:: I am sorry, Elle, but I am in earnest.  According to your ship, you arrived here over two thousand years ago. ::

::Oh, wow.::

::I've...just been doing the same things.  I find reviewing my memories that I've done the same thing over and over.  Which helps explain why I have not advanced the groves as far as I should.  I kept repeating errors.::

:: From my recent experiences in battling the Taint, I noticed that it would try to distort a target's sense of time, and lock them into repetitive actions. ::

:: But now the Taint has been defeated, and you have been freed from that chain. ::

:: What can you tell me of your civilization, Elle?  And what changes might two thousand years have brought? ::
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:01, Fri 28 Mar 2014.

::By design and material factors we were stable, indeed reactionary, you might call us.  We devoted our expansionistic, changing impulses to expanding out into space.  Life spans plus time dilation starship trips, plus large clans, and corporations that often had payable bonds not payable for a couple centuries, or even half a millenium were common.

Our art was classical.  Our manners, refined.T

Those of us not incined to this way of life were encouraged to try the starships.::

She pauses.

::Obviously there will be changes, but if the whole schema holds, then we should have quadrupled our space, and terraformed many worlds inside our own space so that many solar systems have not one but two or three inhabited worlds.  If the Civilization breaks, then I don't knowwhat happens.::

:: How do you keep in contact?  Can you communicate with others beyond a given solar system?  If your civilization is still unbroken, would your ship be able to tell? ::

:: What kind of defensive capabilities do they have, and what threats have there been?  Would they be able to defend themselves against the aliens that were encountered on this planet? ::

::Slower than light comms mostly, ships, but in a few of the systems they had powerful laser cannons they could used as comm lasers.  That is one of the probable fault lines, due to variable info speed.::

::A developed civ can easily fend off an alien attack, unless someone chooses to xenocide with a .90 c rock, but no one has gone that far.::

:: What kinds of tricks have you learned from the mind fragments?  What are Brutus and Fido like? ::

::I have learned how to turn some attacks on themselves.  Fear is the primary one.  I can turn the fear of a fear frag back on itself so that it is too scared to attack.::

::Brutus is a warrior, and Fido is a soldier.::

[56 blank lines suppressed]

;

:: How exactly do you turn the attacks on themselves?  How exactly did you create Brutus and Fido?  And how did you figure these things out? ::

:: If I could understand what you have done, and how you did it, then perhaps it would give me clues as to how the fragments of these poor colonists might be brought together and made whole again.  I would help them... if only I could... ::

:With one hand, I fed it logic, and with the other,  I showed it confidence.  It liked neither, and after a bit of even more ferocious attack, it turned on itself since it lacked a proper target to attack."

::Imagination.  I created characters in my mind.  I saw them in detail, came to know thei rpersonalities, and saw how they flow from within me.  And they were born."

If she remembers the details as she describes them to me, I pay close attention through the telemphatic link.

:: By the way, I am currently located in the Tower, which is currently protected by a very strong psi shield, and houses several crystals as well.  And you are with the grooves now.  How are we able to communicate? ::

:The Tower is aiding me.  It allows me a passage through its shields....like so.::

And you see in  your mind a very thin passage with several right angles through the shield.  And the Tower suppressing the crystals power, as well.

:: Is the Tower aiding you passively or actively?  Can it sense and respond?  Is it sentient?  What is the nature of the Tower? ::

:Passively. It is not sentient, or they were not designed to be so last I knew.:

:They are PDB's, planetary defense bases, and TC's, terraforming centers, and Refuge Points which explains the vast number of rooms in them.:

:: Did you put these powerful psionic shields here?  Can the technology be used to create portable psionic shields capable of protection from the Fragments? ::

:: How do you communicate with the Tower, to request for things such as telempathic passages through the shields?  What commands or protocols are needed? ::

:: Are you able to communicate with the other two Towers?  What is their status?  I have heard reports that they have fallen, and that this is the only remaining Tower... ::

::I did not, but I suppose so.  It seems logical.  That is, if supplies are available, and if such do not require huge energy reservoirs.::

She runs down a list of possible problems.

She shows you the passage, and a single command to have the Tower help you find it.
But once you find it, its up to you to do the rest.

::I have not tried.::

::One will not reply.  The other is overrun by aliens.::

:: What other commands are there for the Tower?  Is there a "help" command to learn more? ::

:: Is the other responding Tower reporting that aliens are still there?  Or was communication lost after aliens overran it in the past? ::

::There is a Status command, and a Status-History Outline command, but the rest were classified, and not in my need to know.::

::Aliens still there.::

:: Which of your fellow crew members would have known? ::

:: What capabilities does a Tower have?  What threats are potentially posed by a Tower in alien hands, and how can they be defended against?  Do we have any means of monitoring their activity, or of regaining any measure of control over their Tower? ::

She lists the captain, XO, and chief of terraforming.

:Most of the PDB is focused on space. Land is not a major concern.  Terraforming if they have the energy is th emajor concern.  Since we're still alive, I'd say they don't.::

OOC: Which crew member (see msg "Tadeusz on August 17, 2013 at 1:11 pm" above) is the chief of terraforming?  If necessary, I ask...  :)

:: What do you know of the aliens?  What do they look like?  What are their goals, and strengths, and weaknesses? ::

:: What kind of energy sources could supply the energy needed for them to become a threat? ::

Chief of Terraforming Albert Morris was in cryo as his skills were not needed in transit.

::Very little. They had an interstellar starship with sublight capabilities of mass about 75% of ours of globulars in construction.  They had an insystem, ah....photon drive, I believe.  But we weren't sure of that as we hardly caught a glimpse of them....which might mean they have good stealth.

The Tower should have the power, which means someone sabotaged it before it fell.  Don't know, a LOT tho'.::

:: How many others are still in cyro, assuming that it hasn't failed in these two thousand years? ::

:: Did the aliens have psionic abilities? ::

::Could be as low as a thousand or as high as five.::

::They must. I mean. Frags, right?::

Wow.  I not only have to weigh what to do about the seventeen, and how they might dominate the world if a way could be found to reintegrate them with their bodies, but I now have to weigh what to do about potentially thousands in cyro, and how they might dominate the world if revived.

Who am I to choose to reintegrate and revive those that can be, knowing how dramatically they might change, and perhaps dominate, this world?  And who am I to choose to refrain from reintegrating or reviving those that could be saved?

John Oakmaster... the new Lord of the Sea Tower.  Heavy lies the crown...

:: Wow.  So many.  How many would be likely to be viable for reviving after two thousand years?  What kind of knowledge and expertise do they have?  And how well could it be used with the limited technology that remains? ::

:: Yes, the aliens made the Frags... but your people made the Tower.  And the Tower is able to allow telempathic passage for this conversation, and is able to suppress the crystals here as well.  Do your people have psionic abilities? ::