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The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 7 - 9/15/11)

Posted: 2010-08-10 11:52pm
by White Haven
I'd been pondering writing a far-future Lovecraft fic, with a starfaring civilization capable of at least being able to stand up to the Elder Gods now and again. Then my mind wandered while bored at work and I ended up asking myself what force personified the exact opposite of the hopelessness and despair that are the hallmark of the Old Ones, and when the answer that popped to mind was 'Bolos!' that was that.
_________________________________________

Trellis Memorial Academy, Planet Dassault, New Quebec system.
September 3rd, 3254, Earth Standard Date


“What is the greatest weapon we, humanity, possess in this war?”

Speakers concealed throughout the oak-paneled lecture hall boomed the question over the pervasive din of conversation from the seated ranks of blue-uniformed cadets. The low babble ceased almost instantly, heads craning this way and that until all of them centered on the lone standing figure advancing down the center aisle towards the vacant podium at the center of the room. The gray-haired man limped around the podium in silence, clad in a uniform identical to the seated cadets with the exception that it was devoid of insignia or ornamentation. Only the silvered bar of a nametag broke up the dark blue fabric, but closer inspection by the students in the front few rows revealed it to be polished to a mirror sheen and void of any actual letters.

“Before you answer,” the voice called out again; in the absence of the thunderous volume its owner had used to cut through the chatter of eighty-six military cadets it sounded almost soft, easily capable of conveying a required meaning without resorting to shouting, “You should be aware that anyone who names a piece of military hardware as an answer will be expelled immediately and transferred to the infantry. There are always openings there for hardware-minded individuals.” A tight, humorless smile twisted the man's lips as he settled back to wait for a response. Many of the assembled cadets were by now fixing him with wary looks; most of the rest were frowning in concentration.

At a raised hand, the as-yet-nameless figure pointed and gestured for the cadet in question to rise. Looking at least a touch nervous, the slim, black-haired boy rose to his feet and glanced left and right before answering. The room's sound system carried his words through the speakers and to all corners of the hall, drawing a few startled twitches here and there.

“Uh, organization, sir?”

“Negative, Cadet. You can organize your personal datastore. You can organize a box of pencils. Being organized helps, but our enemies aren't some sort of mythical embodiment of Chaos, now are they?” A wry smirk traced the instructor's lips as he added, “An extra mark to you, though, for having the courage to speak up first.”

Before the first student had even seated himself again another hand shot up, this one belonging to a heavily-muscled figure with a sandy brown crew-cut. At a gesture, he shot to his feet and belted out an answer with parade-ground volume and diction.

“Sir, courage is our greatest weapon, sir!”

The confident look on the trainee's face faltered at the sudden, wolfish grin that flashed into being on the face opposite the podium. A finger stabbed towards the red glowing exit sign at the back of the room even as a reply chased it down.

“Courage? Not only is that a painfully cliché answer, but blind courage has killed more people in this war than I care to think about. There are times, depressingly frequently, when you and your commands will be forced to disengage and retreat. I could cite statistics, name battles, list casualties of people who would have agreed with your answer, cadet. Furthermore, you jump to conclusions based on what you think your commanding officer wants to hear. That is not acceptable from someone in your position. Welcome to the infantry, there will be someone waiting for you outside.”

The dazed ex-cadet stood blinking in surprise at the man who until moments ago had been his instructor, slack-jawed in shock. His mouth opened to protest, only to snap shut again as hard eyes bored into his own. At the sound of snapping fingers, he twitched, then shuffled off down the row of seated cadets towards the center aisle. Some looked at him with pity, some with ill-concealed mirth, but most of them did their best to pretend not to notice the departure at all.

“Next?” The hand dropped to rest on the podium again the instant the door clicked shut once more, the instructor's eyes scanning back and forth over the lecture hall. As the silence stretched out in the wake of the sudden expulsion, he nodded to himself and spoke out again, “If no one produces a satisfactory answer by the time I dismiss this session, the eighty-five of you will make a wonderful short company.”

Answers were more forthcoming thereafter, shot down one at a time with care or harshness reflecting more what the man at the head of the class thought of the process behind the answer than the reply itself.

“Creativity?”

“Not bad, but not good enough. They've been around long enough to have seen most of the tricks you could ever come up with.”

“Superior numbers, sir.”

“Welcome to the infantry, miss. Let's let you see that strategy up close.”

“Science!”

“Oh, we need plenty of that, but widgets won't do it on their own.”

“Is it anger?”

“There's plenty of that too, by now, but it's even more useless than blind courage. Go scream at them from ground level, son. Infantry.”

Answers, both well-conceived and wild-ass guesses, continued for quite some time, the harsher responses winnowing the lecture hall down to sixty-seven remaining cadets. Responses came slower and slower as the session dragged out, then began to speed up again as the end of the course's time-slot approached; the instructor's ultimatum hung in the air over the hall and left many of t he cadets visibly sweating.

“Sir, resolve and determination, sir.”

That brought a pause to the rapid-fire answers and responses, the steel-haired figure bestowing a smile on the redheaded female cadet who provided it.

“That is very close, you're just one degree of separation away. Extra marks for you.”

The room fell silent for a minute or two after that as cadets mulled over that hint, running down wild concepts, pouncing on them and wrestling them into submission. Finally one figure shot to his feet without waiting to be called, opened his mouth, then stopped with a sheepish look and raised a hand. At the acknowledging gesture, a single word dropped into the expectant silence of the hall.

“Hope.”

“Congratulations, Cadet Company Commander Greene. Hope.” The instructor waved the stunned-looking cadet back to his seat, then gripped the podium with both hands and leaned forward.

“Without hope, despair flourishes, and our enemy is despair and hopelessness personified. Hope kept us going in the wake of the first incursion at Trellis. It would have been all too easy to fold in the face of such a horror, to just give up, to seek to buy its favor, to splinter in futile defense of each world alone. Hope, in those early days, is all that held us together. Hope is not enough, of course, but without hope, nothing else ever can be.”

One hand loosened from the podium and pointed towards the redhead who'd provided so close an answer earlier, “And on what do we anchor that hope?”

The response took its in coming, but when it did, it brought another grin to the instructor's face, “The Dinochrome Brigade, sir.”

“Congratulations, Cadet Company Lieutenant Commander Vandersdottir. Yes, we build our hope on the hulls of the Brigade, on the only force we have learned that we can absolutely trust to not necessarily succeed, but to absolutely never, ever falter. For in this war if we waver, we'll be left wishing that the Bolos had failed us long, long ago, rather than carrying us this far.”

A quick glance down at the podium was followed by a brief nod and a wide wave towards the exits, “Dismissed, we're at a good stopping place and almost out of time in any case. Vandersdottir and Greene, insignia and company assignments will be waiting in your quarters.”

As the students began to file out, one stopped, turned back towards the figure still waiting behind the podium, and called out, “Sir, who are you?” All movement stopped, many of the other cadets turning to watch and see what fate would befall the questioner. The sound of a finger tapping on the wood of the podium echoed slightly in the utterly silent room as the moment drew out.

“The first person to figure that out has earned a transfer to Intelligence. Make sure that's what you want beforehand, it's not reversible. Get it wrong, and you're infantry. Dismissed.”

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-11 12:00am
by LionElJonson
Heh. To be fair, Yog-Sothoth is actually a fairly nice guy, once you meet him in person. It's just that all of his followers are dicks.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-11 02:22am
by Ilya Muromets
LionElJonson wrote:Heh. To be fair, Yog-Sothoth is actually a fairly nice guy, once you meet him in person. It's just that all of his followers are dicks.
Most Lovecaftian beings which qualify as "god-like" aren't even evil per se. They just do their own thing and people just unfortunately happen to get caught in whatever it is without them really realizing it, which is kinda like a rat getting caught in front of some guy's car wheel while said rat is crossing the street. Then again, "Elder Gods" were mentioned, and those guys were thought up by authors other than Lovecraft. They do fall under a more straightforward "good versus evil" portrayal...

Although, I'm assuming by "Old Ones" that these aren't Elder Things (terminologies in Lovecraft and Lovecraft-based stories do have this frustrating tendency to get interchanged)? Elder Things aren't so much gods as sufficiently advanced aliens.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-11 08:43am
by White Haven
Honestly, I'm still in the process of nailing down exactly what's what. Consistency is a bastard when the source material isn't, yaknow?

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-11 09:48am
by MrCIA
Speaking as someone writing a Star Trek fanfic, I sympathize completely White Haven. As to the story I am looking forward to reading more. The Lovecraft mythology and Bolos are a couple of my fiction favorites.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-11 11:02pm
by LadyTevar
Since it's a Bolo story, Elder Things/Advanced Aliens are probably the best bet as enemies. Migo maybe?

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-12 12:57am
by DKeith2011
Bolos and Lovecraft, this should be interesting.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-12 01:44am
by Ilya Muromets
LadyTevar wrote:Since it's a Bolo story, Elder Things/Advanced Aliens are probably the best bet as enemies. Migo maybe?
The Mi-go didn't really seem all that combative in The Whisperer in the Darkness (only material not written by Lovecraft had them as out-and-out antagonistic). Sure, they removed Akeley's brain and put it in that canister, but Akeley seemed to look forward to it because that was the process the Mi-go used to carry non Mi-go into space with 'em. Not that the protagonist was comforted, but hey. Also, it was mentioned that the Mi-go were at war with the Elder Gods at one point, and seeing as how the OP mentioned Elder Gods as a primary antagonist, perhaps the Mi-go would be allies instead?

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-12 02:17am
by LionElJonson
Ilya Muromets wrote:
LadyTevar wrote:Since it's a Bolo story, Elder Things/Advanced Aliens are probably the best bet as enemies. Migo maybe?
The Mi-go didn't really seem all that combative in The Whisperer in the Darkness (only material not written by Lovecraft had them as out-and-out antagonistic). Sure, they removed Akeley's brain and put it in that canister, but Akeley seemed to look forward to it because that was the process the Mi-go used to carry non Mi-go into space with 'em. Not that the protagonist was comforted, but hey. Also, it was mentioned that the Mi-go were at war with the Elder Gods at one point, and seeing as how the OP mentioned Elder Gods as a primary antagonist, perhaps the Mi-go would be allies instead?
Spoiler
That wasn't Akeley the protagonist was talking to. It was a Mi-go that was wearing his corpse like a suit, while the real Akeley was a brain in a jar.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-12 02:37am
by Ilya Muromets
LionElJonson wrote: Spoiler
That wasn't Akeley the protagonist was talking to. It was a Mi-go that was wearing his corpse like a suit, while the real Akeley was a brain in a jar.
Re-reading the story, you're right. This time I conflated it with Richard Lupoff's unofficial sequel, "Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley," which discussed that Akeley went with the Mi-go willingly. But, then, since the Elder Gods were made by writers other than Lovecraft anyway, why exclude Lupoff?

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft)

Posted: 2010-08-14 03:16am
by White Haven
Bolo Maintenance Depot, Firebase Nameno, Trellis II
February 17th, 3231, Earth Standard Date


“I'm telling you, it's got to be a calibration error. Look, Fidel, it can't be a sensor fault, because he's reading the same on every array. Just...just check it again, alright?” The black-haired man seated behind a fan of darkened display screens leans frowned at the reply that arrives via his implanted communicator and snapped back, seemingly talking to the open air in the otherwise quiet compartment. “Look, if Leon says there's something wrong with his sensor systems, then there's something wrong. For that matter, if it was something simple, he would have found it himself and fixed it already. Check it again, and do it right this time. In case you haven't noticed, the Melconians are getting antsy upstairs and we need to be outside where we can maneuver in case things get ugly. Leon, close the channel,” the man barked out, a disgusted look on his face as he struggled to screen the anger out of his voice with limited success.

A baritone voice sounded from all around the control room, “Channel closed, commander. Extended diagnostics may take some time, do you wish to disembark?” At the same time, several of the displays clustered around the lone padded chair blinked to life, displaying camera footage of technicians crossing a titanic enclosed space towards them. The voice continues, “I am certain they will be able to discover the source of the fault.”

The uniformed figure in the control seat snorted and shook his head, leaning backwards and letting the self-adjusting chair conform to the new position. Bone-dry humor colored his reply, a slight smirk twitching at his lips, “Eh, I'll stay in here, just as comfortable and I can pretend to be too busy getting you fixed up to deal with paperwork. Besides, everyone else is out on 'exercise' to look big and scary for the dog-boy recon ships, so it's not like there's anyone to talk to outside.” An affectionate hand patted one arm of the chair for a few moments as he added, “You're better company than the techs or the quartermaster any day, and they're practically all that's on-base.”

“As you wish, commander. As the defect in my mapping routines precludes any more realistic environment,” the deep voice of the AI replied, the central display lighting up with an exquisitely detailed multi-layered chessboard at the same time. The voice abruptly shifted to a synethsized voice with harsh tones “Shall we play a game?”

With a loud laugh the man sat upright again, reaching out and touching a white pawn with a finger to drag it forwards two squares on the screen. Still smiling as he leaned back to await his opponents move, he shook his head and murmured, “Always with the classics.”

I observe my commander's good humor as the game continues, although only a small percentage of my processing power is devoted to it. Approximately 94% of my psychotronics' computational capacity is devoted to re-running my own internal diagnostics yet again, and each time they report the same anomaly: all of my sensor clusters report a total horizontal detection area of 360.4 degrees after adjusting for overlap. This is impossible, yet true on visual, infra-red, radar, and laser-ranging sensors.

I am baffled.

Smaller discrepancies are present in each individual sensor, registering slightly too broad an arc of operation compared to design specs. I have examined the manufacturer blueprints for each sensor, and they conform exactly to design specifications. I have restored all control software from primary, secondary, and tertiary backups. There is no fault I can discern in any of my sensor systems with the exception of two failed laser emitters, one active radar installation emitting at an improper frequency, and one cracked visual sensor lens. All but the latter have been rectified via software modification, but the problem persists.

My commander is far calmer with regards to the situation than I am. He is also a terrible chess player.

I—


“Commander,” the disembodied voice abruptly broke in, the chess game vanishing to be replaced by another outside view of the bay. In it an enormous, low-slung mountain of metal, treads, and weaponry rumbled into the bay through an open door. “Unit Four-One-Seven-Two-RAZ has aborted exercise for emergency maintenance. Fault listed as improper sensor geometry.” As the mammoth tank cleared the bay door, another followed it in, and another. At the same time, the voice continued in a grim tone, “Unit Eight-Zero-Nine-Three-TTR has aborted exercise for emergency maintenance. Fault listed as improper sensor geometry. Unit--”

The uniformed figure sat bolt upright, face visibly paling as the implications of the sudden run on the maintenance bay struck home. Abruptly, he began barking orders while strapping himself down into the control seat, “Sound base general quarters, my authority. Go to battle-reflex mode and evaluate probabilty of viral--”

The cabin lights had dimmed to red as the man spoke, and the other voice took over mid-sentence, “Battalion alerted to possible viral attack. No observable vector or detected alteration of software. Firmware checks commencing...no detected alterations. Source recompile commencing. All Battalion units reporting 360.4 degrees of sensor overlap. No known electronic warfare effects present. No unidentified radiation detected. No unauthorized communication logged. Source recompile complete, no change in observable symptoms.”

“This isn't hardware; whatever it is is either remote or software, so we don't need to be in here. Leon, warn off the techs and get moving. Echo Battalion, Echo-One, abort maintenance and deploy, we're sitting ducks in here. Presume hostile Melconian action, but do not fire unless fired upon. Base comms, get a secure line to Admiral Waheen aboard Resolute, she needs to know about this.” The clipped voice snapped out orders one at a time, a far cry from the amused, relaxed demeanor it had so recently worn.

The vast mountains of metal spun with ridiculous grace given their size, rotating in their own length and rumbling out of the maintenance bay one at a time at flank speed.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 2 - 8/14/10)

Posted: 2010-08-14 07:45am
by CaptainChewbacca
360.4 degrees?

Oh, when space gets extra, you know something fun is afoot.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 2 - 8/14/10)

Posted: 2010-08-14 11:00am
by tortieconspiracy
Heh, I wonder if the Melconians are having the same problem.

I noticed that the date in chapter two is earlier than in chapter one by a few years. You're flashing back to how the mess got started, I assume.

I wonder how long it's going to take someone to realize the problem isn't the sensors, but actual spatial distortion.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 2 - 8/14/10)

Posted: 2010-08-14 04:32pm
by White Haven
The Melconians are definitely having the same problem, although they likely haven't noticed it yet. Their AIs aren't anywhere near as advanced as Bolo psychotronics, so they're less likely to pick up on an issue like that, and less able to compensate if and when it becomes more pronounced. Add that on top of their relatively religious society when compared to the Concordiat and you have a recipe for the Melconians folding like a house of cards. They're not going to be obliterated overnight, but they're going to have more than enough problems on their hands both internally and with the incursion itself, certainly too many to try to take on the Concordiat at the same time.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 2 - 8/14/10)

Posted: 2010-08-14 10:02pm
by LadyTevar
Set in Trellis System with a difference of 20-some years prior. Yeah, we get to see what started the whole mess... and from the name of the Academy it wasn't good for the Trellis System. Leon, Razzie and their friends will probably not make it.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 2 - 8/14/10)

Posted: 2010-08-18 10:31pm
by White Haven
Trellis Memorial Academy, Planet Dassault, New Quebec system.
September 3rd, 3254, Earth Standard Date


“Infantry! You're joking,” the question burst from a stocky black man in the gray uniform of an engineering cadet standing just inside the doorway of a small dormitory room. A row of drawers set into one wall hung open, half empty, and a half-full black duffel-bag rested on the narrow unmade bed. Beside it sat a muscular young man with short-shaved light brown hair and a shell-shocked expression on his face. His baggy camouflage fatigues stood in sharp contrast to the crisp, formal uniform of his visitor. Anger made an occasional bid for control of his face, but stunned disbelief quickly supplanted it each time.

“I wish I was. I answered one question wrong, and bam, infantry. I don't even know who the moth--” A heated reply cut off abruptly, eyes flicking up towards one corner of the room where a small, glassy dome shielded a security camera. Coughing to clear his throat and grimacing visibly, he hastily amended his own words, “I don't even know who he is, and he just washed me out like that.” A quick snap of his fingers accompanied the words.

“That's just crazy, Jimmy. What'd he ask you, man? Hadda be something important for him to bounce your ass like that.”

“That's just it!” the seated figure surged up his feet, throwing his hands up in the air, “It wasn't, it was just some touchy-feely garbage and he flushed me for it. Man, Carlos, what am I gonna do? Infantry? Have you SEEN the 'casts? The Brigade can barely hold, what the fuck am I gonna do in a powersuit?” After the outburst, his bald-shaved head bent forwards, his whole body visibly sagging as he added in a much quieter voice, “You know me, I'm not afraid of going to war, but infantry in this mess is suicide if you're lucky.”

“Jimmy...Jimmy!” When a few repetitions of the name failed to draw a response, Carlos smirked and called out, “Hey, Kilt-boy, you fall asleep on me?”

The response was quick; the dejected figure straightened up quickly and glared at the shorter cadet, snapping out, “Fuck you, man, those things are comfortable. Biggest thing I miss wearing uniforms.”

A tight smile and a nod passed between the two, silent thanks for being shaken out of his reverie. After a few seconds, he waved over towards the open duffel-bag.

“Look, I've got to get packed, I'm in enough shit as it is without being late. I'll probably end up in solo recon or something if that happens.”

“Alright Jimmy... look, I'll talk to my instructors, see if I can get you transferred to the engineering track,” Carlos's shoulders rolled in a shrug during a pause before he continued. “It's a long shot, man, I don't have any real pull, but it's worth trying and it's sure as hell better than a death sentence in the infantry.”

In the silence that followed, the grey-clad cadet stepped around his friend in the cramped room and started passing over folded clothes to be stuffed into the bag.

-~~~~~~~~-

Two figures stood staring at a wall dominated by security footage of identical, cramped dorm rooms. The one thing each view had in common was the presence of a young man or woman in camouflage fatigues in some stage of packing their belongs into a standard-issue duffel bag. A bare few of the rooms had more than one person in them.

“You flushed a lot of them, commander. I trust you understand that we need these people on command decks, and not pounding mud?”

“The cocky ones and the thoughtless ones would have washed out eventually. I don't have time to waste proving that, so I dropped them.”

“If you say so. I trust you won't mind if we rescue them? If you say they're not suited for the front lines, that's fine, I'll trust you, but we need Bolos elsewhere too.”

“I expected you to. You wouldn't be in the position you're in if you didn't know how to make effective use of resources. Let them sweat first though.” The commander chuckled dryly, a shadow of a smile tugging one corner of his lips upwards, “Keep an eye on them through basic. It won't help the thoughtless ones, but the cocky ones? Let's see how they deal with a little fear and discipline.”

“I thought you wouldn't be interested in the washouts.”

“Right now, they're raw material. The ones with the right mindset already, I kept. Doesn't mean the others are worthless, just not ready. Then again, some of them are.” He points a finger at the cadet who'd returned 'superior numbers' as an answer, “Him? Infantry, desk jockey, quartermaster, whatever you like as long as it's not command. I wouldn't want him within a parsec of a Brigade commission.”

“Can't blame you, I heard his answer too.”

“See if you can arrange things so that their friends,” he pointed to a few windows, the ones with more than one person visible on the footage, “Get a chance to mingle with my cadets. The motivation will do them good.”

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-18 10:50pm
by CaptainChewbacca
What's going on? I was promised a 3rd chapter!

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-18 10:52pm
by White Haven
Damn you're quick, Chewie. I took it down to add something, it's back up now though.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-19 05:37pm
by LionElJonson
Personally, I'd be interested to how how the guy responded to the answer of "Honor", given how it is the driving force behind Bolo psychology.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-19 08:40pm
by PaperJack
I'm not really experienced in the Bolo universe (I only know that the Bolos are like super-ultra-killy tanks equipped with AI), may I ask who are they fighting against right now ? Are they already fighting against the old ones offscreen?

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-19 10:21pm
by White Haven
That'll be seen in the next chapter, but yes. There is, in fact, quite a lot of fighting going on, as the Great Old Ones picked an exceptionally poor time to wake up from their nap. A thousand or so years prior, no contest, a few centuries later, no contest. Oops. :)

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-19 10:41pm
by Vehrec
You know, the Elder Things-or any of them that are left-would be a veritable treasure trove of information about the G.O.O.. And the Mi-go are out there somewhere, removing brains from bodies for trips beyond the stars. Both of them are fairly comprehensible species, that can be reasoned with, if not made allies of. No such option would seem to be available for creatures like Nyarthlotep and Cthulhu. Although ol' narly is really more of an infiltrator and saboteur than an outright combatant...

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-25 03:24am
by barricade
Except Nyarthlotep is pretty much a walking RNG generator/D6 Of Doom, in that it really isn't allied to any one particular side. It's the living/unliving physical avatar of chaos, primal level chaos at that. Which would likely be why Bolos are very good at dealing with at least anything it spawns - they're 'order' of the highest degree that mankind has ever been able to create.

Cthulhu, now him/it I'm not quite sure how the heck you deal with. Nyarly is, while potentially the strongest of the bunch, not exactly what I'd call coherent enough to understand what a firefight is outside of large amounts of pain and the need to lash out at everything. Cthulhu on the other hand seems to be a bit more coherent in that it 'knows' who to come after specifically (the sailors on Ry'leth that woke it up as they ran back to the boat, although it took a ramming attack to get them to safety, what few remained). Also him/it seems to cause reality issues far more then Nyarly. Which is something of an oxymoron considering exactly what Nyarly is, but that's how it was written.

Oddly enough there's a story in the Bolo canon where a Bolo runs into a 'discontinuity' where the Enemy at the time is a race that has no known FTL drive, yet keeps appearing on numerous worlds. They pull it off via manipulating probability and space-time in truly bizarre fashion. Shoot a rifle into the facility where the discontinuity is, and 0.3 seconds later a hail of gunfire comes back out, aimed right at whoever shot the rifle. Aim a missle salvo at it, it gets sucked in, and 0.3 seconds later a massive missile volley five times the size of what was shot at the facility, comes right back. The Bolo that figures out what's going on, figures it out only after getting a bit of a warning from a drunk tech, and only truly pieces it together after firing it's main Hellbore into the facility, which 0.3 seconds later is discovered to have been a very VERY bad idea. Bolo being a Bolo, realizes what it did, giving the Enemy potentially limitless Hellbores of its own, without the need for any cannons at all, just that discontinuity, charges into the facility and then detonates its reactor pile INSIDE, which means the entire facility (plus discontinuity) gets to experience an omnidirectional thermonuclear blast which is pretty much impossible to redirect. Bolo goes out in a bang/with glory, and takes the facility with it. So the point of that whole summary is that even when faced with a warp in spacetime that's big/strong enough to cause even a Bolo's sensors to pull a WTF?, the Bolo will keep right on going and fighting.

The Elder Gods must be going 'mad' (or at least the Elder God equivalent) at trying to deal with Bolos, and later the warships that get a Bolo CPU core installed in them. Although I'm quite a bit worried as to what might happen if the Concordat pushes through development of the Mark XXXII or Mark XXXIII with the neural-link system. Plugging a human mind DIRECTLY into a Bolo's sensors, when the Bolo is 'looking' at something that doesn't just defy the laws of physics, but rapes them, is not likely going to produce good results. At. All. On the other hand, keeping the human commanders one step removed via the Bolos deliberately 'editing' the sensor images to something a human mind can deal with, is likely all well and good.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-25 06:06am
by LionElJonson
Uhhh... Nyarlthotep is the one best suited for interaction with humans. He's quite capable of planning. Not only does he fully understand science (to a degree that he probably knows more than the humans do), he's also a highly skilled social manipulator. He wouldn't be that if he was nothing more than a random number generator; I think you might have confused him with Azathoth, which he's the servant of.

Re: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch. 3 - 8/18/10)

Posted: 2010-08-25 10:41am
by Simon_Jester
Vehrec wrote:You know, the Elder Things-or any of them that are left-would be a veritable treasure trove of information about the G.O.O.. And the Mi-go are out there somewhere, removing brains from bodies for trips beyond the stars. Both of them are fairly comprehensible species, that can be reasoned with, if not made allies of. No such option would seem to be available for creatures like Nyarthlotep and Cthulhu. Although ol' narly is really more of an infiltrator and saboteur than an outright combatant...
Amusingly, we're probably ahead of the Elder Things (the ones with the Antarctic city) technologically by now; forming a pact with their survivors is a very interesting possibility.