Jumpers vs. 40k IC1: Worst. Isekai. Ever.

[Lord Raziere]

(OOC: I'm unsure if this post is too much or not, but I decided to err on the side not wasting your time with the ship if I can help it)

Black Ship Investigation:
You detect no necrons, folds in space or strange energy signatures. You can technically detect minds in the sense of what the Mechanicus calls "machine spirits" that have some psychic component to them due to ancient designs, but these aren't true artificial intelligence, being animal level intelligent and lacking the capability to improve themselves, closer to mass effect VI's in that regard.

Ensara will teleport onto the ship with Rhiannon in tow, investigating inside the ship, and see that its filled with corpses of its crew with blood spilled everywhere, from various cut open wounds and bisected bodies- it takes a few groups to check the causes of death but a pattern soon becomes clear: They were all killed through melee combat, yet there was no corpses of the enemy.
"As if they were either all killed by a blade or by claws. There are no corpses of whatever they were fighting-usually another army leaves casualties, no normal force walks away with zero deaths on their side."
"Yeah, I've caused a few massacres in my time. This was done probably by one person, one very skilled fighter." Ensara says "This was one-man army work."
"....You didn't do this did you?"
"Nope. No time. This occurred recently, I've been either doing that sorcerous working to make Manyclops more beautiful, before that spending time in a time bubble learning to kill people in ways far more esoteric and magical than this or killing the Invaders space marine chapter. This isn't my work, way too basic, to focused on just killing everything fast as possible. If I did this, I'd have tested out my Sidereal Martial Arts and you'd be seeing corpses who danced their own skin off, other turned into random things and people who seem like they killed by a time-stopper and other such nonsense. This? This is just someone going ham, pure kill crazy."
Rhiannon will begin touching bloodied weapons and using psychometry on them.
"Hm.....The emotions I'm picking up from these weapons are.....sudden surprise and fear, desperation. As if whoever were wielding them was experiencing a sudden spike of those emotions right before dying. They did not expect what was attacking them."

They investigate more and find some corpses that weren't killed by melee was either killed by bolts, others by needles, and some with both.
"Both bolts and toxic needles? Who kills by switching between both?" Ensara says "If your going for poison and silence you just do the needles, if your going loud you just need the bolt, why both?"
"....Wait I know a weapon that does just that" Rhiannon says, realizing, fear gripping her "The Executioner pistol. A combi-weapon used exclusively by Eversor assassins."
"Eversor?"
"They are a temple of the Officio Assassinorum. While most are subtle and precise....the Eversor is the assassin equivalent of artillery fire. They are sent in to kill anything they see, purge so many lives so that no rebels are left alive and instill fear in anyone who witnesses it. They are kept in cryo-suspension and only woken up when they need to start killing because they are in an eternal state of psychotic rage and heightened combat ability due to their combat drugs. Its the only way to keep them under control."
"Alternate possibilities?"
"Well....its possible its not an executioner pistol, and whoever did this was just using a bolt pistol and needle pistol, or even custom built a bolt pistol with needle pistol attachment....but even a bolt pistol is rare outside elite imperial forces, only manufactured in specialized facilities like space marine homeworlds and Mars, only a minority can even afford them and some families noble families pass them down as relics of status and power. A needle pistol is even rarer than that. Anyone who has both if they're not an Eversor assassin would be incredibly wealthy and powerful. An Eversor is the most likely possibility. But that doesn't make any sense to me....why would anyone unleash an Eversor on a Inquisitorial vessel?"
"We can't answer why. Not with the evidence we have. Lets just investigate more"
They keep going until they find a cryo-suspension pod in the cargo hold.
"They had the cryo-suspension pod on the ship?" Rhiannon says in disbelief "this makes no sense. Who decided to open the pod right on the ship? You don't do that. You NEVER do that. You put them in a drop pod and send them down to a planet and just...wait for the enemy force to die as the Eversor wakes up."
"Sounds like some kind of sabotage then, wake up the Eversor early, watch the Inquisitor's own weapon kills everyone on the ship instead of you."
Rhiannon shakes her head
"And potentially get killed yourself doing so. Unless whoever did it somehow hid and ran, then they are probably among the corpses of the ship and thus almost impossible to discern which one would be the saboteur."
"Yes but....wheres the Eversor themselves? We didn't detect any life on here, if this assassin killed everyone, shouldn't they still be alive?"
"Probably, unless someone got lucky and killed them by either stop their brain or their heart activity, then the Eversor due to the cocktail of drugs and modified biochemistry they run on explodes upon death with the force of a plasma bomb, taking out everyone around them."
"So....we find a explosion of gore somewhere, we know the Eversor's dead."
"Pretty much."
"How cheery. So until we find a scene like that, a crazy super mass-murderer your Imperium made is just running around who-knows-where killing whatever's nearest to them. Whose bright idea was to make these things?"
"They're supposed to be deployed when needed. Besides, they're addicted to the drugs they take to enhance combat, once they run out....they die anyways. They are so heavily modified they need the drugs to sustain their existence. the cryo-suspension keeps them alive as much as it keeps them under control."
"Great, the mass-murder-attack-dog slaves blow up sooner or later. Why bring something like that to a random system like this?"
"Its necessary."
"Necessary? How in the endless hatred of Malfeas, is unleashing super-mass murder slave high on combat drugs upon a normal yet rebelling system....necessary?"
"The Imperial Guard is called to put down rebellions even for individual planets, an entire solar system rebelling is enough justification in the Imperium's eye to send an Eversor to kill so many secessionists against the God-Emperor that they won't think about doing it again, especially if they need to use the Guard elsewhere."
"That is a load of bull. There is no way something like an Eversor is necessary for ANYTHING. And when someone turns the attack dog back on them, your surprised?"
".....They were made long before I was born. Using things like this are all I've known."
"....Fair."
They turn back to the cryo-suspension pod.
"Anything else?"
"We should investigate the Inquisitor themselves, see what their mission was."
"Doesn't the Eversor already say what it was?"
"In a sense, but it can't hurt to know the details."

They go to the command deck looking out upon the stars, where they find the Inquisitor dead as well....surrounded by a few highly decorated and well-dressed corpses.
"Now who are these?" Ensara says curiously
"Whoever they are, they are of high status" Rhiannon says "Definitely not apart of the Inquisition though. This one's from the Ecclesiarchy, that one's from the Mechanicus, that one from the Administratum, the other seven seem to be general nobles...."
"Any idea what kind of political figures an Inquisitor would invite onto a Black Ship like this?"
"Well there is only ten.....and I doubt they'd invite anyone that rules less than.....I think these are planetary governors. One for each world other than the dead one. Was he gathering them? to protect them from the secessionists?"
"If your correct....the Planetary Governors are all already dead. How disappointing. I'd love to have killed them myself. But ah....to see revolution blossom in others! It warms my heart."
Rhiannon looks at her crossly "But it means that if true, the situation is a bit beyond the work of an Inquisitor. Inquisitors make sure the rebellions stop before they really start. If things have escalated to the point where the Imperial Governors and the Inquisitor sent to deal with the situation are already dead well.....its only a matter of time before the Imperial Guard shows up. This solar system will become a war zone in a matter of weeks."
"Any chance of dissuading the Imperium from invading?"
Rhiannon looks out the window at the void and the lights glittering it.
"No. The Imperial Faith states that every human has a place in the Emperor's divine order, to unquestionably obey Imperial authority and that any heretic is to be purged, as it has for ten thousand years. To disobey is heresy. To rebel is heresy. The Imperium won't just want to retake this system- it is required to by faith, culture, tradition, ideology. It can't NOT invade the system."
"Really? Not even distracting the fleet with higher priority targets?"
"There ARE no higher priority targets. Everything against the Imperium is heresy. Everything not with the Imperium is against it. The billions of soldiers they will send to attack them will not be a significant loss to the Imperium."
"Then we'll fight them, show the Imperium that they can't stamp out their freedom."
"Your really going to do it? Divide the Imperium through this rebellion further rather than unite?"
"I believe it is completely just to fight against a regime like the Imperium, absent forces like Chaos being involved. We need not accept its tyranny just to survive. I'm completely willing to fight entire armies to defend the oppressed. But thats for the future. We have more than enough time to continue investigating and see whats up in the system."
"...Then lets keep investigating. Maybe we can get information from the machine spirits on the ship, they might have recordings or something."
"Don't look at me to do that. While I do want to be a hacker, this universe is a bad place to learn- I'm gonna wait until I go to some cyberpunk universe to pick that up."

[TeChameleon]

Frode teleported across as well, offering a ride to anyone who'd care to join him. Unusually, as they explored the carnage on the ship, he was visibly uneasy.

"You know, it is said that dealing with death gets easier with time, but I've never found that to be the case. Perhaps that is the curse of the perfect memory, as time cannot soften the impact such sights have on me.

... this universe is a bizarre mess. Mass-produced superhuman assassins programmed to go off like bombs? It feels like Weapon X, but stupid. And nothing is ever as simple as the pathetic hackjob excuse for technology they have here failing. You have demons, alien monster plague locusts, human jerks of various flavours, zombie terminator robots, intelligent aliens who hate everyone for a wide variety of reasons both good and idiotic, insane sort-of-sentient violence-addicted mushroom people...

So does anybody want to take bets on whether this is sabotage by a foreign power or yet another elaborate suicide attempt by some of the local humans?"

At the comment that hacking was needed, Frode casually walked into the closest computer bank, phasing into it and making the entire network an extension of himself.

His voice came through the closest speaker grille. "I'm tempted to overthrow the Imperium just so I can impose a decent standard of recordskeeping and file structures on these people. What kind of lunatic makes the operating system quasi-sentient and then slaves it to itself in a recursive loop? I'm amazed there's enough processing power left to operate a lightswitch.

I should be able to dredge up the on-board surveillance files in a moment... although it's almost hilarious how many people were tapped into it. It might be easier to list those on board who weren't spying for someone-or-other."

Frode sorted rapidly through the past while of surveillance data, ready to display anything interesting using his own holographic generators.

[Rater202]

Alex teleports over as well.

She turns her own psychic powers to more subtle applications. Emotional resonances, chrono-skimming... Peering into he astral realm is probably a bad idea since in this world that's just the Warp so she won't do that...

[Lord Raziere]

Black Ship Investigation:
"Well..." Rhiannon says "If we're talking the major factions, this could be maybe the work of a Genestealer cult trying to weaken this system so that the Tyranids will be able to eat it easier when they come attacking? Orks....eh, impossible., they simply aren't capable of this level of subterfuge. their "stealth tactics" tend to be really basic and direct. Necrons, like Eldar tend to have very specific directives and goals behind what they do and their stealth troops are specialized towards sniping with disintegrator which....isn't ideal for the close confines of a ship like this. If we can't find any Chaos or Genestealers here, then the possibilities get thin. There are minor or obscure alien races that can shapeshift like the lacrymole or the simulacra or be possess a human like the Cryptos- not warp-based, but incorporeal all the same. But I have a hard time believing that they'd do this if they're within the system- such aliens are far outnumbered and thus seek to lay low, they generally prefer not to cause the situation to get more violent, as they tend to be parasites that survive on not being noticed- most think such aliens are myth and legend."
"Could they want revenge for the Imperium being all murdery on them and such?" Ensara asks
"Yes but they tend to be more domination focused. Such....aliens see us more as food or hosts. Like any predator they have to be careful with how they hunt, and like any other infiltrator they have to careful with their actions to not give themselves away. Though its possible one of those beings if they aren't in a leadership position would have to carry out orders from humans to maintain their cover in some circumstances. Thankfully, a lacrymole consumes blood, a simulacra consumes brains and a Cryptos appears as a green cloud of mist so one knows when you find or the other."

The surveillance footage reveals a couple scenes:

Spoiler: Last Meeting of the Jagganoggan Planetary Governors and Inquisitor

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Holograms spring up of the Inquisitor and the assembled people not far from their corpses
"Now now, planetary governors I assure you everything is under control." says the Inquisitor "I have a special weapon to make sure all the heretics and secessionists rebelling against our God-Emperor, are purged."
"This isn't under control at all!" says the Administratum representative "ever since the planetary governor of Jagganogga I went to that Paradise World on a vacation months ago, everything has been unraveling. The rabble are talking about ridiculous things like "rights and liberties" and "better forms of government". These ideas are dangerous and need to be stamped out."
"The vile heretics on Celestora are doing worse: they are spouting heretical ideas about the Emperor, about the Imperium in general, they hurt the Imperium's very soul! Like an Empress existing or even the Emperor's body not being his real form."
"Indeed, worse still, a most dangerous tech-heresy has arisen on Forge World Melchorn. They believe an abominable intelligence is the Machine God come to save them, speaking out against the works of the Omnissiah." speaks the tech priest
"And what you going to do about the psykers that have taken over Jagganogga III? they now control most of the food supply of the entire system. The Knight World of course switched to the secessionists side as soon as Melchorn's Forge was taken over by hereteks. Jagganogga VI's governor is already dead, killed by those barbaric primitives. Jaggannogga VIII is basically a planet-wide prison riot and there are people on VII taking over ships and factories from the local merchant guilds!"
"The only planet remaining loyal is the Chapter Planet. The one with the LEAST amount of official Imperial presence! How are we supposed to retake our planets without any armies or institutions!?"
"Relax, relax. I said I have a plan, my governors" said the inquisitor "There are still loyalist forces on some of the planets and we just have to hold out until-"
Then the Eversor Assassin leaps in and well.....they don't live long afterwards.

Spoiler: Unleashing of the Eversor

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You see footage of an Inquisitorial Acolyte press some buttons to release the Eversor then quickly hide in a box and when the Eversor thaws from cryo-suspension, leaps into action without a second thought and begins running and slaughtering the whole ship- a small city worth of inhabitants, many of them armed and prepared for combat-the Eversor speeding along and often killing people before they can react, the Eversor's abilities were superhuman, using them to deadly effect, moving to each victim as soon as the last one's dead, with no chill, no rest, no stopping, no breaks. The Eversor was just this unrelenting acrobatic juggernaut or lithe agile Hulk wielding power swords and some weird gauntlet-claws slashing through everyone, no words being any use in making it even slow down or hesitate.

But whats important is that the Eversor after killing everyone, goes to a shuttle and launches away. Then the Acolyte gets out of the box and seeing the entire ship dead, morphs back into its true lacrymole form, drinks blood from some corpses, until its full then disposes those corpses in some chutes, morphs into a different human form then takes a different shuttle out.

Spoiler: Alex

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Additional information is gleaned from Chrono-skimming:
The Eversor's viewpoint is.....constant rage. Not in a hulk way, but a psychotic agitated eternal adrenaline rush kind of way with a focus on killing the next nearest target, confused as to why they're not receiving updates from the link of their cybernetics. They piloted the shuttle towards Jagganogga VI, the death world, focused on killing everything there.

The Lacrymole's viewpoint is more cold and alien. Humans are like rats, infesting the galaxy, causing so much damage and destruction. But they were the most abundant species without being as tough as orks, so...a better food supply of blood than any other species and humans might kill any of the less populated species at any time anyways. It didn't like the war about to happen, preferred to stay undercover, but hey, better to do this than get exposed by the one paying them. If they're lucky they can grab a ship to warp out of here to the next system or something....or just see their opportunity to disguise as an imperial guard to join the winning side. Their shuttle had been headed for Jagganogga I.

Rhiannon on seeing this says
"Hm, so we do have a lacrymole involved. But that still doesn't make sense. The blood-eater shouldn't be working towards this, not when they can keep themselves hidden and have more blood."
"Is there any possibility that its working for more lacrymoles?" Ensara asks
"Maybe? We don't actually know that much about them. Shapeshifting tends to make one hard to find, not helped by the fact that people like to claim the glory of "wiping out" an entire xenos species and thus assume they're successfully purged for the sake of their own ego, then uh oh! We find more later, and someone looks silly for their preemptive declaration of victory for the sake of a trophy, promotion and few accolades."

Ensara was looking through the perk shop idly and suddenly smiles
"Also unrealted good news, I think I've a found a way to enjoy myself more once we earn another benny. Also I think I'll call dibs on handling the orks."
"As in....the entire species?"
"Yes!"
"....How?"
"You'll see."
".....I'll see WHAT?"
"It'll be a surprise!"

[TeChameleon]

Frode stepped out of the computers once the recordings had finished playing and frowned more deeply still. "It's not enough that everything else in the galaxy wants to kill them, humanity has to keep busy killing one another as well. And how can an alien subsist on human blood? The biochemical barriers alone... and don't any of these people have even the simplest biometric scanners? You would think a culture as psychotically paranoid as the Imperium would have better security."

He shook his head, trying to reorder his thoughts. "While there may be a certain amount of schadenfreude in seeing the Imperials hoist by their own petard, I'm not sure where this leaves us. We have an extinct alien murdering the ruling class of this system almost wholesale for reasons unknown, and then taking off. We have a deranged humanoid weapon of mass destruction off on a rampage... my vote goes to bringing this Eversor Assassin down first. Even if he's going to explode in due course, we might learn more from him, one way or another, than from the crater he leaves behind, and I would prefer to keep him from simply butchering his way across whatever planet he happens to land on."

He paused. "And if we're calling dibs, I will deal with the Necron problem. I believe I can devise a way to remove them as a threat without needing to genocide the lot of them."

[Lord Raziere]

(OOC: yeah okay I'll just assume Alex shares the information so we don't make Rater repeat stuff)

Ensara:
"Hey come on, Frode, I enjoy fighting, not genocide. Give me some credit, it wasn't on the table for Necrons. Tyranids on the other hand....but thats probably more like galaxy-sized pest extermination or killing an invasive animal species."
"I honestly doubt you'll learn anything from the Eversor" Rhiannon says "They literally spend years to centuries in cryo-stasis then only come out to kill everything around them in a high-speed frenzy, with an implant that enhances their hate to incredible levels. They're a bunch of chemicals and bio-enhancements in the shape of a man spending every waking second killing something. Between that and all the hypno-indoctrination, mental conditioning and hardcore training they go through, you'd be lucky to get anything relevant out of them. Eversors unlike other assassins are not made to know or care, they are simply made to kill. They do know that they will explode if you kill them though....so watch out. They will intentionally make themselves explode if need be."
"Yeah, sounds like this guy will probably attack you as soon as look at you. While I know you can handle yourself Frode, you don't seem to enjoy combat and I'm pretty sure not ALL of us are needed for the Eversor. I can take care of the Eversor myself, you can handle the lacrymole, or go investigate whats happening on any of the planets if you want. Where all you see is humans killing one another, I prefer to see an opportunity to get people to join our side, help the little guy against the evil empire, more friends and allies you know? More people on our side, the more we that we can snowball this to make a better future. After all, if you really want to change the world the way you prefer, do you not need allies willing to stand up to the evil institutions standing against such change? I'm just wandering fighter, I can do the working alone superhero thing because all I need to do is punch, but I doubt someone wishing to truly make a better future your way can do it alone. The Eversor seems to have gone to the Death World, Rhiannon how likely are the Eversor are to damage such a world?"
"An Eversor Vs. a Death World?" she considers it "Hard to say. Death Worlds are some of the most dangerous places in the galaxy for their often uniquely deadly ecologies, balanced between continual destruction and equally lightning fast reproduction. Might be the one type of world an Eversor CAN'T damage-one can slaughter armies sure, but not all at once. The only humans on such worlds are ones who live their entire lives there, intimately familiar with their dangers and how to survive them, and even then, their population numbers are low. Not sure what the chances are that the Eversor is still alive, they're stronger than even a space marine, probably able to fight a Custodes, but that means nothing against an entire planet trying to kill you."
"so basically, Eversors and Death Worlds are made for each other? a dangerous chemical mix masquerading as a human on a knife's edge balance on a world with an ecology on a similar sharply edged balance of nature. Yeah, you guys probably don't want to venture into a deadly environment full of various things trying to kill you again just to find some psychotic assassin on perma-slaughter mode. Given the circumstances I think I can just quickly loot what I can from this ship, then get going. Oh and Rhiannon, whats the drugs that the Eversor needs to keep from dying?"
"Frenzon, Fury, Terminus, Destroyer. They're all addictive."
"Figures. Why the Imperium uses an assassin that technically feeds both Khorne and Slaanesh at the same time, I'll never get, but...if we're really wanting to take a freaking Eversor alive just to get information out of them, the delicate balance of chemicals must be maintained. hopefully I can find some spare samples on this ship or I'm going to have figure out how to concoct and administer them so that the Eversor is....healthy for the lack of a better term."
"Since when were you an expert on medicine?" Rhiannon asks
"Since I learned a magical martial art thats all about medicine and had to brush up on medicine while training to become one of the greatest physicians in the world so I can use it to the best of my ability. Also I'm a skilled poisoner due to a perk which allows me knowledge of what can cure to in the proper amounts."
"Really? a fighting style that can what....heal people? Really?"
"It can spread diseases to be used offensively to, which isn't as big of a deal now Nurgle's dead....But if you want proof what it can heal well....got any traumatic memories? or regrets? painful moments? I can erase with a touch if you want."
Rhiannon thinks about the years as an inquisitor she spent fighting Chaos, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Orks, various other alien races and stranger threats with a thousand yard stare.
".....More than I can count." she says absentmindedly, realizing for once, the sheer horror of the work she did, and how hard, jaded cynical persona she put on deal with it was just....a mask keeping it all down, keeping it from overwhelming her and that the mask is cracked it was always cracked, the cracks will spread its inevitable she can't stop it can't stop the end can't stop the falling towards the brink sooner or later, then her mind will shatter she just held on longer than most-
Then Ensara speaks
"Ah, can't demonstrate it then, sounds like you have to be healed psychologically far more thoroughly and more properly than that. The strike only works for one memory at a time."
"Oh....okay..." she says, still a bit shaken at the realization in retrospect.
Ensara will find the ships armor and rifle through it
"Lets see digi-weapons? taking those. A Daemon Blade? Why do you guys use your enemies weapons when you know they can corrupt you? Taking that, I'm keeping it safe so that you Inquisitors don't fool with it and get corrupted, trust me, I'm a master when it comes to demonology. Power Stake!? why do you even have this weapon? you don't fight any vampires! Leaving that. Scythian Venom Talon, taking that. Ah! Here's what I'm looking for: a Needle Sniper Rifle."
she takes the obscure gun in her hand
"Gonna need this to fire the drugs into the Eversor. Doubt they'll be cooperate enough to just let me inject the needed drugs after all. and it'll be great if I need to do any assassinations myself."
"....I know exactly why I would assassinate someone but I find myself asking why would you?"
"Oh, simple. To kill rich people for revolution purposes." she says smiling wickedly.
"And the Daemon Blade? How do I know your safe?"
Ensara draws the blade the Daemon within it begins speaking to her:
"Give in, we can rule together and rule the galaxy as sword and wielder, for I see in your heart: your desire for power and knowledge, your ever unending greed that cannot be sated, your lust for battle and your empathy for others truly you are a perfect candidate for Chaos Undivi-"
"Daemonthatagreestoservemeforeversayswhat." Ensara quickly chatters out.
"What?"
"Pact sealed"
She says as her Lying with Demons perk activates.
"Why you- clever master, I shall you serve you as agreed."
".....I'm disturbed that I can see that Daemon was probably correct about you, but also that you can just suddenly force them into pacts in YOUR favor somehow."
"Oh just wait until I really start going."
Ensara says as she takes the spare drugs for ammo for the needle gun and teleports to Jagganogga VI with her planeswalker powers to begin the hunt for the Eversor.

[Rater202]

((OOC Yeah that's fine I kind of spaced out here))

"I could probably find Rabies the Drugged-Up Assassin from here, after Chroniskimming and picking up their emotional resonance. Put them in a coma then pop down, pick them up, and then drop them off somewhere where they can't hurt anyone."

"Unless someone else wants to deal with them."

[TeChameleon]

"I suppose that leaves the imitation vampire to me and/or Alex..." Frode said to the empty space where Ensara had been a moment ago.

He did the metaphorical equivalent of glancing around, picking up the trail of the shuttle that had left with the lacrymole aboard with his sensors. Idly humming snatches of Mozart's Lacrimosa, he got ready to follow, while glancing at Alex. "Would you care to ride shotgun on this one? I'm sure one of the five hundred and seventy eight cross-species adaptive truth serums I've created at one point or another could probably loosen his tongue, but being able to just rip it out of his brain could speed up the process significantly. Or gently coax it out, or something like that... I don't really know your specific style of psionics yet, apologies if I am making assumptions I shouldn't."

[Lord Raziere]

Empty Space of Ensara:
The Empty Space, to be henceforth known as The Void of Ensara, 2nd Circle Soul of Ensara, representative of her nature as a void, The Emptiness that Births Desire instantly relays to this and she responds through the Void of Ensara to say
"Hey if you want to switch what we do, just say so. You sound so resigned when you said that."
This soul just emerged from her soul hierarchy naturally recently as it grows and few days and looking at it, its....transparent, invisible, having no material form, its nature being pseudo-macro-quantum like, allowing it to be everywhere yet nowhere, being at all possible locations until observed or paid attention to, enabling messages to anyone instantly regardless of distance as by nature its true location is the location of desire and thus anywhere where there is people. This is convenient for most of the ship of the Sabre because its allows those who use it to talk to anyone at any distance just by desiring to it instantly appear in both places to send the message as if your speaking to the person right now, and disappearing when the desire to talk to goes away or when you stop paying attention to it. It is a most strange soul of Ensara's, according to her a unique one, but that kind of strangeness isn't uncommon in Malfeas or Creation. The Void of Ensara itself can speak and is a person but what it talks about is well....things like "ALL THINGS DESIRE FOR THEY HAVE AN EMPTINESS THEY MUST FILL", things like that. Not really a casual conversant ironically, but many people on the ship and in Ensara's inner world find the soul convenient without being telepathy. This explains why a logical smart person like Frode would talk to empty air.
However despite this convenience, the more scientifically minded artificers of Ensara's inner world, frustrated with Essences and Creations often exception-based rules have set up a magitech communication system of wristwatches running on blue mana to communicate regardless of distance instead, despite this being completely redundant as they do not want to rely on Ensara's soul hierarchy for things and Ensara has waved this off with a chuckle and allowed them to make them, saying she'd be disappointed if they didn't do this. Any of you can have one of these communicators if you so desire, assuming Frode didn't make better ones.
"Well I'm going back to the Sabre, you work out what your going to do, I'm going to investigate the rest of the system."
Rhiannon says.

If you want to stay to keep planning, you can do that. During which you'll receive updates and reports from Ensara through communications to the Sabre as she traverses the death world of Jagganogga VI:
"Teleported in, encountered what I'm going to call Killer Grass, killed it back. It was masquerading as normal grass for this planet, which is poisonous."
Next report:
"Fought a moving tree. It fired explosive acorns at me swung leaf-claws at me with their branches. Killed the tree. Been trying various fruits, a lot of them have capsaicin in them, more than normal earth food, the inhabitants here must really like spicy stuff. Makes sense though, capsaicin is supposed to be poison but humans somehow like it."
Third report:
"A Bush attacked me, I sliced through it with demon claws. Fired acid at me from their flowers. Second bush scuttled around like a crab and tried to entangle me in vines."
She even sends back biological samples of them through magic and her artificers and Iota-34 seem to study them simply for the sake of studying them.

[Earl of Purple]

"I might be able to help with the Eversor, if we find it. With duralumin and zinc, I could smother their emotions to maybe make it less angry." Although it might not last long, and he'd lose a bit of his newfound manoeuvrability as he does- if he didn't want to burn out his entire metal reserves, he'd need to extinguish the pewter, iron, and steel whilst he tries it.

"It does seem a bit wasteful, this level of force. I've been an assassin; I could slaughter a fortress to get to my target, but I generally preferred not to. For one thing it makes them worried." And a paranoid target is one that's harder to kill.

[Lord Raziere]

Rhiannon:
she turns to Edward
"Well, the Eversor temple is not supposed to assassinate single targets. Thats what every other Temple of the Officio Assassinorum does: Vindicare are snipers extraordinaire. Culexus kill powerful psykers with blank abilities, Vanus assassinate using plots and schemes so subtle that they aren't even connected to the death because they use powerful predictive technology to know how to manipulate what happens, Veneum are masters of thousands of poisons, Callidus are infiltrators who can disguise themselves to sabotage and get to close to their targets. Each has their uses to the Imperium. An Eversor is specifically meant to kill entire cults, organization,s groups and the like and sow fear and terror of the imperium among any who survive to witness the slaughter of the heretics who rebel against the Imperium."
"Yeah but at that point, why not just send the Imperial Guard and fight a war?" asks River
"Well, we didn't create the Eversor Temple, the God-Emperor did. The genetic modifications and enhancements they use wouldn't be possible without him designing them. It is after all, a rule that the Mechanicus are not allowed to tamper with the genetics of humanity-only the God-Emperor is allowed to do that, and thus all genetically different people in the Imperium either originate before his rule as per the Navis Nobilite, or are directly created by him like Space Marines, Custodes, the Assassins, or are mutants and abhumans that are complete accidents or grew in entirely different ways. He intended the Imperium to use the Eversor to eliminate its foes, and so thats we do. Got to use all the resources we can. Its really only one assassin we use, and I didn't tell you about the rest because they're not relevant to the situation.....unless this is a squad effort. their might be more but....they're assassins. they can be stealthy."

As the Sabre goes deeper into the system (you can plan while the ship is moving, and like teleport everywhere, its fine). You receive another report from Ensara:
"Found an armored bear. its attacking me....and it teleported." A moment passes "Ha! got it. sneaky bugger tried to maul me from behind."

Until the ship encounters.....something that doesn't look like anything the Imperium has ever made. It seems to be this ship that looks utilitarian, grey, a sphere made of hexagons. The sphere moves unnaturally, one of the hexagons unfolding so a transmitter antenna pokes out and suddenly a hologram appears in on the Sabre's communications deck of an abstract face.
"STOP. IDENTIFY. I AM MOI-001 STARSHIP TYPE, SERVANT OF THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE KNOWN AS "GENESIS". WARNING: IDENTIFICATION AS IMPERIUM WILL AUTOMATICALLY INITIATE HOSTILITIES. IDENTIFYING AS AGAINST IMPERIUM WILL INITIATE DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS. THERE IS NO THIRD IDENTIFICATION. THE INCOMPETENCE AND OPPRESSION OF THE IMPERIUM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED."
"What if we-" asks Twisting River
"INVALID ANSWER. QUESTIONS NOT ALLOWED. 1 OUT OF 4 IDENTIFICATION ATTEMPTS USED. REPETITION: IDENTIFICATION AS IMPERIUM WILL AUTOMATICALLY INITIATE HOSTILITIES. IDENTIFYING AS AGAINST IMPERIUM WILL INITIATE DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS. THERE IS NO THIRD IDENTIFICATION. I AM A COMBAT MODEL, MY ONLY CONCERN IS THREAT ASSESSMENT AND ELIMINATION."

[TeChameleon]

Frode was a little startled to have empty space answer him back. Logic and intelligence are all well and good, but they help less than you'd think against stress and PTSD, even with perks to help deal with the trauma.

"It's not resignation, exactly- just that it would be nice to have even a brief discussion of our plans before everybody goes charging off to do whatever. That's a good recipe for duplicated or even counter-productive efforts and a lot of wasted time, especially on the scales we tend to operate on." He shrugged, and glanced at Edward as an idea struck him. He gestured slightly, and Edward might have been able to feel the device that Frode had given him earlier shift a little.

"I had a thought," he said. "Your infinite-range multiversal communicator is now a full-on Vortex Manipulator as well as a life-support device and a variable holographic disguise. You can teleport basically anywhere in the universe with it, although I would advise against experimenting with the time-travel capabilities for the moment. With that, you won't have to constantly be hitching a ride if you need to travel independently."

He nodded towards the empty space that Ensara was speaking from. "I'm assuming that you don't need me to do the same for the communicator/disguise kit I gave you, as you can teleport on your own."

*****

"So, while Ensara is off bludgeoning random wildlife..." Frode started to say.

Then he was interrupted by the pushy AI.

Making a sour face at the hologram, he reached out with his powers, assuming that the probe had come within 30-40,000 km of the Sabre. Then his simply allowed his powers to flow around it, passively engulfing it. He made no attempt to manipulate it or read any of its databanks, opting instead to test to see if the machine could sense his abilities activating around it. Aloud, he said "The sloth and stupidity of the Imperium will not be tolerated by myself, nor, I believe, any of my companions. And we are not of the Imperium."

[Lord Raziere]

The AI:
"VERY WELL. IDENTIFICATION ACCEPTED."
"What? Just like that? How can you trust such a response?"
"RELIABLE SOURCES INDICATE THAT ANY TRUE IMPERIAL AGENT WOULD SIMPLY SHOUT "HERESY!" IN RESPONSE AND OPEN FIRE."
Rhiannon sweats a bit and says
"That.....is not untrue....."
The robot detects the energy but doesn't say anything to you, just send a report to Melchorn's Forge about the strange energy readings that will take a few light-minutes to get there.

Ensara:

"It's not resignation, exactly- just that it would be nice to have even a brief discussion of our plans before everybody goes charging off to do whatever. That's a good recipe for duplicated or even counter-productive efforts and a lot of wasted time, especially on the scales we tend to operate on."

There is a sudden spike of rage and she teleports back.
"Fine! If your going to be like that, we'll plan. Everyone, stop the ship."
"But thats not-"
"I Said. STOP! THE! SHIP!!"
Her voice rings out in a shout as her green anima flares the ship suddenly stops on its own, its engines cutting out and its momentum halting despite being in space, as if obeying Ensara's command.
"Clearly just dancing around this is not working, so lets talk it out. You want to talk about wasted time? I can just scry where the Eversor and Lacrymole are, teleport to them, freeze in time or in magical ice, teleport back to give them to you. Just skip straight to the destination. I don't want to do that, because it reduces my Jumps to nothing but teleporting around doing errands rather than actually exploring the world and getting to know the people in it, going on adventures in it. I avoid such measures out of sincere, unironic enjoyment of the journey, rather than the destination- but I don't know why YOUR not doing things like that, aside may be from being incapable for reasons. I refrain from casting a powerful black mana spell so I can actually fight armies rather than just delete them off the face of the earth instantly.

So when you talk about wasted time, your potentially talking about things like that. Don't act as if it won't change how I do things, because it will. Because when people plan its never about the audacious fun crazy plans. Its never about the cool heroic dangerous plans. Its always about the safe plans, to avoid as much danger as possible by talking everything out and being reasonable and boring as possible. My plan for the orks by the way? become a third ork deity by taking a perk for it, after taking a perk to be able to find a worthy opponent for myself any time I want because I fear that you will never want to actually have any good fights so you'll solve them out before I get any.

Everything else? My plans are just general liberator/rebel legendary hero destroying all tyranny and godslaying stuff and so on. I'd make a cool sincere speech about that, but I can tell you probably wouldn't respect it, wouldn't care, just like how adventuring on a Death World is just "punching random wildlife" to you, so I guess irony and sarcasm will have to do.

But I'll be nice. What plan do you want to discuss, just forget the previous plan I had, clearly I was jumping the gun. Lets really plan: Do you want me to start doing things efficiently and practically? Important question to answer."
Twisting River looks at Frode, horrified.
"By the many gods, why do you want to make her do things practically and efficiently? Please don't make her practical. No one likes her when she's practical. We reserve that Ensara attitude for last resorts."

[Rater202]

"Well, that escalated."

[TeChameleon]

Frode detected the transmission, but decided to leave it be for the moment, as Ensara started getting angry.

He took a step back from Ensara's communication point, although it was difficult to tell if he was intimidated or simply annoyed by the shouting, as his body language and expressions had closed off to be even more stoic than usual. He took several deep breaths to centre himself and calm down, more upset by his exposure to the meatgrinder on the Black Ship than by Ensara's rage.

"Firstly, I must apologize if you feel I have disrespected you. That was never my intent." he told Ensara.

"Secondly, the vagaries of English communication seem to have crept into Low Gothic. When I said 'plan' in this context, I meant 'what each of us intends to do', not 'we have to sit down and make a plan outlining and prescribing each step of our future actions'.

And I do not simply teleport about doing whatever it is that I plan on doing because I prefer to take the time to discern what the greater effects of my actions will be, and for that I must learn about the local populace and what lies between points A and B. While it is true that I prefer to be more methodical, I neither condemn your actions that do not follow my methods, nor do I deny their effectiveness.

I am who I am, and you are who you are. We each do the best we can with what we have been given, and no more can be asked of anyone."

He paused. "And I did not mean to imply that I expected you to slaughter the orks wholesale, I was merely clarifying my own intended actions towards the Necrons, given the general perception of them as a monolithic, utterly unyielding force."

A longer pause, and the first emotion Frode had shown in some time appeared, his brow wrinkling in puzzlement. "... what does eviscerating a teleporting bear have to do with tracking a crazed chemical-driven super-assassin? I can understand, given the nature of death worlds, if this were simply the result of you walking down the path and being attacked every other step, but I am not sure what we are supposed to do with the information provided."

[Lord Raziere]

Ensara:
".....I was literally just encountering those and defending myself, yes.

.....Fine I overreacted. But whether I'm offended or not is not my point. The point is whether you consider my current methods acceptable or not. Because I could use far different methods to accomplish things that speed all this up, but impacts my own enjoyment and I would argue, potentially misses out on things one can encounter along the way. Do you want me to use them? Do you want me to just get things done? As Jumpers we're not ordinary adventurers or heroes who HAVE to deal with certain obstacles. If we don't want to, we can simply bypass them. Do you want me to bypass them, and thus not waste time? Because at my level of power a lot of things people take for granted are wastes of time: walking, not instantly winning a fight, exploring a planet and see what is on there that is interesting rather than just accomplishing the objective, talking with people I don't need to, so on, so forth. If you don't care about the journey....that leaves me feeling silly for caring about it, and I don't to stop caring about it.

So. Do you want me to just accomplish the objective? That is what I'm asking."

[Rater202]

"...I vote no, actually. I need a perk before I can prepare to deal with Thanoseid. If we don't do it 'properly' it might not count as a successful Quest. The Benefactors want to be entertained, after all. Just solving it with a snap if our fingers... We need to at least go through the motions, now that I think about it. At least until we better understand how this all works."

"Still, that doesn't mean we shouldn't coordinate better."

[TeChameleon]

"To rephrase what I said previously, I believe your current methods to be effective, and do not have a problem with them, aside from... on occasion... their abruptness." Frode said, relaxing a little now that Ensara had calmed. "And I do not think that we should simply choose objectives, appear, and inflict said objectives on whoever is unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity. I wish to improve the lives of those who live in this universe, and believe that you do as well, and simply running roughshod over those who live here is stretching the definition of 'improvement' somewhat."

"And yes, improved coordination is what I was wanting. Not only would it reduce potential wasted effort, it could be for our own protection- as Jumpers, we are able to unleash devastating powers. And I know that I would strongly prefer not to be in the way of your attacks, nor would I wish you to be in the way of one of mine, thus it would be helpful to keep one another apprised of where we intended to be."

With the matter hopefully settled for now, Frode returned his attention to the now surprisingly patient AI. "Now that we appear to have established our bona fides, what are you planning to do?" he asked.

As he spoke, he allowed his awareness to passively scan the AI ship. It wouldn't alter anything about the energy field that his powers projected around the ship, he would simply become more aware of the structure of the ship, what it was made of, energy sources aboard... basically any and all strictly physical characteristics. He would refrain from any scanning of the on-board computers for the moment, as doing so would require slightly more active use of his powers.

[Lord Raziere]

Moving On:
MOI-001 states:
"YOU ARE IDENTIFICATION: AGAINST IMPERIUM. NO THREAT. NO NEED TO DO ANYTHING. ALREADY RESUMED SOLAR SYSTEM PATROL."
It was moving while you were talking.
"DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS ARE UNDERWAY AND THUS LIKE THE REST OF THE PLANETS OF THE JAGGANOGGAN SYSTEM, ASIDE FROM JAGGANOGGA V, YOU ARE NOW IN NEGOTIATION WITH GENESIS. SPEAK WITH THEM AT YOUR LEISURE."
The sphere is flying off, presumably in a manner most efficient to survey the system.
Ensara says
"Okay then."
She uses a red and blue mana spell to make the ship start moving again then teleports back to Jagganogga VI.

The Sabre will travel through the system and park in orbit around Jagganogga I, the hive city capital of the system. You contacted over the vox (radio) by someone much more normal.
"Attention new arrival, this is Captain Ivan of the Jaggonoggan I Revolution, our instruments pikce ye up and we received a message from Melchorn's Forge that your against the Imperium a few minutes ago? We're not sure how much we can trust an Abominable Intelligence. What is your business in the Jagganogga System?"
"We're here to investigate what is going on." says River "One of the most stable systems in the Imperium suddenly rebelling? its strange, can you tell us whats going on?"
"Oh frakk, you don't know? Guess that makes sense. Look, its confusing even to me. I'm just a soldier, and its not my place to break down the complexities of whats going on, just know that each planet has its own reasons for it and the Imperium is basically the worst...and that a lot of new ideas are being bandied about. Thats basically the long and short of it. All I know is: Jagganogga's my home and my loyalty, not the Imperium. I don't know who you are, but don't screw up my home, mate. If yer Imperial, yer not gonna find many friends here."
"Who is your leader?"
"Ah thats the great part, we ain't got one leader, we got many. An entire planetary council, squabbling over what to do, chosen from the people, by the people, for the people. Arguing about everything like a rowdy pub. Sigh.....ain't new forms of government grand?"
Twisting River remembers the Scarlet Deliberative of the Realm and how argumentative it could be.
"....I feel your pain."
"Anyways my jobs to watch for ships coming to the planet, and your like, new. I don't trust you yet. You can take your shuttle down to the planet anywhere and I can't really stop you from doing what you want, but if you want to meet me, park your shuttle at this port-"
he will give it
"-So I can meet you in person. Captain Ivan out."
"Well? We going to the location meet him or something else?"
River will turn to them. She seems more amenable to planning things out than Ensara is, more mellow.

Ensara: Meet Jagganogga VI's Natives:
After her own traversal she will encounter people of much lower technological level on the planet, wielding spears and wearing hides and shells of the planets animals. They speak a strange local tongue and she uses
"Infernal Exalted Language Technique: Unshattered Tongue Perfection"
To make them all speak and understand the same language: Old Realm. In Creation, the original language that all others branch off from and is thus the pure tongue of Creation. (OOC: Or whatever device Frode gave her to translate, I don't remember, and it doesn't matter.)
"Hello, I'm Ensara, who are you?"
"I am Trakza. Why you here stranger, and why do you have a trail of dead things behind you?"
"They attacked first."
"why are you here?"
"I am...hunting a person who is also a stranger on this world. Have you seen a man in a black skin tight suit, skull helmet, probably violently killing anyone who comes near?"
"So like you?" they say with a smile.
"Haha, very funny"
"But yes we know about the skull man, he is dangerous. We keep out of their way, ands are hoping that one of the bigger animals kills him first."
"I see. Can you tell me where he is? I'll just get him and then I'll be out of your hair and you can get back to surviving on this world."
"Very well, he is a problem yes. He killed a few of our hunters, and we need all the ones we can get to survive on this world."
They start leading her to the Eversor and she asks
"....Why ARE you living here anyways?"
They will begin to tell her the legend of how they got here as they stalk through the forest.

[TeChameleon]

((OOC- Just for the record, I have no problem with Ensara in or out of character. All Frode is trying to ask is that she not just *poof* off to wherever without warning, not demanding that she make more organized plans or anything like that. Also, oddly enough, Frode hasn't given anyone translation tech))

"We may as well go down to meet him, if he's the point of contact for any incoming ships." Frode commented.

He headed down to the shuttle deck- while he could easily VWOORP everyone down in TARDIS mode, there was no point in advertising the ability when it wasn't expected or even needed all that badly.

Once he arrived there, he picked out an unoccupied Aquila Lander and let his powers loose over it, the oddly-proportioned Imperial shuttle quickly assuming a vastly more streamlined shape, reminiscent of late-stage cybertronian designs, although there were touches of Shi'ar and Kymellian designs, if one knew where to look.

In any case, this sleek, but otherwise relatively unassuming shuttlecraft was now one of the most powerful ships in space- while it was virtually unarmed- paired energon cannons being the limit of it- the inertialess drive, TARDIS-grade forcefields, Vortex Manipulator jumpdrive and teleporters, cybertonium-carbonadium alloy hull plating, specialized VI autopilot, and pocket dimension interiors meant that it could casually outrun anything short of Frode's TARDIS form by orders of magnitude, bounce anywhere in the galaxy in the length of time it took to push a button, and largely ignore entire fleets trying to kill it.

Probably overkill for just shuttling down to the planet, but Frode wasn't about to trust himself to Imperium "technology", and he figured he might as well travel in style if he was going to.

He settled into one of the absurdly comfortable chairs in the cockpit to wait for the rest of the group, ready to fly down anybody who was interested.

[Earl of Purple]

"It still seems really stupid. I found my assassinations worked best if I killed one person in a way that people couldn't explain, regardless of what defences they had to stop me. And sometimes I made people just... disappear. Well, sort of. I usually left the head behind." Which left it clear they were dead, but not always clear how that happened.

[Rater202]

Alex heads down with Frode. She's... honestly unsure of what exactly should be done at this point.

[Lord Raziere]

Jagganogga I: Rise of a Peopleocracy
You will land on the planet, and Captain Ivan will thank you for being polite about this, but tilt his head at the strange ship, wondering if its of xeno construction. He will direct you to the former planetary governor's palace which has been taken over and repurposed as the Planetary Council's building.

There, you see people crowding around it and it quickly becomes clear that there is a lot of thing people with a lot of problems. Some people are protesting the imprisonment of psykers to the new government with a representative from Jagganogga III's new psyker government leading them. There are a lot of people waiting in line to speak to the council about various issues Unlike most imperial worlds, mutants are walking about freely. There is a group of religious people protesting about the threat Chaos faces tot he imperium and how it should be highest priority.
"What!? No one's supposed to know about Chaos! Its supposed to be hidden! And why are the mutants just....mingling with everyone? the psyker imprisonment though....that kind of makes sense, but why are they tolerating people wanting them to be free?" Rhiannon says weirded out by all this. "There is an AI ruling the forge world, a government allowing protests to happen what is going on this system!? how you Jumpers not freaking out by any of this!? This is a disaster! None of this should be happening!"
Yeah she has actually be low key freaking out this entire time, none of this should be happening to an Imperial point of view. Someone amid the council guard's steps out and.
"Oh you want to know? Hi I'm the public speaker of the planetary council, names Balenz von Law! Well its great, we overthrew our Imperial oppressors so we don't have to pay their constantly rising tithes anymore- mostly. there's a lot of other issues but the tithe thing is what everyone rallies around. Now we're a new form of government called a Peopleocracy"
".....A WHAT?" Rhiannon says confused.
"Yeh, a Peopleocracy. A government for the people, by the people. We do everything by deciding on it collectively because thats how humans work anyways."
"....Don't you mean democracy?" River says confused.
"No, whats that?"
"You just described democracy" she insists
"Oh really, there is another word for it, cool"
"How did you rediscover it?"
"We didn't rediscover, we invented Peopleocracy, recently."
".....You....reinvented democracy.... from scratch?"
"I prefer Peopleocracy much more direct in referring to what we're ruled by."
"So....can we meet the Planetary Council to see whats going on?"
"Oh they're in a meeting with the representative from other planets in the system, especially the diplomat from Melchorn's Forge, representing the AI Genesis there. Real important, potentially could mean us getting a lot of power, maybe become a power to rival the Imperium in time if that particular one goes through. But you don't need the rulers to inform you, here have a newspaper courtesy of the pride of Jagganogga I's new invention recovered from a previously undiscovered STC a couple years ago: the printing press!"
He hands you a newspaper printed on the old parchment that imperium usually uses for scribes scribbling stuff down proclaiming the latest news: "FIGHT AGAINST IMPERIUM LOYALISTS CONTINUE! ANY END IN SIGHT?" is the headline. with "And what does it mean for the Inevitable Imperial Guard Invasion?" as the sub-headline.
"wait, the Imperium has technology to travel the stars but it doesn't have a printing press?"
"Yeh, lots of scribes are now woodblock printers, literacy rates going up now though. Now everyone can print their horrible opinions and thus expose how wrong they are so other people can tell them so in honest discourse rather than their horrible opinions being suppressed by tyranny and thus resorting to violence and dying thinking that they were right and sacrificing themselves for a stupid cause. Really improves the decision-making process by making everyone too busy arguing in words and print to actually kill each other. Well....except for the chunk of the planet that is still loyalist holdouts. We keep trying to see the wonders of the printing press to them as a means of spreading ideas so the common people there rebel to, but they keep destroying the invention as "tech heresy" and whatever books we make as plain ol "heresy". We'd get rid of the loyalist holdouts, we kinda have to before the Imperial Guard arrives or we're all screwed. Not the only planet that has that problem either. About the only planets that doesn't have loyalist holdouts is Melchorn's Forge and well...the AI's there. Real powerful them. And maybe the penal world, prison riots can be like that."
"And these protestors are....?"
"Oh they're problems to. We have to scare off the human gene-purists each time they come around trying to protest the mutants existence. Our own military is basically a conglomeration of various resistance groups, hive gangs, organized crime forces, volunteer militias and so on, and that military is stretched a bit thin holding most of the planet, that we can't make the final push to the chunks that'll be a foothold when the Imperium gets here. If your here to volunteer to help us unite the planet, I can direct you to the militia recruiting center."
"....Isn't it clear that we're not exactly....normal?"
"I try not to judge based on appearances, you do all look like foreigners though, your clothes aren't anything Imperial I've seen, but to be fair I've never been out of system most me life, most people don't get to. Void travels for the rich and powerful, but hopefully we'll fix that somehow if the negotiations with the AI go through."
"We're looking for a specific alien that is a shapeshifter and may pose a threat to people by drinking blood. you have any ideas of how to find them?"
River wisely omits the part about them killing an Inquisitor and a bunch of planetary governors. The current political climate would take it as a good thing.
"Oh, that? Well, we do record any ships that come flying in, mostly food supplies from the Jagganogga III so any exceptions will stand out. Had to get a new building to put our current government's records though, the Administratums archives of paperwork and bureaucracy is so....overwrought and disorganized and whatnot that we're still trying to sort out which documents are actually useful and which are not. Some people are calling for the Administratums sheer volume of paperwork to just be burnt down wholesale and start from the ground up and given that we've found no end of redundant and old laws, endless contradictory precedents and unsolved litigations and so on and so forth, we're pretty much rebuilding our legal system from scratch with an eye to simplifying and centralizing everything. Too many diverging legal codes, and thats just on this one planet. We're also figuring out how to speed up court trials so they take less than a lifetime so we don't have to imprison entire armies of descendants for one person's crimes that they did not commit so we don't have to make entire worlds into penal colonies, the pardons that will have to be issued to pretty most if not all the prisoners of Jagganogga VIII alone is an undertaking."
"This seems ambitious for a random former imperial world that is likely to get destroyed by the Imperium's response to them rebelling soon"
"Oh you don't know the half of it! We're reconsidering the stance on xenos to have more nuance, as its clear that certain high risk xenos need killing like the Tyranids, but a magos biologis's accounts of extinct xeno species and living xenos species that have been printed around has revealed that many xeno species in the past that the Imperium has killed posed no existential threat to humanity and that many of the known xenos have adapted to be threats on some level just to survive, and thus its questionable if every species needs to be wiped out even if they're hostile. And then there is the religious schisms coming out of Celestora! Debating how to handle Chaos's existence, what the God-Emperor really is- namely whether or not the one on Terra is really him, things like that while loyalists there declaring knowing of Chaos's existence heresy and trying to kill them and probably us if they get to us. None of this is helped by the Imperium's way of just brushing the issues under the rug, issuing a infantryman's primer thats clearly a bunch of lies along with other propaganda that due to a book accounting a pilgrimage of a Sister Dialogous and thus revealing the state of the Imperium outside our system, we finally see through that well....we simply can't remain under the governance of the Imperium anymore."
"But...aren't you fracturing humanity by doing this? Is it not possible that your dividing the Imperium and its resources from the problems it needs to solve? Why go full rebellion when you could work to change the system from within and try to steer it to solve the more existential threats of the galaxy before trying for societal reform?"
"I can't speak the personal stories stranger but.....the way the Imperium is doing things, with the knowledge we've gathered? The only conclusion, the Jagganoggan Planetary Council and by extension the Jagganoggan Resistance can come to is that if the Imperium keeps doing what its doing this way....humanity will be doomed. By keeping people ignorant, they leave more people open to Chaos than they protect. By hating and trying to wipe out all xenos, they do not prioritize the true alien threats from ones that are less important. By uniting under a figurehead like the Emperor while emphasizing only loyalty to him they atomize all other social bonds, leaving people alone despite being together and thus depriving them of the important personal reasons people should fight for their lives. The Administratum its governing bureaucracy is so vast and labyrinthine, its not just impractical or simply corrupt- its nonfunctional, planets have been destroyed by it for rounding errors in its tithes accounting! The Mechanicus keeps it knowledge to itself, the Ecclesiarchy destroys anything that it doesn't like. We can only conclude, that not only is rebelling against the Imperium is a good decision for survival of humanity.....its the only decision. After all, what hope is there in trying to peacefully reform crazy fanatics who try to exterminatus everything they fear, who dogmatically shut down all thought they don't approve of as heresy, who can't organize their own bureaucracy properly, who can't prioritize what threat to take out and how to do it efficiently so they get rid of others? Our answer is that there is none. The hope we find is in starting our own government and doing things a better way and fighting for that better way to become more widespread, no matter how many lives it costs fighting them. The Imperium is already spending our lives for its suffering, so we might as well fight for a cause that is actually worth fighting for. To us, it is the only sane option."
"What are we to do then?"
"If your volunteering? Anything you can! The apocalypse is coming. Extinction is staring at us in the face. The forces of tyranny and zealotry are coming to stomp us all out with their iron heel, the Imperium will not go quietly into the night and neither will we. If you need a hero then our hero Nina Covozune, seemingly a weak and bookish scribe, it was her knowledge and cleverness that led us to victory, that inspired us to secede form the Imperium, not her strength of arms or some fiery conviction. If someone like her can shine a light in this grim galaxy, imagine what we can all do, together! Do not go quietly into the night!"
At this Twisting River nods and looks at the other Jumpers while Rhiannon is just staring in disbelief, and says
"I am obligated to inform you that Ensara if she were here would consider this a good start and want to defend and help the Jaggonoggans however she can according to her personal morality. They at the very least, seem to be better and more aware of the issues at hand than the Imperium."

[TeChameleon]

Frode took all the information in without so much as a change of expression, then nodded once.

"To address the immediate problem, it would be trivially easy for me to cut off this system's Warp access, at least as far as it pertains to travel. If I did so, the Imperials would have more luck trying to flap their arms to fly here than trying to travel via the Warp, but it would mean that you and your people were likewise cut off from Warp travel." he started, apparently indifferent that a conversation with a planetary leader was happening on the edge of a landing field in the middle of a large crowd.

"As an aside, I had a look at that odd Golden Throne contraption on Earth a few weeks ago, and I can confirm that whoever that is that is in it has been in there for the last 10,000 years or so, and is radiating enough psychic power to give you a tan. Whether that means that they are the Emperor, I don't know, nor do I care overmuch."

"In any case, as I said, I could isolate this system with minimal effort, should you desire that I do so." Frode said.

As an aside, he added to Edward over the open comms channel "And that thing is poorly named; it's not really a surgical weapon, just a terror tactic, much the same as dropping a nuke on someone. It's supposed to be indiscriminate."

[Lord Raziere]

apparently indifferent that a conversation with a planetary leader was happening on the edge of a landing field in the middle of a large crowd.

(OOC: You are not. There is quite a bit of time and city in between the landing are and the planetary palace, I simply skipped over it to get to the important part. Things like this are a bit annoying so please stop it? I know you might be trying to just be joking around but it still bugs me.)

A Debate on the Ethics and Consequences of Leaving People in the Warp to Get Soul-Eaten:
The planetary council building is in fact, definitely a couple hours away from the landing field, and in the middle of the upper parts of the hive city that has shown signs of urban warfare, and technically the guy is a the public reputation guy of the many leaders of the planet.

The priests you say this plan in ear shot of, their eyes widen in horror.
"You mean you'd strand them in the Warp!? Their souls would get eaten by Daemons for sure! Thats horrible!"
Rhiannon will say to Frode. "Wait, are you intending to kill them by stranding in the Warp to some horrible death or did you think that somehow preventing us from Warp traveling had anything to do with people entering the warp in another system and navigating to here? Because....I'm sorry to say, it doesn't if your intending save their lives. You'll technically succeed in making sure they don't Warp in sure, but you'd basically doom them all to at best, a slow death by starvation. and if their Geller fields start failing....well aforementioned soul-eating by demons will for sure occur. If you intended to save their lives so no one fights, you'd have to cut them from going INTO the warp at all at the systems they're entering the Warp from. And its very likely that since the call for reinforcements has gone out that they have already entered the Warp and are in transit. This is not a moral concern to me, I've been taught to be jaded and ruthless, I'm just clarifying what your actual intent here is.

Though there is also a potential side effect that it could have a similar effect as a Blank has on people, which has a side effect of provoking irrational feelings of hostility and unease. If it works anything like the same way as that, the effect could be magnified and spread across the entire Solar system. This isn't something we have full knowledge of so I can't say for sure if it will happen."
The psyker representative says
"Who cares if a bunch of soldiers won't be able to get out of the warp? You ignorant priests with your ideal afterlife for humanity don't realize that all our souls get eaten when we die. The only ethical solution to the problem of daemons eating our souls is to seek non-Chaos sources of immortality really. They're our enemies so screw 'em. Though I doubt this random foreigner can do it, he'd have to be as powerful as the God-Emperor or something to pull it off, and thats a ten-thousand year old myth, no psyker I've met has ever been that powerful."
"The warp is capable of responding to belief. We believe hard enough, and a good afterlife for humanity will come true."
"the Warp doesn't bend to belief that much. Sure its an observable phenomena, but for all of humanity to have the faith of the sister of battle or a living saint of the emperor is an impossible ask."
"Truth faith isn't about proof. It never is"
"Well yeah, sure. But I'm a psyker. I've seen the truth, and it is horrible."
"True, but is feeding a bunch of people to demons humane?" says the priest
".....No I suppose not. but they're enemies! We rebelling against the Imperium, and thus have declared war against them already by just not wanting to be apart of it. Lives are going to be lost regardless, and it might as well be theirs rather than ours."
"Wait a minute" says a guard "None of this your call to make. Your only civvies. What this stranger is proposing is a military action, and thus I need to inform my superiors of it so that they can make a decision."
He will do so, radioing the admiral of the Jagganoggan Resistance Fleet, which consists of people who have mutinied against their superiors and commandeered the System defense Fleet, a bunch of lighter warships incapable of warp travel in orbit around Jagganogga I. The admiral says
"This stranger just randomly offered us to potentially kill the entire Imperial Guard force thats probably coming for us without even fighting by cutting the entire solar system off from the warp? If it weren't so ridiculous and pipe-dream like that, I'd say yes in a heartbeat. We'd no longer need to keep to defensive positions in anticipation for their arrival in a few weeks, and instead could make more offensive pushes to wipe out the last remnants of the loyalists on Jagganogga I, and capture the local Navigator house for their Navigators while other resistance forces wipe out their last holdouts. Then with the assurance that no imperial guard is coming, we can further coordinate with other Jagganoggan forces in the system to launch a joint assault on Jagganogga V which is still a loyal planet to make sure no loyalists remain in the system, then if the negotiations with the AI go through we could hopefully build up our forces with men of iron producing warp-capable ships to begin liberating other nearby systems from the Imperium's oppressive rule. But that'd never happen, we need to be realistic about this, soldier. The only beings that could pull off such a ridiculous and out there feat would be the mythical Emperor.....or....the....soldier, new orders"
The guard will after listening to all this suddenly point his gun at Frode and say
"I got orders to make sure your not a threat to us. Nice try, but a random stranger coming up to us and offering us an easy solution that will magically solve all our problems and give us unrealistic hopes? Thats clearly something Tzeentch would do! We've been warned by the heretics of Celestora what the dangers of Chaos are! We see right through your ploy, Chaos Cultists, somehow you need our permission to enact some dark ritual that will kill the Imperial Guard and corrupt us to Chaos's side! Ha! We caught you early..."
The other soldiers are quickly ensuring the safety of the other protesters and people here to speak to the Council and getting in front of them to be shields against a potential threat while pointing their stubbers at you- normal modern day guns in other words, equipment that would not stand against a Guardsman- alert for Chaos's existence.
"Wait we're not Chaos!"
"Oh really? Then prove it."
""But Frode has sealed Tzeentch away, and helped kill Nurgle!"
"Right and I'm one of the Primarchs returned from ten thousand years ago and own a gold-plated bolter in the palace that I definitely have. Sayin' words ain't proof, Tzeentch is known to be deceptive, and Chaos is known to infiltrate from within. And the alternative is that he's the Emperor and thus just as bad as Chaos in a different direction."
Rhiannon sighs and mutters to herself
"I'm torn between applauding these people for doing the sane thing in this situation, or being bitter that my own brand of paranoia has been turned against me."
"You psyker diplomat form Jagganogga III! Can you prove they're not chaos with your witch-powers?"
The psyker diplomats eyes glow blue as they try to scan the Jumpers.
"I cannot read their minds, their psychic defenses are very strong, the short one is.....oh my that is certainly unbelievably powerful, but seems to be not Chaos, I don't detect Chaos but Chaos corruption can be very subtle in its early stages. They're definitely not normal. I'm not sure what I'm seeing here."
"Hm." the guard does not take his gun off you guys "This might still be a Chaos trick, and even if it isn't, they could be Imperial agents or something."
"Why would Imperial agents want to kill guardsmen?"
"Pff, everyone knows how expendable Guardsman are, and how willing the Imperium is to kill its own people over differences of belief while shouting heresy. And interpret their plan in another way and they might be trying to save Imperial lives so that the Imperials are kept in the nearby systems we'll want to liberate later, thus when we try to spread out our forces they can ambush us, pick us off when they're divided then invade the system when those forces are depleted for an easy reconquering. or if we focus our forces on one system, they'll have forces in other systems to take back ours while we're distracted. Either way, its preserving Imperial lives to overextend us on the offensive so that we'll lose on the defensive. Bit of a weird trick for the Imperium to pull, but not impossible if they've come across some ancient rare archeotech to cut us off."
"Wait" says the priest "Aren't we forgetting the third option here? It could be a plot of Genesis, the Abominable Intelligence! They could be gene-creations of that AI trying to trick humans into accepting its dominance over them using its machine-magic. There is a reason our oldest traditions have warned against the AI for fifteen thousand years. Its to retain our independence, free will and survival against mechanical horrors that tried to drive us to extinction! Genesis may be negotiating now, but how long until it decides to turn us all into servitors so it can rule the galaxy?"
"That is also plausible." says the soldier "Your not doing anything violent though so....I'm going to keep my guard up. If you're for or against us, you'll show it sooner or later. Pardon us if we're not exactly trusting of weird people showing up out nowhere claiming to solve a problem in an instant in a galaxy like this. We're not the Imperium-we're giving you a chance, but there's a reason you shouldn't trust gifts from strangers."
The guards are around you, keeping their guns trained on you. They are not a threat to you physically but....

The Process: Inform of Impending Success
A message pops up for Frode specifically:
"By doing this plan to defeat/prevent the Imperial Guard from invading Jagganogga you will have successfully completed the quest goal "Prepare for and defeat the Imperial Guard invasion" and earn 1 AT. Would you like to succeed now?

It was assumed by Benefactors that you'd unite the Jagganoggans into something more cohesive and functional first then fight the Imperial Guard. Would you like to adjust the goal to unite the Jagganoggans into a proper good faction? Or would you desire it to be the next AT quest after finishing the current? or adjust goal to focus on the mystery of the inquisitor and the various planetary governor murders?"

Ensara Vs. The Eversor:
She will after a few hours of traveling with the help of the natives and hearing their stories and myths of how they came here long ago in metal boats before there was an Emperor, will find the Eversor. She will aim her needle sniper rifle and with a mix of essence and ki, take aim and fire off four needles filled with the needed needles. The Eversor not looking too hot after a couple days of slaughtering things without any re-injections, but Ensara's aim plus a Multi-Agnitium: Absolute Eye guides the needles to pierce its skin and reinvigorates him, feeling a fresh surge of rage, hatred and speed that the drugs he constantly must take to keep alive. However Ensara closes the distance and the Eversor swings at her, his power sword and neuro-gauntlet whirling at her in many strikes and cuts, Ensara dodges the whirlwind of blades, the Eversor suddenly fires off its pistol a bolt and needle and Ensara evades them as well. Further pulls of the trigger yield nothing, the Eversor is out of ammo, so they throw away the gun and continue pressing Ensara, his blade moving with great skill but great brutality that Ensara artistically dodges. She continues her dodging and weaving baiting him into overextending easily then gives him a single demolishing punch of incredible power
"Hakyoukuken: Godhand"
and sends him flying into a tree. But he falls to the ground and shakes it off, the tree attacks him and he slices it in half then charging again to attack her, she comments, her as she evades from side to side, keep ahead of the power blade's all-cutting force. A strange killer monkey with poison claws leaps out to kill her, and she punches it yelling
"Pattern Spider Touch!"
Her fist turns the killer monkey into a large stone that she throws at the Eversor who bisects the rock in half with his blade.
"A a good fighter aren't you? Well, your really nothing but an all out attacker, meant to slaughter everything in your way like a juggernaut so.....your combat defenses are lacking. All the focus on killing, not fighting. While I'm not here to kill you so...."
The Eversor just keeps attacking and swinging, completely focused on hating the enemy in front of him, unending rage and violence in his eyes.
"....Sigh, I can't go all out anyways. Better foe than most but....I gotta end this. White Veil Style: Ticking the Dragon's Throat"
Her movements hidden, she hits pressure points in the Eversor's chest, her arms moving faster than he can see, the Eversor staggers as he suddenly finds it hard to breath, his movements slowing his strength disappearing as he is sent stumbling and fall down from all his pressure points being attacked. Then she cryogenically freezes the Eversor in ice use Cryomancy, and takes it back to the Sabre and radios in from orbit
"Got the Eversor, they're on ice. Whats going on with you?"

[TeChameleon]

((OOC- Er, not a joke. Just an oops. I seem to have missed the sentence about us being guided to the former palace, sorry about that. Sentence was only meant to indicate that Frode is a bit cut off from social norms, not anything else))

Frode listened to the ramblings with half an ear, not really concerned with the politicking. When there was a suitable pause, he spoke up. "It is good that you are not like the Imperium, since it would kind of obviate the point of seceding if you were. Also, if I were to cut you off from the Warp, depending on how I did it, you would either be unable to enter it for travel yourselves, or else would be unable ever to return if you left, making conquering other systems impossible, or at least more than a little impractical."

"And I realize that it is difficult to simply take my claims at face value, so a simple demonstration might be helpful. Two easy ones come to mind; I could either clean the inorganic toxins from your atmosphere on this planet, leaving it with clear skies, or I could raise this city and make it airborne. Or both, if you prefer, or if you have suggestions, I am willing to listen, although I can make no promises, as I am not omnipotent, merely powerful." He gave an expressive shrug.

"I realize that neither demonstration is related to my ability to cut off this system from Warp travel. They are, however, significantly easier to see and prove." he paused with a frown. "And I had no plans whatsoever to strand anyone in the Warp. I had planned to either twist this system's dimensional signature slightly, preventing Warp access, or else leaving a set of Warp buoys around the areas that coincide with areas of interstellar space around this system that latch on to Gellar Fields and amplify them to the point that the ship is wrenched back to realspace too far away from Jagganogga to reach it. Either method is subject to bypassing- generation ships or ships without Gellar Fields, for example."

Frode, having said his piece, settled back and waited for their response, but was pulled out of his silence by Ensara's call.

"Things are happening slowly here, just negotiating with the local authorities for the moment. Also, something River said reminded me of something that I had been meaning to mention to you- I got you a special box lunch for later." he told Ensara, smiling slightly at the private joke.

((OOC- not responding to the 'completed mission' thing until things have played out a little further))

[Rater202]

Alex starts rubbing her temples midway through the conversation.

"Let me see the Everswatever, I'll see if I can pick his brain."

[Lord Raziere]

The Sabre:
She replies through the Void of Ensara soul to Alex:
"Sure go crazy with the Eversor if you want."
And place the frozen Eversor in a certain metal bindings, then melts the ice around his head to awake him so his mind can be read. The Eversor looks around trying to struggle out of it but can't, his movements jittery and constant even when bound like this. I will assume that Alex will go read his mind, but what specifically is she trying to find in there once she does?

Jagganogga I:
"Making a continent-sized city airborne would be pointless. Clearing the air however.....well we don't like the smog because of the manufactorums."
They will reply to Frode simply.
"Sounds like a good idea to me to!"
Ensara says, having teleported and sneaked into being next to them in the group, going unnoticed until she spoke up.
"Wait...was there always.....five of you???" a soldier says in confusion "who are you guys anyways??"
"None of you have even told them our names? Wow, we're really screwed if I'm the one with social skills. Hello! I'm Ensara, and this is Forde, Alex, Edward and Rhiannon.Yyour rebelling against the Imperium? Great. I've been looking for people like you. I'll help out with proving we're not Chaos, but first let us see what Frode can do, shall we?"
Ensara says with a smile
""Also ooh a lunch, curious."

The message will disappear at Frode's disinterest.

The Holdout Nobles:
Meanwhile on the sixth continent city, the last still held by Imperium loyalists, the leaders of the imperial remnants of Jagganogga I, the nobles of the Imperium......are having a fancy party or gala if you prefer. Arbitrator Matinus, one of the last remaining after their fortress fell, has caught up to the general leading their remaining PDF forces, General Gladaan who of coruse got his high position through family connections.
"General, what are doing here?" questions Matinus "You are supposed to be commanding our forces to hold the line until the Imperial Guard arrives to purge the heretics from this planet."
General Gladaan is bedecked in victorian-looking finery while drinking from a literal golden goblet, encrusted with gems.
"Why I'm taking a break my good Arbitrator! Someone of my status has to know when to have a good time to blow off steam y'know? I'm sure the poors can shoot each other with my direction for a few......days. The party is only getting started after all and we haven't even gotten to the dueling yet."
"General, five sixths of the planet are taken by the heretics, these vile secessionists. The local Arbites is dead, our spies report that they are negotiating with an Abominable Intelligence which could spell doom for everyone! Furthermore without the constant supplies from Jagganogga III like the rest of the planet, city-continent Viminacium is in serious trouble. The rations are starting to run low and the streets are starting to abound with rumors about cannibalism in the lowest parts of the hive. We need to do something to fix this!"
"Oh who cares if a few poors starve to death, if they don't have food clearly they didn't have enough faith in the God-Emperor. Unlike us whose bounty of food we have to weather this storm until the Guard arrives to deliver the Emperor's retribution, is a clear sign of our devotion."
"You literally ordered the PDF to seize any food supply that isn't corpse starch to be only used for these galas your still throwing."
"Well of course, why would we stop having them just because of a little revolt? Nobles like me, Arbitrators like you, we're the important people Matinus." he takes a swig of his wine from his goblet "We take priority. Besides, I've already sent death cult assassins to take care of that annoying planetary council, really the "will of the people" what nonsensical concepts will they come up with next? The assassins will kill them, they will be leaderless and thus the pooretics will fall in disarray without a strong leader like me to lead them."
"Your.....unique view of the situation aside, I'm glad you have sense to nip this problem in the bud in some manner. This system needs to pay its tithes, and I'm not resting until it is done. But you will need to start leading the offensive once they fall general, the more we take back, the faster the Imperial Guard reinforcements will retake the system and restore order of the God-Emperor."
"Well of course."
Arbitrator Matinus will walk out of the gala in his arbitrator armor, grim faced. This was bad. Warp depending it could still be weeks out from the Guard showing up, and these nobles were acting like this was some sort of game to them, too caught in their own decadence to see how dire the situation is, don't they see how vital it was to pay the tithe? Thankfully his position as Arbitrator allowed him some form of command over the local forces. A PDF trooper reports in. Less equipped than Imperial Guard, with their stubber guns and fabric uniforms they made the average Guardsman with their las guns and flak armor seem invincible by comparison. Matinus has seen many PDF's in his time and most of them sucked. Some on particularly rich, well off worlds had ones that were better trained than guardsmen but these were rare.
"Arbitrator We're getting reports that people are smuggling rations into the Underhives against your orders." he says
"Dammit, they're taking food away from vital systems like the manufactorum workers and the PDF troopers. We will hunt down these smugglers and field execute them at once. I want the underhive starved so they can't rise in dissent like the rest of the planet. I will make sure this planet pays its tithes- no matter what!"

[TeChameleon]

Frode breathed a slight sigh of relief when the prompt vanished. Things simply didn't feel concluded enough to warrant a reward yet, and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out what the Benefactors would do if they thought he was trying to cheat them.

Then he nodded briefly to the Council and stepped outside, the wall irising open into a circular doorway that hadn't been there a second ago, the smog outside held at bay by a force that none of the 40k natives could sense.

Standing calmly on thin air, Frode raised a hand and... nothing happened.

At least, nothing that could be seen immediately. If any of the Council happened to have access to the orbital defense net, and if said net happened to have good sensors, they might pick up that a web of new satellites had coalesced out of the metallic haze in the upper atmosphere and spacejunk orbiting the planet. The satellites twinkled once or twice, then settled into position to stabilize the weather patterns in preparation for enormous masses of particulates being wrenched out of the sky.

This accomplished, nothing much could be seen for a moment or two, then, with the sound of distant thunder (which was, admittedly, entirely for dramatic effect), the heavy browns and blacks of the smog surrounding the world took on a silvery sheen as the metals encased anything organic and started to swirl inwards towards the tip of the palace, where Frode stood, rushing in to simply vanish through one of his portals, into one of his vast raw materials rooms.

While there was the occasional howl of wind, the whole affair was curiously muted, Frode's abilities and his network of weather-control satellites turning what could have been a worldwide cataclysm into a shining show in the sky as ribbons of glistening light streamed away.

The whole affair was over in less than ten minutes, at least externally, Frode's TARDIS abilities subtly adjusting the rate of timeflow so that the viewers didn't have to stand there staring at him standing motionless for the nearly three full days of subjective time he had to take to make certain he didn't disrupt the planet's atmosphere beyond repair, even with the satellites stabilizing things.

Once everything was calm once more, Frode stepped out of the fresh air and brilliant sunlight and back into the palace, the door irising closed again, then fading as it melded back into the wall. "You may want to warn your people that over-exposure to strong sunlight can cause painful, albeit not overly dangerous, burns in the form of skin reddening, or even blisters." he commented. "Other than that, your air should be truly safe to breathe for the first time in millennia, and you may find that your people's morale improved, at least for those who venture into the sunlight, as exposure to true sunlight prompts one's body to form vitamin D, which improves health and reduces depression."

Sinking into an extremely comfortable-looking massage chair that had morphed out of the floor, he sighed with relief; having been functionally trapped in TARDIS form for three millennia, he tended to forget that the human body had limitations like not appreciating holding the same pose for 71 hours.

Without getting up, he said "So; having seen that, are you willing to allow me to cut this system off from the wider galaxy? It would prevent the Imperial Guard from coming here, but it would also prevent you from leaving. I am, however, willing to improve your technology and standard of living, and I believe the others would be as well, should you choose to be cut off, as I would not want your people to suffer because they are unable to attain something needed from the outside universe."

He gestured "I am assuming you have some way to contact the leadership of the other planets; the matter might be worth discussing with them."

[Rater202]

Alex isn't sure where she's going with the Eversor either, she's just.

So as it turns out 40 years without having to deal with too many people makes you awkward around a bunch of people. Who'd guess?

Still, even if the poor drugged-out thing wasn't consciously thinking or however it works, it was still woken up by the shapeshifter and it might have noticed something that they overlooked.