I call out to the smiler, "What is that?"

 In the recesses of my mind I wonder about what this could be. I probably hadn't revealed this to anyone onboard and I didn't have an MP3 player with me. I don't even know what to make of it, the only thing it could be was another transcended being. So finally I step into the corridor, take a few steps to the right to see if it's louder in that direction and if not, I turn the other direction to try and triangulate it.

"Its a cool tune, I like this band." The smiler says. Triangulation does no good.  Its loud in all directions by now.

And indeed you've told no one that you like this music.

 "Me too," I say, but I was really thinking what has pulled this from my mind? The Barkton Interstellar brain read my mind and the shadow did as well. Could it be that the Shadow was here now?

 "Do you know what's causing it though?"

"Not a clue. Well, I mean its alien."

You find that he and the others are heading outside, and you join them.  And still in the valley space between the valley walls there is no source for the music.  Its full surround sound....no, occasionally you can feel a shift in the song's direction as it hits different intruments.  But its more noticeable when you move about.

Some seems to come from in front and some to the sidea and to the back with the drummer.

 Whatever it was, it was attempting to get my attention. Well they got it, I was listening now. I imagined though that nothing bad could come from such a feel good song. Maybe some melancholy but nothing downright evil or destructive. At any rate, I was ready when they were. And since it seemed to be a theme amongst advanced aliens, I sat down on the valley wall and thought it.

 "I'm here, what do you want. I know you can hear me, you're taking this out of my mind right?"

There is a buzz of alien concept, of views that are not views, of seeing the universe as if smelled and vibrated and felt as humans feel the sun on their skin.  And then through it comes a clarity...

'This is Worm Radio Station. We play the music you love.'

You and others are invited or commanded by the Counsel to go to the exterior viewing decks.

 Oh boy, this is what happens when you get what you ask for. Telepathic radio? It's was a novelty this civilization had apparently mastered along with some very interesting things. One thing that I've always enjoyed about versing, was that there was never a shortage of amazing things to bear witness to. That still didn't explain why everyone else was hearing my music, shouldn't everyone have their own? If not, then why was I chosen?

 I hasten to the observation viewports...

You've never been to them before, but the diamond crystal roofed, floored, and walls gives you and the others a more than 360 degree side to side, top to bottom view of space.  Its ordinarily hidden behind 'curtains' on the outside, but those are drawn up and out of the way now.

Space would be gorgeous....

The Green Item sprays out stellar fire which lands on the outgassing, and outlines a guitar in flaming plasma ten thousand miles tall.  Meanwhile the Tube seems to be creating a deep bass vibe...

Its as if the whole solar system is a rock concert.

And then the planets (except yellow) begin to strobe in different colors in time to the music.

 And we were worried about our robots getting hacked, this was a mind hack...

 It's beautiful and I can't tear my eyes away from this insane thing that was happening. God gave rock'n'roll. The words to the song become strange to me, ironically signalling our failing mission.  If we were really smart we would leave now, but there was more to understand here, so much more. I couldn't think of what to do, if anything should be done.

 Or was this the weapon we needed? Did they create something that the others couldn't handle? Music? I guess we'll know in a short while.

 I checked the computer's sensors, could it hear the music by detecting input sound at the levels we were all hearing? If not, then it was mental, it was probably all going on inside our skulls and that would be a really bad sign to me.

 I also check out what the VLO discussion board is saying to get some consensus on what everyone else believed was happening.

You check the computers, and it seems that the outgassing from the planets is providing a medium to transmit sound through.

But as the message boards point out, the 'space sound' should be very faint, and not hearable, but as soon as it hits the ship, it pumps up the volume a lot.  How? There are a half dozen ideas, but even the originators admit they're ideas are just guesses.

The song ends, and then another song begins.  This time its "Blue Hawaii" by Elvis.

The message boards are calculating the energy release, and its in petawatts.  The stellar lance that is now painting Elvis in outline, ten thousand miles tall, dancing, well, it could cut the Earth in half.

After that, its 'Ten More Miles and a Dozen Roses' and 'Stand By Your Man' and then 'The Planets' by Dvorak.

And then the message boards hum as one of the town counsel puts it together.  'Blue' is the chairman's fave, 'Ten' is  his asst. chair's fave, and so on.

 We definitely needed some rock and roll devices like this back on Earth. A system like this could surely be used as a weapon too. I begin propagating the idea of understanding this system on the discussion boards and getting a feel for how best to study it and get the heck out of here. It was clear there was a control method happening at a telepathic or similar level. The ability then to understand our thoughts and convert it into imagery and understandable sound.

 My bet was on the stealthed planet Yellow, that's where I thought we'd find our answers. There was no participation from Yellow. I sought some men who would journey over to the yellow planet to see if we could make out what was happening or not happening over there.

The VLO boards suggest that the Green Tree is running the thing, possibly at the instruction of the Box, but others hold out for the Yellow Planet.  There are some plans tossed around as to how to get their hands on the Green Tree, but since its inside the local sun, that is a serious problem.  Add to that, the fact that the thing is enormous.

Then one infrequent commenter asked a question which nearly stills the boards for a good thirty seconds.  Where are the Shadow and Shimmer?  Last anyone can recall seeing them is a few minutes before the music started.

....And now for a well-loved tune, by eight of you... You hear.

And then its the Star Trek theme song.

You get a couple dozen volunteers to visit Yellow.

And the music shifts to "....key largo, moneagle, cocomo..." followed by "your fields, so soft, so green....we are your overlords...." and then .....we have the most popular choice with seventeen for 'Amazing Grace', followed by a whistled 'Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'....

 It seemed like the only possible choice so far was to head over to Yellow. It was the only thing in the system that wasn't lit up like a Christmas Tree or sending out strange signals. So as soon as possible we should head out. This was an extremely dangerous system even without the weird music but just watching it wasn't going to do us any good, we needed to find the source and hopefully fast, before we got any surprises.

 The news about the shadow and shimmer absence is reassuring. Perhaps this was an adequate weapon against them as well. I check out the discussions on any changes in the systems VLOs as well, since any change that we could track correlating effects to, should help suss out how this thing is working.

You have to cut down the number of goings from forty to the eight that will fit in a large shuttle.  Mostly Marine Archeologists, or do you want to add some Engineers, or some Scientific Specialists?  There's even the Ship's Poet who ....

Since I did not land/on that unwholesome strand/this is my demand/to be allowed to expand/to be part of the brave but timorous band/ to give my verse, my thought, my worlds upon new land/or face a poet's reprimand...

The Deep Physics board is buzzing, but since they start at incomprehensible, and move on out weirder than that, it means little to you, except they assure you 'its some very exciting stuff....we think.'  The DP board has only about a dozen serious players, but they tend to  be sharp-tongued, and genius, and most have advanced degrees in math and.or  physics.  Its lead figure is a gorilla of a man, who's actually nice to normal people, even as he's being smirkily condescending to his almost peers.

Your shuttle launches, and since it takes nearly eight hours, you get to the end of the playtrack. Of note, in the midst of the selection, one fave played 'I'm Going to Git You, Sucker" which has ten verses, which describe the wrong suffered, the rage felt, and a differeant and more vicious way to achieve bloody revenge for each verse.

"And that was the welcome to the newest race to visit our system.  Hey! Welcome Humans." The voice is heard in everyone's head.

You're an hour from landfall, and there are no signs of anything alive or even anything built down there.

I check out the threads for what people might be saying about that last message. It sounded pretty ominous to me and a lot of energy to spend on a welcome. These were obviously well passed our level of technology. Either this system was being run by a nanite intelligence or there was something else happening. Either way, they were communicating with us telepathically. Perhaps we were already in communication...

There is some disagreement, but the general consensus is 'I'm Going..." is the favorite of some human, and worrying at that.

The consensus seems to be that it is a lot, tho' a strong faction thinks its a minor display.  A faction of biologists thinks its a dominance display like a deer's antlers.

Everyone agrees they are vastly more powerful.

Some hold for an AI, but some think there might be some sort of reflective tech where a psi intent is beamed, and your brains receive it and turn it into words.  To that, some point out the music having physical properties.

You receive no message to your query.

Land?

I feel like this is a pretty horrible idea, but somehow I can feel my head nodding in response to the question of landfall. On the other hand, maybe we'd finally get some answers...

You and the others step down, and the planet evaporates beneath your feet.  An impossibly tall crystalline spike leads up to a twenty square yard landing underneath...

One MA jumps in startlement and goes sailing off the edge.

People are yelling.

You and the others step down, and the planet evaporates beneath your feet.  An impossibly tall crystalline spike leads up to a twenty square yard landing underneath...

One MA jumps in startlement and goes sailing off the edge.

People are yelling.

"Calm down everyone, Pilot," I intone over our suit radios, "can you grab that man before he hits something down there?"

I myself am freaking out inside, but keeping it cool on the outside. We've obviously found something interesting here, something that was hidden before. This is what we wanted to find I think...

As I anxiously awaited an answer over the radio, I started to examine the floor here, because worms perspective should be the key to understanding things here...
This message was last edited by the player at 00:16, Fri 16 Jan 2015.

"Ah, ummm..." Pilot's voice clearly calms. " Got him in 1, 2, 3...snagged, sir."  The floater is being brought back to the shuttle, and looks clearly embarrassed.  The others have shut up, and are variously doing breathing exercises, praying, or looking about.

The floor is nearly clear. The spike that holds it up goes down and down to what looks like a glittering spiked ball at what used to be the planetary center.

The Physics Group on the Stairstep Universe transmits.

"Virtual matter. The planet was virtual matter."

The Art Group, which you haven't heard from much.

"Seems a vastly different language that other structures.  Either built by opposing ideology, or centuries different, or alien."

"Art Group, can you put together a sense of perspective from evidence here?" I ask the discussion group.

Then I move towards the edge of the abyssal spire's side and peer down. What might await us down there, and most importantly, why was it hidden and what did this mega-structure do?

"Archaeologists, is there any consensus on how we should proceed?"

It was all just too difficult for me to take in at the moment. What was there that I could affect?

"Its more angular. If human, I'd say, more angry."  The Art Group replies.

"Look for controllllllll...." The archeologists lead begins, and time slows.

LORD OF WAR

Fifty thousand cycles have passed, but we remain 97% ready to destroy.

Oh, crap...

"Who are you and why do you hide behind virtual matter?"

"This is a D'ringas Stealth Attack Installation.  We hide from enemies by pretending to be a planet in an unihabited system."

Dozens of stars in the near sky are highlighted.  Images of thousand foot long diamonds accelerated by anti-m drives to near light speed taking years to transit interstellar space, and splash into planets,shredding them, appear.

"Initial attack likely to destroy 12 civs, 89% certainty.  Counter attack not likely to arrive for seven more years which is enough time to build and launch for more shards.  Probability of success on second wave is only 50%.

Shall I launch?"