Apathy

by Throwaway1971

Not important please ignore

21. Entry 183-192

After Activation 1126 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1087 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 100-32M - 40k Universe

Clone Wars 29 BBY - Star Wars Universe

The Fleets were engaging the Yuuzhan Vong and they were… rather bored actually. It had been a year of combat, the Vong bringing with them countless ships, which made sense. There was after all, an entire galaxy filled with the plant people.

It was not just a war however, it was more of a slaughter, the Vong were unable to adapt to and cope with the tactics used by the Galactic Navy, entire fleets being wiped out without managing to destroy even one of the Galactic Fleet's ships, not even one of the Droid ones. Entire fleets floundering as they were unable to retaliate against the agile and much smaller Galactic Fleets, dying one by one, only able to escape into hyperspace and hide in the depths of space, hoping they wouldn't be noticed by a Galactic Patrol.

The Galactic Government itself, formed of the 3 factions had seen the benefit of their alliance. The Outer Reach Territories had been rather reluctant in the initial stages but once certain key Senators and merchant leaders had been… "disappeared", they had opened up. Much happier about the entire situation. While it had taken more "targets" being gifted to the ORT, the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems had been very happy to accommodate them, if only to prevent the resurgence of the raids on their territories and supply lines. Their Caretaker leadership remained separate but communicated through their SDF spokespersons.

The Separatists had also been rather unwilling to join with the Republic, the war had raged on for so long and they had become entrenched in their way of thinking. Persuasion had come with promises of a more open and willing to communicate Republic, the problems that had seen them secede from the Republic in the first place partially solved. It would take much more effort and time before they were willing to fully integrate into the Galactic Government, but the first steps had been made. The profit they made while being part of the Galactic Government was certainly a factor to consider. Automated factories capable of producing almost everything on a flexible industrial base? There was much that the other 2 factions were willing to import, things like cleaning droids and flush toilets.

The Republic itself, large and powerful had decided that the Galactic Government was a good idea, it was basically the Republic itself but scaled up large. Peace would come to the galaxy and people would be happy, all going about smiling and consuming. The merchants were happy, the industrialists were not so. They had made quite the profit during the war and now with the possibility of peace on the horizon staring at them, well, there were plans regarding how to proceed when there was peace. The Senate was yet another stumbling block, a large and opulent gathering that in simple terms was useless. There would be reforms on the way if they wanted to keep the alliance, the stagnation that had served the Republic previously would be its downfall if they were not prepared to change.

The Cultivators and Yaomo were still at odds but had decided to cooperate temporarily, the Vong were a threat to the galaxy and had to be dealt with first. Once they were gone, they could resume their own civil war without the threat of galactic genocide hanging over their heads. Given the Yaomo had integrated themselves into Separatist culture and leadership, it was very much a case of the Separatist armies requiring the cessation of hostilities between the two factions. They were allies now, for better or for worse. The Confederacy of Independent Systems truly did appreciate having their own force users with which to hold against aggression from the Jedi if it came down to it.

The Yaomo were still resentful to the Republic and the Jedi order for perceived slights against their namesakes, all those years ago. However, they were very much willing to let bygones be bygones in the face of the new Jedi Order, one that was apparently, very much for understanding the Light and Dark sides of the Force. Like their Cultivator brethren, but without the condescension and smugness.

The Cultivators on the other hand, were very much as insular as before, assisting against the Vong but not in any major fashion. They merely imparted their teaching on the Jedi in order that they be able to resist the dreaded Midichlorians before vanishing again to their homeworld. They would be keeping an eye out, but they would still watch their estranged and dark side brethren they had said. While there were some of them apparently within the galaxy, spread throughout, they were keeping themselves hidden. Learning about the galaxy yet not revealing themselves.

The Jedi had themselves changed over the course of the war. Whereas before they had been a monastic order that took things to an extreme, intolerance of the dark side and anything that might lead to it, a way of life that became increasingly strained when the Jedi became generals and soldiers in the Grand Army. With the stripping of their Midichlorians and the manner in which the Flash Clones came and brought the numbers and leadership to replace the Jedi, they had been able for the first time, in a long time, to question exactly where the Jedi Order was going. They could not afford to remain as they were when the galaxy itself had been lit on fire.

The Jedi Knights and Masters, even the Padawans were fighting in this war, their hands stained by blood and their souls becoming clouded by the dark side. Yet if they did not fight, they would be betraying the very principles that formed the foundation of the Jedi Order in the first place. A relaxation of the rules, an acceptance that some of the things that usually led to the Dark Side, were the beginnings of the transition. To be rigid was to be strong, yet too rigid and one was brittle, prone to destruction with a well placed blow. The Jedi must be flexible to face against the future.

The Cultivators had come then, teaching them that the Light and Dark sides of the Force are not in opposition to one another, but in conjunction. That together they work to empower the individual, not tear them apart and weaken them. It had been an enlightening experience, their teachings extremely important in the transition of the Jedi Order. Once the Midichlorian threat was neutralized, the first of the teachings, then they could move to the second, accepting the balance.

It required dedication and strength of mind, but those that did accomplish it, reported themselves to be many times more powerful, more stable, and centered. They no longer had to fight against half of their souls, their minds, their bodies, but instead in accepting them, could understand the Force more deeply, and meditate upon it more easily.

It required a reworking and a change to their doctrine, but it was one for the better if the Jedi wished to be relevant in the galaxy going forward, change was necessary. Especially considering the alliance of 3 factions, intolerance to the Dark side would only cause problems at a later date, problems that they would be the cause of.

As for Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, well his meddling had been discovered and the Jedi were confronting him, alongside representatives of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and the Outer Reach Territories that were along for unity's sake.

"Supreme Chancellor, you have been accused of treason against the Republic. Your actions started a secession war with the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and have cost billions of lives." Said Jedi Master Mace Windu. He was relaxed… but only so much. He was a Jedi first and foremost and the man before him was a Sith.

They had discovered the chips inside the heads of the older generation of Kaminoan Clones, the kill order of 66 still embedded in their heads. Some of the more competent and eager splicers had pieced together that there had been a figure which had appealed to the Separatist High Council, given them promises and started them on the path to war.

The Jedi, without the Midichlorians blinding them, were able to detect minute traces of the Dark Side around Palpatine, Yoda's recollection of there being the Rule of Two made it easier to track down exactly who it was. Palpatine in short, had too much Dark Side power to be a simple patsy, a fool. His apprentice, Count Dooku, former Jedi Master was powerful, true, but not to the extent that Palpatine was.

It was a simple matter of deduction once they reached that point, to understand that Palpatine was the one who instigated the war, manipulating it from behind until his link to the Council, Count Dooku had been killed.

They were here now to hear his side of the story with official witnesses in the form of a select few Republic Senators, Confederacy of Independent System Council members, and a member of the SDF Operations Board.

"Well, it was about time that I was discovered." He started off with, smiling at them benevolently.

His smile didn't change in the face of their stunned expressions.

"Please, please, take a seat, have some tea. I'll explain it once we are all comfortable." He said, waving his hand at the chairs arrayed about the room as a service Droid emerged from the closet.

"So, you accuse that I started the Clone Wars as they have become known. I do not deny this charge." He moved on despite the shocked expressions on their faces.

"Let me explain to you why I started the War and perhaps you can come to understand my exact reasons for it." He finished. Tapping the holographic projector on his desk, he leaned back and let the recording play out.

"The Yuuzhan Vong are coming, their fleets stretch out across the Galactic Rim and they seek to destroy all that makes us, to undo everything that the Republic has spent the last 1000 years building. As we are now, we cannot hope to defeat them, peace has made the Republic weak, the armies of the past long gone, and that has left us defenceless. We are vulnerable, extremely so. Something drastic must be done, yet the Republic possesses far too much inertia and apathy to do it through legitimate channels. We must take drastic steps, the Republic shall arm itself and be prepared for the Vong when they do arrive. We shall have to do horrible things to bring the galaxy to a state where it is ready and able to defend itself against the Vong, but we must do so in order for the galaxy to survive. There is no other option left to us."

The hologram played out in front of the stunned spectators. Palpatine hid a grin, who knew Midichlorian him would actually prove useful.

"That was a recording of a conversation I had 10 years prior to the war over Naboo. I had seen the Vong arrive, I saw what they were capable of, and I saw a galaxy that was not ready for them. I took it upon myself to prepare the galaxy, even at the cost of lives, we would be ready. You are free to examine it for yourselves" He said, leaning forward, making sure he appeared as confident, yet reluctant as possible. Acting class was paying off. He said, placed the holo on the table, within easy reach of those who might want to make sure that he was not lying.

"So you deliberately began this war, for us to survive the Vong? Is that correct?" Asked on the of the Separatist Council Members.

"Yes, look back 20 years ago, was there any army or navy that could have resisted the Vong?" He asked them, spreading out his hands and smiling down at them.

There was a brief moment of thought before all of them nodded. Palpatine was correct, they had no real military prior to the Naboo conflict, and even then it was only the Separatists that had anything.

"And of the Kill order?" Asked Mace Windu.

"Of Order 66?" Asked Palpatine.

"Yes, the one where the Clones would kill their commanding Jedi General."

"Necessary. Could you honestly say that 5 years ago even, the Jedi order was prepared to do fight a total war against an enemy like the Vong? Would you not have tried to respond with diplomatic talks, of peace? Would you not have caused many more casualties in doing so?" He asked in return, staring directly at Mace Windu.

Windu hesitated before nodding.

"No, I could not. You are right in that regard." Windu said.

Palpatine nodded whilst chortling inside, it was going even better than his wildest dreams. The Midichlorians truly did blind people, he could have done it all without the warring, it would have been so easy!

"But Dooku your apprentice was dead. Surely that changed your plans?"

"It did, I was planning on having both sides snipe at each other ineffectually until there was enough of a military presence to counter the Vong and from there peace could be achieved. In the disarming process the Vong would arrive and the militaries were still powerful enough to resist them. Naturally, without Dooku, things escalated beyond my control."

"So what did you plan to happen following the war? There are billions upon billions of troops out there. When the Vong are finished, what will happen to them?"

Palpatine grinned. "We send them off to the Vong's galaxy and colonize it."

The room stared at him before they started grinning also. Get rid of the masses of war hardened troopers, make them useful, and solve a brewing domestic problem. Oh yes, this was a good plan.

Unbeknownst to the organics of the Star Wars universe, the Sith and the Cultivators would over time retreat from the limelight, before vanishing entirely. The Caretakers would maintain their presence but more as a means of looking over the universe as opposed to manipulating matters. The Star Wars universe was notorious for not being able to maintain stability for any length of time, it would be interesting to see exactly why this was. If it continued without the Midichlorians, then again the forces that came out to play were often far too big to be just Midichlorians, who knew what else was playing with this galaxy.

After Activation 1131 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1092 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 105-32M - 40k Universe

Clone Wars 24 BBY - Star Wars Universe

The Star Wars universe had been left behind and the Caretakers were once again left without an active universe to keep track of. The human Cultivators and the Yaomo had accomplished their tasks and had been successful in entertaining the Minds. They were now fully part of the Caretakers, ready to intervene in the new universes being discovered and having a marginal amount of self-determination.

More than they would have had as a subject race, less than they had before. At the very least, they had many times the resources of before without a fear of having to wage war on themselves to survive.

They were joining the Quarians, Krogan, X-Humans, as part of the client races of the Minds, ready to serve and entertain.

Their deaths inside the Star Wars universe didn't matter, their souls had been tethered and death was an inconvenience more than anything else. It was irritating to have to become accustomed to a new body, but it was nothing that couldn't be worked through.

For the XCOM Humans, the Mass Effect universe they were in was slowly adapting, becoming something interesting with the aliens being considered for client status. While they were not actually that interesting except for their physical differences from one another, they were still aliens of a sort.

The Minds had not matured at all in the thousands of years intervening, their thought processes still focused on satisfying their curiosity at all costs. Thankfully they had created identical universes parallel to that of the original ones, and also turned back time when they were done. At the urging of the X-Humans, the Minds were being "ethical" regarding their actions. Simply accepting that the Minds were unable to comprehend things like empathy at their base level, was necessary to understand what was going on. Simply knowing of human emotions was possible, creating a human body, occupying it, and experiencing the emotions.

However, the Minds at a fundamental level were unable to comprehend what it was they were feeling, like a third person view of the body. A disembodied perception of what was going on in their body.

Once the client races understood that, then it became much easier to work around the Minds. Simply explaining what was going on in their heads was the most effective means of attempting to talk to the Minds.

The Star Wars universe had ended so anti-climatically, that the Caretakers were not sure as to what was happening at all. Usually one had an epic battle of some kind, like ending the Flood, like destroying the Reapers, like crushing the Empires in the Senti Continent. Big awesome battles, a satisfying ending to everything. What they got was the Yuuzhan Vong, a race that was… incredibly disappointing.

So disappointing that the Caretakers had to make sure that these were the Vong and not imposters of some kind. They fought primarily in melee, despite being an interstellar society. Their most powerful weapons were giant rocks fired out of their ships at snail speed. Engaging them consisted of staying at a range where they would jink sideways to dodge the rocks, before engaging the Vong ships again.

Their ships were slow enough that simply firing at them from outside flaming rock range was a viable strategy. The Vong unable to fight back, slowly being whittled away. Not just their larger ships, the smaller attack craft were similarly handicapped, flying at an eighth of the speed of comparable attack craft from the Galactic Fleet but they had actual engines. Their weaponry was similarly handicapped, shooting molten rocks that were easily dodgeable, their ability to maneuver limited and left them open to destruction and death at the hands of the more maneuverable Galactic attack craft.

Their fleets turned to a means of trying to ambush the Galactic Fleet, trying to drag ships out of Hyperspace with their Dovin Basals which in turn were able to manipulate gravity to an extent. This proved an effective tactic until the Galactic Fleet decided that only fleets would be going on long distance journeys, a tactic that meant any Vong ambush would be met with equal or superior firepower.

Their fleets, in short, were at the mercy of the Galactic Navy and was torn apart with contemptuous ease. While they did have numbers on their side, and sheer size, they also lacked a very key component that allowed the Galactic Navy to steamroll them at every opportunity.

The Vong lacked adaptability. The fact that they grew their ships in the first place ensured that when it came down to it, they would be simply unable to react to any threats they faced. If the enemy ships outranged them, and they were forced to use their rock guns, a faster and more heavily armoured ship would be able to close the gap perhaps. A lighter, smaller ship to flank. Allowing them to make up for their deficiencies in range by closing in and forcing the enemy to engage up close. Alternative methods could have been something as simple as using something other than swarm tactics and perhaps up-armouring their attack craft to survive more than a few point defence shots.

The Vong with their inability to adapt in space were torn apart as the Galactic Republic continuously forced out more and more ships, each designed with taking apart a specific weakness. The Vong on the other hand still used the same ships they had at the start of the war, unable to adapt to the threat being levelled against them by the Galactic Fleet, their forces torn apart by those specifically designed just to kill them.

It was a situation where many admirals even pitied the Vong, seeing a formation and instantly predicting how it would turn out on previous experience. The Vong's inability to consider surrender saw them smashing themselves against the wall that was the Galactic Navy. The fact that they valued suicidal tendencies so highly as with their warrior caste, meant that it was a rather simple method to lure the Vong into a crossfire and obliterate them, carving them apart with contemptuous ease. If one were looking in from the outside, there would perhaps be the argument made that it was cruel what was being done to them, but what the Vong were doing on the worlds they had conquered when they first arrived… well, that was another level of cruel.

The Vong were attempting to "shape" the people they had captured, turning them into Vong, but in the manner one might run an experiment. A way to see if "they could". The people themselves going through unspeakable torment as their very bodies were morphed around them to fit whatever sick, twisted desire the Vong had. The Minds at the very least would knock you out before they began manipulating DNA. Alongside this was their use of slavery, taking entire planet's worth of peoples and either using them in experiments or putting them to back breaking work as slaves.

This meant of course that the ORT absolutely despised the Vong for their slaving and would brook no attempt at peace with them. The Separatists already were unwilling to setting with the Vong, their hatred of technology making them nothing but a ticking time bomb if there were ever peace. The Republic professed to hate slavery (despite the rampant corruption it experienced on a daily basis), and had to hate the Vong on principle. With 3 factions unwilling to negotiate… well, the Vong did not have very much of a recourse.

This was combined with the fact that the Vong warrior caste was… ineffective at best, actively hindering their own side at worst.

The fact that their primary weapons were reptiles that could spit acid out a measly 20 meters and acted as their primary melee weapons, the Vong displayed to the galaxy a very primitive and foolish mentality that was exploited to their cost. With the Vong considering that running up to an enemy and attempting to hit them to death was a viable strategy, the Galactic Armies simply re-arranged themselves as to have overwhelming firepower at all times in their formations.

The Vong did favour ambush tactics against an advancing attacker, but when the Jedi, Cultivators, and Sith were present, well their presences were discovered almost immediately and artillery called on their locations. If they were underground or in a ship, then liberal application of explosives was used instead. The Vong were unable to counter this combination and were pushed back at every front.

The one place where the Vong were able to get something done was their Shaper Caste. Or rather the weapons that their Shaper Caste came up with. As their name suggested, they were extremely competent in the art of coming up with different lifeforms through the shaping process. In particular, the Vong tried to come up with various biological weapons to use against the Galactic Army. Ranging from creatures that were designed to kill by dissolving the throat, to viruses that turned the organic forces into time bombs, liable to explode at anytime and infect all those around them.

Then came the various attempts at designed weapons that the Warrior Caste would be able to use to counter the armour of the Clones, the circuitry of the Droids, and the shadow strikes of the SDF. The key word here being attempt, as the Warrior Caste was still rigid in its ways and willing to die for its ideals, regardless of how stupid they were in practice.

The Shapers in the end, were forced back, their ideas too diverse to have any real impact, those that did being shouted down by the multitudes of others that claimed theirs were better. They some of their ideas did work, the fact that the Clones and the SDF were all wearing rebreathers, well, it made it hard for airborne viruses to work on them, their armour made projectiles weapons difficult to use, caution prevented traps. They had no recourse and a battle of the ages was stopped before it even began.

In the end, the Vong were destroyed, their end being representative of their actual ability, mediocre, boring, a footnote in history.

The Caretakers had been rather taken aback, they had expected the Vong to be actually worth something, in-line with their portrayal in the Star Wars literature. Instead what they got was a mediocre empire at best, dangerously incompetent at worst.

It had been rather confusing in all honesty for the Minds, they were unsure as to what could be done in order to make the ending awesome again.

In the end, they had simply copied the Star Wars universe, put the entire Yuuzhan Vong fleet up against the Galactic Fleet and watched from the sidelines. Big blasts of turbo-laser, exploding ships, the Vong getting utterly annihilated again. There wasn't much change but at least there was an epic battle with tens of thousands of Galactic ships and hundreds of thousands of Vong ships. Granted their disabilities meant they were still at a terrible disadvantage, but at least they managed to destroy 1000 Galactic Navy ships this time. That was 2 times their previous score! The minds were very proud of them.

They even set up a few camps in order to concentrate the presence of the Shapers. Concentration camps as it were. Their ability to modify genetic structures was very interesting. The X-Humans had a little fit over it, though, naming your camps "concentration camps" was apparently a very big taboo in human culture, something to do with genocide. The Minds acquiesced and changed the name to "Camps for Shapers". There had been a bit of grumbling, but nagging Hannah was dangerous Hannah.

With their lust for big explosions and epic battles out of the way, the Minds decided to concentrate on a little side project they had been running. It was decidedly on a much smaller scale than the other universes, but what made it interesting, was the fact that it was very much a copy of the universe that the Commander had originally come from as a human. There were minute differences to be sure, but the overall outline was similar. If not for the fact that there were the Scrin in the background, making their way over to the planet ever so slowly. The world had not yet been infused with Tiberium, however, indicating that the ship was on its way to infuse the world with Tiberium. It would take another 90ish years, enough time for the Minds to have some fun with the people of the world.

Oh yes. Lots of fun.

After Activation 1131 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1092 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 105-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1963 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

It was 1960s Planet Earth of the Sol System of the Milky Way galaxy of the unnamed universe. The Minds were inside and they were very much interested in how things were going to turn out. The Scrin were a presence, impregnating worlds with Tiberium, harvesting them for… kicks? The Scrin enjoyed using the Tiberium as a means of getting "high" as organics called it, as well as a means for fuel. Getting high off petrol in essence, the ghetto aliens of the galaxy.

They amused the Minds, their thought processes much like that of the primitive crime factions of the Earth, while their application of force being like that of colonial powers. In essence, the Scrin were not very liked by the rest of the galaxy and tried to make up for it by acting tough and killing many smaller races. This of course, didn't endear the Scrin to the rest of the galaxy, but they had been doing it for so long, that anything else was unthinkable. Very set in their ways and boring gangsters. It was still interesting but on closer inspection, not as much as it could have been.

The Minds were mildly disappointed but there was still the humans. Ah the humans, they were everywhere, no matter what universe the Minds explored, there were still the humans, being humany. Sometimes there were evil humans, nice humans, not so nice humans, ok humans, and all manner of humans. That much was interesting at least, even if the baseline was getting rather old at this point.

Still, they had something to consider, the humans of this universe if fast forwarding time, were firmly in the Command and Conquer Generals universe. A cross perhaps? Interesting, they did not have many of those around. Still, the humans were going to be left on their own, eventually, there will be an economic crisis and the world implodes and everyone goes to war. A very interesting, yet tried and true plotline when it came to RTS games.

Tried, true and boring.

The Minds were not very interested in retreading the same old plotlines, in doing what they had been doing for subjective millions of years at this point. Rather they were very much looking forward to breaking it and seeing if they could not make things… interesting.

Being the good guy was growing rather grating and the Minds wished to try something new for once. What if they were not the "good guys" but the bad guys for once? They would turn out to be the good guys in the end, but that wouldn't be figured out for a few dozen years as the historians dug up the tidbits of history. Instead of just giving everyone the equipment and weaponry that they needed, why did they not instead give stimulus, but have them develop it all by themselves?

In essence, why did they not have the world grow on its own without being gifted everything as the previous universes had… excluding the ones that the Minds simply destroyed because they were bored. But nobody knew about those so it was all ok anyway.

To start the entire mess, the Minds considered that backing one of the main factions, only that would make them a super power, crush everyone else then rule the world. Boring. Alternatively, they could back every faction, only that would likely end with the world being destroyed since humanity was not known for its caution and ability to hold back. At the same time, doing it that way would be awesome, explosions, armies clashing… but the world ending. The need to hold themselves back was important here, the Minds needed to look at the bigger picture. Stick with humanity until the Scrin arrived, then there will be an intergalactic war of awesome proportions.

Making it totally worth it if they could pull it off. Plucky humans versus giant race of insect like aliens which spanned a rather small portion of the galaxy (but was still massive compared to the single system human race), a battle of the ages, epic and amazing, and all sorts of big words.

Assuming of course that they could get to it without imploding. To do that, the Minds were focusing on creating a singular drawing point, something to focus all the attention of the world and to perhaps divert them from killing each other. Instead, they would all be focused on killing the organization that would draw their attention. NOD would be plagiarized by the Minds, an ancient organization that had decided to unveil itself and try to take over the world.

They would be working from a prophecy from ancient times, a mandate from the heavens themselves. Of course, this was all fake, unless one counted the Commander as a God, in which case it was all very true. For the humans, however, they would be very confused indeed, the Minds using their ability to turn back time to inscribe countless motifs all over the world. The earliest Caveman paintings would contain their symbols and it would only go from there, with ancient works of Sumerian, Greek, Aztec, Mayan, Aboriginal, Chinese, etc, cultures being marked with their symbols. Even funnier, they wouldn't even know that the symbols were there, ignored, reproduced in the millions, just… there. Until NOD showed up and everyone suddenly remembered that it existed.

There would be a variety of secret societies that would try to claim the symbols as their own, but they could be dealt with easily enough. It was enough to have the Minds chortling, an ancient, manufactured society that existed before human civilization was even a thing, coming to reclaim its rightful heritage with a great immortal prophet at the helm. The prophet in this case, being Catherine, as was the norm when it came to thrusting HeMUs into the spotlight.

The HeMUs would be joined by a much more constrained cast of races for this one, the X-Humans since glowing purple eyes were mysterious and cool, the Eldar to do a little plotting from behind the scenes and finally the HeMUs themselves. It was just a human planet, after all, no point bringing in aliens and completely ruining the story.

"Plucky humanoids survive incursion by evil oppressive insects!" Made such a better headline than, "Humanoids with assistance from multiple interstellar races defeat poor outnumbered insects".

As it was, they would be starting this entire sequence of events off with something suitable. A quiet little wheeze as the universe buckled under the concentration of the Minds, as they opened a gate for their instigators to go through. It would be something that was submerged beneath the attention waves of the humans on the planet, of course, one needed a little time to create a global terrorist network after all. Something like that didn't just appear unless you were cheating shamelessly, which the Minds totally weren't at all.

Things were less fun when you cheated, made the entire thing pointless. Besides, if they wanted to cheat, they could very easily copy the universe and do it there.

As it was, the Caretakers, were going in and laying the foundations of the NOD Sect. The overtly religious connotations combined with the strange use of the word "Nod", would confuse and scare people, the perfect beginning to a terrorist organization. Their motives would remain unclear, however, their actions in striking at civilian populations, picking fights with governmental forces, raiding governmental facilities, and the like would all serve to put them in the hearts and minds of the world itself.

Not in a good way, but a permanent, dread inducing kind of way.

All of the major superpowers and would be superpowers would be affected, NOD creating a culture of fear and apprehension that permeated all of society. In the end, the world powers would unite, NOD would be defeated by a coalition of hope or something equally as cheesy, and the world would be ready for the Scrin. Or so the hopeful Minds thought the events were going to go, things tended to not go as well as they planned, and indeed veer wildly off course.

The Star Wars universe was an example of that, add in the Flash Clones, sit back and wait, and all of a sudden reorganization of their entire military to compensate. What was originally merely a ploy to have the Star Wars battles turn into an epic system-wide conflict with millions of Clones and Droids battling each other. Turned out somehow into a modern-ish sort of conflict.

The Minds were not sure how it happened exactly, the inhabitants of the Star Wars universe were not exactly well known for their intelligence when it came to things like weapons and vehicle designs. To suddenly have effective designs come out of nowhere… well, that was a very large shock. In the new C universe, they were going to have to keep a close eye on the humans, humanity possessed a rather devious ingenuity when it came to developing new weapons. Able to turn the most innocuous of things into death dealing tools the size of a fist.

It would be best, therefore, to guide their growth quietly rather than let them develop unfettered. It would not do if they suddenly had the desire to throw billions of kilograms of explosive potential at each other. Therein lay the path to destruction.

It would also mean ignoring NOD, something the Minds would be very irritated over. To think that all of their efforts would go to waste and the humans would dare to ignore them. No, NOD would make itself very integral to the thoughts of the world's politicians and military leadership. To ignore NOD was to ignore the festering sore that infected everything they held close and dear.

No, the Minds were going to preemptively control what the reactions of the people of the world were. Subterfuge and "sneaking" into military outposts and the like, would in turn, prompt a response of trying to develop more technology to find the NOD agents. The Minds would even allow them to "capture" a few of their agents (HeMUs), who would then repeat cryptic phrases like "NOD watches", or something equally mysterious and disturbing. Their guards would become better trained, and the government would try as hard as they could to suppress any information that NOD existed at all.

A few rumours here and there, and NOD would become this universe's Illuminati, only much more real and terrifying.

When the Minds felt that the governments were falling behind on their conventional technologies like tanks and ships, a land war of some kind would erupt, forcing a response and in the aftermath, technology would develop to counter what they had gone up against previously. This could be delayed, however, the tensions between the USSR, the US/Europe, and soon to be China would see a development of military technology on its own.

It was when… or rather if the Soviet Union fell that the intervention of NOD would be necessary. The Scrin were going to need an entirely new field of weapon's technology in order to be destroyed. What they had in conventional terms was nowhere enough for the roles that would be asked of them.

A few nudges here and there, a few treatises and research proposals planted in the depths of academic purgatory, and an academia motivated by the government pushing on them to find ways to destroy "NODs new weapons". Well, it would not be long before suddenly nanobots or something equally as ridiculous would be discovered, allowing the humans to once again get the upper hand in their conflicts.

Cue a few years of peace, and NOD would emerge once again, like a hydra that never died, their immortal ruler at the helm as she led them to claim their right. Granted that was very dramatic and overblown, but the general idea was still the same. Keep NOD in the minds of the world, make sure they knew that there was something that wanted them to know their place in the food chain.

Whether or not they were successful in the second half was unknown.

But half the fun was in trying.

After Activation 1131 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1092 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 105-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1963 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Hannah grinned widely.

It had been too long since she had been sent out against some measly humans. In fact, now that she thought about it, wasn't the last time in the Gundam Universe? All those eons ago, how nostalgic. Back when she was just a mindless killing machine. Her relationship with Leila Barros Melo had mellowed her out somewhat, making her much more likely to not lash out at the smallest thing as her grown instincts demanded of her.

Over the millennia they had been together, or more like, Hannah dropping in every few weeks to make sure her human was fed, while Leila waved half-heartedly at her HeMU captor. It was a relationship that benefited them both, one had a touchstone with which to keep her sanity, the other a sugar-mommy to leach off of.

There was the occasional sexytime and hanky panky, but that was more a relieving of both of their frustrations. Leila herself was kept occupied by the internet from over 8 universes, the amount of kinky porn was out of this world (literally). Further, she found herself to be flush with cash in all the different denominations, and simply amused herself by ordering random items off the net, to be delivered to her with A.T. Field fuckery.

In short, Leila was content and about as happy as someone like her could be.

Hannah on the other hand, was enjoying her life that was marginally more free, free from the urges of slash and maim that had preceded the previous decades of her life. That didn't mean that she was completely free of the urge to stab something, or someone. She just did it in moderation or someone. She just did it in moderation now, something she had learnt from the X-Humans. Simply doing something over and over would eventually dull it in your mind, driving you to further excesses in order to capture past experiences.

Or in other words, she would be going more and more crazy as time passed, her desire to use her knife on everything and anything overwhelming her entirely. It might even necessitate a full system restore, something that would be mighty embarrassing. So far that had only happened to the HeMUs that had gone "full native", forgetting that they were HeMUs entirely. Rare, but entirely possible.

That being said, enjoying herself in moderation would mean that every time she slit someone's throat, well it would feel as fresh and exciting as the first time she had done it. A way to receive constant enjoyment out of her work and her hobby. It required a large amount of self restraint of course, no killing Leila to start off with, no killing more than 500 people a week, no purposefully getting caught so she would have to kill her way out of a trap, no killing random people that she happened across, lots of little rules that made the eventual feeling that much more intense.

In terms of human morality, she was a monster, but she was also a HeMU. A weapon used in order to bring about the will of the Minds. If she had been born as a human being, then her choices would not have been so limited in what she could do with her life. As it was, she had been created for a singular purpose and was merely making the most of her circumstances. She had accepted her lot of existence and was making the most of it.

Currently, she was infiltrating a US weapon's facility. More specifically, she was infiltrating a facility that produced nuclear weapons and/or researched them or something. She wasn't exactly sure and considering what the Minds had tucked away in their memory banks, nuclear fission wasn't exactly cutting edge anymore. It made a pretty light to be sure, but it also came with tremendous drawbacks and was irritating as all hell to use considering the safety protocols that came with using them. It was nice for making a statement, but not for much else.

Still, it was cutting edge for the humans of this planet, and she would be striking the first blow for NOD with the US of A. Diving straight into their laboratories, avoiding all the guards, knocking out the researchers to make a statement, and then spraying a NOD symbol onto the walls of the main meeting room. After that she would make her escape and wait for the government types to find out what was going on, and when they did… well, the proverbial fireworks were going to be very warm.

It was 1963, before CCTV cameras had been implemented on a widespread scale. Or rather the patent would be available in 1969, that wasn't to say that prior to this, the government didn't have their own systems in place. Hannah was being cautious with this in mind, or rather… as cautious as she was capable of.

There was a fence in front of her, a simple barbed wire one. It continued around the entire facility, a vast square of some kind. While the entrance was a little bunker of some sort in the middle of it all, the facility itself was underground, stretching for many levels, a fusion of Germanic bunker building techniques and American funds. Inside it was the technology to create the most powerful weapons on the planet, and a research team dedicated to finding ways to make it even more explosive and dangerous.

Hannah leapt over the fence, dropping low to the ground, and sprinted forward. It looked rather peculiar, as if she was perpetually falling, yet somehow managing to stay upright. While for a normal human being it was a very bad idea, simply due to the fact that bending squished the lungs, and air was hard to come by as it was, for a HeMU that was no issue. Decreasing her profile, Hannah ran across the 1 kilometer distance that separated her and the bunker,

"Badum, duh dum duh!" She murmured as she came closer. Or tried to, more like a mumble really. The chewing gum in her mouth muffling her voice. It rang out clearly in her head, so that was good enough. It wasn't like she was going to impress anybody with her singing skills, that was Katrin's area.

Popping out a little piece of the stuff, she focused her sight ahead of her. There were little blocks that were very clearly cameras of a kind, targets for her sticky little bombs of sugar and gum. A flick of her finger, and the cameras were taken out of action. The little pieces of food residue covering the little glass circles that would have allowed whoever was on the other side to see her. She would of course, allow them to see her, all the better to create the mystery.

There was a guard behind the glass checkpoint. 24/7 security being a given considering what was going on inside. It was too bad for him that this was the day that Hannah decided to visit. He died to the stiletto that punched through the glass, straight into his throat, stab. A little gurgling, hands to his neck, slumping over, dead.

The relief crew would be here in an hour, plenty of time for Hannah to get in and out.

Cutting a circle in the glass, Hannah popped her arm through the hole and pressed the button that would unlock the door in front of her. From there, she spotted a few cameras, blocked them with gum and moved on. They would have records of her face and it would be quite interesting to see what they thought of it. Was she a Russian Spy? Was she some kind of political dissident? Was she just a psychopath? Hannah grinned, interesting indeed.

Hannah decided that sprinting would be much less dramatic, instead, it would be best if she just walked her way, though, confident, cool, collected. The cameras would be able to record her, just for brief stretches before they were blocked. The guards would have to die, make it clear that she was "evil". In regards to the researchers, they would have to be kept alive, wouldn't do to knock back their progress a few dozen years because she was feeling knife happy. Which admittedly, was all the time, but she was getting better at it.

Whistling she continued on through, this was going to be fun.

"What the fuck happened?" Asked General Pierce, his face red with anger, veins popping out of his neck and hands. The good general was leaning forward on the table, staring at the men before him. In order, they were the head of the research division, the security chief of the facility, the army chief that was meant to respond with a quick mobilization once the word came in of an attack, and the civilian contractor that had built the facility in the first place.

"According to what we managed to glean through the footage sir, the attacker, a female we have identified as Hannah," started the security chief, indicating the graffiti she had scrawled on the walls, a mockery of the WW2 'kilroy was here' tags that soldiers used to use, hers being "Hannah was here" with a stylised face, "approached the facility at 1100 hours on Tuesday evening. She proceeded to kill the guard at the entrance," he took the chance to indicate at the pictures showing the man slumped over on his chair, the blood making it look like he had a dark red necktie of some sort. "And made her way into the facility where she headed to the research department, killing anyone on the way, it looked as if she was unsure what the route was" again, moving his hand to encompass the 48 photographs of the guards killed, all with knives, all with their bodies looking surprised without having time to bring their weapons up at all.

"She breached the research department at 1143 hours, blanking out the cameras there before leaving again. We don't have an exact time that she left, she followed the same route out that she did in." He finished. Pushing forward the 'Hannah was here' tag she had made as well as the strange symbol that didn't ring any bells in the state department.

General Pierce turned to look at the army response chief.

"We got word at 1150 hours that something had occurred and mobilized 1st Company to respond to it, sir. However, by the time we arrived, the woman had already left the scene and we could only secure the facility. I alerted Joint Command about the attack and they scrambled aircraft and more troops to find her, but we came up with nothing." He said, looking frustrated, just as frustrated as they all were.

"And you, Professor Barnes?" Said General Pierce.

"There was nothing taken, all the notes and information was accounted for, but they were moved from their original places. We believe she took photos of them for whoever it is she is working for." Said Professor Barnes, his hand shaking slightly as he pushed up his glasses. On the side of his head was an ugly bruise, still nascent in development. He had been with 4 others, finalizing their plans for a new bomb, when the next thing he knew, was the face of a medic leaning over him. From there it was a rushed accounting of their papers then off to meet the general.

"Mr Martylin. I had thought that your design was the most secure design that money could buy." Asked the General, his voice ominous. "Yet here we are, 49 of my men dead, state secrets that could see the entire world descend into war in the hands of a hostile actor, and your designs being useless. Care to explain yourself Mr Martylin?" He asked. The good general was not hoping for much, but a discount going forward was important. The long term view was what got him this posting after all.

The man quivered slightly, the word treason floating around his head, entirely of his own making, the man had too much imagination. The General ignored him, and left the poor Mr Martylin to stew in his own juices before turning back to the assembled cast.

"Do any of you recognize this symbol?" Asked the General, pointing at the strange symbol that had been photographed.

"The symbol of NOD." Said the Professor.

"Pardon?" The entire table swivelled to look at him.

"The symbol of NOD, we aren't sure when it first appeared exactly, but it is a recurring theme throughout human existence, we have seen it in ancient Sumerian works, Byzantine, Ottoman, Aztec. Everything that was ever touched by human hands also somehow had this symbol on it. The translated names for it all come out as Nod, every time. A very peculiar little symbol that had the archeology world very divided on what it means." Explained the Professor. "It's a very recent field of study actually, we've been finding this stuff everywhere, it's all very interesting."

The looks on the faces of those opposite him had him asking, "what? Something on my face?"

After Activation 1131 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1092 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 105-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1963 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Lilith smiled, she was enjoying being around her family. There was Adam. There was the Librarian. There was MAGI. There was the Commander. There was everyone having fun!

Lilith was having lots of fun.

The Emperor was funny.

It was teatime and everyone was having fun!

She beamed at the Commander who was currently pouring tea for Miss Katrin. She tried not to giggle, Commander's fingers were sooo big, and teapot was sooo small. Then everyone had tea!

The Commander took a sip of the cup and everyone else did too. Mmmm. Lilith made delicious tea! She had to boil the water (Katrin did it), measure out the tea leaves (Katrin did it), pour the boiling water into the teapot (Katrin did it), and bring out the cups (Lilith did it!)

It was so long since everyone could be together like this. It was really amazing. Super amazing. Lilith was so happy.

Lilith looked up at Katrin who was stroking her hair, Katrin was super amazing too!

Adam was still frowning… like a frownie face. She tried to make him smile more but he was so boring. Always with the "cynicism" that Katrin called it.

Librarian was nice, she was a little weird but she was nice. Lilith didn't know what she was doing, but she was super busy all the time. Always coming in and out of the soulscape, busy busy.

MAGI was always here and always played with Lilith when she was bored. MAGI was amazing. Lilith really liked MAGI, he always had everything she wanted. Like a super awesome present giver guy!

Lilith made sure to sip her tea, Lilith was a big girl and big girls always finished their tea.

Katrin hid a smile behind her teacup as she took a sip of the tea. Lilith was maturing… slowly. Considering she was originally a being that considered a hundreds of millions year journey through space as the first part of their voyage, it was not much of a surprise that she matured much more slowly. As it was, she was now, she looked approximately around 12 years old… ish, with a mental age of about 10.

Which meant of course, that she desperately wanted to be older. This teatime was simply a regular thing that Lilith in her adorable fashion, determinedly pushed through. It would be a "family" thing, where the whole family could get together and enjoy each other's company? Katrin wasn't too sure on that, it was not as if the Commander was some kind of emotional heavyweight… or even had emotion at all. MAGI was enigmatic and developing its own personality, one that very much enjoyed toying with people, that much was for certain.

The Librarian that the Caretakers had 'liberated' from the Halo universe was officially acting as a maternal figure to the Minds. In actuality, she was acting more as a 'conscience' for the Minds. Popping in and out of the variety of universes that the Minds either created or had discovered, and trying to leash them. Their excesses being stuff of legends and she wasn't quite ready to allow them to run amok, especially since most of the universe were filled with humans, her personal favourites. While it wasn't good of her to be playing favourites, she did so anyway, making it rather lucky that pretty much all the universes that the Minds had come across were filled with humans.

Katrin gave an absent minded stroke of Lilith's hair, hiding a smile as the girl's eyes closed and became upturned crescents. She would deny ever thinking that having her hair stroked felt good, since big girls didn't get their heads patted, but her expression would betray her every time. Katrin was glad it was going to be a few more thousand years before she grew up.

As for the rest of the cast, well they were here as well. Less of the family and more of the 'regulars'. Hannah, the non-psychotic X-Human one, was here, coordinating their operations in the new universe alongside her husband Eldrad. Katrin babysat their children and it was always a pleasure, the little ones were always adorable.

Adam was the opposite of Lilith, a young body but an overly mature mind. An old man in a tiny body. Unfortunately for him, his small size meant that Lilith was always able to ignore his objections and dragging him along at her whim. While he was much more mentally mature than his 'big sister', he was also in possession of a body that was at most looked to be 9 years old. It was always amusing watching the 2 of them. If one didn't know better, the fact that they were millions of years old intergalactic entities possessing terrifying power, would be a complete and utter surprise.

While Lilith didn't use her power in anything except subconscious attempts at changing the odds in her favour. Adam was much more willing to use it in order to further his interests, but not in front of his sister. The lectures she gave, while childish, were very much unbearable for a boy that considered himself mature. Sitting still and being forced by her superior size to listen did not go very well for the young boy. Not that he could be considered as such anymore, over 1000 years since he had first opened his eyes as "Adam" and not "giant glowing humanoid". It had been nice watching him grow up, he was just as cute as Lilith was, if in a slightly different way.

As for Lilith, the concentration on her face as she sipped at the tea was adorable. Katrin resisted the urge to pat her head again, while watching Lilith flail at her with her little hands was amusing, it would no doubt annoy the Commander, or MAGI, or one of the others at the table.

The Commander hadn't changed at all. Still as benevolently apathetic as ever. Allowing the Caretakers to do everything so long as it entertained them. Every now and again the Commander would issue an edict of some kind, no doubt due to nagging from one of the client races or the Minds themselves. There was no real overarching themes to these edicts, so long as they didn't work against one particular group and was relatively easy to implement without the Commander needed for further input.

Even without that, the Commander's presence was still awe inspiring. Katrin was forced to rely almost entirely on her HeMU mind when in the presence of the Commander, the mortal human mind that was her other half, unable to comprehend what was being presented before her. Her very being crushed under the pressure that came from being this close to the Commander. Hannah and Eldrad were using some unknown methods of keeping their composure, and not for the first time, Katrin found herself jealous.

Being able to maintain her own stability in the face of the Commander's presence, would allow her to observe Lilith more closely instead of trying not to collapse in on herself. It was a very dangerous situation to be in, and Katrin would not even be here if not for Lilith asking her to.

She gave a brief sigh, it looked like the small talk… or rather the non-verbal communications that MAGI, the Commander, and the Librarian employed were over.

"Having fun. Lilith?" Rumbled the Commander, voice more like a rumbling of the air than normal speech.

"Yes! Lilith is having great fun!" She shouted, banging her teacup on the saucer. A contrite look filled her face as she realised what she had just done. Woops.

Katrin reached over, swabbed away the spilled tea, rubbed a rather depressed looking Lilith on the back. She was just too cute.

"Good." The Commander rumbled.

Turning to the others, the Commander continued the previous conversation using the soul-tethering method, including Katrin this time.

~How goes the campaign of human world #7212, universe #120013?~ Asked the Commander.

~As well as it can in these early stages. With the help of the Minds, we have gone back in time and added our little symbols to provide a little consistency to the existence of our NOD subsidy. At the same time, we have begun the construction of the central facilities which we will be operating from. Our native operatives are being groomed for service and will be ready for deployment in 5 years at the minimum. Infiltration into the systems and governments of the world are being made easier by the subversion abilities of the HeMUs, and the lack of real information security this early on in human history. Technologically, we have begun looking into what is available and what is needed to combat the Scrin, and we have started outlining an uplift method suitable for the people of this planet.~ Said Hannah. Concise, clear, that hadn't changed in a thousand years at least.

~Do you still insist on doing all of this manually?~ Asked the Commander, a tinge of worry coming through the communications link.

~Yes, we feel that by cheating and giving the technology as we have done before may be getting stale. For the entertainment of the Minds, doing things manually will keep things fresh at least.~ Replied Hannah, confident as ever.

~If the Minds are too insistent, We are not adverse to reprimanding them, they have certainly become very audacious in the last few centuries.~ Transmitted MAGI, the urge to do a little punishing bleeding out over the soul-tether.

~Don't torture the Minds because you are feeling bored. They will just complain to me.~ Grumbled the Commander, somehow transmitting a feeling of being put upon. ~Regardless, if you are being co-erced, make sure to bring it up with MAGI, it will punish the Minds for you.~ Continued the Commander.

The Commander had certainly become more talkative over the last millennia. Able to transmit full sentences and even converse properly every now and again. The Kanmusu were apparently key to this success, their constant nagging conditioning the Commander to becoming more social in order to go down the path of least resistance.

~They are puny insects, why do you care about them? Just let them do as they wish.~ And there was the second factor that had made the Commander more communicative. Voice as she was called, a disembodied voice that somehow had been inside the Commander since the beginning. This would not be so bad, if not for the fact that Voice felt about the Commander what HeMU Hannah felt about using her knives on people. She was psychotic, insane, and excessively possessive of the Commander. Anything that took the Commander's attention away from her was an enemy.

Thankfully the Commander was apathetic enough that the Voice's suggestions of "kill all the Humans" were ignored. Or rather it would take too much effort and the Commander couldn't be bothered. It didn't sound as good, true, but it was better than nothing.

Voice did wield large amounts of power, which made her something to avoid. Her instability regarding the Commander tempered by the fact that she never left the Commander's side. Always willing to give out genocidal advice, but never carrying out on it due to her unwillingness to be separated from the Commander. That and if she did wipe out a few universes, the Minds could always reverse it and start again with a copy or a literal time reversal.

~Those insects are human, while they may not be much now, their potential allows them to be much more in the future.~ Said the last member of their little get together. The God Emperor of Mankind, or Bob as the Commander called him. He had come from a 40k universe where the Minds had fixed up everything and in doing so created a galaxy where he was no longer needed. From there, it was a simple matter of offering him a chance of joining them (and lots of cheap Eldar hookers), for Bob to become another hitchhiker on the longboat that was the Commander.

~I concur, we must not repeat past sins and allow humanity to suffer as we did so in the past. They have potential and we must not see it stifled.~ Said the Librarian.

"More tea?" Inquired Lilith, breaking their little get-together up, the innocent little girl holding up a teapot with a wide smile.

"Yes Lilith, I would like more tea." Said Katrin, holding out her teacup.

The intense concentration on her face as she poured the tea was adorable. The others quickly repeated her request for more tea. It looked like they would continue this after they had consumed enough tea to satisfy Lilith.

But that was ok since she was adorable.

After Activation 1131 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1092 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 105-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1963 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Catherine was wandering around the base. Or rather she was wandering around what was the barebones of the base. It had not yet been fully completed but the basic systems and passageways were complete. She was able to move about in a roughly "free" manner, so long as she didn't try and head to the periphery zones, which in turn would probably end up with her getting locked in a depressurization chamber or something similar, knowing her luck that was.

The base itself was underneath the ocean, a real life Atlantis. It would be constructed out of advanced alloys and materials that would then be artificially aged to give it the impression that it was actually older than it was. When and if the people of the world found it, there could be no pieces of evidence denoting that it was not older than human comprehension, yet also advanced beyond their wildest dreams.

NOD would be at once a fist held over the peoples of the world, inspiring fear, yet it would also be a means of driving progress. Not social progress, the Minds didn't care about that, rather it was technological progress that was king in the eyes of the Minds.

To do this, the technologically superior NOD would occasionally "lose" an engagement and leave behind their equipment, enough for the scientists to reverse-engineer and develop their own imitations.

Of course, to keep things interesting, the Minds would make sure that each superpower got a different branch of technology so that their designs would be distinctive. Much more fun this way. One side could be using their lasers, the others with their plasma, the other with electromagnetic weapons… mmmm. Interesting indeed.

They would be doing things manually so it would require more coordination and careful considerations than before. It was meant to be a time when the "family" could interact with each other more, a return to the "good old times".

Catherine wasn't exactly sure on what that was meant to mean, didn't they start out being the pack mules for whatever crazy plan the Minds concocted? Even when they (the HeMUs) were left in charge of certain projects, they still had to answer to the Minds who had all sorts of ideas and demands. Like that time with the Mobile Suit Gundam universe, where instead of carrying out their slowly and meticulously crafted plan, the Minds demanded an Alpha strike out of nowhere since they were bored.

Bah, good old times her ass. All it meant was that she didn't have those oh so useful alien races to delegate to anymore. It was all about the humans and unfortunately they had very clear views on slave labour. The other HeMUs of Bastion 001 had developed their own personalities, and wouldn't consent to being made slave labour as it was. A truly vexing problem in her opinion, what was an administrator meant to do when nobody listened?

At least Sofija was still around and bossing everyone around. Why did they all listen to Sofija and not her? Sometimes Catherine just wanted to go crouch in a corner and cry. She was meant to be the administrator here!

Still, she was using a frame modelled on a human body, and the most dominant human characteristic was its ability to adapt. In this case, Catherine had accepted her dethroning and left Sofija to do all the work, while she just wandered about the place. She was just the HeMU that Sofija was tethered to, no big deal.

Now that she thought about it however, wasn't this the outcome she wanted originally? A carefree life, without any of the responsibility and effort that came from actually doing work? She had originally taken an administrative role to avoid doing work in the first place, yet here she was bemoaning the fact that someone was doing her work for her.

Catherine narrowed her eyes, it was a good thing she had caught herself early on. If she had instead tried to take back her position or worse… tried to make herself useful. She might have been roped into doing actual work. A wipe of the proverbial brow was in order here, work had been avoided and if Catherine could imitate Atlantis, she would get through this assignment without needing to do anything at all.

Just keep her head down and it would all be fine.

Catherine hummed to herself as she kept walking.

Atlantis was going to be an actual city in size, which meant something that was a few kilometers wide at the very least. Deep inside of it was going to be a reactor that was fusion powered, something that would baffle the humans if they ever found it. Around this core was the key administrative facilities which Catherine was touring at this very moment, while outside that was the storage facilities, residential facilities, training facilities, manufacturing facilities, and more.

Atlantis would be able to support an entire war on its own and needed to be of the size to reflect that.

The storage facilities would be capable of holding and protecting the numerous different weapons systems that NOD would be using, and the different storage protocols for them all. It wouldn't do to have the cryo weapons mixed with the flamethrowers after all. The personnel assigned to the storage team would all be very much able to mobilize and dispatch any piece of equipment within 15 minutes of it being requested. The large elevators/cannons/torpedoes on the sides being an express delivery service.

The residential facilities currently were not as much of an issue, the inhabitants of Atlantis at this point in time being HeMUs. When it was completed, there would be a very large population of humans, both client races and the natives that they had picked up in their recruitment drives. All would be housed in the complexes that in turn could hold millions all together. While each complex was a standalone structure with additional facilities connected to it, they also served as unit barracks, each complex being home to a specific unit.

To promote competitiveness and to keep them sharp, there would be practice bouts against the various different units, something heartily encouraged by the Minds. Each complex would be able to house a few thousand humans, the amenities they needed to stay happy, and the necessities to keep them civilized. Such as food, water, flush toilets, and air conditioning.

To think, they were just 1 flush toilet blockage away from everyone reverting back to barbarism. Catherine shook her head, humans… so foolish, yet so adorable. Like that small mammal that wouldn't stop eating your shoes. Never heeding the warnings to not do such a thing again, yet so adorably cute while they did so. Cute until they were inevitably put down, but she could enjoy them in the meantime.

The training facilities, the proper ones and not the body maintenance ones that is. Were shared between at least 2 residential complexes. As a means of promoting competition amongst the units, seeing each other train, and if one were to excel in a certain field and the other be left behind… well, there would be plenty of motivation. Shit-talking transcended humanity, itself an artform in many alternate universes that probably never even heard of the name "human" before.

Each facility would include a variety of basic equipment, weights, mats, random chair-like things for impressing others and doing masculine grunts while doing so. At the same time there were more advanced pieces of equipment, zero gravity chambers to train for space combat, pressurized chambers that had been filled with water for the water combat missions, exo-suit simulators, armoured vehicle simulators of all kinds, kill houses for breach and clear training, medical stations for first aid training, and so much more. All of it modular in the event that a specific equipment set was needed more than another on a certain day. Replacements could be installed and pulled out in minutes… assuming one had the equipment for it that was.

In regards to manufacturing, that was on a scale that nowhere on the planet had ever seen before this point. Even the massive factories churning out tanks and aircraft for the second world war would not be able to approach the manufactorums that were housed in the center of Atlantis, fueled by the fusion reactor directly. Inside the extreme energies and equipment allowed them to weld together a tank in under a minute, the automated systems simply following a programmed direction. Designing a vehicle, placing it into the system, and having it produced, all the while ensuring it held up to the highest possible standards, the pinnacle of engineering one might say. The automated process was not just for ease, it also allowed for the construction of dozens of vehicles an hour, a rate that was both prodigious and terrifying should the world find out about it.

Not just vehicles either, but also the modules for the training zones, residential complexes, weapons, clothing, flush toilets… anything and everything. Whether it be grand projects that required brute power or minute projects that required atomic precision, the manufactorum would provide. No doubt at some point the systems would be "leaked" so that the world could begin producing their own massive armies in preparation for the Scrin, but NOD would enjoy that advantage for a while yet.

The Manufactorum was not cheating by having all of its materials fabricated out of the air of course. The Minds didn't want to cheat… too much.

Instead, the minerals were mined from the seafloor, there being vast deposits of all sorts of metals and minerals under the water's surface. The technology to reach the depths and mine them not being available for a very long time for the rest of the world. NOD would be able to freely strip the ocean clean to fuel the continued growth of its war machine and that of… sympathetic nations.

As for organic materials, there were the agri-blocks. Vast expanses of artificial growth where inside was both flora and fauna. The flora being crops such as rice (ridiculously efficient considering that they were underwater), wheat (because croissants), oats (because… it's traditional?), apples, oranges and the like. At the same time, it also contained a variety of exotic plants that had abilities beyond that of mere food. Some required synthesization, others could be applied naturally, but all of them had some very interesting effects. Granted some of those were medicinal, but the majority were fun.

Fauna was just animals… to be eaten. Also, cats, since Lilith loved cats.

There was the research block, a large chunk where the brightest human minds were either recruited or copied over to do nefarious things like develop weapons to more efficiently kill with, bio-weapons to wipe out entire populations, backscratchers with extendable handles, more interesting nuclear weapons to better go bang with, proper energy weapons that go zap and crack instead of the anemic pew. The entire facility, directly over the fusion reactor would be functioning non-stop, genius never stopped. That and the centrifuge was great fun to mess with.

The docks would be on the outskirts of Atlantis, capable of accepting ships hundreds of meters long into their bowels. It was here that the missions would be launched from, the mining submarines would return and deposit their cargo, the only way in and out of Atlantis in essence. If one didn't count the one way cruise missile pods for the especially suicidal.

Catherine hummed, Atlantis was coming along and when it finally finished, she would be able to guide Adam around. He was so cute when his face went all red as she held his hand. That little standoffish attitude, not looking at her, pouting, sulking… so refreshing. She couldn't wait until he was older and she could tease him properly.

No doubt Sofija would lecture her if she knew what Catherine was thinking, but some things were worth it.

After Activation 1131 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1092 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 105-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1963 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Michael, Neil, Edwin, and Uta stood before the Russian institute of explodey things. Or in plain english the Institute of Mechanists. A front of course, for the explodey things inside, like nuclear weapons. Mmmm.

It was 1963, a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, tensions were low, and the Trio Uta was going to be ratcheting them straight up again. It was a month before President Kennedy of the USA was going to end up with bits all over his car, the Minds unsure of whether or not to intervene. On one hand, he was pretty cool, on the other his successor got a lot of stuff done.

It didn't really matter to the four of them really, they were here for a "heist" of sorts. Steal the research data, make it look super elaborate, and full of contrivance, exit without anyone the wiser, "accidentally" leak the theft over private channels, watch the fireworks.

If they did this correctly, it would be awesome, if they screwed up, the shootout would be cool… ish. The Minds had seen countless shootouts, a heist on the other hand? A rare and mystical event. Like unicorns, but actually rare.

Subterfuge of the highest order, so great that it was no wonder that the greatest of security measures were placed along this route. The "walk in the front door" and then walk out again route.

Truly audacious, arrogant even. These people knew no bounds. Uta straightened the collar on Edwin's coat and they walked in. All confident-like.

"What do you mean they just walked in?!" Shouted the General in charge of the facility. Unbeknownst to him, his face had taken on the exact shade that his counterpart's had following the American theft. It had only been a month ago, so he wouldn't be finding out about it anytime soon, to begin with, the lack of mobile phones really did hurt in this case. All the potential puns, the meme factor, all gone.

"They showed the appropriate papers, and said the correct pass-phrases, Sir!" Said the Captain who was on duty that day. A quick interview of his men had shown that they had indeed allowed a group of 4 to pass, 3 men and 1 woman. They had somehow had the correct passes, and the Captain had made very sure to check everything in detail. He had caught 9 American spies so far and their bodies were fertilizing the vegetable patch out the back of the Institute. The passes had the correct phrasing, the correct staples (a little rusted), the correct material (a little worn), even the proper stamps (a little blurred). Their pass-phrases had been spoken with confidence and they had demonstrated perfect recall of the exact pronunciation of it as well.

How was he to know they were spies when everything they did was perfect?

"There is no blame to lay at your feet Captain, they garnered their passes and pass-phrases from a traitor in the administrative sector. Everything was perfect." Said the general, as much as he would like to have scapegoated the Captain, the public evidence knew him to be innocent, the charges would never stick. A problem that needed solving, he could not allow this to impact his career.

He shook his head and looked down at the recording of the beginning of the incident, when they had first entered. It had been difficult to find the tape, apparently whoever was in charge of archiving them wasn't doing their job, and it had taken an extra week to locate them. At the bottom of a pile on the floor they were, the archivist soon shot for incompetence.

Regardless he had the tapes from the day and would be going over them again.

Michael led the way, his natural anti-social attitude would make him a perfect officer. Neil was far too cheerful, and Edwin just didn't have the gravitas that an officer should. Uta… Uta was far too intense and would attract attention they didn't want this early on.

So Michael it was, chosen by default, and hopefully he would be capable. The Minds had wanted this done as a means of testing whether the HeMUs could be protagonist levels of cool, whether or not they succeeded was not the issue, in this case, rather it was what they did while trying to get the objective that mattered. Protagonists after all somehow had a reality warping aura of some kind that allowed them to summon explosions and do improbable stunts, while also having things appear out of nowhere, relevant to the story at a later point.

"Lieutenant." Said Michael, staring down at the man behind the desk. The Lieutenant in his fur cap and coat looked suitably imposing, especially given the man was over 6 feet tall and it must have been half that wide. A bear of a man. Even so, he quailed under Michael's stare, giving him a hasty salute after he came back to himself, the full power of Michael's gaze being enough to daze him.

"Comrade Major! What can I do for you!" He exclaimed, bringing himself to full attention, ramrod straight, arms by his side.

"Inspection." Said Michael. Voice still as steady as ever, despite the man in front of him becoming increasingly flustered.

"Umm. Um. Yes, Sir. Allow me to call the Captain!" The Lieutenant spun about and rushed out, trying to offload the responsibility onto someone else. The legend of the 'deathstare Major' would begin that day, a boogeyman to scare the conscripts, another urban legend for the army to dine on.

It wasn't helped by the way he stared at the camera for a solid 10 seconds, immortalizing his gaze. The heist itself being so important that he would be shown to countless police and recruits, an arrest on sight individual. But that was for another day.

"Comrade Major, you wish for an inspection? Were you not meant to call ahead?" Asked the Captain, face a little flushed from having to haul his bulk over. Unlike his lieutenant, the man was obese, rotund around the middle and thin around the shoulders, a classic pear shape but much less alluring than a female pear.

Michael stared at him for a few seconds, cracking the Captain's composure before murmuring a single word.

"Surprise."

The Captain looked as if he wanted to retort before giving up and returning to where he had been before mentally. Collecting his thoughts, he stood a little more upright and asked the challenge question for the day.

"The blood the peasants bleed is?" If Michael didn't know them, then he could legitimately turn him away, surprise inspection and correct papers or no. The Captain wasn't thinking too much on the possibility that he might be a spy, Michael's stare had put that thought right out of his head, he just wanted to get away. If they had to do the inspection, he would have to tag along and endure it. Please please don't know it, he thought.

"Red, White, Green." Came Michael's reply… the right reply.

"Correct Major… please follow me." Said the Captain, quailing on the inside, rueing the fact he had woken up today. If something was bad, it could always get worse. His wife had woken up angry and thrown a chair at him, now this… what would happen next? An American invasion? Knowing his luck it was very possible.

As they walked through the facility, heading deeper underground where the actual research was being conducted, Michael allowed himself to recede into the background and let Neil take over. His natural exuberance would allow him to put the guards and the Captain following them at ease.

"Ah comrades, do you wish to hear a joke?" He began, as they walked around the facility, eyes popping out from the dullness of it all.

There were vast arrays of desks, and blackboards, and chalk, and people in labcoats, and other boring things. The guards didn't care, they were just here to look after everything and make sure that nothing against protocol was happening. Which was why Neil's grin and inclusive attitude got them focusing more on him than the other 3 of the group. Besides, they had gone through the scrambler, any technology that had brought in would be damaged or destroyed, there was no way they would be able to record anything. Their presence more there to stop the "guests" from killing all the researchers if they were assassins or something.

"Da, tell us your joke", said the lieutenant, the same one that they had met at the kiosk.

"I have not spoken to my wife in 3 years." He said, looking morose for a second. The guards, unsure of whether this was part of the joke or something else, looked at each other uncomfortably.

"I don't like to interrupt her." He finished, bringing his head up and grinning. The guards taken aback took a moment to process what he said before breaking out into laughter themselves. Little chuckles, enough for them to break the ice.

"Good one."

"Not bad sergeant."

"A Russian man has sex with his wife 3-5 times a week, a British man 3-5 times a year." He paused for dramatic effect, spreading out his hands in supplication. "This upsets me, I did not know I was British."

A few chuckles and wide smiles at that one. Unknown to them Edwin was carefully leaning out, making sure his eyes caught sight of all various documents that were in his line of sight. Nothing useful… yet. He would wait.

"A boy goes to a museum with his family and sees the wooly mammoth painting. He sees the giant rod underneath its legs, and asks his mother 'what is that?'. She replies, 'it is nothing.' Later when his dad is there, he asks his dad, 'what is that?', and he replies, 'that's the mammoth's penis son.' The boy says, 'oh, mom said it was nothing.' The dad smiles and says back to him, 'oh how I spoil that woman.'

Knowing grins and a sharp elbow from Uta came as a result of that one. While Uta was playing the role of the strict Captain, she was also scanning, opposite side of Edwin, the left side of the corridor, into the various offices. Nothing useful, her upgraded eyes catching sight of nothing that might be important enough to warrant closer investigation.

"A Catholic priest, a rabbi and an Orthodox priest decide to see who is better at converting, and decide to do it on bears in the forest.

"Later, they all get together. The Catholic priest begins: 'When I found the bear, I read to him from the catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his first Communion.'

"'I found a bear by the stream,' says the Orthodox priest, 'and preached God's holy Word. The bear was so mesmerized that he let me baptize him.'

They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a stretcher bleeding from wounds all over his body. 'Looking back,' he says, 'maybe I shouldn't have started with the circumcision.'"

They all burst out laughing at that, the guards forgetting themselves and bending over, slapping each other on the back and chuckling long after the joke had been told. Neil basked in the glow and kept up the work, telling further jokes, having the time of his life.

Edwin had in the meantime slipped out from the group and was using the distraction that Neil provided to talk to each of the researchers, look over their work, flitting from one team to the next, his HeMU mind devouring the data and storing it away for later use. He was a HeMU, copying all of it, exactly as it appeared would be an exercise in tedium for him. These were the teams they had come here for, the cutting edge of research into making things explode.

So while the tour group went around, Michael doing his "inspection", the Captain trying very hard to look like he wasn't listening in one Neil's jokes, the guards getting along fabulously with Neil, Uta being Uta, Edwin very carefully canvassed the entire facility of all its research data.

In the end, the four of them had left, and given it a month before passing word through carefully selected intermediaries to Soviet command, thanking them for their "donations" to NOD. The photographs they had of the perfectly produced notes and the outline of the plan they used to get in, in the first place all included.

High command had exploded and an inquiry launched.

They would find nothing, create many scapegoats, and be very wary of the name NOD going forward.

Just as planned.

After Activation 1131 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1092 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 105-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1963 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

The world was getting very worried. This "NOD" as they called themselves, modelled after a symbol found in every single ancient and recent civilization to date, was somehow breaching all their security and then stealing data, prototypes, and anything else that wasn't bolted down. What made it worrying was that NOD was using the same symbolism to mark their presence, and would even mail in evidence to prove that it was them in the event that they couldn't tag anything.

In one particularly memorable case, the NOD operatives surfaced inside the harbour where a secret submarine prototype was being constructed, snuck their way inside, tagged every single flat surface with their symbols before leaving again, leaving behind the smiling portraits of the crew that had done it. Thankfully there had been no casualties, but the fact that they had somehow made their way into a top secret facility, had the time to do all that work, and also escape was worrying.

It was global at this point, for the US, USSR, and certain European (and Britain) states, it was a matter of technology being stolen. For others, notably in the newly developing People's Republic of China, the third world nations (nominally free of US or USSR influence), and even south of the US's borders, there was an undercurrent of social unrest, agitated by NOD. Their operatives agitating the populations towards accepting a more dictatorial style of government, different from both the so called Democracy and Communism of the US and the USSR.

It was worrying, they had proved their ability to defeat security protocols of all the major powers, influence the hearts and minds of multiple governments, all at the same time. The events of last week had only entrenched the worry, turned into outright fear deeper.

The assassination of John F Kennedy on public television by a Leet Onswald, tattooed with the mark of NOD on the left side of his chest. The man had cracked a cyanide pill after the trigger was pulled and died before law enforcement could get to him.

The fact that they were willing to kill the president of the United States of America, in public, using their own operatives, well that spoke to a certain arrogance, and a chilling self confidence.

The world was worried. Very worried.

Worried enough for them to meet together like they were in Madagascar. It was the only place they were sure that had no spies, every single one of the staff or security that they had brought being vetted by what must have been 8 different agencies each. Of course, that would probably not be enough and there were warships off the coast, destroyers that had their main guns triangulated at the meeting itself, their shells set for airburst, ready to fire should a panic button be depressed.

They were worried, but they were also cautious, there was still a cold war on after all. One panic button and they were all going to be blown to little bits. There was very little that could hold against the concentrated firepower of 15 destroyers after all. That and the 3 battleships… they were there… just in case.

And so it was that the delegates sat down, their meeting room a specially constructed concrete bunker with only 1 entrance, a tiny 1 man passageway, its length blocked by over 10 thick steel doors. If there was anything trying to get inside, it would find that it was easier to simply destroy the bunker itself rather than try to get through the entrance. The guard posts and literal human shields after every door were more than enough to deter anyone trying to get in… hopefully. The longer they were in here, the higher the chances that NOD would pay them a visit.

They were all hidden members of government, it wouldn't do to have ambassadors disappearing, let alone ambassadors for important nations. It would invite certain… questions when so many different leaders from so many different countries didn't return from their "vacations".

They were given the title of "ambassadors" to create a certain level of rapport and equality between them, not that it mattered. They all knew each other, or at least of each other. Some were more infamous than others. None of them would be using their real names, that was for normal people, and if you were willing to negotiate on behalf of your country, under the baleful sights of 406 millimeter guns… well, you very clearly were not normal.

"So George, I hear that you've lost some… secrets." Said Bear, grinning at his American counterpart. He was a rather skinny man, well dressed, cultured even. The Russian looked like a gentleman, his clothing was well made, fitting. Not at all what one might think from his name, at least until one looked at his hands, very big, very weathered, very calloused hands.

"Don't needle the poor chap, those NOD boys have been hitting all of us." Said Richard. The British officer smiling. Very typical of course, the British had standards to live up to after all. His suit was immaculate, every crease perfect, sharp enough to cut a colonial if necessary. His facial hair was groomed to within the smallest of margins, likely held in place by industrial superglue. In his hands was a cup of tea, English Tea, with milk.

"Ja, they have been very irritating no? Coming in, killing our guards, trying to steal our secrets. It is a wonder we have not been able to catch them, obvious as they are." Ah, there was Dietrich, their German liaison.

"I have received word that some of hour cultural heritage sites have been pillaged by these… "NOD". My government would like us to reach a resolution on how to deal with the problem." Said Kenichi, the Japanese ambassador.

And so it went, every single nation that had been hit by NOD, yet was also free of their influence was in the room, all of them interested greatly in a way to see them taken down. Naturally, it would not happen overnight, no, the skin was still too tender. They needed to start off small and build a firm foundation.

If would begin with the sharing of information, of that there would, of course, be things hidden from sight, but enough that they would be confident to share some of the more… delicate tidbits.

"The United States Government takes a very dim view of these NOD people, as I am sure all of your governments do as well." Said George, the American representative. A rather diminutive man, he was was old, wrinkled, his suit barely fitting his rather rotund frame. Appearances were deceptive however, George was the spymaster of the entire US network in WW1 and 2, his name hidden from the annals of history at his own request. He was known to the intelligence community, of course, his successor and a few foreign rivals. A few "friendly" tussles between him and Bear before his retirement being the stuff of covert legends.

"Our governments expect us to accomplish much here, but it is clear that we will not be accomplishing as much as they hope. So in the interests of friendship, are there any pressing concerns that a government is demanding? We will see if it can be accommodated. As of right now we will be focusing on the establishment of an intelligence network through which we can share information. If in the future it proves useful then we can maybe add more functionality." Finished George. His sat back down in his chair, looking all the world like weak old man as he did so.

"Well said, my American friend." Said Bear.

"My government wishes to know if there will be military forces dedicated to fighting this NOD." Asked the French representative.

"Not as of right now. Would you trust Russian troops on your soil?" Asked George.

"We are not so bad George. We will just take all your women with our natural manliness" Laughed Bear, his face split by a grin.

"Will we need to share information on exactly what it is that was stolen or destroyed?" Asked the South African representative.

"No, just a general overview, it does not need to be a true expose on everything that is going on." Said George.

The representative nodded and sat back down, a few others eyeing him speculatively. If he was asking such a question… was there perhaps something in South Africa of note? Something to consider perhaps.

"Any other questions?" Asked George.

Silence was the answer.

"Then let us bring this to a vote." He said.

"Before that, who would you envision to lead this… this… exercise?" Asked Pierre, the French representative. The French had been rather… passive aggressive in their relationship to America. Part of NATO but not truly, trying to remain independent of the US, keeping their own weapons designs and vehicles. A Europe for Europeans was their unofficial slogan, the implicit statement being that America need not involve itself. But to check the Soviet powers… well, they needed America and that grated on them, it truly did.

"No-one. It will simply be a means for us to share information this early on. We will come here, to this island to physically hand off the information for all representatives to be able to see it. This way we can ensure that it will not be intercepted, there will be guards here all days of the year from all our nations. Our best and most trusted men. A leader is pointless when there is nothing to lead, we can worry about that when and if we become something more." Finished George.

The French representative nodded, no doubt he wanted to argue over what he thought was the inevitable American movement to crown itself the leader of everything, but came away appeased by Georges statement.

"Then what will it be called?" Asked the Icelandic representative.

"I was thinking… the Global Defence Initiative," said Richards, interjecting his own opinion in.

The others nodded, suitable neutral, had a nice ring to it, and clearly described their goals… ish. It was acceptable.

"Ok, let's vote on whether or not we will become anything at all before we start on all the miscellaneous things first mateys." Said the Australian ambassador. Interrupting what was going to be a question from the Spanish representative.

The others around the table nodded and looked to George.

George himself thanked the Australian representative with his eyes and turned back to the room.

"All in favour, press the buzzers in front of you, all against the red buzzer." He said, pressing the green one.

The light in the center of the room turned itself green, a majority were in favour. This was a nice start, maybe they wouldn't bungle this due to politics or something equally nefarious.

"So to give a schedule, we or our chosen representatives meet here every 3 months to give a report on exactly what has happened regarding NOD in our territories in the last 3 months. It will all be public so we can judge for ourselves how important the information is, and if we can act on it. During the intervening time the building will be locked down at all times and guarded by the ships and men of our fleets and armies." Said George, turning his head to look around the room.

"Ok, so now that that is out of the way, who would like to go first?" He asked. Clearly referencing the information they had just spent half an hour clarifying a group over.

"I will go." Said the French representative, walking forward.

"On the 27 of September, we had…"

"Well, that went well enough sir." Said George's aide, the old man hobbling himself along on his walking stick.

"Well enough, it was a first meeting. I'm worried about when the politicians fuck up again, wonder how long our little 'GDI' can hold together after that happens." Said George bitterly.

If NOD conquered the world or something, it was going to be the fault of the politicians, he was sure of it.

After Activation 1132 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1093 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 106-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1964 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

Tanks. Lots of tanks. The 1960s were an interesting time, a time when dreams met with reality. Where the boundaries of the impossible were breached. Where the rules of physics bowed before the inevitable and whimpered as they were trodden upon by the might of the imagination.

It was here that the infinity of the universe was open to the hands of man and the possibilities similarly endless.

"What in the name of fuck is this meant to be?" Asked General Moore. He was asking, of course, politely one might say, if not for the way each word came out like a 7.62mm rifle round. Each one of them penetrating straight through the hapless project overseer.

"It is what you asked of us. You asked for us to do the impossible, to design a tank that can fire rocket ammunition, that could be dropped out of a plane, deep water capable, scout tank made from aluminium. We have done what we could with those specifications." Said Wilson, his voice rather tired, rather irritated.

"It is… ineffectual. It can only hold 13 rounds, it can barely even move fast enough for its scout role, it's too high, what the hell is this design?" Asked General Moore. He was riding on this design to get a promotion up the chain of command. So what if it was bloated, it was still a good concept and the Army and Marines would be able to use it, making his name known to both branches of the military.

Add in the fact that the army being able to drop tanks on their enemies… well, they would be thanking him very profusely. Maybe even to the point of a large order, where Chrysler or General Motors would be thanking him as well. Once they were involved, his retirement was set, no more needing to lick feet, and suck ass, he could coast for the rest of his life. It was a dream, a dream that Wilson was very much in the way of.

"Work it again! I want a completed design by the end of the year." General Moore said again, leaving the office as he did so.

Wilson sat back down, hands in his hair, the rest of the team gathered around him.

"God save me from star hungry generals." He said, clutching his hair tightly.

"We've got to get our funding from somewhere sir." Said one of his assistants, pouring a finger of brandy for him.

"Dammit all, just how many experimental systems do they want us to work with? It's not like we have super materials or something. It's just aluminium we've got, not miracle metal."

And on and on the complaints went as the design team got quietly drunk. What they had spent a few years on, panned by the man who didn't even understand how tanks should work. No real critique, no real explanation of what he wanted, just a simple "do it good." They would get drunk, nurse their hangovers and get back to it. They were professionals and their careers were on the line, not like that pompous ass of a general.

No, the right now was reserved for griping and drinking, they would return to being real designers on the morrow.

That was until a knock on the door interrupted their increasingly vocal complaints.

"This is the T79 design office yes?" Came the voice from the other side of the door. It was one of those simple wooden ones with a fogged glass pane in the middle. The name "Wilson" being placed on the center of the glass in prominent black lacquer. Little angled wooden flaps on the bottom were there to… allow air to flow out? They didn't know but it was on all of the doors, so it must have been for something.

Wilson waved one of his apprentices over.

The young man walked over to the door and popped it open, greeting the rather skinny, and definitely not military man on the other side. He was wearing a sweater, a turtleneck sweater to be precise, its long sleeves half-covering his fingers. On his left wrist was a watch of unknown design, while his legs were wearing slacks. An office worker of some kind? But that would require him to be wearing a suit. How intriguing.

"Good afternoon gentlemen, I am here on behalf of an… interested third party to see if you would like to work on something befitting of your talents." He said without preamble, walking into the room, his nice leather shoes clapping on the floor, the leather briefcase at his side… being secured to his wrist with a metal chain. Ok… that was something new.

"Oh? And what would this 'third party' want of us." Asked on of Wilson's designers, his hands held up in air quotes.

"The man smiled rather widely and kept walking forward, laying the briefcase on the central table in Wilson's office. It was half a conference table, cut in half in order to fit in the room in the first place. Around it were the 4 designers, Wilson and his 2 aides/assistants who served the other 4 designers as well. Now there was an extra, the yet unnamed man.

A man who was laying the briefcase on the table before them and unlocking it with a key, turning of a few tumblers, knocking a few key points and… and it was getting complicated. When he was finally done… well, it opened up just like any other briefcase, it even looked the same on the inside. If the inside was rather small compared to the outside… well they weren't going to comment on that. Some people took their security very seriously, as this man obviously did. Or his organization.

He pulled out a sheaf of papers and laid them out before the assembled designers, gesturing for them to pick them up and have a look. Wilson did so, taking up one of them and staring at the numbers before him. A metal with 4 times the tolerances of steel yet weighed less, and more importantly, took up less volume for the same unit of protection. It was… a miracle metal. A metal that could very well change things entirely if they got their hands on it to design the vehicles being demanded of them.

A quick look at the others and their expressions were all the same, faces stunned by what was being shown to them, something that by all rights should be impossible. Wilson beckoned one of the designers to switch papers with him, maybe there was something different on each one? That was not to say that what they already had was not miraculous on its own… but if there were more miracle materials? Well, Wilson would sell his left nut for a chance to work with them.

Plastic that had higher tensile strength than steel? At a tenth of the cost? What is this shit. How do they even have this stuff? I've never heard of something this crazy, what the actual fuck. If they could make ropes out of it, or even transmission signallers of some kind, they could cut down the weight even further and it wouldn't even be magnetic. How did they even get this stuff without everyone in the R departments of every single branch of the military and civilian sectors going crazy? The advent of a new world order was in front of them, it was like cheap steel all over again.

"Ok. Suffice it to say, we are all very interested in what you have to say at this point Mr…" Wilson trailed off, waiting for the man to fill in the blanks.

"You can call me Mr Green for now." Said Green, his face split in a benign smile.

"Ok, so Mr Green, what is this stuff, why are you showing it to us, why haven't we heard of this stuff before, why us, what third party?" Asked Wilson, getting a rough idea of what the team wanted to ask, they had been together for 4 years now.

"Well, to start from the first. It's classified. To get you interested. It's classified. You do very interesting work. It's classified." Green said, his smile never changing.

"Now see here, when you say that, what are the reassurances we have? If we go and it turns out to all be a sham, then we are all out of jobs and blacklisted from the industry. There's no guarantee that any of this stuff is real to begin with, it could just be a very elaborate trap." Said Wilson, rather reasonably he felt.

Mr Green nodded at him.

"Yes, we understand that it is a concern. There is a tour that is coming up, all parties that have been considered interesting have been contacted and should be there, if you wish to tour your potential work environment before you confirm yourself, you are more than welcome to join. There will be a vetted army escort. Rest assured, we will ensure that should you wish to leave at a later date, you will be able to take your current job back at any time in the next 5 years." He said.

Handing out a second set of papers, Mr Green took back the first set and turned to walk out again.

"Please, be at that address on time if you want to tour the facility." He called as he closed the door behind him.

"Wilson?" Came the question, its meaning implied.

"Yeah… I want to go on this tour. If it's a bust then we lost a day, if it isn't… well, can you imagine what we could do with the materials?" He replied.

"Well yes, but the problem comes from the fact that we might get kidnapped or killed at this facility." Said one of the designers.

"No problem of that." Said the aide, his hand holding a sheet of paper in front of him.

"It says here that the army will be providing guards for the tour, safety is guaranteed." He read out to the group.

"And what if they are fake?"

"Who would be ballsy enough to fake being American soldiers on an American base?"

"Those NOD guys?"

"Sssssssh. Don't say it out loud, the bosses don't know we know, all hush hush. Besides, they would just kidnap us straight, not bother with all this crap."

"Well, no harm then is it?" Said Wilson, if he could build his super tank without some idiot general without a clue of vehicle design haranguing him every few days, he was going to grab it with both hands, and maybe his feet too.

The other designers debated mentally before nodding in response to Wilson's question. The aides on the other hand, smiled, "It also says please bring your own aides and assistants for a smooth transition."

Wilson chuckled and shook his head, well that certainly made things easier, he had gotten used to his assistants being around, doing his bidding at this point.

"Well then, let's all meet on Friday, we'll go over what's expected and all that noise an hour before the bus picks us up. Make sure everyone is there, don't want to be missing anyone. Its only 2 days away so let's get cracking." Wilson said, standing up abruptly, life back in his eyes.

A possibility to design the tank he wanted, away from the know-it all generals that frankly had no idea what was going on. This was his chance to escape, he was going!

First, he had to make sure he had the right clothes, something about rubber soled boots, rubber hands on their arms, making sure nobody wore a cotton sweater, lots of little details that seemed rather out of place, but they were easy enough to work around.

Wilson skipped about his office for a little bit as the other designers looked on with wonder on their faces.

"The boss had finally cracked huh?" Said one of them, voicing the opinion that they all held in their heads.

"Well it's about time, expecting it a lot earlier than this if we're being honest, poor man's been under pressure for 3 years now."

"Well, let's see what this new institute is all about first, would hate for it to not be up to standard."

"Ayup, that would devastate the boss.

After Activation 1132 - Origin Universe

After Insertion 1093 - Cultivation Universe

Millennium 106-32M - 40k Universe

AD 1964 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe

In the grand scheme of things, Africa was still an enormous mess. In South Africa Apartheid was still going strong, the fact that they owned the Horn meant a guaranteed income from the ships docking as they went past. It all sounded so good, send out the Africans to the reservations where they could get back with nature, only to critically underfund them and force them to work in the cities for poverty wages. Then you add in the discrimination, all couched in very nice language of course, and it was a very disparate society, one of worry.

It was with South Africa that NOD decided to start its global posturing, take South Africa, expand into Africa proper, itself beset by warlords, fractious and corrupt democracies, colonial holdings, and more. Take Africa, deny access to the riches contained within… and, well there would be a very loud and explicit response.

They had made sure that each major power bloc had received at least some form of technology, some metal samples here, plastics there, a battery in that corner, and was that an alloy over there? So many little pieces that in the right hands could unlock completely new realms of research and development, meaning new weapons, new vehicles, new arsenals. Humanity would be prepared to fight the Scrin, and if NOD wanted to pick a fight or 2 in the meantime… well, that was perfectly ok. They needed to stay on their toes after all.

In regards to ensuring things were… interesting, NOD had managed to place its infiltrators into the governments of all nations in the world, all ready to do a little nudge here and there to see the overall goals achieved. It would be extraordinarily interesting after all, if the governments of the world found out that they had been infected all along, and the people demanded a revolution of sorts. Something to consider perhaps when they were bored enough.

As for keeping things conventionally interesting, NOD had been keeping up their raids, the continued attacks having an effect on the groups involved. The governments had finally set up a proper intelligence network to coordinate what had been stolen and by what forces, maybe they might even at some point have joint military exercises of a kind. It was tiring stuff this empire building, trying to get the super powers to cooperate, in readiness for uniting when the Scrin finally arrived. Yet came the problem of them not liking each other very much… or at all.

Frustrating. A Challenge.

Something to consider for the future.

What was more pressing, and infinitely more interesting was the Second Indochina War, or rather the Vietnam War as it was becoming known in the West. US troops had not yet been fully deployed, but it was going to happen soon, very soon. The question then became, did NOD wish to intervene, and on what side?

If they joined on behalf of the "North", then they would be implicitly supporting Communism, something that would set the tone for their future growth, restricting the number of recruits they could gather, limiting their access into the West. At the same time, if they ended up supporting Democracy behind the "South", it would put them on the same terms as the US, which was becoming rather… disliked in certain parts of the world. There were minute benefits to being part of both, yet the negatives far outweighed them, especially when looking to the long term.

Even if they were a terrorist organization, they did need to look to the future. It would be the height of foolishness to tether themselves to an inferior ideology. No, the ideology espoused by NOD was best, Brotherhood, Unity, Peace. Yes, the best.

The Minds were not doing much controlling in this situation, rather it was more that the Minds were leaving it to the HeMUs, they had been very amusing in the Star Wars universe, and while some of their failings had not been punished by the other factions, it was still entertaining enough for a round or 2. To make things even more interesting, there would of course, be Catherine and her headmate Sofija who were nominally in charge of everything. Oh yes. Interesting indeed.

So much to do, all of it with high potential for amusement.

South Africa was a place of contradiction, where prosperity in the cities was met with poverty and underdevelopment in the rural areas. Where the peoples were clearly segregated, black against white, where life was both cheap and expensive.

It was a place and a time that the X-Humans had never thought they would be able to come and visit, let alone influence the events of. So many things that ended up with a humanity that was less than perfect, one that had been ripe for an alien invasion. In their own universe, the divided nature of the world had led to the very near destruction of the human race, only through luck did they survive.

And here it was, they were given the opportunity to save another humanity, a humanity in another universe that was terrifyingly identical to their own. There had been many X-Humans that had requested for leave, to see grandparents they thought long dead, relatives from the past. They were not the same, yet they were close enough that if one ignored the voices in their own mind berating them, they could believe that they had been given another chance to be with their loved ones.

There were… slight problems with this of course. It was not a universally good thing, some of their parents were actually very terrible people, others still were… well… bad. Suffice to say it was not a universally good thing, and the X-Humans learned to appreciate the long way humanity had come in the mere 60 years between "now" and the "future".

It did, however, create a dissonance within the X-Humans, a dissonance that had them asking about the supposed benefits of the plan proposed to them by the Minds. One that very clearly called for global conflicts in order to strengthen the human race, conflicts that would see their not-relatives killed no doubt. For a peoples that no longer had to consider death, each of them functionally immortal… well, it was hard to come to terms with the fact their consequences on those that were very possibly family, or soon to be family.

The ethics of what they were doing had been brought up, was it bad? Was what they were doing evil? Knowingly starting wars? Sure it would benefit the humans of this universe in the long run, but what about those that they cared about? What would happen to them?

It was a question that needed answering, and for they who had followed the Minds for over a thousand years without question, even accepting their style of doing things, they were questions that some of them did not want to answer. They fine doing this to another galaxy full of peoples who were no doubt as innocent as their parents were of what the Caretakers were about to do to them. Some of them even found a rather visceral enjoyment in it, being a Space Marine and destroying people, some of them no doubt innocent. Yet here they were unwilling to do the same to people who were not-family, yet close enough to be considered family. They had the same moles, the same dimples, personalities, everything. They were identical to those that had passed away previously.

So many ethical dilemmas, how to answer them.

Hannah being Hannah had simply asked, why not ask the Minds to reverse time with our copy of the universe and bring back the dead. A problem that had been surprisingly… easy now that they thought about it. Why hadn't they done this before? The Minds had obliged, very willingly in fact. So willingly that it made them rather suspicious. The X-Humans trying to find all the possible areas where they might have been misled.

There had been nothing, nothing that is until their parents/ancestors had seen themselves in the C universe. Some of them wanted a harem, saying that it was essentially the same person, so it should be fine. Others having secret pasts revealed. Others still revealing that they were not the nice people that nostalgia and memory degradation had made them out to be, Some were in fact, terrible people without the 1000 years with the Minds to temper them. It was… hilarious to the Minds, seeing the result of their actions and how the X-Humans had to reconcile with their now alive ancestors.

It did make things easier, however, a general attitude of "kill them all" pervading the X-Humans. Some things should have been obeyed and untouched, opening that pandora's box was going to haunt them, the X-Humans were sure of it.

Hannah had guessed as to what was going to happen, but she didn't mind. Her father had been a naval captain, her mother a rather iron backed housewife, there wasn't much that was hidden. When they had come into the existence again, she had simply explained what had happened, activated her parent's psionic potential, and then showed them history as the X-Humans defined it. They had been rather shocked but adapted easily enough, it was Eldrad that threw them for a loop. A space elf was definitely not who they thought she would end up with.

Once the turmoil had been dealt with, they could get back to the issue regarding what they would do with regards to the people of the planet. Save them was a given, but how was the question, one asked with less force given they got what they wanted, and their ethical dilemmas had been partially solved.

That and the HeMUs had been watching them run around wracking their heads and wanted to be able to do something… anything. Being HeMUs, things like ethics triggered no alarms in their heads, just a need to do their mission. Watching the humans do it, only engendered in them a sense of superiority, they didn't worry about what they were doing was right or wrong.

In the end, the X-Humans worked out their issues, for the greater good they were prepared to sacrifice, it might mean deaths now, but that meant less deaths later. In doing the necessary evil, they were saving as many people as they could later. A rather mentally tired way of looking at things, but sufficient for the time being. A rather selfish one too considering they got what they wanted.

And so an intervention was planned, not for South Africa as originally planned, but rather in the Rhodesian Bush War, the war that would eventually bring about the recognition of Zimbabwe as a state. NOD would bring itself into this war, end it quickly, and install people to power that were sympathetic to their cause. Sympathetic in this case being brainwashed into believing it. They had not yet developed the facilities for the long term "education" of people to their way of thinking as of yet. That was unfortunately still a ways away.

Bring in a 4th force, one with obviously superior weaponry and tactics, one that was using weapons so very similar to what those dastardly NOD were using, and when they eliminated the other factions quickly, efficiently, easily… well, it would be before a suitable force could be sent. A proxy war would be denied to the West, and they would only be able to sit by and gnash their teeth in frustration. They might be able to block its recognition as a country, but there would be no way of them actually invading it and simply annexing it away from NOD control. The general public after all, was not aware that NOD existed and justifications of intervening in a tiny little country on the African sub-continent were thin on the ground. Or perhaps they would try and make it so this looked like the work of someone else entirely? Frustrating intelligence officers was just too entertaining.

The HeMUs planned it, hopefully, it would work out. Next, would come the subversion of South Africa and that invaluable port of Cape Horn, and the world would be open to their saboteurs. No longer needing to rely solely on NOD transports, effectively impossible to trace, they could operate on a larger scale and extend their reach into every port in the world.

That and a proper war, the HeMUs were itchy and needed someone to shoot at. The rebels would do, for now, the full scale war had been denied to them for now, but that upcoming Vietnam war, well that would be very interesting. A 3 way conflict with the chance to test new weapons?

Yes, please.

But first the Rhodesian Bush War, it shouldn't take longer than a week at the most.

NOD prepared for its first full scale mobilization and it was fun, so much waiting, so much boredom, now was a chance to finally let loose.