknowledgment that the US government no longer necessary had monopoly of power within it's own borders. That by itself would have grave consequences if it ever became a publicly acknowledged fact.
Then there were the politics of the situation, something they would all have to face soon. A lot of people both in the Senate and Congress weren't actually privy to the real situation and were bound to cause trouble, hell, some who knew what was what were certain to do so anyway. However, those could or at least should wait. Trying to keep the US from catching on fire was the first order of business, which meant reassuring the population at large as much as possible, which was going to be a tough for the President and everyone on the same page within the government.
Because, really, how did you make the Mandalorians led by an honest to God Dark Lord of the Sith appear nice and friendly? The same went for the Galactic, pardon, the Federated Empire.
=MK=
At the same time, President Hayes was busy pondering that particular issue, while finishing his prepared speech, written by the best people the White House had. Within moments, it would be time to answer all kinds of questions and he knew how he handled it would be critical in managing the reaction of the people willing to listen to reason. Those who would merely hear that aliens, Star Wars and Sith were real, some of them here on Earth, and the others nearby? There wasn't much he could do for their reactions.
"my sincere hope that this brings a new age of peace and prosperity not only to the United States but the world at large!" He finished his speech with his trademark smile and examined the gathered, mostly stunned reporters through merry, sparkling eyes. Hayes did his best to present the situation in a positive light, and there were positives to put an emphasis on as well as issues he would rather prefer be swept under the rug and so no one would ask about, however he doubted he was that lucky.
"Now, I will be answering a few questions." The President continued after giving his audience a few moments to gather themselves. "Gloria." He nodded at the resident reporter from the Washington Post.
"This isn't some kind of an elaborate joke, is it, Mr President?" The young woman asked with a shaky smile. "If that's not the case, then I must ask, what will you do about our new neighbors?"
"Like it or not, Gloria, I'm not joking. Everything I just told you and the nation at large is the truth to the best of my knowledge. My intentions are to pursue peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship with our new neighbors, the Mandalorian Freehold." Hayes offered a neutral answer and pointed at his next inquisitor, John Chase from the New York Times.
"Mr President, can you extrapolate on the invitation the Mandalorian Freehold has offered us?"
"In about ten days or so, the Federated Empire and Mandalorian Freehold will be celebrating the second anniversary of their Victory day, the date marking the conclusion of the Clone Wars and the third anniversary of the Empire's establishment. We were offered to send a diplomatic delegation for the expected week long celebration and by we, I mean not just the United States government but Earth as a whole. This even would be a great opportunity to learn more about the nations we now find our world bordering with and the galaxy at large, which will be vital in the long run. Next question…" Hayes looked over the reporters and nodded at the new CNN woman.
"Claudia Armstrong, CNN. Mr President, what's the government's stance on the Mandalorians deploying troops on American soil in Brockton Bay, in what some might call either a declaration of war or unlawful occupation?"
So much for the slim hope of sweeping the implication of that under the rug. Unfortunately, there was no good answer to that question, only bad and worse ones.
"First, Claudia, technically the Mandalorian Freehold hasn't deployed troops on Earth, which I know, is splitting hairs. The presence of the Mandalorian Knights PMC could very well be a legal fiction at best, however the truth is we don't really know, thus the need to gather more information about the Freehold and the Federated Empire, how they operate, what rules and laws bind them, and anything else of importance. On the face of it, despite their advanced technology, the Mandalorians currently on earth are small in number and lack heavy equipment, which at least in theory means that if we chose to do so, we can either evict or detain them if we decide that doing so is in our best interests. In practice, doing so, while within our technical capability can be less than stellar idea…" Hayes began, doing his best to dance around the issue.
On one hand, the last thing he wanted was for the narrative that the Mandalorians in Brockton Bay were occupying alien force. On the other, he had to keep the illusion that the United States government and military were still strong and could protect their citizens from everything short of the damn Endbringers, yet he couldn't even hint at direct military action being anything but a terrible idea, while not spelling out the reasons why. It was a given that people would speculate and that some would get the right conclusions. The government acknowledging said conclusions openly could be disastrous, especially coming from some as high profile as the President.
Only time would tell how successful he was in his efforts...
=MK=
If you want to support my writing or discuss this story, see the following links:
Pat re on: Delkatar's writing corner
the space battles forums - this is where most discussion over my stories takes place
the sufficient velocity forums
the alternative history forums