AN: This was originally a roleplay idea, but the guy I wanted to partner with was too busy with other stuff. So I rewrote what I already had down into a crossover between the Gate series, and Rimworld (Or more like Modded Rimworld) and possibly another well known franchise depending on where the magical gate opens up.
On a side note, this will be a semi-interactive series where the reviewers can make suggestions, and influence what events will happen. This can take the form of anything from raider attacks, to travelling merchants, to packs of man eating raccoons, or just random ruins filled with treasure. If it even remotely fits the lore of Gate, it'll be taken into consideration.
Show your appreciation by following this story. The updates come faster if you do that.
=lOl=
Chapter 1
Location: Far North East of the Headhunting Rabbis Grasslands.
Date: 38 years before first contact.
Point of View: Zaine Vandran, Former Television Megastar, Outdoor Survivalist, Rich Explorer
When Zaine Vandran stepped out of the cryogenic pod, and deposited the contents of his stomach all over the floor, he knew something had gone wrong. His kind weren't psychic or anything like that, quite the opposite in fact, but to compensate they all seemed to posses a sort of sixth sense for detecting danger, and right now that sixth sense was screaming at him that things hadn't gone according to plan. So the very second he stopped dry heaving, he marched out of the cryogenics room as quickly as someone in his current condition could, and down the hallways of the naval ship sized Thuderfist-class drop pod towards where the command centre was located. As he walked, his heavy footfalls shaking the floor panels with each step, the high end light emitting diodes in the hallway ceilings flashed on, momentarily blinding him before his eyes adjusted, and he continued on. Zaine made a split second analysis of his surroundings, and felt a slight bit of relief at what he saw. There was no smoke in the air, the metal floor beneath his feet was completely level, and none of the emergency alarms were going off. These were all very good signs to him. Because they meant that whatever had happened most likely didn't involve the drop pod being seriously damaged in any ambition destroying way. Unfortunately, that just left all the other potential disasters that could have befallen him while he was in stasis, so once the cryptosleep sickness had fully worn off, he broke into a full blown sprint.
By the time Zaine arrived, the various computer systems of the command centre had already finished booting up with the screens of various consoles that lined the room currently displaying desktops, and waiting to be used. That wasn't surprising, these were high end supercomputers with quantum crystalline computing chips that made even those ridiculous over designed gaming PCs look like stone age tools. Seating himself in the heavily reinforced chair, and clicking on the shortcut he had made to the drop pods log, he began scrolling though it to see what had happened. Zaine's curiosity soon gave away to complete, and utter disbelief as he scrolled through the computer generated reports. Eventually, when he finally finished reading them all, he had to make his feelings known, even if there was no one else present to hear them.
"What in the actual fuck!"
First off was the good news. The entire trip had gone smoothly with no complications other than the one big anomaly Zaine was seeing. The heavy duty spherical metal shell that acted as both a heat shield, and stealth camouflage had fulfilled both its purposes by allowing the drop pod to approach the planet undetected, and shield it from the intense heat of reentry. Then, once it had slowed down enough, the metal sphere broke apart, allowing the next stage of the landing to begin, and also further giving off the illusion that it was an asteroid breaking up in the atmosphere. The comparatively small, but still huge auxiliary thrusters lining the edges of the drop pod all properly activated, and gently set the whole rig down on a nice piece of flat land that was hopefully in the middle of nowhere. Because a giant flying 160 meter tall, and 310 meter wide metal cylinder with great fiery torches coming out of its sides would be pretty damn noticeable to anyone nearby.
As far as Zaine was concerned, everything had gone smoothly, and he was now on a savage lawless world where he could carve out his own little empire, if not just outright conquer the entire damn planet without too much effort. But there was just one caveat that threw all of his ambitions into chaos.
He'd landed on the wrong damn planet.
There was good, and bad news on this front as well. The good news was that from what Zaine had seen from the automatic scans that were preformed, he would've put the instructions in himself if they weren't already there, this world was a relatively normal temperate one. As in, not the nuclear devastated wasteland he was intending to go to. There were several continents of varying sizes, and an wider array of biome types scattered across the surface of the planet. For the most part, it looked like any run of the mill habitable planet. This place did seem to have a disproportionately large amount of dangerous mega fauna on it, both in the ocean, and on dry land. Clearly the result of unregulated genetic experimentation that he'd become all too familiar with. But other than that, there was nothing else worth noting. The local civilization was a primitive medieval one, with things like castles, knights, nobles, horse drawn carriages, and not even some primitive guns from what he could see.
All in all, this world looked like an easy conquest for any halfway competent Conquistador with access to repeating firearms. But there was one thing that cast a massive shadow of doubt on Zaine's otherwise firm belief that this world would be a simple matter of rolling in, and planting his flag once he got a proper army up, and running.
The entire planet was absolutely crawling with fantasy creatures, and Zaine had a sneaking suspicion that these weren't extensively genetically modified humans like he'd seen in the past.
Now came the potentially very bad news.
Zaine had to re-watch the recordings multiple times to believe it, and even after that he was still having trouble comprehending what he was seeing. But there they were, an uncountable number of every stereotypical fantasy race conceived of by man just going about their business. There were the classics like Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Elves, Fairies, Dwarves, Kobolds, Harpies, Lizard people, and every other race one would see in a fantasy RPG game. On the other end of the spectrum were the usual anime weeb stereotypes like Catgirls, Bunnygirls, Snakegirls, Medusas, Sirens, Centaurs, and so on. In the uncategorized department there were Werewolves, Dragon People, Amazons, Animal People, Fish People, and everything in between. The more he looked, the more races he spotted, and quickly gave up trying to count them all.
Now that he thought about it, Zaine was pretty sure all of those monsters made to look like their fantasy fantasy counterparts were actually just that as well, and not the result of some mad scientist with too much money, and free time on his hands.
Luckily for Zaine, and unluckily for the rest of the planet, he had landed in the north eastern grassy plains of one of the larger continents. It was where the bunny people lived, and this was mostly good news due to the simple fact that they were even more primitive than the rest of the inhabitants of this world. They lived in scattered tribes with most of their structures being huts, and wielded bronze age weapons at best. From what he'd seen, they seemed to be far more physically powerful than the average baseline human, but then again, so was he, and he had access to weapons their puny minds simply had no concept of. So they shouldn't be a problem unless he deliberately went out of his way to screw things up.
Other than this one hiccup, the original plan was still a go, and it wouldn't be much different than the way his ancestors did things when their Thunderfist drop pods first landed on the world of Ashod. He just needed to keep a low profile, build up his strength without being noticed by anyone important, and only make his move when it was far too late for any of the local factions to do anything. The refurbished Thunderfist-class drop pod Zaine was using had everything he'd need to make this happen. Like a mobile construction vehicle from any decently made real time strategy game, it was built like a battleship, and had all of the essentials to start an empire such as 3D printing facilities, high end stealth systems that wouldn't be much use here, nanotech recyclers, 24 years worth of high quality survival meals, a large gene bank with accompanying growth vats for soldier/citizen production, several supercomputers with all available public knowledge downloaded into them, and a full compliment of Trakk-class mechanoids. The latter of whom were an unfortunate necessity since the Thunderfist-class drop pod was originally meant to have a crew in the hundreds. But since Zaine was going at it alone, he wound up having to automate whatever functions he could, and fill the rest in with simple mechanoids. His reasoning behind this was that it was going to be a lot easier to control vat grown newborns, who were blank slates he could fill in with whatever he wanted, than independent adults who had lived their own lives, and possessed their own probably wrong opinions, and grand ambitions.
A small frown tugged at Zaine's lips when he thought about it in further depth. Recruiting a bunch of fully grown, and barely controllable supersoldiers with nothing but his celebrity status to keep them in line? Yeah no, that was a bad idea. It was going to be much easier with recently born children in the long run since he'd have massive amounts of natural rank over them in the form of about 185 years of legitimate seniority, vastly more experience in pretty much about everything, 36 years worth of 'adventure' training, natural born competence, and if they still did rebel, he knew the self destruct codes to the drop pod.
Zaine cringed at the thought of an internal power struggle. The last thing he needed was a mutiny while in the middle of conquering a hostile alien planet.
But before he could do anything, Zaine needed to get properly dressed, and secure the perimeter. He brought up another menu on the screen that showed a map of the area surrounding the drop pod. It was nothing but flat grasslands in all directions. Good, the enemy had nowhere to hide. He dragged, and dropped a dozen gatling turret icons a mile out, and around the base in a perfectly symmetrical dodecagon, and also hastily put a bunch of thick cord icons near the entrance before hitting the begin button. With that done, he quickly sprinted over to his personal quarters, changed out of his soggy pyjamas, and into an appropriately sized flak vest that was tan coloured, along with a matching pair of flak pants. He then hastily slipped on a pair of black heavy duty hiking boots, and a picked up a fully concealing flak helmet with a distinctive T-shaped visor that was both bulletproof, and laserproof.
Once he was pretty much fully dressed, Zain inspected himself in a nearby mirror to make sure nothing was out of place. A towering giant with the looks of a handsome young man stared back. He had a pale complexion, chin length dark maroon coloured hair, a very heavily muscled, and well toned body that was equally broad with no visible body fat, piercing scarlet red eyes, and multiple faint scars that never fully went away no matter what he did. Despite his youthful boyish appearance, he was actually 186 years old, and even older chronologically. But he was currently in the prime of his life, partly due to his kinds long lifespans, but mostly thanks to his prodigious use of the biosculpter pod before going on this little adventure. Several past acquaintances had told him that he looked a lot like some guy named Kris. He had absolutely no idea who that was, and wasn't particularly interested in looking up some long dead movie actor to find out.
Seeing that everything was in order, Zain put on the helmet. Once the helmet was on he walked over to his armoured weapons cabinet, opened it up, and grabbed his trusty HBR-250 Hearvy Assault Eletrothermal Charge Shot Firearm or HAECSF for short. It was a big scary looking gun that was nearly three meters long with a night black extreme weather resistant coating, and just the weapon alone must have weighed more than the majority of ati-material weapons currently on the market. This thing was a modernized version of what his ancestors used during their conquest of the planet Ashod, with the original being a vehicle mounted heavy machine gun that had been modified for his kinds use. The HBR-250 was a heavy duty, electrothermal charge shot weapon that had a reinforced pistol grip, ultra high end digital scope, and a special shock absorbing stock to help with the weapons notable recoil. On top of all that it was smooth bore, made from the strongest super steel alloys technology could produce, and the bullets it fired were dense, hyper velocity, anti material, fin stabilized, and supercharged monsters that were chambered in the classic 14.5mm head exploding calibre. This weapon had originally been designed to kill things like mechanoids, insectoids, power armoured mercenaries, eldritch horrors, and genetically modified super soldiers like himself. Against a bunch of bronze sword armed warrior women, who weren't even wearing proper armour most of the time, this thing was nothing shot of complete overkill.
At that last thought Zaine paused. Something about using a weapon of this magnitude on a bunch of rock throwing savages left a sour taste in his mouth, but he quickly shrugged it off. Whatever, its not like he intended to come to this primitive planet in the first place.
With those thoughts out of the way, Zaine walked over to his storage closet, swung the doors open, and grabbed one of the numerous 400 round linkless feed magazine backpacks that were stacked inside. This device not only contained the ammunition for his weapon, and a magnetic clamp so he wouldn't have to carry his bulky HBR-250 in his hands all the time, but also housed the high end hex cells needed to supply its energy demands 3 times over. After a quick inspection to make sure nothing was broken, he swung it over his back, fastened the straps, and slotted in the armoured feed chute. Once everything was in working order, he switched his weapon to its single shot mode, and headed off to the front entrance.
Taking the elevator down to the bottom floor where the front entrance was, Zaine stepped into one of the main hallways just in time to see one of the Trakk-class mechanoids zip past him while carrying one of the dozen gatling turrets he had ordered to be brought outside, and set up. It was a simple looking machine that consisted of a 5 foot wide, and 8 foot long tracked tank chassis with a heavy lifting robotic arm mounted on top of it. Its design was also compact enough that two of them could fit side by side in the main hallways, and still have a little bit of room to spare.
This was just one of the many reasons Zaine had over 300 of these things in what was now his base. The Trakk-class could easily be configured to fulfill any menial task imaginable with an overly robust frame allowing it to carry objects that weighed multiple tons, and its modular design made it easy to repair if it got damaged. He also didn't have to worry about a robot rebellion since it was listed as a class 3.5 manual labour mechanoid. Yes, it was a highly sophisticated robotic unit capable of following basic commands, then giving directions to other less advanced robotic units, and despite being only moderately adaptive, could solve complex problems if given enough time. But it didn't possess any higher thought processes, emotions, independence or anything that might cause it to start asking questions.
They were perfect servant caste.
The Phalanx-class gatling turret it was carrying was technically not a turret at all. It had originally been a decommissioned close in weapon system used to shoot down things like drones, missiles, artillery shells, and aircraft. That was until Zaine bought a bunch of them at an auction, got them refurbished so they'd be useful again, and modified them to fire at a much wider range of targets. The weaponry, and technology used by these things was pretty much the same as his HBR-250, except with seven rotating barrels chambered to fire the much more powerful 21.59mm cannon shells, and just to make any would be raiders day even more miserable, these projectiles were guided.
Honestly, it was a waste of resources to use these things on a bunch of bunny eared cave women. Zaine was really hoping some of the local monsters showed up so he'd have targets actually worth shooting at.
After a minute of waking, Zaine finally reached the front entrance, and stepped onto the surface of this strange new planet for the very first time. He was greeted with endless fields of green grass, a clear blue sky with the sun shining brightly, the smell of fresh country air, and a slight breeze of wind. There were no monolithic arcologies, unending paved roads, bustling traffic, fleets of aircraft, mechanoid swarms, or anything. He did spot some forests, and mountains in the far off east. But other than that it was mostly just grassy fields as far as he could see. It was surreal.
After a minute of admiring the scenery, Zaine got to work, and walked over to one of the huge extension cord rolls that had been placed nearby. But these things weren't the kinds of power cords that could be bought at a hardware store, and plugged into the side of the house, no, these were extra thick, heavy duty power lines designed to be left out in extreme weather for years on end. He picked up the massive roll that was almost as big as he was, and began unrolling it in the direction of the first of the turrets until he finally got there with just a handful of yards of cable left to spare. He plugged the industrial grade prong into the outlet of the square armoured cabinet that acted as an anchor for the turret, but also housed its vital computing systems, and emergency backup power supply. Just in case someone got the bright idea of unplugging the thing.
With that done Zaine made the long trek back to the other end of the cable, and plugged it into one of the numerous weatherproof outlets lining the drop pod. He repeated this process eleven more times over the course of 3 hours until he was finished, and the perimeter was secure.
Only then did Zaine take a break, and get something to eat.
As he scarfed down his extra large luxury meal, and gulped down huge mouthfuls of water, Zaine thought about what his next few moves were going to be. Getting access to raw resources was an absolute must. He didn't know how abundant these fields were in things like iron, and copper, but there had to be something since the bunny warriors had bronze age weapons. Getting production up, and running was also a top priority. His ammunition reserves were going to run out pretty damn quickly if he wasn't careful. Security was adequate for now, but he was going to be expanding it soon, and probably within the week at that. Food wasn't going to be a problem anytime soon, but he might as well get production started anyways, and sell high quality survival meals to the locals for a massive profit, because he really doubted a primitive planet this densely populated had anywhere near enough to eat. The local diseases were a mild concern, but he had a superior immune system, and access to glitterworld level medical technology, so he wasn't too worried in that department. Even if he did somehow die, he had contingencies in place so his base wouldn't become just another abandoned ruin to be looted.
A loud chime brought Zaine out of his thoughts. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a reinforced tablet whose screen was displaying an alert sign. Curious, he tapped the symbol, and was greeted with a live recording of an approaching army of roughly several dozen of the local bunny warrior population. They were all armed with an assortment of swords, axes, and spears, and had more war paint on their bodies than a troupe of killer clowns. The majority of them were on foot, which was a slight relief, but what really got his attention were the ones piloting horse drawn carts, and the purpose they seemed to serve. The carts in question were either laden down with food supplies, completely empty or had been repurposed into mobile cages.
It didn't take a genius to realize this wasn't a diplomatic envoy looking to establish a peaceful coexistence, and mutually beneficial trade relations.
To Zaine's eyes it looked more like a raiding force.
Zaine couldn't help but be morbidly impressed. He'd barely been on the planet for a single afternoon, and the local raiders were already coming over to kill him, and take his stuff. That had to be a new record. His amusement at their sheer balls out audacity quickly faded as he opened up the turret options, designated all of the bunny warriors as targets, and the animals too if they started running away. He finished by setting the turrets to fire five round bursts once the enemy was in optimal range. He switched back to the live feed of the horse drawn carriages, and counted 14 of them in total, with a third of them being loaded with food.
Yeah, it looked like he was probably going to be firing up the ration block dispenser much sooner than he thought.
=lOl=
Noirin clutched her spear in a death grip as she marched alongside a loose formation of seventy other warrior women of the Tal-El raiding force. They were all dressed in high quality scale male armour, their faces coated with the appropriate war paint, and all of them were armed with high quality bronze weapons as befitting a proper attack force. She couldn't help but feel a small sense of pride despite the current situation. This wasn't some small band of glory seekers looking to score a few kills before disappearing over the horizon. This was a proper Headhunting Rabbit raiding band, and they were all going to be acting the part. Behind them followed a small caravan of horse drawn carts that had been modified for carrying supplies, pillaged bounty, captured slaves, and anything else of interest.
They had been marching full force towards their new target for several hours now, and even they were starting to sweat from the strain. Their original exuberance was now replaced with weariness as they continued trudging through the fields under the blazing sun. But that wasn't the only thing that had changed. Their previously high spirits at the thought of shedding some blood were now overshadowed by an extremely ominous foreboding. Then again, who wouldn't in this kind of situation?
Noirin thought back to how this had all started. It had begun as any other day. Tribal War Chief Tuathla Ní Maol Mhaodhóg of the Tal-El Tribe had sent out a small raiding force of experienced warrior women to the Doa-Mai tribe to pillage whatever they could, preferably in a daring night time attack to maximize the odds of a successful mission. The tribal chief had made it clear that it didn't matter what they took so long as it made the entire expedition worth it, but farm animals, useful slaves, sacrifice victims, and food supplies were considered high priority. Then once they'd pillaged, and plundered everything they could they'd return back to the tribe for a night of feasting, and drunken revelry. Just another day in the lives of the Warrior Bunnies.
So Noirin, and the rest had set out before the crack of dawn, and had made good progress by the time noon came around. At the rate they were going, they were going to be at the Doa-Mai tribe in only a few days. There were no rain clouds in the sky, no one had fallen ill or suffered injuries, and they hadn't run into any scouts from rival tribes. All good omens of things to come.
Then IT happened.
They'd all heard the noise before any of them saw it, and they didn't know how to describe it. It sounded like this continuous far off grinding roar like noting any of them had ever heard before, and no one could figure out where the noise was coming from until a spear women named Faílenn pointed at the sky. They all looked up, and gaped in complete astonishment at what they say.
Slowly descending from the sky on massive pillars of fire, like a gift from the sun god Flare himself, was a large metal cylinder. It was dull grey in colour, and other than the smaller cylinders lining its edges, was completely featureless save for the holes in the aforementioned cylinders that spewed the great tongues of flame that were clearly keeping it from plummeting to the earth like a stone. It was a sight that defied all logic, and flew like a thrown brick into the face of how the Warrior Bunnies thought the world worked.
Alien was the only word that came to mind when Noirin looked at it. For there was no other word for how truly foreign the object she was looking at truly was. From every possible standpoint it was completely, and utterly alien.
The entire raiding force began whispering in fearful tones to each other. Some whispered that is was the gods coming to pass final judgment. Others murmured that it was demons sent by Hardy. One particularly out there woman said is was literal space monsters from the stars coming to eat their brains. Others had their own ideas.
Finghin, the chosen leader of the raiding force, had been quick put a stop to these fearful whispers before they got out of hand, and loudly declared that they will be investigation this mysterious object, and taking whatever valuables it contained. That bold proclamation certainly got everyone's attention. She continued with saying that the original mission was no longer a major concern in light of recent events, and had even sent a volunteer back to the Tal-El tribe to report what was going on. After that she dared everyone to challenge her authority on this decision. To speak now, or forever hold their silence. No one did, and they began marching at full speed in the direction the mysterious object was setting down.
They marched for hours on end, long past the point where they should have broken camp for the night, and it was showing. The sun was starting to set, and their bodies were coated in a thin layer of sweat. But their target was now in sight. The mysterious metal object was just a few miles away, and waiting for them to take whatever secrets it held.
Squinting her eyes Noirin could just barley make out several smaller objects surrounding the the object. She could only guess what their purpose was, but felt the need to tell Finghin. But before she could open her mouth to speak, several things happened at once.
The relative silence the raiding force was enjoying was abruptly replaced by an ear piercingly loud rattling noises loud enough to momentarily render the Warrior Bunnies deaf. It sounded like nothing they'd ever heard before, and Noirin thought she had seen a series of bright flashes in the far off distance.
Then half their force disappeared in a series of blinding green flashes.
It took a few seconds for Noirin to blink the black spots out of her vision, and look around to fully grasp what had just happened. To her absolute horror, she saw that her fellow warriors hadn't simply disappeared like she originally thought. Instead they had been reduced to showers of blood, bone fragments, armour shards, and scraps of unrecognizable meat that now coated the survivors like a macabre paint. To her further shock, this included herself as well.
Finghin didn't need to sound the retreat. Once the Bunny Warriors realized that half their raiding force had been wiped out in an instant, they all turned to run for their lives. The horse drawn carts, and their supplies were simply abandoned where they were. There was no glory to be found in dying to an enemy they couldn't even see, let alone fight, and the unknown nature of their foe simply added to the desperate terror they were now feeling. All of them knew that they needed to get out of there before they were struck down by whatever strange death magic was being used, and more importantly, they needed to warn everyone else about what was now in their lands.
Noirin ran alongside the others in their desperate hope to escape her sisters violent deaths. But something in the back of her mind told her it was far too late for that. She was more or less proven right when those same alien rattling noises started up again, and the rest of the raiding force exploded.
This also included Noirin herself as she felt a split second long explosion of pain, and everything went black even faster afterwards.
=lOl=
AN: The genetic traits of Zain Vandran, and by extension the War Jotun, are as follows; Jotun Frame, Very Diligent Student, Tough Skin, Crushing Strength, Grudgy, Tactless, Long Living, Otherworldly. Innate Bloodlust, Deadly Raid Presence, Strong Stomach, Super Immunity, Suerclotting, Fast Wound Healing, Fast Growing, Genetic Stability, Psychically Deaf, Unhappy, Cold Tolerant, Heat tolerant, Tox Resistance, Aggressive, Rowdy, Agile Fighter, Unruly, Robust, Early Maturity, Multiple Offspring, Short Pregnancy, High Libido, Fertile, Straight, Dominant Genes, Attractive, Standard Body, Pale Skin, Red Eyes, Abrasive, Dark Vision, Low Mining Yield, Super Endurance, and Low Mining Yield.
These guys are street legal, the game says so.