"Orange Lantern, you about ready?"
I nod at Jordan's head as it floats over my ring.
So they've basically pacified the Castle Revolving?
"Temporary shelter ready to receive refugees."
"We'll be down in a minute."
And if Hal's been practising his shit, that's literally one transition away...
"Is the rest of the ship secure?"
"I think so. The rest of the crew are just trying to stay out of our way."
Sensible, given what they've seen the heroes, especially the Lanterns, doing to any opposition. Presumably Glory-bra's pulled her forces back in hopes they'll get bored and wander off.
"We don't really have the facilities to take them prisoner." I look around. "I could build one down here, but… We don't have anyone who could stop them using magic. So I guess… Smash the bridge and drive and leave them there?"
"Or we could talk to the local government about taking them prisoner."
Wouldn't really do to leave a bunch of sado-masochistic space elves with a taste for torture and murder hanging around unattended. Smacks of irresponsibility, really.
"'We' or 'me'?"
"If this 'Malvolio' guy is real, I need to be there."
At least OL will be there to moderate how the scenario plays out? Hopefully things don't go quite as pear-shaped as original Canon.
"I'll use my armour's stealth systems and actually find the local authorities while you bring the refugees down."
"Don't start anything without me."
No, OL
never starts fights.
Not unless he's got absolute superiority in firepower, positioning and surprise, anyway. It's a pity other people don't feel the same way.
"I'm not Guy, Green Lantern."
"Yeah. I can predict him. GL out."
...Ouch.
True, but ouch. After all, you know how Guy will react in most situations, especially with Will Enlightenment. OL seems to change tacks on a whim as he realises moment-to-moment desires...
Right then. I drop my construct armour and alter my armour for improved stealth. Then I go invisible, and use my armour's flight systems to head at speed towards the closest settlement. It's not actually all that far away, but it's a small village with a small airport and some farmland. Less chance of sophisticated monitoring equipment than somewhere larger. It should let me get a better idea of what they're like before risking further contact.
Well, he did say they were about modern-day in terms of tech. If it's anything like Earth...
Our Earth... Then they're not likely to have
any equipment capable of detecting him in any way, outside of some remote high-end science lab...
The thought occurs to me as I accelerate to near the speed of sound…
We've… Won.
Feels like a let-down, huh? You were expecting it to be harder, maybe? But the Sheeda aren't ones for long-term conflicts, from what we've seen. They go in, hit hard, and finish up with minimum wastage of bio-mass...
Without Sivana's help… Further help, cleaning up the Sheeda holdouts could take a long time, but without the Castle Revolving, that's it. When their initial attack bounced I was convinced this was inevitable, but now it's… Happened. Gloriana played her hand, and her strongest warriors couldn't stand against the League. If she's limited herself to some harvesting and then returned to the future she'd probably have managed it, but…
She couldn't keep her eye on the bigger picture, could she? She got bogged down in the insult of people actually fighting back, and winning, against
her.
I'm reminded of the first White Dwarf battle report when they released Battlefleet Gothic. The man playing Eldar forgot the 'run' part of 'hit and run' and lost an escort squadron to a bombardment by the Imperial Navy. One of the other members of staff had to write 'hit and run' on a piece of paper and wave it at him to remind him, then he woke up and didn't lose another ship. Even managed a draw by disengaging his fleet once the Imperials closed the distance.
For the layman, think 'space navy combat game' with a high granularity of simulation of physics. Eldar ships are corsairs, fast in the right conditions but prone to struggling when things turn against them, lightly armoured and crewed with potent weapons. Imperial ships, by the Emperor, are bricks of massive armour and armament, best at presenting broadsides or carrier operations. If the former get in the line of the latter's guns, they go away fast...
The point being, of all the sensible and rational-based-on-incomplete-information things she could do, Gloriana did this. That… Suggests a mind incapable of comprehending that she might be… Not in the moral wrong, but in the practical wrong. If she were running a hundred metre sprint, she could be ninety metres behind the field and still be completely confident that she's end up taking the gold. She's incapable of backing down, not because she's so proud that she's rather die than lose, but because she can't conceive of any situation where she might lose.
And what we've seen of her bears that out. She's been drinking her own Kool-aid, basically believing she is a goddess, and that all other life exists for her entertainment. Such hubris fills her that she cannot comprehend anything she orders done failing, unless it's a deliberate act of betrayal. The ultimate in narcissistic self-aggrandisement.
I bet it would be fascinating to look inside her.
"Oh, my..." </Takei> But seriously, I doubt she can hold onto any particular desire for long. It'd be a whirlwind of fleeting wants and passing fancies, too shallow to be more than a puddle. You'll probably feel like you need a shower afterwards, though...
I slow as I approach a low wall, my ring notifying me that Jordan is entering the atmosphere in as covert an insertion as a Green Lantern carrying passengers can manage. The wall marks the outer border of the settlement, a small stone-paved path encompassing the settlement. But… The wall is faux-stone, small gullies pretending to be mortared joins actually just moulded indents in larger single pieces of synthesised stone, with a strip of light paint to aid in the illusion.
Huh. So, 'modern' construction pretending to be something much older. Moulded concrete or similar, dressed to look 'old-fashioned'. Probably alogn the lines of sixteenth- or seventeenth-century English manors, I bet.
Yeah, this looks like something I could see a space resort doing. Pre-assembled walls are easier to put together centrally than cutting local stones and making mortar on-site. Probably needs less maintenance as well. And the pavement is a sort of faux-stone mat?
I sigh. It is going to be tourists, isn't it?
No more real than Disneyland. The airport is probably a good indicator it's not particularly functional as anything but a holiday park.
I fly over it, further signs of plasticization metaphorically leaping out at me as I look around. A small pond fed by a hose, fake fish tied to the bottom my a string which produces movement by rotating the plate the string is attached to. Synthetic grass sheets laid down over the local soil, a handful of local succulents poking through here and there at the edges. Reed sunshades made of printed reeds, a single piece made to look like it was woven but actually held together with stables.
It's like a space package tour. I… I'm less sure that this is a product of Malvolio's imagination. If only because a man of his era would find it easy to imagine a proper stone wall.
I still suspect he probably forged the planet and its people out of will or transmuted matter a century or two back, and let them go, content to watch their daily lives like some cosmic voyeur. I wouldn't be surprised if he considers the place to be like an an antfarm - a flurry of activity and beings living out their lives, but ultimately fake.
I float upwards slightly, spotting a family of the species I scanned earlier in the fields… Picking some sort of round purple fruit from a short tree. This clearly isn't an agricultural production centre, so the only thing I can come up with is that it's a back-to-nature holiday home. The adult male has a bucket and is working his way along the line of fruit trees while the adult female is riding herd on the children, who appear completely fascinated by their environment. City children getting their first taste of nature, I assume.
I fly onwards, heading towards the centre of town. The other villas are more or less the same, but the structure near the airfield has substantially more advanced technology inside it. That should be the best place find out more.
Some things truly are universal, it seems. Children will be children, whatever the species... Presumably the airport and its environs is the management centre for the 'park'...
The building… Looks a bit more natural, a bit more honestly weathered than the rest, even though its brutalist design probably wasn't meant to. Maybe it was repurposed from an earlier role? A female white alien is sitting in an office, doing… Actual paperwork, and they don't appear to be entirely at home with using a pen. Which is what I'd expect of someone from an advanced civilisation who's being forced to slum it. Goodness knows that my handwriting is far worse than it was when I was in school. They're probably the best person to talk to if we get that far.
Presumably filling out forms that have to be handwritten for some arcane bureaucratic reason. I bet she's just a middle manager, stuck out in the boondocks on this funpark and wishing she were
anywhere else...
I phase through the back wall and look at the villa complex's computer core for a moment, check my surroundings, then phase in and connect myself to it.
Oh.
Disappointment ensues. Note very computer can be a quantum-processing ultra-CPU one power surge away from sapience, with a collective database of its' makers' entire knowledge base...
It's literally just a local management mainframe. It isn't connected to a global data network and doesn't have a social database. No alien films… I've got names of current and former residents… Nothing about government or civil organisation. Not a total shock: it's not like most computers on Earth have a full copy of Encarta Populi in their hard drive. The lack of a data network is a little strange; that suggests that theses people are fairly hardcore about their isolationism. Which is a little at odds with the walls, but… Aliens.
So, closer to the Eighties in terms of infotech. They probably have to send floppies off with weekly updates in the mail with whatever regular flights turn up out here.
Can't get anything useful here. It looks like I'll have to either go to a larger settlement or ask. Ask. Manually ask a question like some sort of unusually verbose caveman.
I switch over to my less intimidating light armour and head towards the office.
Why, OL. I thought you'd
relish the chance to interact with a new species. Besides, you can't just hack every database you come across. You miss out on such
fascinating things that way.
"Excuse me?"
"Just a moment!"
She's probably assuming it's a visitor she hasn't met yet. There's probably enough traffic to allow that...
I stop, standing at parade rest as the tour operator puts her pen down, stretches her fingers, then gets up and heads out from the office.
And stops dead when she sees me.
Yes... Did you actually describe the locals as anything other than 'flat-faced' and 'white-skinned'? Because I'm guessing they aren't nearly as Human-like as I'm picturing...
"Hello."
"Hiiiiiii. I… Didn't know we were expecting any guests today."
Well, she's taking this rather
calmly at least.
No screaming, after all! Yet.
"You're not. I'm-."
"Great torch, is this actually an invasion? I-I didn't read that part of the manual! I don't know what to do!"
They have a manual for first contact with an extra-planetary race? How forwards-thinking of their government. And that does indeed sound like a reference to the Golden Satellite... It probably serves as their sun in this pocket dimension.
"I'm not invading you. But certain… Things are happening, and I need more information-."
"And you're going to suck it out of my ears?!"
...
What sort of movies has she been watching?
I frown. "No? Why would you even think that?"
"Oh, you're just ruining all of my alien abduction fantasies!"
Okay, someone cue up the Tennant Whats, please?
Not
quite what i was thinking, but it works.
Yeah, we could hear the record-screech in the conversation all the way out here, OL. This is going to be hilarious...
