Dialogue Chart
"Person speaking"
|Ghost Speaking|
"Alien speaking"
{AI Speaking}
Adding [ ] before any of these means the being in question is thinking
'Something being referred to with air quotations'
Anything else
Date 03/05/4522
Location: UNSC Spirit of Fire – Alternate Sol System
Persons of interest
Serina: 2nd Gen Smart AI
Captain James Cutter: Cpt of the SoF
Dr. Ellen Anders: Scientific Consultant
Jerome-092
Ander's POV
This was all so fascinating! Two more of those 'jump-ships' had popped out in front of the Spirit. When they had been confirmed to be allies of our guest, the Captain had sent him down to welcome them, along with the Spartans. The Captain seems to be trusting him and I'm inclined to agree, but we can't be too careful. Still, I had to get the Captain on board with some of the ideas I've had over the past few minutes examining their historical data. As such I make a call up to the bridge.
"Captain, we need to ally with these people." I say bluntly, ignoring the Captain's raised eyebrow. "Why is that Doctor Anders?" He leads. "I've been reading over their historical files and from that alone I believe that they are far more advanced than the UNSC. It says that they had fully terraformed Mars, Venus and Mercury at the height of their power, some of the Jovian moons as well as Titan and by 'terraform, I mean fully breathable atmospheres! Capable of sustaining plant life as well!" I say excitedly. "There's mentions of small scale artificial gravity tech, superluminal communicators, programmable matter…" I realize I'm rambling but I can't help it. Any one of these breakthroughs could help us close the gap with the Covenant. "I understand Doctor, but we need to be able to win against the Covenant, not bolster our economy." The Captain says dejectedly. "They have energy weapons AND shields!" I say confidently." With that the Captain stopped to ponder this new info. "How did you find out." Cutter asks. "Their jump-ships, all of them had minor fluctuations similar to that of covenant shielding. Not to mention it's mentioned several times in their historical database." Serina helpfully chimes in. That settles it for the Captain and he brings the bridge into the discussion. As we all deliberate over what we would be willing to offer, we receive a call from Jerome.
Cutter's POV
"Captain, Custos has an idea for our FTL problems." Jerome says. "Well then let's hear it." The I say. With that Custos appears onscreen. "Hello Captain, to summarize, if all three of our jump-ships dock at certain points on the hull, they can tow the Spirit through FTL, this isn't sustainable, but it should be enough to get us back to The City." This plan had merit, the Spirit needed a resupply desperately and the could discuss the possibility of an alliance with their politicians. "I accept, you may begin with your docking immediately." I agree to the maneuver. The sooner we get out of hostile territory the better. Custos signs off and I see through the deck cameras that their ships position themselves with one on the ships underbelly and one on each of the port and starboard wings. Suddenly, a brief sense of vertigo envelops all the crewmembers and the ship blinks out of reality. Seeing the strange swirl of colors outside the ship, one of the marines decides to state the obvious. "This isn't slip-space!" "Thank you for that Jenkins." I say dryly. The marine has the decency to look mildly embarrassed. {Captain, due to the large weight of our vessel compared to their own, Cogito informs me it will take around ten minutes to reach the Last City.} Serina quickly informs me. Good that would give us some time to deliberate. Though the Captain did have a few questions about the two new figures he had seen on the monitor behind Custos. One of them had been veritable mountain larger than even the Spartans. He had ornate armor and what appeared to be a Roman Centurion's helmet with a metallic plume where there would normally be feathers. The second figure was considerably smaller. He wore a dark cloak and had several blue optics glaring on his helmet. he reckoned that they were a shock trooper and some kind of scout respectively. That led to the question of what Custos was supposed to be though, robes couldn't be practical in combat. That can wait for later, I think to myself. "Now Doctor Anders, I believe you were talking about their advanced tech." I begin. "Of course Captain, but there are a few key points we need to cover before any negotiations, first of which are the EXOs." Anders begins.
Date 03/05/4522
Location: UNSC Spirit of Fire – Alternate Sol System
Persons of interest
Custos: Dawnblade Warlock
Cogito: Custos' Ghost
Saint-14: Legendary Titan
Paean: St-14's Ghost
Raz-22: Nightstalker Hunter
Sparks: Raz's Ghost
No POV
"Cogito, you have this channel secured right?" Custos asks quietly. |Yes, they don't appear to have light based communications but I have a multi-layered encryption running just in case.| "Perfect, now we can talk freely! What do you think of these new people my friend?" St-14 asks boisterously over the coms. "Yeah, they seem kinda drab though. Still, did you see that tank! We NEED some of those tanks!" Raz says excitedly over the radio. "They're paranoid, but the fact that we're human helps." Custos says. "Cogito, you know the most about them due to the info exchange, what can you tell us?" the Dawnblade asks his ghost. |They represent the United Earth Government as the UNSC, or the United Nations Space Command. They are currently at war with a coalition of alien races called the Covenant. They made first contact with these aliens at a colony world named Harvest roughly 16 years ago. The Covenant had burnt the world and melted its surface to glass. They received one message from their enemy| "Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument." A raspy, cold voice suddenly played over the coms, eliciting a shudder from all those present. |Ever since they have been barely able to fight them. Any world discovered by the Covenant is doomed to fall. Often times reinforcements are too late due to their slow FTL travel speeds. Not to mention it takes them a 3 to 1 advantage at best and a 5 to 1 advantage at worst for their warships to take down enemy equivalents, according to their knowledge, the Covenant outnumbers them at least 10 to 1.|
With Cogito saying this, the Guardians are silent.
"#$%& * $%!" St-14 swears violently before disconnecting. |Apologies, I'll reconnect him when he calms down.| Paean says gently. Shocking all the other Guardians. Paean was a gentle ghost and didn't speak often. She had become even quieter as of late since she had managed to find mission transcripts from Custos' mission to revive St-14. Even a Ghost wouldn't react well to seeing footage of her own corpse. |Ahem, regardless of the outburst, it seems like Saint agrees, we need to help these people.| Cogito says. |Not to mention they can help us. Cogito told me that they had over 900 colonies at the start of the war. 900! Think of how much they could give us in terms of resources!| Sparks digitally salivates at the thought of being the richest ghost ever. "I've already sent their historical database, among other things back to the city. Hopefully the Consensus and the Vanguard can come to an agreement on what to do." Custos says warily, knowing the politics that still plagued humanity, despite its humble state. |Agreed, now I'm sending a message to the Captain explaining we're going to be jumping directly into the atmosphere. This kind of ship popping up in Earth orbit would attract unwanted attention.| Cogito informs politely. "Yeah, might also wanna warn them about the giant ball the city worships." Raz jokes.
With that, the SoF shoots out of subspace. The Spirit's crew is confronted with a sight completely foreign to them and very familiar to the Guardians.
They saw the Traveller.