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The Virtual Experience Model Challenges Scientific Materialism
J. Burkes MD 2020, edited 2023

Phoenix MUFON Sponsored CE-5 Training: November 2008

Within the human initiated contact (CE-5) network during the mid 2000s, multiple observers during field investigations started reporting the appearance of a particular type of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. These were small circular strobe like flashes of very bright light that were labelled “flashbulbs.” They were often seen in or near the constellation Orion. In November of 2008, fellow volunteer contact worker Charles (Chaz) Balogh and I gave a Human Initiated Contact Event (HICE) aka CE-5 workshop. It was sponsored by the Phoenix Arizona MUFON Chapter. Following our lectures, Chaz and I conducted a demonstration of CE-5 contact protocols in the desert outside of town. About fifteen to twenty UFO fans attended the event.

The Virtual Experience Hypothesis

At that time, I was already posting articles on Internet promoting the Virtual Experience Model (VEM). This theory postulates that UAP intelligences use “illusory “mechanisms of contact. The model suggests that instead of physical “beings” and craft being witnessed, something else is going on. All Close Encounters and are not necessarily physical contact events. They may often involve non-human psi technologies and things akin to our holograms.
This alternative explanation offers the promise of making sense out of the multitude of different appearing “alien beings” and alleged craft that contact experiencers report. Instead of the hundreds of different alien race phenotypes (classifications based on appearance) representing many planets “visiting Earth”, the VEM suggests that this diversity reflects the products of advanced non-human psi technology that targets human consciousness and resultant perception.

The same principle applies to the staggering number of different kinds of UFOs reported. Rather than there being dozens of different “ET” factories turning out the various sized and shaped “craft” perceived as saucers, globes, triangles, cubes, rectangles etc., this diversity is explicable as “visual displays.” Thus, what witnesses are describing across the planet might not always be physical objects. Many, perhaps most, but certainly not all sightings and encounters can be viewed as either projected “thought forms” or holographic like projections.

Outline of VEM

In a Virtual Experience of the First Kind (VE-1 Type A), a holographic like projection is perceived in which all witnesses can see the display.

In a (VE-1 Type B), illusions are created by energetically stimulating witnesses’ sensory apparatuses and only those targeted will see the anomalous displays. The other two categories in the model are:

A Virtual Experience of the Second Kind (VE-2) a full sensory “Matrix” like illusion or an out of body encounter. These types of encounters can be so powerfully vivid that the human subject believes a physical encounter has occurred when it has not.
A Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3): a memory implanted by UFO associated non-human intelligence that is recalled as if it recorded a physical rather than a psi-mediated event.

Different Perceptions Might be Artifactual and not by Design
During Virtual Experiences of the First Kind, Type B, different witnesses co-located in the same place can report observing markedly different aerial phenomena. This might not be result of UFO intelligences deliberately choosing to target witnesses in ways so that they perceive different “visual displays” during sightings. Instead such discrepancies might occur because sightings and other contact events are mental co-creations of both the human witnesses and UFO associated non-human intelligences.

Since every individual is unique it would not be surprising that psi-mediated events will exhibit differing characteristics. The advanced technologies required to do this might involve electromagnetic energy directed at specific neural pathways, or perhaps sophisticated forms of technologically augmented telepathy. In both mechanisms, the methods involved are clearly more advanced than what terrestrial science has at the current time.

I Was Blocked from Seeing Anomalous Visual Displays, in Phoenix and Joshua Tree

With this explanation, I now return to Chaz and my Phoenix fieldwork outing in which we employed the usual CE-5 protocols format. After a brief guided meditation, we used powerful lights to signal our desire for contact. Soon multiple witnesses shouted out with delight as they repeatedly observed “flashbulbs” around the stars forming Orion’s belt.
A bizarre feature of these sightings was that although these visual displays were reportedly very bright and clearly visible for many observers, I couldn’t see even one anomalous flash while staring at the same section of sky.

My thoughts immediately went back to a special individual that I did fieldwork with during the 1990s. He is a Russian contactee and in my reports I call him “Misha”, a pseudonym. He was the target of UFO related phenomena and served as a kind of “human UFO magnet.” Misha possessed the astounding ability to request sightings when others were present, and UFOs would subsequently appear. “Prime Contactee” is the term I gave Misha and to others with this astounding capability.

In November of 1994, I did fieldwork with my Russian contactee friend in Joshua Tree National Monument. One night Misha reportedly witnessed three stereotypical “meteors” in the Queen Valley. Each shooting star display, one after the other, reportedly looked exactly the same to him. The three were in the same place in the sky and the trail of each formed the same angle in relation to the horizon. Their brightness, color and length of trail reportedly were the same. However, I saw not even one of these stereotypical visual displays while gazing at the same part of the sky.

When Misha requested for me to see the “shooting stars”, I saw the same visual display that he had just described. This happened a total of three times in a row. Each request was followed by an exact replica of the preceding sighting that both of us were then able to observe. That night I realized that if the non-human intelligences (NHIs) associated with UFOs could produce visual displays of meteors, perhaps many, but certainly not all UFO sightings might be what I would later call a Virtual Experience of the First Kind (VE-1, Type B)

During our Phoenix demonstration of CE-5 techniques, as Chaz and others present excitedly described seeing circular strobes of white light, my frustration grew. Multiple “flashbulbs” were reportedly going off simultaneously. I witnessed none of this. I didn’t like “being left out of the party.” After about ten minutes of being denied a sighting of the “flashbulbs”, something like the following went through my mind:

“Ok, I know what you guys are doing. I developed a hypothesis about the ‘illusory’ nature of some sightings, and you are ‘giving me some of my own medicine.’ You are deliberately preventing me from having a sighting, but I really want to see a ‘flashbulb.’ So please show me what everybody else is seeing.”

With intense anticipation, I watched Orion’s belt. A minute or two went by. I listened to the others repeatedly shout, “There’s another one!”, and still I couldn’t' see the “flashbulbs” that they were so enthusiastically reporting. Finally, I witnessed a single flashbulb go off near the star Sirius, located below Orion’s belt.

The astounding thing about this episode was that it appeared as if the non-human intelligence staging this event responded to my mental request in a way that validated the Virtual Experience Model. I acknowledge that I cannot prove this truly occurred, nevertheless, it did. This bizarre incident was not the final piece of evidence that I personally experienced in support of what might be called “illusionary” mechanisms of contact.
As mentioned above, if unseen non-human intelligences can create anomalous illusory visual displays of “shooting stars” or in this second case of “flashbulbs”, then why not of flying saucers, flying triangles and globes. This doesn’t preclude the presence of actual physical craft producing “wonders in the sky.” I imagine that sightings of both physical craft with actual colorful lights as well as “illusory visual displays” are getting our attention. In the process, as researcher Grant Cameron reminds us, we say, “Wow!”

Discussion
Slowly and surely, via what author Rey Hernandez calls “the Contact Modalities”, we are being taught that we are not alone in the universe. Our “teachers’” goal might not be to physically “visit Earth”, but instead they might be involved in a long-term project to expand human consciousness. Author Whitely Strieber has suggested that the so-called “Visitors” are the face of evolution when applied to a conscious mind. Their apparent ability to manipulate both human consciousness and spacetime are direct challenges to scientific materialism, the predominant academic philosophical paradigm. Scientific materialism is also called physicalism. This philosophy asserts that mass and energy are the building block of reality. From this perspective, consciousness and all mental phenomena are viewed as merely the outcomes of neural activities. Consciousness is labelled an “emergent” property of matter.

Albert Einstein once stated, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." The concept that physical reality is an illusion is an ancient one. Eastern religions, both Hinduism and Buddhism have as a cornerstone the concept of maya. The internet “wordnik” site’s definition of maya is “the transitory, manifold appearance of the sensible world, which obscures the undifferentiated spiritual reality from which it originates.” It is conceivable that some UFO associated intelligences dwell in such non-material realms and take on physical form when they enter our material reality.

If Consciousness is primary, then in a sense the psi-based experiences of contact outlined above as “mind stuff” could be “more real” than physical encounters occurring in our much beloved spacetime “reality”. Therefore, Virtual Experience encounters can be considered as “illusory” not in any absolute sense, but rather only when viewed within a narrow physicalist paradigm in which matteenergy and not Consciousness is primary.
When I first started to formulate the Virtual Experience Hypothesis over 20 years ago, as a practicing ER physician, my world view was a scientific materialist one. As the result of being exposed to the works of cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman and the philosopher Bernardo Kastrup, I begrudgingly now accept that Consciousness appears to be primary; as the physicist Arkani-Hamed has written, the concept of spacetime is “doomed.”

Key to my change in worldview has been my volunteer work in several contact groups. There I was regularly exposed to High Strangeness aspects of UFO phenomena. I have experienced the following: missing time on at least two occasions, telepathy, and have had many sightings of what at first glance appeared to be physical objects. The intelligence behind the phenomenon however staged a series of bizarre encounters that inevitably led me to formulate the Virtual Experience Model. I am left with the impression that UFO intelligences created a kind of Hansel and Gretel breadcrumb trail for me to follow. That journey is described in my chapter in Rey Hernandez’ compendium, “A Greater Reality” linked below.

Conclusion

Three decades after joining the loose network of contact activists that I call “The Contact Underground”, I strongly suspect that I’m not the only one who is abandoning physicalism. Scientists and philosophers are increasingly debating whether the four-dimensional construct called “spacetime” is as “real” as physicalists have insisted in the past. If Consciousness is primary and spacetime is a kind of projection from a non-physical i.e. mental realm, then the predominant philosophical paradigm of Western Civilization, scientific materialism, will need to be radically revised. In this manner, UFO intelligences are pushing us towards an understanding of “the greater reality” described by Rey Hernandez and others in the multivolume work of the same name.
The Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI) is a new scientific research group founded by Reinerio Hernandez. He has published a multivolume compendium called “A Greater Reality.” Volumes 1 and 2 of this anthology are available on line free of charge at. the CCRI website: https://agreaterreality.com

My article appears in Volume 2 and is titled, “REPORT FROM THE CONTACT UNDERGROUND: HUMAN INITIATED CONTACT, THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION AND THE VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE MODEL.” It can be viewed and downloaded as a free pdf file at:
https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Burkes%20-%20Report%20from%20the%20Contact%20Underground.pdf

Additional Blogs on the Virtual Experience Model:
Joseph Burkes MD 2019. INTRODUCTION As the result of carefully studying numerous interactions with the intelligence responsible for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena UAP, I have developed a new paradigm for understanding the important role of illusion as a mechanism of contact. In proposing this model, I must emphasize that both physical and illusory contact experiences likely … Continue reading The Virtual Experience Model, an Overview




J. Burkes MD 2021 Important Proviso: The Virtual Experience Model doesn’t propose that all encounters are holographic or psychic. In my judgment, interactions are occurring via both virtual and physical means. The Virtual Experience Model describes what I believe are the illusory mechanisms of contact employed by flying saucer intelligences. The model is as follows: … Continue reading The Reasons why Flying Saucer Intelligences might stage “Virtual” Instead of Physical Encounters

Staging Psi-mediated Close Encounters might have practical advantages for UFO intelligences. Staging exclusively physical interactions could pose enormous risks including the transmission of deadly pathogens. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/11/the-reasons-why-flying-saucer-intelligences-might-stage-virtual-instead-of-physical-encounters/


A blog analyzing an event at Skinwalker Ranch that supports the Virtual Experience Model. Dr. Kelleher was present when 6 observers using night vision equipment described seeing “completely different things.”
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2023/04/30/the-consciousness-connection-incident-at-skinwalker-ranch-as-described-by-colm-kelleher-supports-the-virtual-experience-model/


Two Cases Supporting the VE-2 Category “Matrix Reality”
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2023/05/06/2031/

The work that Andrija Puharich did with Uri Geller revealed a dramatic case of “Virtual Memory”, aka a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/virtual-memory-a-virtual-experience-of-the-third-kind-ve-3/


In the blog linked below I discuss advances in memory science and their implications for both the Virtual Experience Model and the use of hypnosis on contact experiencers.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/19/memory-wars-iremembering-falsely-hypnosis-and-the-virtual-experience-model/

I discuss the phenomenon of tulpas within the context of the Virtual Experience Model.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/the-interdimensional-vs-et-hypothesis-virtual-experiences-and-ufo-sightings-as-thought-forms/

Vine Blight has the false appearance trait: "While the blight remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a tangle of vines."
Faerie Fire spell essentially makes creatures more visible: "Each object in a 20-foot cube within range is outlined in blue, green, or violet light (your choice). Any creature in the area when the spell is cast is also outlined in light if it fails a Dexterity saving throw. For the duration, objects and affected creatures shed dim light in a 10-foot radius.
Any attack roll against an affected creature or object has advantage if the attacker can see it, and the affected creature or object can't benefit from being invisible."
If a vine blight is aoe, fails its dex save, and is not otherwise hidden/invisible, would that vine blight would be outlined in light?
(I think yes, but interested in other's input).

I just finished listening to the graphic audio book rendition of Stormlight, this time going through the series in the light of the obviously (imho correct) theory that Chanarach is Shallan's mother. Given the prologue, it's pretty clear that Chanarach will be part of Stormlight 5.
But then my inner Kelsier got going. There is always another secret. Chanarach being Shallan's mother is far more obvious than usual fantasy secrets. Maybe it's not so much the secret as the secret that hides the real secret.
Here's my theory. Not only is Chanarach Shallan's mother - Shallan is well aware that Chanarach is a herald, is alive, communicated with her on Braize _after_ her death, perhaps robbed Jasnah at Chanarach's bidding and did something that resulted in Chanarach "breaking" and returning to Roshar, thus starting the true desolation.
From the best chapter that Brandon has ever written (at least to me) "Red Carpet, once White"

"The world ended, and Shallan was to blame"

Sanderson writes in third person limited. Theoretically, the narrator can only narrate something that Shallan knows or feels. Quite often, the narrator is thinking back to some event in the past and, therefore, "knows" something that the character knows or feels in the present and can, therefore, bring it up in the context of a a flashback or memory.
Of course, we are led to assume that Shallan feels this way metaphorically—that it is because she just offed her mother. If we are really into things, we may suspect that Shallan feels this way because she sent someone into Braize. But maybe, just maybe, Shallan's future knowledge is a step beyond that—she knows that her mother is a Herald, that she is currently in Braize, and that her return will spark a desolation.
How would she have this information? First it's possible to check up on the population of Braize:

“Now I make sure this death was truly permanent,” Raboniel said, “by communicating with the souls on Braize." - RoW, Chapter 97

Interesting word. Communicate. What's the Cosmere cellular plan? Oh yeah. Seons. Very very rare on Roshar. assuming it's not some other skill she randomly has - where would Raboniel get a Seon? How about that one and only distributor of Seons - Mraize. The same Mraize and the same ghostbloods that Lin Davar was involved with.

"Not that kind of riches,” the man said, with a smile. He stepped forward and respectfully handed her a large pouch. Raboniel took it, and it made a soft clink. Raboniel undid the top, and stared inside. She sat there for a long moment, and when she next spoke, her voice was devoid of rhythms. “How? Where did you get this?” “I bring a gift,” was all the man said. “To encourage you to meet with my babsk to negotiate terms."

What better way to encourage Raboniel to meet with his babsk then to give her a mechanism to ask to meet with her babsk?
So there is a decent possibility that Raboniel communicated with Braize via a Seon.
Doesn't change that Seons are rare. So rare in fact, that Shallan has already run into two of them:
RoW Chapter 30:

"This experience … she’d done this before. She’d been here, kneeling on the ground, holding a cube that glowed from the corners. Exactly like this.
She was on a mission into Shadesmar. Why should she expect to see gardens behind her? Her father’s gardens? Veil faded into Shallan."
We find out later that this Seon is special. It's a unbound Seon.

Okay, Shallan had a Seon as a child. Seons are useful. Also magical. And stored in cubes now. Let's see if there are other mentions of Shallan and cube like structures, say by a certain King's wit:

“I’m sorry, young one,” the man said, expression softening. “He gave me only that brief message for your father, and that only because I mentioned I would be traveling this direction.”
“Oh! I assumed he’d sent you here. I mean, that coming to us was your primary purpose.”
“Turns out that it was. Tell me, young one. Do spren speak to you?”
The lights going out, life drained from them.
Twisted symbols the eye should not see.
Her mother’s soul in a box.
“I . . .” she said. “No. Why would a spren speak to me?”
“No voices?” the man said, leaning forward. “Do spheres go dark when you are near?”

And there are more references:

Words of Radiance Chapter 9:
“They passed Father’s strongbox set into the wall. It glowed brightly, light streaming from the cracks around the closed door. A monster was inside.”

Words of Radiance Chapter 27:

“They passed Father’s chambers. The heavy stumpweight door was open a crack as a maid tidied the room, allowing Shallan to see the far wall.
And the glowing strongbox.
It was hidden behind a painting of a storm at sea that did nothing to dim the powerful white glow. Right through the canvas, she saw the outline of the strongbox blazing like a fire. She stumbled, pulling to a stop.”

Words of Radiance Chapter 61:

“It will be done, Brightlord.” That voice. It was Rin, captain of Father’s new guards. Shallan backed up, peeking into the room. Father’s strongbox shone behind the picture on the back wall, bright light bursting through the canvas. To her it was almost blinding, though the men in the room didn’t seem able to see ”

We've been assuming that it was Pattern in the safe, but this is a lie that Shallan tells herself (and a lie that Pattern repeats). It's explicitly a vision, not a flashback:

“Shallan stepped over one, though it was just an illusion, and walked to the wall. A painting had appeared, part of the illusion, and it was outlined with a white glow. Something was hidden behind it. She pulled aside the picture, or tried to. Her fingers only made the illusion blur.
This was nothing. Just a re-creation of a memory she wished she didn’t have.
“Mmm . . . A better lie, Shallan.”
She blinked away tears. Her fingers lifted, and she pressed them against the wall again. This time, she could feel the painting’s frame. It wasn’t real. For the moment, she pretended that it was, and let the image capture her.
“Can’t I just keep pretending?”
“No.”
She was there, in her father’s room. Trembling, she pulled aside the picture, revealing the strongbox in the wall beyond. She raised the key, and hesitated. “Mother’s soul is inside.”
“Mmm . . . No. Not her soul. That which took her soul.”
Shallan unlocked the safe, then tugged it open, revealing the contents. A small Shardblade. Thrust into the strongbox hastily, tip piercing through the back, hilt toward her.
“This was you,” she whispered.
“Mmm . . . Yes.”

At best, it was never a pattern inside the strongbox; it would have been a testament. But a testament was a shardblade—a bonded shardblade. It would have disappeared and not remained in the strongbox. It can't be a pattern, and it can't be a testament in the box.
It's pretty straightforward to assume that it was a Seon in the box, placed there after the Chana-kabob. So why does Shallan think that her mother's soul is in the box - Simply because Shallan sees or hears her mother in the Seon. Seon's make people's face appear, glowing (elantris, Chapter 2)
The monster is not Testament or Pattern - but rather Chana herself, communicating from Braize.
So, what would our intrepid do? Ignore the box once her father died, or use the box to communicate with her mother?
So this is my theory. Not only is Shallan using a Seon, she has used it in the past to communicate - with Chanarach.
From there you can start to ask some interesting questions. Why is it that Radient and Veil only physically showed up after the desolation occured? Shallan's powers were manifesting (to some degree) between the period in which she broke the bond with Testament (which we don't fully understand) and before Pattern cut over to the Physical realm.
I think there is much more communication, and perhaps even open direction coming from Chanarach to Shallan. Shallan is, by definition, a unreliable narrator. Perhaps Shallan has been hiding Chanarach's role all along.
Finally, Veil was re-integrated into Shallan because the emotional event at the core of Veil's creation was resolved - her murder of her mother, and breaking of Testament's bond. Yet Radiant is still around - and Radiant is much more recent then Veil. Could it be that acknowledging that her mother is not dead (a fact she "knows") and that Shallan has perhaps been actively working with her mother resolve Radient? After all Radient looks just like Chanarach as well?

Part 1 Part 2
Besha, her voice quavering, was the first to speak. “Now what?”
I turned to Carl, expecting him to say something, but was surprised to hear the words come out of my own mouth, seething with a fury I never knew I was capable of.
“Now,” I said slowly and deliberately, “now we kill every last motherfucking one of them.”
“Damn right!” It was a voice I didn’t recognise. In the intensity of the combat, we’d all completely forgotten about the five miners towards the back of the cave.
Three women and two men, none of them out of their teens, stared on in shock. They were too surprised to join in the fight, but they all desperately wanted out of there, and though they were weak, we knew as we traded our knowledge and experience that they would fight to the very last. There was no chance we could persuade them to let us take the fight to the beetles alone.
We stood and sat in the burning orange of the torches and the brilliant white of the flashlights, always watching the cave entrance, as we talked. There were eight slaves down here, a much smaller group than ours had been. None of them had been down here for more than a few months, and it was then that Besha realised that these beetles were smaller. Not by much, but it was noticeable. This beetle colony must be younger than ours.
The miners figured there were only about 30 beetles. Closer to 25, now that we’d killed these ones. Rosa, a 16-year-old German girl, was somehow able to distinguish between them, although they all looked the same to me; she had even given them names like Dark Claw, Shiny Top, and Bent Tooth. With paper for the first time in the four months she’d been in the darkness, she wrote them all down, and crossed five names off. There were 24 remaining. Of course, we couldn’t know how many there might be which she hadn’t seen.
I asked where the other three slaves would be. Martin, a Slovakian boy, said they hadn’t seen where they went, but it would probably be the forge, guarded by the two beetles who had come in last. So Besha and I headed to the forge and found the three, still working, and brought them back. The last two beetles we had fought had come from the forge when they heard us fighting, and we didn’t encounter any more on the way.
Eleven humans, led by the three of us who were more experienced and not weakened by the conditions of slavery. Our eight new recruits chose their preferred weapons from among the picks and hammers and my spare billhooks, had a little to eat and drink (“Not too much,” said Carl, “your body’s not used to it”), and then we walked silently along the long, wide tunnel to the main cavern. If we were quick, the others may not yet have realised anything was amiss.
In the dim light of the slave pit’s distant torches, we could see four or five beetles wandering about, doing whatever it is that beetle slavers do when there aren’t any slaves around to torment. We huddled around to whisper our tactics, always wary of the beetles’ excellent hearing. And as we discussed our options, their advantages and pitfalls, Bors, a boy from Jordan, said simply, “What about the gallery?”
Besha, Carl, and I looked at him in astonishment, though we couldn’t read each other’s expressions. “What gallery?” whispered Carl.
Bors pointed up. “The gallery, above the entrance to their home. You could pick them off from there with the guns.”
I looked, and could just make it out. About ten metres up, something like a balcony ran along a quarter of the cavern wall on the opposite side to us. If such a thing existed in our old home, none of us had noticed it.
A few minutes later, we had a new plan. We would sneak around the edge of the cavern, enter the insects’ home, and try to stealthily make our way up to the gallery, as Bors called it. Carl, having travelled to the entrance two days earlier, led the way. In absolute silence, trying not to breathe or even emit any smells, and occasionally freezing if a beetle looked like it might get too close, it took us maybe half an hour to travel a hundred metres. We only noticed the beetles when they chittered or moved in front of a torch, and we weren’t doing any of that.
The entrance, a tall, wide, rectangular hole in the cavern wall, was as much in darkness as anywhere else. Somehow we’d got there without being spotted. Carl felt his way along the wall and led us into a room on the left. We filed in silently, and Carl brought out one of his weaker glowsticks.
We were in, as far as we could tell, a tool storage room, a cube hollowed out from the rock, barely big enough for us all to fit in there. Wooden tables, seemingly of human craftsmanship, lined the walls, and on these tables were all manner of strange tools. I could hardly guess at the function of most of them, and some of them I didn’t even know how a beetle could manipulate them. I didn’t care. The room had just one entrance; as long as no beetle needed a tool, we would be safe here while a small group scouted the rest of the complex.
This time it was Carl and I who moved silently through the caves by the dim light of a glowstick, while Besha stayed with the others. There were a couple more rooms storing various equipment; in one, we found obviously human artefacts, such as watches, credit cards, and mobile phones. We made a note to lead the survivors through here when we were sure it was safe.
A long corridor led past these rooms, and to a crossroad. We took the left path first. In the living area, there were occasional patches of some sort of gently glowing moss, barely enough to see by, but it meant that we could usually get away with putting the glowstick away. We soon came to an opening on our right, and carefully stepped through.
I froze, and I can’t speak for Carl, but my heart dropped into my stomach. The faint light of the moss in the room shone green reflections off the glossy armour of maybe a dozen beetles. Carl and I stood motionless for what seemed like an eternity, until I felt a gentle tap and then a tug on my shoulder. Very carefully, very slowly, I edged back out of the room, and we made our way back to the crossroad.
In furtive whispers, we discussed what we’d seen. The beetles were laying on the ground, on what looked like a bed of dried leaves and undergrowth. I recalled a suggestion by Nida, that beetles as large as these would use a tremendous amount of energy while active, and that they may sleep a lot more than humans. Carl proposed that if there were indeed about thirty beetles, it seemed that only half or a third were awake at a time. We decided to leave them alone for now, and continue exploring.
We crept back down the corridor, past the sleeping area, and came to a small room just before the corridor bent around to the left, and started to rise. We guessed it would take us to the gallery, and decided to check out the room before making our way up.
This room had a bit more moss. I could make out Carl’s face, and the smooth round walls of the cave, which was only about six metres across. In the middle was a raised platform, about waist high to a human. For some reason the thought of a baptismal font came into my mind. We edged slowly towards it.
The platform held a rocky bowl, about forty centimetres wide, filled with water. The water seemed to reflect more light than it had any right to. And as I peered into it, I did not see my reflection.
I saw somebody else’s face.
She was about 20 years old, with pale freckled skin and curly hair. I didn’t recognise her. I asked Carl what he saw, and it was the same. Then he pointed to another platform, a small table. On it were a few pieces of chalk and about a dozen slates; the top-most slate held a drawing of the same girl we saw in the bowl.
This was it! My heart pounded. This was how they got us. I couldn’t fathom how it would work, but they used this bowl, or one like it, to seek us out, mark us, and bring us here. The slates must be part of it - perhaps they saw many people in the bowl, and drew the ones they decided to kidnap. I whispered excitedly - we could destroy the bowl and stop at least this beetle nest from bringing anybody here.
Carl disavowed me of that idea. It would be a simple matter for the beetles to just rebuild. Like I’d said just a few hours earlier, we needed to get rid of them - all of them.
For now, then, we would continue our exploration. We could always come back.
We left the round chamber and continued on, along and up the tunnel. We were right. The slope led us up into the main cavern. We made sure the gallery was empty, then lay down and peered over the edge.
Watching from safety, we realised there were only three beetles on patrol down there. Twenty-nine, minus the five we had killed and the three on patrol, left twenty-one unaccounted for, at least half of which we’d found sleeping.
A tug from Carl. We were on the right-most edge of the gallery, so every so slowly, and keeping as low as we could, we hugged the wall and edged along it.
As we suspected, there was another corridor leading down from the far end of the gallery. We had crossed over the entrance to the living quarters, and were on the other side. We’d been gone quite a while now, and Besha and the others might be getting worried. We agreed to explore this area and head back.
Several twists and turns later, the corridor widened and straightened, and I estimated we were back on the same level as our companions. Dimly illuminated in front of us by the occasional patch of glowing moss, we could see three openings on either side of the corridor.
This time I was the one to touch Carl’s shoulder. I’d heard movement. We watched in silence, Carl pointing the pistol, me with billhooks in each hand.
Three doorways down, a shadow. Quiet chittering. The faint outline of a shiny black carapace. Moving - where? We stood as quiet and motionless as statues.
The outline got smaller. A few moments later, the shape rounded a corner, and was gone. Ten minutes later, Carl and I dared to breathe again.
Carl stayed put while I gingerly pushed forward and moved my head into the nearest doorway. No beetles. I did the same for all six entrances, keeping well enough to the side to give Carl a good shot, if he needed it. All were now empty. I returned to Carl and we entered one of the rooms.
I’d taken the beetles for bronze-age creatures, but what I saw blew that notion out of the water. Now granted, my understanding of tech trees is limited to playing Civilization IV when I was 12, but these guys were well into the Renaissance age, and maybe a lot further. Glass jars and tubes indicated they knew chemistry. Samples of strange powders lay in shallow curved pots. There was a setup of lenses, which I took to be a form of microscope.
We moved on to another room. Here were gears, some sort of half-finished clockwork contraption. I’d seen the beetles grip things, but had no idea they could be so dextrous. I made a mental note to examine a front claw if I got the chance.
Another room had something I remembered from back in school. Different-coloured metals, placed in a rectangular box full of liquid, and metal wires coming out of them. The beetles were making electricity.
The other rooms had contraptions neither Carl nor I could even guess at. They were clearly scientists, some of them at least. I would have found it difficult to operate their machines with my human hands; their inventions were obviously designed for beetles, but their purpose eluded us.
We didn’t stay long, ever wary of the slightest noise. Besides, we’d been gone maybe two hours at that point. At the end of the corridor, another passage went left and right. We very carefully peeked around the corner; no beetles, and not too far away on the left, we could just make out the crossroads from earlier. Slowly, silently, we crept back, made a left turn, and returned to the group.
I’d been a little worried that they might have got impatient, or assumed us captured or killed. But there they were, some asleep against the walls, some playing cards in the dim light of a blue glowstick. Besha got up and gave me a long hug. “Are you okay? Did you find a way out?”
Carl and I woke everybody and drew a map. The storage rooms where we rested; the strange bowl of water; the bizarre science laboratories; the gallery, with entrances at either end; and the room where many of the beetles lay sleeping.
“We get them. Now, before they wake up. It’s near the end of the work day.”
It was a boy about 18 years old, whose name I hadn’t caught yet.
“We need a plan,” Carl said. “We can’t go rushing in -”
But it was too late. The boy had already stood up and was on the move, as quickly as a person can move without making a sound.
Besha turned to Carl and I. “We have to. Hell will be on us in a few minutes, whether we go with him or not.”
And so all eleven of us grabbed our equipment and stealthed away. Carl put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and persuaded him to listen to his plan. If the plan hadn’t involved killing the beetles immediately, I doubt the boy would have slowed down.
When we got there, it was clear that the beetles had moved. None appeared awake, but I knew that they had shifted around in that room at some point in the last couple of hours. At Carl’s direction, we moved silently into the room, shifting around to position ourselves in pairs near a beetle. But we weren’t all in position yet. A chittering came from outside. The beetles started to move, all at once, and were upright in less than a second.
I’m not sure what happened next, everything moved so fast. I swung my billhooks. Muzzle flashes lit up the room and rang in my ears. Curses in half a dozen languages. I tripped on the leg of a beetle. It pinned me to the ground. Mandibles snapped centimetres from my face. Helplessness. I was dead. BANG! BANG! The beetle’s head exploded. I pushed it off me, got to my feet. Another was next to me. Pincers slashed my arm. Billhooks swinging right and left, its legs ripped off. BANGBANGBANG! A third to my side, a slash to its thorax, and a pickaxe from the dark into its head. The next - where was the next? I saw nothing. BANG! Blinded by muzzle flashes, I could make out nothing else.
Three strong lightsticks hit the floor, and two flashlights searched the ground. Chitinous limbs lay scattered about. Black fluid oozed like ichor from dozens of wounds. And there - a human arm, a foot, a leg with bone sticking out.
“Did any get away?” Carl made no pretence at stealth now.
“I don’t know…”
“I didn’t see…”
“They’re not moving. Did we get them all?”
Slowly we started to calm down, as we saw no motion from the oversized bugs. But to be sure, we went methodically from one to the next, severing the heads of those who still had them.
We counted fifteen beetles down. We’d had the element of surprise. But it wasn’t enough. Four of the rescued slaves, slower and weaker than Besha, Carl and I, were among the dead, and two others lay dying beyond hope. We had all sustained injuries, and I counted myself lucky to have received a mere flesh wound.
As an ex-soldier, I don’t envy what Carl had to do next. After we made the two mortally wounded girls as comfortable as they could be, Carl whispered to them. He never told us what he said, but I saw each in turn nod their heads. Carl then brought up his pistol, and with a single shot to the head each, put them out of their misery.
He kneeled down in silence for several minutes. When he stood up, Besha put her hand on him. “Are you -”
“Don’t.”
There were five of us left. Besha, Carl and myself, plus the German girl Rosa and a Polynesian boy named Salema. We knew we hadn’t got all the beetles, and stealth was off the table now. It was me who spoke first.
“There are two directions in the living area we haven’t tried. Left at the crossroads, and straight past the workshops. If there’s a way out, it must be one of those.”
Left was closer, so we went that way. I wish we hadn’t.
The corridor bent ever so slightly, just enough to block our vision until we got there. When we rounded the last corner, we saw what has haunted me every night since. I call it the throne room.
She was bigger than I would have imagined possible, at least eight metres tall. Her body was swollen and her abdomen dripped with mucus. Around the room lay dozens of eggs, as big as my hand, some intact, others broken open. As her enormous compound eyes turned on us, her mouth opened wide, revealing hundreds of sharp teeth like no beetle I’ve ever seen. The shriek that came from that mouth cannot be described in words, except to say that it froze my blood. But then, a human voice.
“It’s got no mandibles!”
It was true. No mandibles, and no limbs. It was helpless! Besha and Carl opened fire with everything they had. The queen thrashed her body violently, and spewed dark liquid in our direction, but it didn’t last long. Besha showed off her markswomanship and Carl demonstrated how quickly he could reload the pistol. The queen gave a final screech and collapsed to the ground, shaking the throne room like an earthquake.
Helpless, I thought? I was wrong. Salema had caught the worst of the sticky black substance the queen had sent our way, and was down on the ground, struggling to move. And then we heard it. Hundreds of chittering, clicking insects came from all around the room - and Salema was their first meal. The beetles that swarmed him barely came up to my ankle, but there were too many of them. Salema was dead in seconds - or at least, I hope he was.
“Run!” said Besha, and none of us argued. There was only one way to go, one corridor we hadn’t tried. We made it to the crossroads, and Carl threw an industrial glowstick ahead of us as we turned left. More beetles, adult-sized, were speeding towards us.
We ran with every ounce of strength down that corridor. We didn’t know if was our best option, just that it was our only option. As we fled, Carl and Besha turned to take shots at the enemy. We hurtled past the corridor that led to the workshops, and into the unknown.
Even with the covering fire, the beetles were gaining on us. But after fifty metres, we saw a light up ahead. I grabbed a flashlight from Carl’s belt and pointed. The tunnel ended ahead of us, and another tunnel continued, nearly two metres above us. A tunnel made of earth and roots.
A tunnel through which shone daylight.
With an almost inhuman burst of speed, Rosa leapt and scrambled up the wall and into the earthen tunnel.
“Go, Besha!” I cried, putting my hands down to push her feet up. Besha climbed up and grabbed a root. The root gave way, and the pressure as she fell back on my hands was almost too much for me to bear. But I wasn’t letting go so easily. I pushed with all my might, and she scrambled to safety.
Besha turned back and levelled her rifle at me.
BLAM! BLAM! A beetle, now dead, hurtled into my back and knocked me to the ground.
Besha reached her hand down, and I grabbed it. Carl was shooting fast enough that the beetles were advancing slowly, waiting for an opportunity.
With Besha’s help, I scrambled up and looked back. Carl shot again. “Click.”
“Billhooks!” shouted Carl. I threw both of mine down to him; he caught one, while the other clattered to the ground. “Run!”
We ran.
Carl was surrounded. There were at least four, maybe more, of those beasts around him. He had no chance, but he didn’t try to escape. I hope he took a lot of them down with him; I know that none of them followed us into daylight.
We tried to help Rosa, but she wanted nothing to do with us any more. I can’t say I blame her. After we stopped running, miles from the caves, she left us with barely a word. I don’t know where she went.
We emerged, we found out later, in the forests of Romania. Besha and I are an item now, and Hannah is arranging for a house to be built for us with no doors or windows. We’ve talked about kids, but we have no idea if the curse would pass to them.
Nineteen of us entered doors that day. Four of us arrived in the same cavern, but months later, we haven’t heard from any of the rest. We thought there was just one system; we know better now. These things could be everywhere. With luck, killing the queen is enough to shut down that particular nest; but there are only three of us with the curse, and Rosa hasn’t joined our Discord group.
Carl and Febe are dead. Fifteen others are unaccounted for. If anybody takes the fight to the beetles again, it will have to be a new generation; Besha and I are retired. We just hope that our story here might be of use to our future comrades-in-arms.

I tried rigging this character, saved it and downloaded in another device. Now, the rig isn't showing. I've made sure the viewport display has been enabled for armatures, odd thing is when I add a new bone it is visible.
Help a stranger out?
https://preview.redd.it/4zhl7fsyp2zc1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6dd6d0afa35f9e849279f58e4ccd223d4ab5299
https://preview.redd.it/s3tu3fsyp2zc1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8849cf529460fdfb984be455e7841bf381b50f45

Cubecobra link with detailed description: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/jump-into-middle-earth-rebalanced
Overall I am happy with the first draft, however I would love to hear some opinions from veteran cube mantainers, since this is my first attempt at building a jumpstart cube.
I would say that the lists are 80% done: curves and slots are eyeball, I plan to go in deep on that as soon as the cards arrive.
I would appreciate some feedback on the general outline of the cube, to try to fix any glaring issues before the first playtest.
My main concerns are:

1. Mana bases: do I have enough fixing? Are mono vs bicolor manabases balanced in PL (taking landcyclers into account)?
   
2. Balancing: LTR is very skewed towards the color black and the amass mechanic, and that was evident with the original Arena lists too. I have modified or replaced some archetypes to attempt a rebalance, but I am in need of a reliable process to help me make balancing decisions.
   
3. Testing: How should I approach the first playtest? Of course I plan to take notes and collect feedback. Anything particular that i should pay attention to?
   
4. Gameplay: is the deck selection procedure fair?
   

Thank you in advance for your help!

A Minecraft clone, with a name something like "Cube Arena 3D". Takes place on multiple worlds I think, has RPG mechanics like money and levelling up stats. Might have crafting? Textures are very flat and simple, if any; I think the block textures are just flat colors with outlines. Game had guns. Worlds had cities on them sometimes, just made of grey blocks and mostly empty. The terrain blocks were mostly just flat grey, green, or red. Had trees with red trunks, I think. The game was probably free and I doubt it ever reached version 1.0. Game had monsters of course. Game was not very popular.

Cubecobra link with detailed description: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/jump-into-middle-earth-rebalanced
Overall I am happy with the first draft, however I would love to hear some opinions from veteran cube mantainers, since this is my first attempt at building a jumpstart cube.
I would say that the lists are 80% done: curves and slots are eyeball, I plan to go in deep on that as soon as the cards arrive.
I would appreciate some feedback on the general outline of the cube, to try to fix any glaring issues before the first playtest.
My main concerns are:

1. Mana bases: do I have enough fixing? Are mono vs bicolor manabases balanced in PL (taking landcyclers into account)?
   
2. Balancing: LTR is very skewed towards the color black and the amass mechanic, and that was evident with the original Arena lists too. I have modified or replaced some archetypes to attempt a rebalance, but I am in need of a reliable process to help me make balancing decisions.
   
3. Testing: How should I approach the first playtest? Of course I plan to take notes and collect feedback. Anything particular that i should pay attention to?
   
4. Gameplay: is the deck selection procedure fair?
   

Thank you in advance for your help!

I recently finished Sterling Mace's memoir and thoroughly enjoyed it. Mace was a rifleman of the K/3/5 company and fought in the Peleliu and Okinawa battles. I think the above part about Snafu summarizes how he was treated by the others in the company. I didn't quite understand why he never spoke to any of his war buddies after the war until he read Sledge's book but when I read what Sterling Mace had to say about him, it became quite clear that he was looked down upon and even hated by almost everyone (except Sledge) in the company. They were mean to him. That reason alone could be why he cut himself off from those people completely. Sledge was from a wealthy family yet he didn't make fun of him or look down upon him like the others did but became close friends with him at the time so this really made me think that Sledge was a great man above most of the people there. I loved Mace's book - it's now my second favorite of all the 5 or 6 books I've read written by Pacific war veterans - but he didn't come across as a very likeable person at all.

[Chapter 1] ; [Previous Chapter] ; [Discord + Wiki] ; [Patreon]
​
Chapter 165 – The moment a new kind of warfare began “Six stretches are confirmed, Ma'am,” a myiat Ensign called out into the communication network of the Mindihajai, watching the ship's sensors as it hovered within the space of the coreworld Gewelitten. “Estimated time of arrival about 20 uniform minutes.”
As she listened to the officer, Commander Jireynora chewed on the joints of one of her long fingers with her incisors, feeling how her tough yet loose skin glided along the flesh and bone underneath from the pressure of her teeth. Her almost copper-colored eyes were fixated onto the readings of the sensors she had on one of her own screens.
“We don't have permission to engage should they turn out hostile,” she then announced after taking her finger out of her mouth to do so in an authoritative tone. Still...she didn't like this at all. “However, get some of our hunters ready, just to be safe. And start on establishing a grid.”
“The humans have already done that, Ma'am,” another Ensign replied to her command, to Jireynora's surprise. A three-dimensional layout of the local space with flight-paths and orbits of all of its celestial bodies and debris appeared on a different screen of hers. Then, a moment later, the mentioned grid appeared within the established map, dividing it into even and easily marked and differentiated cubes that all had a unique designation. “We'll upload it into our ships and tell our pilots to be at the ready.”
Jireynora could only nod to herself. Humans worked fast.
“Remind them to familiarize themselves with the grid,” she then ordered, even though the reminder would hardly be necessary. Still, it was always better to say it one time too often than one too little.
In the boundless three-dimensional space of the void where there was no up or down, it was hard for pilots to orient themselves. Establishing a grid helped a lot with that, however that still wasn't even worth half as much if the first time the pilots actually saw the grid was only once they were already behind the damn steering.
She released a labored breath through her nose as she once again looked at the readings. For an invasion, this was certainly quite clumsy. Using a hyperspace of this length to approach was basically begging for trouble, since they could already detect it this long before their supposed opposition even arrived. A surprise attack was certainly out of the question. So what was the angle here..?
“Anything else our action-happy allies would like us to know?” she then asked over the line again, just to make sure she hadn't missed any other developments that the higher-class deathworlders were already putting into motion.
“No, Ma'am,” the Ensign replied, with a tone that gave Jireynora some pause, causing her ears to turn a bit more in the direction of her speakers as he continued. “Communication is a bit choppy at the moment. Seems like they have lost contact with their people on the ground.”
Jireynora's ears widened even more as one of them twitched for a moment. An attack on two fronts? Maybe the hyperspace was just a distraction? The humans' Admiral was down there, wasn't she?
“Are they requesting aid?” she wondered as her finger rose to her mouth again.
“Negative,” the Ensign replied relatively quickly, though his tone still suggested that he didn't quite know if he was happy with the information he provided. “They say they have it handled. Their suggestion to us is to focus on our own protection in case the arriving ships turn out to be hostile.”
Jireynora scoffed. 'Suggestion'. Very funny. Not like she wasn't supposed to take orders from the Admiral and Vice-Admiral in her current position. Sure, officially she was 'accompanying' them into this system as an ally and not under their direct command. But she wasn't an idiot. She knew there was a damn good reason that someone higher ranking than her hadn't been sent along on this trip.
“Very well, if they don't want our help, we're not going to force it on them,” she said with a dismissive sigh. Probably better that way anyway. She didn't have to waste her resources or her people. “In that case, keep a distance from whatever is arriving. And make sure the pilots are ready again.”
“Yes, Ma'am,” the Ensign replied. And after that, there was little more they could do but to wait and keep a close eye on their sensors.
The twenty minutes of estimated arrival time sure dragged on a lot as they weren't able to do anything. It didn't help that their allies weren't being very talkative at the time, barely communicating outside of important information and their own movements.
But ultimately, time did move linearly, and what was in motion would eventually arrive. They couldn't see the arriving ships yet, of course. On any visual sensors, the only thing visible was still the brightly shining ends of the hyperspace stretches that protruded into the system, glimmering in colors that one would not see during any other phenomenon. However, based on their distance, what they could see was currently still around eight minutes in the past as the light reflecting off the now arrived ships would have to travel a bit before it would reach their eyes and cameras.
But luckily, they had sensors that were a bit faster than visuals.
“Dispersal of the hyperspace-stretches confirmed, Ma'am,” her Ensign informed her about what she could already see on the sensors herself. A wave went through the fabric of space as the stretches instantly snapped back into their proper, original length once the generators keeping them stable had been deactivated – and just like the stretch itself, those ripples moved far faster than light.
Of course, nothing within the universe could move faster than light. However, that rule didn't apply to the universe itself – or even parts of it. After all, technically, they weren't 'in' the universe.
“Make sure to be ready to pin down the next stretch,” Jireynora ordered as she sat up a bit straighter in her Commander's seat. Whatever those ships wanted, they couldn't achieve it from this sort of distance. They would have to come closer if they wanted to do anything but talk. And she doubted they were only here to talk.
Then, she glanced over at another one of her screens, situated on the left side of her, slightly above her eye level. The screen still showed the established grid – as well as the positions of every ship they could currently pin down within it.
The U.H.S.D.F. cruisers 'Civil' and 'Of the Roses' were around the size of her own Mindihajai and had also kept their distance. The human's enormous flagship 'A place in the Sun' stuck a bit closer to the emerging stretches. It was a wild thought to have, but...given everything she had learned about human weaponry ever since their alliance had emerged some months ago, Jireynora almost suspected that the still quite unfathomable distance that the Atrocity-class kept from the arrival of their enemies may just have been its own effective firing range.
Most weapons were useless across distances like this that took even light itself minutes to travel, of course. However...the same wasn't necessarily true for the heat that the U.H.S.D.F. was packing.
Still, even the Sun wasn't exactly forming the front line here. No, that was formed by a long row of coluyvoree ships that made up a good part of the local defenses for this system. Jireynora counted a total of twenty ships of many different sizes but of very similar design. As all habitat-style ships, they were tube-shaped and had very little in terms of decorations on the outside. Still, their bright white color differentiated them quite firmly from the basically true-black, barely visible silhouettes of the human ships.
The largest ones were three battleships about half the size of the Sun. The next biggest were five destroyers that were about a third bigger than the cruiser she was Commanding. The coluyvoree also had cruisers. Ten of them. All slightly smaller than her Mindihajai. The last two appeared to be some sort of support ships. If she was honest, Jireynora didn't quite know what to make of them, since she wasn't familiar with the models at all. That kind certainly wasn't widely used among even the Communal Military.
A coluyvoree flagship was not among the defending ships, which was...odd considering they were so close to their homeworld. However, every species handled that sort of thing differently. There was most likely a flagship around somewhere, that was however not getting involved since the supposed attackers that were arriving there were already so wildly outnumbered here.
“Travel-sized hyperspace generation detected!” an Ensign suddenly called out, interrupting her thoughts. So they were indeed getting closer.
Jireynora scowled a bit. She had already seen the signals of the much thinner and smaller stretches that were sent out by the coluyvoree in an attempt at communication earlier. It seemed like negotiations had probably failed, considering they had not gotten any sort of 'crisis averted' from their supposed allies.
Of course, across a distance like this, hyperspace travel may as well have been instant in many cases, meaning they only had a few seconds or less to pin down where the ships would jump to once the generators fired up.
Though as Jireynora's tension built while she awaited whether they would lock onto the position in time, her eyes widened slightly and her teeth bit down onto her finger to the point that it was almost painful as a ping suddenly appeared on the grid she shared with her allies. That...had barely been a second. And the humans already had the location? How?
As she took a moment to silently wonder, her ship already reacted to jump away from the expected point of arrival while the coluyvoree forces did the exact opposite and turned their dangerous sides towards the emerging stretches that brightly outshone the local star for a moment as they emerged not far from their current position.
Jireynora's eyes narrowed as she watched things unfold. Six ships jumping this deeply into a defensive formation? Were they suicidal?
“Get us more distance. I don't like this,” she ordered with a grimace. High-class deathworlders were of course known to be a bit paranoid at times, especially the ones coming from planets with hyper-competitive evolution. But still...her instincts told her something bad was lurking in the bushes here. And she'd rather not become some feral hog's next meal today.
“Yes Ma'am,” the Lieutenant handling the ship's course confirmed.
“What about the humans?” she then wondered, directing the question at a different officer.
“Are holding their position, Ma'am,” the Ensign from earlier informed her directly. “Should I suggest they move as well?”
Jireynora thought for a moment but then slowly shook her head to herself.
“They know their tactics better than we do,” she said, feeling pretty confident that people from a class IV world, primates or not, would be able to recognize when something stank. “Focus on our own safety until they request our assistance.”
“Understood, Ma'am,” the Ensign confirmed.
With her eyes focused onto the screen showing the visual of the hyperspace-stretches, she caught just a glimpse of the ships emerging from them before all sensors went completely dark for a moment as the hyperspace of her own ship clouded them in complete darkness by all possible definitions of the word. As brightly as the phenomenon shone whenever you watched it from the outside, that spectacle of light didn't even come close to comparing to the complete and utter deprivation of everything that you found inside of it. Sometimes, the void of space was called empty but the true meaning of that word only became clear to those who had seen hyperspace from the inside.
Myiat didn't get void-sickness like so many other species when they looked upon the vacuum of space while moving within its clutches and yet...even someone as experienced as Commander Jireynora had to admit that her stomach did always start to tremble at least a bit whenever she saw all of her sensors go dark as the space outside of her windows turned into a flat sheet of complete blackness that may as well have been the true-black paint her allies' ships were coated in.
Luckily, their current repositioning was only relatively short. Not that Jireynora actually had any fear of hyperspace, but...she sure as hell didn't want to spend any more time in there than she absolutely had to.
Breaking back out into normal spacetime as the stretch dissolved, all sensors immediately sprung back into action, and the first thing Jireynora's eyes darted towards was the established grid that now quickly updated itself to everything that had occurred while it was temporarily blind.
The brief 'blink' had been enough for the coluyvoree ships to completely surround the new arrivals in a threatening sphere-formation while their human allies had made just enough room to not be in the way of that. The opposing sides were now close enough to each other to switch to regular frequencies for communication instead of needing to rely on hyperspace, meaning Jireynora could only guess if any sort of exchange was happening between the factions here, which really irked her.
Couldn't the damn tree-people at least keep them in the loop about stuff? Oh well, no use in getting angry over it to herself now...
A bit later, visuals started to reach them as well. Although things were still reaching them with a relative delay at this distance, the Mindihajai was still close enough to the events that were unfolding to at least see what was going on in a reasonable amount of time.
Jireynora had a stern look on her face as she watched the sphere of coluyvoree ships hover around the intruders in a restraining manner. Surely, their weapons were primed to take out the opposition's hyperspace-generators the moment the uninvited guests would attempt to jump again. They had well and truly maneuvered themselves into a tar pit with no escape. And yet...that still didn't really check out, did it? As they hovered there in the middle of that ball of death, the recently arrived ships themselves had in turn taken up their own semi-spherical position, guarding each others' backs as they faced the overwhelming odds they had brought against themselves.
“Correct me if I'm wrong, but...those are zodiatos ships, aren't they?” she then wondered aloud once she had taken a moment to really look at the visuals reaching her eyeballs there. The ships that had arrived were rather large. Of course, they had to be for such massive occupants. Their exterior was painted into a similar mossy gray-green as the proboscidea themselves tended to sport´. Though otherwise...they just looked like normal ships. Much unlike the human murdermachines she found herself in the company of, those 'attackers' certainly didn't sport the look of something that would simply barge into a defensive formation and expect to come out on top. However, exactly the fact that those things didn't look especially dangerous made the feline all the more worried. Also...what were zodiatos doing here in such a manner anyway? Weren't they one of the coluyvoree's closest allies?
Still, all they could do was wait and see what happened. Or maybe what had already happened, given the delay that was between the actual action and any sort of perceptible signal reaching their current position.
Maybe negotiations were actually still-
Jireynora grimaced as she couldn't even finish that thought before she saw one of the zodiatos ships taking a shot at one of the coluyvoree cruisers. The fight had already begun.
Looking into the past, Jireynora saw the cruiser quickly react to the shot as it did its best to evade the projectile coming its way at relativistic speeds. Of course, relativistic in this case only meant as much as 'worthy to be mentioned in the same sentence as light speed' without actually coming all that close to it. However, that was still plenty fast to be extremely hard to avoid.
As the stark-white coluyvoree cruiser tilted its axis out of the projectile's path, a large gash was still ripped into the armor of the ship, and Jireynora didn't need any confirmation to see that the hull had been breached. That meant decompression. That meant...the crew of at least one entire section of that ship was now dead.
Inside, she felt a brief sting for the lives that were just lost, however the feeling didn't quite manage to fully dominate her mind as another thought overwhelmed it entirely.
“One shot? They fired one shot!? Just what the hell is going on?!” was all that she could really think. Who the hell was surrounded and fighting back to back with their allies and fired one single shot? Was it just spite? That was the only explanation she could come up with. But even then, if they wanted to go out with a bang...wouldn't they at least all fire?
“Travel-sized hyperspace generation detected!” the ever-vigilant Ensign suddenly called out, noticing the sudden emergence of signals before Jireynora did as her eyes were affixed to the ongoing battle. “Multiple signals! Ten- Twe- Fif- thir- twenty..?” he paused briefly in his futile attempt to call out the number of signals as the signals reported by their systems were more alike to a frequency than any sort of constant value as they rose and dropped by sometimes multiple tens at a time each second, giving no clear indication just how many ships were actually in motion.
Jireynora's eyes darted from the heavily fluctuating number back to the visuals in pure confusion. Hyperspace? Why were hyperspace-stretches..?
Her eyes widened and her breathing stocked in her throat as her gaze fell upon the strange spectacle that had by now already occurred multiple moments ago, but was only now becoming visible to her and her crew.
Obviously, the coluyvoree had not taken the attack on one of their ships lying down and, after briefly moving to close their formation even further, had fired their own volleys of projectiles at the still unexplained zodiatos. Unlike their opponents, what they fired was far from a single shot, as an absolute rain of projectiles closed in on the ships trapped in the middle of the formation at speeds that were hard to comprehend for a mortal mind.
Of course the coluyvoree ships were positioned in such a way that none of them would be in the trajectory of one of their allies' canons in their current formation, however with the sheer volume of shots being fired, Jireynora couldn't deny that she felt a certain worry about accidental friendly fire occurring despite that. Ricochet was a thing, after all...
However, what she actually saw with her own eyes a moment later was far, far worse than simple friendly fire, and it stunned her to her very core, because what she saw there at that moment, it simply...defied explanation.
As the shots were already heading towards them to tear their ships to absolute shreds, the muddy green zodiatos made no motion to even try to evade the projectiles. No. Instead, they seemed to take shots of their own, firing back at the overwhelming force of the coluyvoree.
Another act of spite. It had to be, Jireynora thought. Simple defiance before the end would come. She could think of nothing else that it might be. And yet...
After they had been fired, the shots from the zodiatos' ships flew without anything strange happening for around 500 measures, behaving just like any other projectile would until suddenly...
Jireynora's eyes widened and her pupils constricted to pinpricks as they had to witness how the very fundamentals of what she thought she knew about warfare in space and the technology involved suddenly challenged.
After they had reached that certain 'safety distance' from their origin, the projectiles suddenly...'activated'. That was all she could call it really.
With a burst of light, the things suddenly illuminated the space around them, leaving them as hazy, barely perceptible spheres. For a second, Jireynora thought that those must've been the hyperspaces that they had picked up on, but that assumption quickly turned out to be so very false as the light of the projectiles slowly started to...extend around it.
Like a balloon slowly growing as you blew more and more air inside of it, the strange light began to stretch out into growing spheres around the projectiles as they hurled through the void. The expansion was so quick that soon enough, the entire group of invading ships was entirely enclosed by the enormous spheres of strange, hazy light.
The rain of shells fired by the coluyvoree crashed against this newly created...well, the best word that Jireynora could find for it was 'shield'. And to her utter horror, she now witnessed how the torrent of projectiles simply seemed to...fizzle...against this alien barrier, going up in sparks of light that didn't seem to leave as much as a scratch on the mind-boggling phenomenon before her.
Meanwhile, the 'shield' itself kept growing for just a bit longer, before its expansion suddenly ceased as the spheres had presumably reached their maximum size. By now, they were larger than some of the ships attacking them.
And just because their expansion had ceased, that by no means meant that their movement had also come to a halt. Separating from their briefly 'unified' state again, the massive balls of hazy who-knew-what-the-hell-it-was kept flying in the direction of the coluyvoree's surrounding sphere-formation.
Obviously, the local defense ships had already made moves to avoid the incoming projectiles from the moment they had been fired, however...those projectiles now suddenly were a thousand times larger than they had originally been when the evasive maneuvers had begun.
No amount of adjustment was going to make a difference now.
With terror taking a tight grip of her blood, all Jireynora could do was to bear witness as the hazy globes of destruction moved towards the white ships in what felt like slow-motion, their inevitable strike becoming clear a long time before it actually occurred.
The worst thing was that, in the back of her mind, she knew that what she saw was only a replay of the events. In reality, they had long hit their mark.
For a moment, the feline Commander almost wanted to look away. However, she knew that she couldn't. She couldn't avert her eyes from this...this historical event. Because she knew it. Like so many times in history, an entirely new kind of warfare had emerged yet again.
And as those so often did, it had decided to announce itself with a spectacle.
So...her eyes remained glued to the events that were unfolding as the first hazy spheres finally made contact with the ships they had been aimed at. Six shots. Eleven kills. It would've been twelve had one of the shots not seemingly been slightly off-center, missing just enough of the smaller of the two ships it had hurled towards to leave most of its bow-half intact.
All the other ones, however...
Whatever that hazy phenomenon was, it seemed to be packing an overwhelming amount of sheer force as it crashed against the ship's armor, denting it out of shape upon the first minuscule contact. And as if that wasn't horrifying enough, blunt force didn't seem to be all it brought to the table. Just like the projectiles that had fizzled against the haze earlier, the armor that came into contact with it so quickly began to glow, bubble, and melt that the only thing Jireynora's mind could equate the heat that must've been emitting from it at that moment to was the burning plasma of a star.
The coluyvoree ships stood absolutely no chance. Battered and broken and melted and...beaten...the remains of the eleven ships in the spheres' paths now floated through space as nothing but dead scrap that was fit only to serve as a graveyard for their former crews after the spheres had passed them.
Jireynora's eyes shot as wide open as they could and her gaze immediately snapped around a bit as she realized the destructive path of the attack had not ended with that first hit, and her eyes soon fell onto the pitch-black outline of her more closely allied ships that had decided to remain close to the proceedings. Were they still in range?
As her eyes darted from one ship to the next, she could feel every hair on her body stand up as she realized with horror that the massive 'A Place in the Sun' indeed found itself in the path of one of the spheres with only mere moments more time to react to it than the coluyvoree had at its current distance. And so far, it didn't look like the massive flagship had made even the tiniest movement to evade the shot.
With her claws digging into the armrest of her seat and her tail swaying as if it tried to batter her chair down, she stared wide-eyed as the hazy orb approached the Sun, hundreds of measures at a time. Then, her intense focus turned out to be a big mistake as suddenly, a flash of light of incredible brightness blinded her, stinging right into her eyes as a one of the hyperspace-stretches they had already detected long before this moment opened up, swallowing the Sun and moving the massive ship out of harm's way at a near-instant.
She quickly averted her gaze and painfully rubbed her eyes, doing her best to blink away the effects of what was basically a flashbang that had burned into her retinas.
After a few moments of painful concentration, she managed to get enough of the opaque orbs floating around in her vision to recede so that she could frantically glance up at the screen with her sensor-readings again.
She had seen one stretch there. So what was happening now that still made the number of signals look like someone was trying to draw a sine-graph with their values?
–
With a deep bellow escaping from his chest, all four of Congloarch's fiery eyes were dead focused on the sudden...thing...he was seeing in front of him. Mere moments ago, thunder-like sounds of explosions had erupted all throughout this facility that he had found himself locked up in for a long while, and not a few seconds later, there air itself seemed to have suddenly become...
Well, he couldn't quite describe it. As much as the tonamstrosite strained his eyes, he couldn't make heads or tails of what he saw.
A strange haze seemed to have spread throughout the facility, moving so quickly that its spread was basically impossible to follow before it already arrived in his close proximity, stopping just before it came dangerously close.
What was it? He had no idea. There was no visual indication. It was just...a haze. Almost as if an incredibly hot fire was burning just underneath it, distorting the air. He inhaled deeply through his nose. There was no smell to it. Now that the loud thundering was over, it also seemed to make no sound. Or...at least no sound loud enough to be audible over the ringing in the lizartaurs ears.
After the strange haze had approached them, he was using his tail to hold back Moar, who had seemed to have gotten quite the fright at the sudden eruption of noise.
He didn't know if the old lady had any desire to try and approach this strange...phenomenon...however he wasn't going to take chances.
Suddenly, there was a piercing shriek somewhere nearby. It was hard to tell where. The sound seemed to only come through the walls of the building itself instead traveling louder through the hallways like one would expect. Congloarch's eyes narrowed at the strange haze even more. Was it blocking sound somehow?
Either way...muffled as it was, he knew that voice. And if Admiral Krieger was shrieking in pain...then there truly must've been trouble.
Still holding the rafulite back from doing the same with his long tail, the tonamstrosite began to slowly approach the strange haze, careful to keep his momentum and all of his limbs in check.
Once he was within reach, the armored titan then released another low bellow, contemplating for a moment longer before slowly and carefully reaching out one of his claws in the direction of the haze.
He only touched it with the very tip of the claw, which was supposed to be nothing but dead keratin. Yet still, he had to jolt his hand back instantly as a burning pain shot through his entire arm, as if a white-hot needle had been rammed straight through its entire length instantly.
As one of his eyes shot to look down at his hand, the tip of his claw was gone, leaving nothing but a flattened, scorch-mark riddled stump behind.
Releasing a deep hiss and very glad that he had not tried to touch it with any more important part of his body, Congloarch quickly retreated from the haze again, deciding not to mess with whatever this was.
“What in goodness' name...” Moar mumbled as she, too, stared at the unexplainable occurrence. It didn't seem like, in all her years, she had ever seen anything even remotely like it. And Congloarch could not claim any more experience of his own on that front.
This was something new. Something...alien.
“What do we do?” Moar then quickly snapped her attention around, looking at Congloarch directly with wide-open eyes. Immediately, her claw began to nervously comb through her fur as she spoke. “Admiral Krieger sounded like she was in deep peril!”
Congloarch could only grunt through his long teeth.
“What can we do?” he wondered both aloud and to himself. Whatever this was...there seemed to be no getting through it. They were lucky they hadn't gotten caught in the path of its expansion. “I don't think-”
His word was cut off as suddenly, the haze just...vanished. Before his very eyes. Disappeared like it had never been there in the first place. Well...that was if one ignored the path of destruction it had left.
Congloarch's mouth remained hanging open for a long moment.
Was it...over?
His question was answered when suddenly, the sound of a new explosion echoed through the halls. However this one sounded a lot more...'traditional' than the ones he had heard before the haze had so suddenly begun to spread.
To him, it sounded like a breaching-charge. It seemed like someone had decided to grant themselves entrance.
This...probably wasn't over.

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Belo led them through a tunnel, past a large door, covered by rubble. They cleared it, then continued through. Sarah had heard them when they landed, disturbing her expedition site, and because of curiosity, she decided to tag along.
"Where are we going?" She asked the Chief.
He looked back at her, as he led the way, with a brightly lit fireball in his palms. "A place only permitted on special permits and a site for pilgrimage for some. There used to be a second entrance, but it was destroyed during the invasion. It is called the Armaya."
Cobwebs lined the walls, as geckos, mice, and other small insects scurried around the descending tunnel. There was a sharp turn, then a left. After a dozen more meters, they stopped, at a large room. Dimly lit, by a faint ray of light. However, just before they entered, Tobi helped Belo light the room.
They were shocked by the ancient drawings and glyphs, fading around the room. In the middle, was a black cube taking up about a fifth of the room and glowed with the glyphs of ancient writing, on all four sides. as if placed there intentionally.
The cube had streams of lava, flowing through its cracks, like a network of rivers. On the cube's surface were writings, written in foreign handwriting and ink. The entire cube seemed to shimmer every so often. At the bottom right of it, a fist-sized hole, outlined by a black metal and cushion-like casing, seemed placed there at the last minute, throwing off the whole aesthetic.
"Woah! No way something like this is down here. Sarah, we gotta take a picture of this." Tobi tried reading what was on the cube, but it was written in an ancient language. He looked at his brother, squinting his eyes at the texts on the massive cube. "Can you read this?"
Osei shook his head. "I can, but it's written in very old writing, making it hard for me to interpret."
Tobi looked once more at the cube. The words started to translate slowly into English, with the help of his contacts. Belo walked in front of both of them, then called Sarah's attention, who was busy, taking professional pictures of the entire room.
"If I may... These texts are from, ancient times. Last updated about 2 million years ago." Belo, started, once they were all ready.
Tobi, Osei, and Sarah were shocked. Sarah spoke up, in disbelief. "How's that possible? The earliest writing system, for our species, wasn't developed until 3500 B.C.E, with the Sumerian Cuneiform, also, what material can survive for that long? Are you saying, there were civilizations, capable of passing down complex knowledge as far as 2 million years ago?"
Belo smiled. "All I know is what's been deciphered, through these texts." He touched the stone, as his handprint showed up, then disappeared. "These stones were not only meant to pass down knowledge but also to warn of the Dark One. A being, that wiped out the ancient empire and broke up the galaxy."
Tobi shook his head. "The Dark One. Why am I hearing so much about them? Shouldn't it be dead by now?"
Belo shook his head and chuckled. "Some believe it to be a fable or a myth but the Dark One is not a creature of the earth like us, or the children of Atlas. It is said to be roaming the universe, hoping to make itself whole once more."
He sensed more questions incoming but raised his finger to continue. "There's more. Before its destruction, the leaders of the ancient kingdom constructed these cubes, called Keystones, made out of versillium, blood, and other contents lost through time, all to preserve these texts and lead the chosen ones, to the Alcore. A supposed piece and important part of the dark ones soul, that can grant the owner immense power and any of their wishes."
He paused to take a breath and walked over to the hole on the bottom right of the cube. Before he could speak, Tobi blurted out. "There's no way, we got all of this, just from one cube?"
Belo laughed, lightly. "No. I've been interested in ancient history since I was a child. Rennayan historians and archeologists got together, with scientists from other planets and because of those nations, sharing their keystones, we were able to piece together and maintain the true history."
He pointed at the hole. "Those chosen by the people must gather at least 200 keystones. Of which, 10, like this one, will lead you to the Alcore."
Saphyra was baffled by all of this information. She was surprised that there was no mention of the keystones in any hard drives that they had seized from the children of Atlas. As well as from her future self.
"That must be Atlas's goal. Picking out 200 guardians, like his children for the keystones." She said, after mulling things over.
Belo nodded at her words. "It's possible since your followers will have to trust and believe in you, to want to thrust their arms inside, to unlock the seal for the Alcore."
Osei stepped back in disbelief. How had he gone on for so long, without such knowledge?
Jelani was ecstatic to hear all of this, once again, but she had never been down below, to personally see the keystone. She was entranced by its design and constant glow.
Tobi walked closer to it. Almost able to read about sixty percent of texts written across the stone. "Wow, if this was all part of some book, it would be an epic for the ages."
A voice paralyzed them, from up above. "A true epic, it would be indeed."
Descending slowly out of the hole, letting out the faint ray of light, was a being they dreaded facing this early on. Atlas, the Cerian Emperor had arrived...
Notes:
This chapter is probably the shortest in the book, will post another later today.
Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system in the world. Used from 3400 BCE to 100 CE.
Previous First Chapter Next

Previous First Chapter Next
Belo led them through a tunnel, past a large door, covered by rubble. They cleared it, then continued through. Sarah had heard them when they landed, disturbing her expedition site, and because of curiosity, she decided to tag along.
"Where are we going?" She asked the Chief.
He looked back at her, as he led the way, with a brightly lit fireball in his palms. "A place only permitted on special permits and a site for pilgrimage for some. There used to be a second entrance, but it was destroyed during the invasion. It is called the Armaya."
Cobwebs lined the walls, as geckos, mice, and other small insects scurried around the descending tunnel. There was a sharp turn, then a left. After a dozen more meters, they stopped, at a large room. Dimly lit, by a faint ray of light. However, just before they entered, Tobi helped Belo light the room.
They were shocked by the ancient drawings and glyphs, fading around the room. In the middle, was a black cube taking up about a fifth of the room and glowed with the glyphs of ancient writing, on all four sides. as if placed there intentionally.
The cube had streams of lava, flowing through its cracks, like a network of rivers. On the cube's surface were writings, written in foreign handwriting and ink. The entire cube seemed to shimmer every so often. At the bottom right of it, a fist-sized hole, outlined by a black metal and cushion-like casing, seemed placed there at the last minute, throwing off the whole aesthetic.
"Woah! No way something like this is down here. Sarah, we gotta take a picture of this." Tobi tried reading what was on the cube, but it was written in an ancient language. He looked at his brother, squinting his eyes at the texts on the massive cube. "Can you read this?"
Osei shook his head. "I can, but it's written in very old writing, making it hard for me to interpret."
Tobi looked once more at the cube. The words started to translate slowly into English, with the help of his contacts. Belo walked in front of both of them, then called Sarah's attention, who was busy, taking professional pictures of the entire room.
"If I may... These texts are from, ancient times. Last updated about 2 million years ago." Belo, started, once they were all ready.
Tobi, Osei, and Sarah were shocked. Sarah spoke up, in disbelief. "How's that possible? The earliest writing system, for our species, wasn't developed until 3500 B.C.E, with the Sumerian Cuneiform, also, what material can survive for that long? Are you saying, there were civilizations, capable of passing down complex knowledge as far as 2 million years ago?"
Belo smiled. "All I know is what's been deciphered, through these texts." He touched the stone, as his handprint showed up, then disappeared. "These stones were not only meant to pass down knowledge but also to warn of the Dark One. A being, that wiped out the ancient empire and broke up the galaxy."
Tobi shook his head. "The Dark One. Why am I hearing so much about them? Shouldn't it be dead by now?"
Belo shook his head and chuckled. "Some believe it to be a fable or a myth but the Dark One is not a creature of the earth like us, or the children of Atlas. It is said to be roaming the universe, hoping to make itself whole once more."
He sensed more questions incoming but raised his finger to continue. "There's more. Before its destruction, the leaders of the ancient kingdom constructed these cubes, called Keystones, made out of versillium, blood, and other contents lost through time, all to preserve these texts and lead the chosen ones, to the Alcore. A supposed piece and important part of the dark ones soul, that can grant the owner immense power and any of their wishes."
He paused to take a breath and walked over to the hole on the bottom right of the cube. Before he could speak, Tobi blurted out. "There's no way, we got all of this, just from one cube?"
Belo laughed, lightly. "No. I've been interested in ancient history since I was a child. Rennayan historians and archeologists got together, with scientists from other planets and because of those nations, sharing their keystones, we were able to piece together and maintain the true history."
He pointed at the hole. "Those chosen by the people must gather at least 200 keystones. Of which, 10, like this one, will lead you to the Alcore."
Saphyra was baffled by all of this information. She was surprised that there was no mention of the keystones in any hard drives that they had seized from the children of Atlas. As well as from her future self.
"That must be Atlas's goal. Picking out 200 guardians, like his children for the keystones." She said, after mulling things over.
Belo nodded at her words. "It's possible since your followers will have to trust and believe in you, to want to thrust their arms inside, to unlock the seal for the Alcore."
Osei stepped back in disbelief. How had he gone on for so long, without such knowledge?
Jelani was ecstatic to hear all of this, once again, but she had never been down below, to personally see the keystone. She was entranced by its design and constant glow.
Tobi walked closer to it. Almost able to read about sixty percent of texts written across the stone. "Wow, if this was all part of some book, it would be an epic for the ages."
A voice paralyzed them, from up above. "A true epic, it would be indeed."
Descending slowly out of the hole, letting out the faint ray of light, was a being they dreaded facing this early on. Atlas, the Cerian Emperor had arrived...
Notes:
This chapter is probably the shortest, will post another later today.
Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system in the world. Used from 3400 BCE to 100 CE.
Previous First Chapter Next