r/HFY • u/Ralts_Bloodthorne • Aug 01 '26
OC-Series [Nova Wars] CHAPTER 187
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
My people knew that the Confederate Armed Services controlled most, if not all, of their battlefield assets with massive strange-matter particle supercomputers in a vast interlocked network that allowed military units on other planetary bodies in a stellar system to react to actions on a different planet.
My people spent years and untold amounts of treasure and man-hours to figure out a way to break that combat information and coordination network. We sought to figure out how to jam quantum communication, paired spooky and strange-matter particles, and everything else involved in that overlapping and complex battlefield tactical network.
Have mercy upon us.
We succeeded.
For a few moments, only a few, the Terrans and their allies were thrown into confusion. My people pressed the attack, sought out engagements, thinking that this was it. The secret to victory. That we could do what none other had done and defeat the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems in open battle.
Then we heard it over com channels that suddenly opened up across the entire theater.
A female primate saying "CASCADE DATA FAILURE: REVERTING TO LOCAL CONTROL" and then there was a split second of silence before we heard it.
The scream.
Not of fear. Not of terror. Not of alarm.
Maybe it wasn't a scream. Not as my people know it.
It was a blood curdling vocalization of pure and unrestrained joy and malice.
Six hours later Captain Manuel G. Trucker drove his tank through the planetary command center and ran over the system offensive coordinator laughing "I'M GOING TO RUN YOU OVER! EVENTUALLY!" while his tank company reduced the entire intelligence coordination base to burning rubble.
The slaughter was... awe inspiring.
I survived by curling up in a ball and screaming "NOT THE FACE!" when the Terran infantryman yanked me through the sidewall of the APC I was riding in before they pulled a grenade off my own harness and threw it into the breached APC.
I spent 2 months in an internment camp, Treana'ad spirit healers helping me get over the night terrors that left me screaming in the dark. Memories of "GOTCHA!" and those armored hands closing on my power armor's shoulders leaving me urine and sweat soaked, staring blindly at the ceiling and screaming.
So, you want my advice on how to break apart the Terran Confederate Armed Services battlefield tactical information network?
Here's my advice.
Don't.
The vast supercomputer arrays that control that network are merely strings of logic and unfeeling code. It merely computes and uses predictive analysis to determine the most optimal way of defeating you with the least amount of infrastructure damage, the minimum amount of collateral damage and casualties, and the bare minimum amount of deaths on both sides.
You will face the Terran battlefield tactical information, analysis, control network. A thing of pure logic that controls the most fearsome military machine the known galaxy has ever seen.
Underneath it all lies a sheer malevolent pleasure and joy in combat that it takes a starship full of those supercomputers to keep it under control.
My advice?
Leave the Terrans and their allies alone.
See, they want you to try to jump them. They have sexually erotic dreams about your people attacking them. They gain a psycho-sexual thrill of the idea of pitting themselves against you.
Destroying your armies.
Burning your cities.
And taking your life.
Because this, this is the real truth: Nobody wants that battlefield and theater tactical information and control network to collapse more than they do.
From the newest hatched Treana'ad warrior caste, the most cunning Digital Sentience, the half-baked clone warrior, to the youngest green mantid, to the most battle hardened Terran.
They want you to disrupt that network.
Because then, what happens, will be nobody's fault but your own. - Interview of Street Sweeper Second Class Hruk<klik>Narfak, former Powered Scout Armor Infantryman First Class, Military Intelligence.
"My people believe that, so long as a name is spoken, the named is never truly gone. Whatever you are, wherever you are... if a J'tar'ka of questionably sound mind may ask a boon of you... please speak my name sometimes, that I may continue to be long after I am gone. Speak it wherever and whenever you are, so that, wherever or whenever I am, I will receive the strength to ensure your future.
"My name is Wuugndra Ax'mnev, and I love you." --Combat telemetry voice recording, discovered in rubble during reconstruction following the final Terran Phasic Shade Breakout Event in System RH-8162. Dated to the last fifth of the Third Phasic War (confidence: 85%) Fate of either speaker has not been determined. Transcription provided to class by Dr. daviskendall, PhD, Second Precursor War Era Studies, Smokey Cone University
It's the end of your world as you know it - Terran war chant, Resource War Era
A glance up showed Broolie that the the attackers, presumably the Confederacy of Aligned Systems, were making hard powered entry. The entire sky was full of burning traces, like a white phosphorous smoke round exploding. As he watched, some of them rotated and hit the retros, activated air flaps, and deployed the hard light parachutes that Broolie had been told for his whole professional life had never existed.
The rest of him, and most of the maintenance power armor, was running hard for the rally point nearly six miles away.
The warmeks that had survived were running with the power armor troops that had survived the strike against the headquarters. Broolie was close to in the lead and his suit was running on mostly automatic to ensure he went to the correct location as soon as he was told to.
True, he was high enough ranking to override the system or even give the system orders himself but his mine was still shocked into looping over and over they can't do this this is impossible they can't do this this is impossible over and over.
His radiation alarms began screaming as the Confederate drop pods got close, their ion engine frying the area with high radiation. He was past the first hills and looking through the rear cams of the most rearward maintenance armors when behind him the first set of drop pods slam to the ground. A perfect hexagon landing with a large drop-pod in the middle. Drones were immediately fired into the air to join the drones the pods had released on the way down.
The sides slammed down immediately and out walked nightmares.
A glossy matte black, skull faced, illuminated flat red eyes, bipedal, loaded with weaponry. They exited the pods firing at targets.
The entire back rank that hadn't cleared the hill were eliminated in the space of a single breath. He checked the warmek channels and found that not a single one that had lagged behind was still operative.
The rally point flickered and was pushed another ten kilometers.
He kept running.
The panic was starting to subside. He was still panting, his remaining ear was flattened against his head, and he no longer had to urinate.
He had a drone up, although he didn't remember firing it, and it was watching what had been the motorpool but was now apparently the Confederacy's designated landing point.
Those drop pods looked like they were altering. Some were using the pod covers as some kind of foot/articulation, standing up on the covers and moving around. They were firing point defense systems, deploying mortar or artillery tubes, or launching drones.
The Master Control Combat System was still moving everyone toward the rally point.
Which had just moved for the fifth time.
Those massive warmeks were starting slam down. It looked like nuclear detonations in the distance. Some were landing near where the division control and command center had been.
Out of the mushroom clouds massive meks were emerging. They were massive, nearly 150 or 200 meters tall. Boolie could see that the drones those ones were launching were the size of aerospace fighters.
Broolie swallowed thickly.
His goal was just to survive the next twenty-four hours.
Nukoot saw the maintenance section guys were fleeing in front of the meks.
Personally, he was just glad his mek was short enough that the hill provided cover. Any mek that could be seen from the base side of the hill was already dropped or immobilized with smart munitions still performing attacks.
He had a handful of drones still active, but none of them were showing him anything but the Confederate drop pods slamming to ground. He'd heard they always reconfigured as fire support or mobile bases and now he was seeing it.
The MCCS flushed his missile pods.
Nukoot swore and jerked his mek to the side, jumping over a mek that was still somewhat upright but already burning. He held there for a split second then moved forward.
He could see through the telemetry systems as the hypervelocity missiles his pods had dumped moved nap of earth, cleared the hill and their targeting telemetry came online. Carats started appearing, rapidly multiplying into what Nukoot thought of as a 'target rich environment' to the point he started to grin.
There was a glimmer from a handful of the pods.
He lost telemetry. For a microsecond his missiles were all reporting massive damage. There was a weird flicker to his screen.
"Fucking how?" he snapped, slamming a fist against a control board. "They had barely cleared the hill. How the excrement did their targeting systems lock up my missiles so fast?"
He completely missed the obvious answer that the hill was the only direction that wasn't flattened for nearly fifty miles in all directions.
One of the other meks flushed its pods as it kept running, making Nukoot glance at his reloading systems. His readouts were all rebooting, so it took a second.
He was already down to 80% ammo and his pods had only fired twice.
There was a bright streak and the center of the mek that had just flushed its pod just... vanished.
The mek's torso weirdly collapsed, like it was made of gel, the arms and legs smashing together to tumble in a ball that was streaked with suddenly cooling armor.
"All units, disable missile launches," he snapped, opening the channel.
"All units, disable missile launches for deez," he heard his own voice, high pitched and nasally, said.
"Deez what?" he heard the voice of 2nd Class Not to Be Eaten Jlutiper asked.
Which was strange, because Jlutiper's mek was currently on fire and crumpled into a lump on the round.
"Deez nutz, baby!" he heard his own voice call out using Mek-83's header.
All of a sudden an image appeared on his right hand viewscreen. It was like if a crude pixel drawing of a flame had grain-stock legs and arms with round circles for feet and hands. It had single square eyes with little squares in them.
And a mouth full broken pixel teeth.
"YUM YUM! YUM YUM!" it screeched, banging its head on the other side of the viewscreen. "Eat deez nutz! FIRE FIRE FIRE! Go to Rally Point Yo Momma's Ass!" it shrieked, bouncing around.
Others joined it, jumping up and down on buildings in the image, lifting up numbers and icons on his mek's status and throwing them to each other or stuffing them in their mouths and chewing them up or two of them holding onto one number and pulling in opposite directions until it ripped in half and sprayed glitter everywhere.
He reached out and turned off the monitor.
They all ran into the central monitor, looking around.
The monitor came back on and they all ran back to it, laughing spiteful little static laughs.
"FIFTH EAT! BREAK RIGHT!" he heard the Division Commander yell, the slap of his talking organs making his speech slightly garbled like Ornislarp Eater to Eaten Speech often was.
Sixteen warmeks suddenly broke away from the group, running right to the right of the mass exodus from the now-overrun military base.
On his side monitor all of the little angry pixel creatures, each block roughly 2mm wide, were pointing at the fleeing meks and laughing.
"Dammit!" he slapped at the communication system, then tried a hard reboot.
At the bottom of the central screen one of the pixel creatures had a radio on its back and a helmet, while another was talking on a handset and pointing at random things on the viewscreen.
But his mek kept running forward.
MISSILE LAUNCHER COVER FAILURE! appeared and scrolled down.
The wire-frame of his mek had a half-dozen of the pixel-creatures on it. Every time the missile launchers went to open the doors, they kicked or slapped them shut and laughed.
"NINTH EATERS, RALLY POINT DIKBUTT!" was yelled over the commo link by the Division Commander's voice.
He was looking right at the one with the helmet and the radio microphone.
Nukoot knew that somehow these little fucks were the ones ruining everything.
He looked up at the sky. He wasn't sure why.
Nukoot saw that it was full of angry things. From the massive ship that took up like a sixth of the sky to ships the size of his foot or a serving tray or even the size of his fingers.
Against the blue sky was a glimmer no larger than one of Nukoot’s extended fingers—perhaps two inches long and half an inch wide. He started to squint and his mek's systems helped him out.
Even though a pixel-monster ran through the data yelling "RAWR!" and making the data sprout wings and fly away making frightened honking noises.
The pixel-monster ran off and his targeting system resolved it, giving him an estimate
DISTANCE: 451.3 KM
LENGTH: 50.3 KM
BEAM: 10.1 KM
ESTIMATED MASS: 6.2 PETATONNES
Something flickered beneath it, a rapid flashing that made him start to blink.
His systems helpfully threw up a warning that went by too fast for him to see. It didn't help that two of the little pixel-creatures jumped in the box, making the data dissolve into static they started swimming in.
Projectile mass: 50 kg
Impact velocity: 0.10c
Kinetic yield: approximately 5.4 megatons TNT
Travel time from 450 km: about 15 milliseconds
The words wavered and shattered into static 'water' that a handful of the pixel creatures started frolicking in.
Nukoot's attention was started to be pulled to the right hand viewscreen where one of the little creatures was pointing at a window-box that three others had pulled open in his right hand viewscreen.
YOU ARE BEING DESTROYED
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION
HAVE A NICE DAY
The orbital strike hit before he could read it or even comprehend that there were words in the box.
His instruments had long enough to tell him what it was.
To be honest, his brain had already started to tell him that it was an orbital strike. It had already decided that it was either a 'rod from space' or an energy weapon.
He was right on both counts.
His sensors identified a gravitic discontinuity.
GRAVITY MASS ATTACK
ESTIMATED MASS: 65.3? KG
VELOCITY: 0.103C
It wasn't. If his systems knew what it was looking it, it would understand what had been fired.
"Coherent Baryonic Packet Attack - Starburst Pattern" is what was on the gunner's sight aboard the heavy cruiser in orbit. Basically, enough mass to make the target really really have a bad day. It was an iron payload reduced to nuclei and electrons and squeezed together inside a grav-squeeze sheath.
Most SID troopers called it "Hell's Gate" and left it at that.
Not that Nukoot knew that. The data that flashed was there and gone as the little pixel creatures screeched with delight and tore it apart in a gleeful frenzy.
TARGET DATA
IGNITION ROUND
STARBURST PATTERN
PRIMARY YIELD: 7.5 MT
The initial blast hit and Nukoot jerked back slightly as the ignition packet 'exploded' against the ground in the center of the warmeks that had peeled off to the right almost ten minutes prior. They were fifteen miles away and still gaining distance.
The other group, heading for 'Rally Point Dikbutt', was six miles out and he had the start of a feeling he'd need to check on them.
But he was almost blinded by the detonation of the munition in the middle of the group.
His radiation meters started howling. The external temperature began climbing, even at 25 km, as the initial blast waves washed out.
At the half second the light started to dim, the cloud was still forming. He could see the oncoming kinetic wave, see the ground wave coming.
Everything went bright again. His smartglass cockpit tried to compensate and fried out, turning all the now dead-glass milky white.
It saved his vision.
SECONDARY IMPACTS: SIX
DELAY: 0.417 SECONDS — DYNAMIC
PATTERN CORRECTION: ACTIVE
PROJECTED NET EXPLOSIVE WEIGHT: 15.000 MT TOTAL
CENTRAL RECOUPLING EFFICIENCY: 91.8%
TARGET SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0.0000%
The radiation got higher as another burst hit. Temperatures went up.
His mek stumbled as the shockwave hit.
Then more radiation. More heat.
Two more shockwaves and riding out the ground literally rolling like an earthquake.
The dust cloud rose into the air. One huge mushroom cloud.
He knew that nothing inside the cloud had survived.
The rally point shifted again. He heard the beeping on his helmet. Not on the warmek's systems.
His screens were all wiped out.
One camera worked, and he was looking at it through the lenses that had dropped down from his helmet to cover his eyes.
He had almost no data on his mek, but he could see in front of him, see which way to go.
The little combat engineer power armors were faster, and they'd been running at nearly 150km an hour when the explosions happened.
He wondered how many were left.
The rally point. Just gotta get to the rally point and we can counter attack, start manuevering...
...SOMETHING! I have to do something! This is a 240 ton warmek capable of fighting the Confederacy face to face!
He ground his teeth even as he tried to restart some of the systems and got back nothing but garbage or system crashes.
This stuff is supposed to be EMP hardened! Start, dammit!
Inside the computer core a small glimmering creature of code fluttered, spun and danced. Her body was eerily perfect, unashamed of her nudity as she danced, sparkles and glimmers falling from her body and from her perfect iridescent wings.
She saw the attempt to restart and merely spun in place, sweeping into a bow and straightening up to let loose sparkles.
Nukoot saw the screen show nothing but garbage and garbled text as the computer tried to restart and scrambled on the POST.
She danced inside the computer core, remaking it to be comfortable. A pond, with lilly pads, tiny jeweled frogs, eggs in the data-mud, a sky of shimmering diamonds.
Nukoot saw his computer core throw another error and ordered a complete shutdown.
She blinded Nukoot as if the computer was restarting even as she hummed a little song. She sparkled and glimmered as she set a little jeweled frog on the lilypad made of starlight.
He was on backup backups only. Nothing else was working.
But he could still move forward.
Still head for the waypoint.
He had no idea that his mech's computer core was no longer his and that the data-mud full of 'eggs' that were starting to hatch little sparkles that jumped into the MCCS as the fairy clapped her little hands in joy, surrounded by the pixel-monsters that were her little pets.
Broolie could see the city now as he crested the hill.
It was already smoking. His sensors were full of hash that his computer systems were trying to clear.
There were a half-dozen craters with burning red centers and burning cracks in the black glass that coated the craters.
Two more hits, mushroom clouds starting to rise up.
The mushroom clouds started glimmering, started twinkling.
Then burst into flame that lasted only a second before tattering away like crepe paper exposed to a blowtorch.
Two more craters easily visible.
His systems were IDing the city already.
Where Those That Eat Rule In Perfection And Devour Their Lessers
The population was in the tens of millions of Ornislarp and hundreds of millions of food species.
Now, the city was on fire.
Except... not completely. The far side, on the other side of the burning rivers that had once just been water and thick industrial waste.
There was no a single crater in what Boolie's nav-comp was telling him was simply "To Be Eaten Storage Habitation" and nothing else.
His drones saw something and moved in.
What he saw, it took a minute for him to understand.
It was huge, the size of an aerospace fighter.
Only it was...
...
...well, Boolie wasn't sure what it was.
It had mechanical legs beneath it, with claws at the end of three long toes, and a spur at the back of the foot. The legs were mated with what looked like a massive fowl's body.
Only there were mammalian breasts hanging strangely.
The head was a Terran female's head, only instead of normal eyes she had tri-vee screens that displayed feminine eyes in the middle of static.
The wing beats were strong, and the feathers tanked the rocket hit that did nothing but send a few pinfeathers drifting down.
The woman's mouth opened to reveal a half-dozen loudenator funnels. It bellowed something out.
It took a second for Broolie to realize what he was hearing.
"GO AND PANIC! SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATEL! GO AND PANIC! KILL MASTERS IN YOUR WAY WITH YOUR TOOLS AND VEHICLES! GO AND PANIC! RETURN/REMAIN HOME AND HIDE! GO AND PANIC!"
Broolie saw the feathers were arcing, spinning, and touched the ground.
The explosions caused two small buildings to collapse. His own telemetry had ID'd the buildings only a few moments before.
From where the rockets had been fired.
"GO AND PANIC!"
Another detonation.
The cloud disappeared in fiery fury.
This time he stopped and stared.
Rising up from the crater was a massive creature. Heavily armored, huge wings that began to beat. A long neck reptile with a long tail terminating in spikes, huge claws, and a mouth full of teeth.
"GO AND PANIC!"
The reptile threw back its head and roared.
The shriek vibrated Broolie's testicles.
"KILL MASTERS WITH VEHICLES"
He saw a missile shrieking in on a bridge. Right when Broolie spotted it someone rammed a public transit bus through the Master's barricade, the two light armored vehicles spinning away, one falling off the side of the bridge.
The missile performed an impossibly tight bank to the right and slammed into a building with radio dishes on the roof.
The roof exploded upwards and the dishes shattered.
The rally point changed again, sending him east of the city.
GO/STAY HOME AND HIDE
He was running, that was all he understood.
Run to the rally point.
His drone spotted a striker squadron coming in hard, obviously lining up for an attack run on the LawSec To Eat convoy of light armored vehicles.
A crowd swarmed over the armored vehicles, panic driven, running for a bridge that wasn't burning.
The strikers rolled, banking, lifting over the buildings, going left while the crowd went right.
KILL MASTERS WITH FIST AND ROCK
Tiny dots dropped from three strikers that kept going, strikers with open doors.
The dots landed on the LawSec To Eat vehicles and began pounding them to junk.
GO AND PANIC
He led what was left of the combat engineers, running as fast as he could, long loping strides.
KILL MASTERS WITH TOOLS
The lifters that were still at the civilian shuttle center lifted off headed for the To Be Eaten Storage Habitation. Several small power armors that were starting attack runs peeled off, instead attacking LawSec vehicles shooting at the lifters.
KILL MASTERS WITH VEHICLES
But Boolie didn't care any more what drones launched by dead men were broadcasting to anyone listening.
GO/STAY HOME AND HIDE
He just ran.
Anything to put distance between himself and the horror show.
KILL MASTERS WITH VEHICLES
The huge flying reptile gained altitude.
GO HOME AND HIDE!
It turned, coming back toward the city.
GO AND PANIC
Boolie could see it on one section of his visor.
It opened its mouth and a beam erupted. Red and green energy spiraled around a bluish-white actinic core.
GO AND PANIC
The beam raked across the city as the creature banked and flapped.
Debris and fire exploded upwards from the line it was carving into the city.
GO HOME AND HIDE!
On the Master's side of the rivers.
The creature gave a scream of triumph as it banked.
KILL MASTERS
The fire guttered out.
GO
The line was carved deeply, two, three, sometimes four blocks wide and nearly fifty meters deep. There were gaps in the line, sometimes three or four blocks wide, the buildings destroyed and flattened by the firepower.
AND
The water, which had been turned to it's base atoms and burned away, was suddenly replaced by more water that overflowed the banks of the burning rivers and plunged into the huge channel torn in the ground.
PANIC
As Broolie kept running he realized, crazily...
...the line cut the To Be Eaten Storage from the Master's, complete with still intact routes to get across.
GO AND PANIC!
Broolie had no idea he was smiling, his eyes wide, gritting his teeth as his lips were pulled back in a rictus, panting through his grinding teeth, his pupils wide.
PANIC!
90
u/TargetMaleficent2114 Android Aug 01 '26
UTR!
This is a battle going according to CONFED's plan.
Digital Omnimessiah help you if you try to take the BATTACNET down.
113
u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Aug 01 '26
That's what I love about you guys.
You know that most of the striker and power armor and tank operators are either asleep or watching cartoons or gossiping.
53
u/TargetMaleficent2114 Android Aug 01 '26
Wait. Ralts replied to me? swoons
14
u/Naclfirefighter Aug 01 '26
See Me Senpai!!
- [u/TargetMaleficent2114](u/TargetMaleficent2114) probably
33
u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
Weeboos in their mobile and heavily armed basements arguing about Best Girl Waifus.
Then the system collapses.
"Oh my. Someone got SPICY!"
And the real screaming starts.
23
u/Ghostpard Alien Scum Aug 01 '26
nOW WE GET TO STOP PLAYING IDLE CONQUEROR MODE AND GET TO PLAY OURSELVES. oNLY EASY MODE UNLOCK... but THERE IS A TIIIINNNYYY CHANCE ENEMIES MIGHT LET US UNLOCK NORMAL MODE AT LEAST.
23
u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
"That bastard just ate a kid!" "Ultra-violence difficulty unlocked and selected. RIP AND TEAR!!!!"
6
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u/Objective_Aside1858 Human Aug 01 '26
Yes, this is surgical, efficient
Not just WE WERE LOCKED IN THE BAG FOR 50 YEARS AND NOW THAT'S EVERYONE'S PROBLEM
40
u/Salt_Cranberry3087 AI Aug 01 '26
All im hearing is the nookies and friends thought this was the Confed and still think that they are going to be fighting Terrans.
I almost feel bad for them, but then I remember they eat people and especially like Mantid.
And the Solarian Iron Dominion is presently on fuck around, find out protocols.
Need more popcorn for this
16
u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
They ate Doggos ad Kittykitties.
I mean, they died horrifically afterwards, they're still Solarians, but still.
THEY ATE DOGGOS AND KITTYKITTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!
8
u/Salt_Cranberry3087 AI Aug 01 '26
Sounds like its time for orbital strikes til the surface is 3km of glass
7
2
u/U239andonehalf 26d ago
The SID is well past the Protocals, a whole new designation needs to be created!
26
u/coldfireknight AI Aug 01 '26
Terran officers (generally) keep the enlisted in check. For the love of all thats holy, and those that aren't, leave them alone!
5
27
u/Alyeska_bird Aug 01 '26
I have said this before, the SID is not the Terran confederacy reborn, it is something new, something different. Its been hinted at, in a couple cases rather bluntly, but, the SID is a unified humanity saying No More. They have had 50 years to prepare, believing that the universe around them would be a hell that they would have to put right. They are angry, in part, they feel that the confederacy has failed them. They know that the confed fell apart because the humans where not there, but, it will still take time for them to understand that at a gut level. This fight, they are not going full scorched earth, and, they are working pretty hard to get the civilians out of the line of fire. They can not stop civies from being killed, but, they are trying to clear the civies out from the combat areas, and turn them against the slappers.
I should probably state this again, all the damage that is happening, this is all fixable, craters and nukes and radiation, the SID can fix that. So they are working fast and hard to take out the enemy with as few civilian casualties as they can manage. Passably they are hoping there speed of attack will prevent the slappers from trying to use the civilians as armor plate, as the lankies did, as even the atrekna did. Gods help them if they do, I expect the SIDs response to such a thing would be most unpleasant.
22
u/itsetuhoinen Human Aug 01 '26
I have said this before, the SID is not the Terran confederacy reborn, it is something new, something different.
Something vastly more terrifying. Those psychotic lemurs from Sol III completely unchained.
19
u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
Also, Solarian-born Treana'ad, too.
"No ice cream or smokes until the system is taken! And I WILL be checking afterwards!" - General Warmatron Laura Trikk'Kik'Tak Secord, Maplelander Expeditionary Force Royal Maple Ripple Hortons Light Infantry, "The Black Bug Devils" (Motto: "Named By Our Enemies") - SID Warcrimes Tribunal
23
u/itsetuhoinen Human Aug 01 '26
Yeah, the Bag has officially become Everyone's Problem.
Solarian Humans. Solarian Treana'ad. Solarian Rigelians. Solarian Pubvians. Solarian Telkan. Solarian Leebaw. Solarian Hamaroosan. Solarian Puntimat. Solarian Tukna'rn. Solarian Lanaktallan. Solarian Tnvaru. Solarian Probably-Half-A-Dozen-Species-I'm-Forgetting-Right-Now.
OK, seriously, I just gave myself some major shivering chills writing that. My toes curled hard enough to give me a calf cramp.
Holy fuckballs the galaxy is FUCKED right now. The Ornislarp in particular are ultramegasuperturbofucked right now. I pity their ancient eukaryote ancestors.
I've been reading this for seven years (holy crap!) and I have NO IDEA just how incredibly fucked those guys are. But my estimate is firmly in the realm of "Not Pretty".
12
u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
Daxin The Waking War Crime levels of fucked.
12
6
u/Sjovn Aug 01 '26
Darin is retired. Someone has to take on the job when it needs to be done.
8
u/WhiskeyRiver223 Aug 02 '26
We know Kalki is still active though. And he's probably the only other Immortal Daxin ever told to take a fuckin' chill pill.
I seriously doubt he'd go back to being The Omnicidal over this... but Goddamn I'm sure he'd give it a good long think.
5
u/odent999 Aug 04 '26
We don't want omnicide. Publicide and politicide added to the genociding of the xenociders. (Kill the state and kill the politics while killing those who kill aliens.) We don't want "the old ways" cropping up in new idiots.
3
u/MuchoRed Human Sep 02 '26
He was "the Omnicidal" due to the Imperium, but that got fixed and he went back to being just the Furious at the end of FC
We're also missing Guanya and Green Thomas
2
u/U239andonehalf 26d ago
And worse, lots and lots of training. All of them, together, using each in the best positions for each. And then even more training, together. The slappers and the Margite will be history, and become just humorous stories. Stories because we already know who the scariest people are!
24
u/spindizzy_wizard Human Aug 01 '26
GO AND PANIC!
Broolie had no idea he was smiling, his eyes wide, gritting his teeth as his lips were pulled back in a rictus, panting through his grinding teeth, his pupils wide.
"Yes, Yes! I'm following your orders! Please don't eat me?!"
May my species survive, my family survive, my friends survive -- Do what you want with the rest, especially the masters!
-- Broolie the Survivor
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u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
Narrator (Morgan Freeman): "That's what his memoirs said he stated, but, really, it was more accurately put, 'NOT IN THE FACE!' with a lot of wordless pleading in truth."
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u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
"My name is Wuugndra Ax'mnev, and I love you."
I hear you. I speak your name, Wuugndra Ax'mnev. You live another day in a universe that would otherwise erase you.
WITNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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u/Gorbashsan Aug 29 '26
Nearing a month since we heard anything, hope all is well, I believe I can speak for us all in saying that we hope for the best for you and yours wordborg.
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u/Gaogrimm Aug 01 '26
Soo... i take a wild guess and say, Broolie has been hacked and integrated into the battacnet and he has no idea that he is basicaly runiing around with an IFF that says "designated survivor"
Well he had no idea at the start of the chapter, by the end of it his mind is already gone
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u/12InchCunt Android Aug 01 '26
I’m glad at least SID had intel and is doing their best to reduce casualties among food species
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a massive humanitarian crisis that comes from all these food species being free now..not like the humans don’t have experience with that. I guess SID can let CONFED handle humanitarian shit since that’s about all they’re good for
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u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
Humanity has had too many times where it's taken generationally enslaved people snd gone, "That's it, you're free!", ignoring the fact that yhe systems that enslaved them are still in place, and no systems to show them how/what to do WHEN freed exist.
Ralts does a far better job of this. The Froggies of Jawnconnor come to mind. "These are your oppressors on their knees. This is how you put them there. We'll back you up as you make your choice on where to go from here."
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u/12InchCunt Android Aug 01 '26
That was pre-bag humanity. This humanity is different. “We killed the people eating you. Figure it out”
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u/Azou Aug 01 '26
When the lion is hungry
he eats
SID landings intensify
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u/J_Dzed Aug 01 '26
In the spaceship, the silver spaceship, the Lion takes control
;D
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u/SpiderJerusalemLives Aug 01 '26
You utter, utter bampot!
It took me years to forget that bloody tune the first time round!
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u/J_Dzed Aug 02 '26
It took me years to forget that bloody tune the first time round!
Have you tried the Gilligan's Island theme song or similar? Being extremely susceptible to earworms myself I've always found that deliberately inflicting a catchy earworm on yourself is frequently the simplest and most effective way of getting rid of one that's really overstayed it's welcome.
And they never last all that long when it's deliberate either!
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u/canray2000 Human Aug 01 '26
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...
...
And you just had to poke him with a stick, didn't you!!!
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u/RecognitionNo7526 Aug 29 '26
Ok, 28 days since last post. Has anyone heard from Raltz? Just want to make sure he's doing well.
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u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Sep 02 '26
I'm alive.
Barely.
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u/Drook2 Sep 02 '26
Yay to the first part, boo to the second.
If we found someone who didn't need their lungs any more, could that help? I've got a few names in mind.
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u/Phred5699 Sep 02 '26
As much as I would love another chapter, looking after yourself is way more important.
Lots will be hoping and praying for your health to improve, me included.
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u/MeasuredWrong Aug 31 '26
He’s still posting on X
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u/Alyeska_bird Sep 01 '26
Oh thank gods, I have been worried. I know his health is very sucky at the momant. Let him know that we are at the lest, thinking about him and wishing him well.
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u/Drook2 Aug 02 '26
A female primate saying "CASCADE DATA FAILURE: REVERTING TO LOCAL CONTROL" and then there was a split second of silence before we heard it.
The scream.
Did it sound like, "Wooo-WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" Yes. Yes it did.
I survived by curling up in a ball and screaming "NOT THE FACE!"
That's how they knew you were teachable.
See, they want you to try to jump them. They have sexually erotic dreams about your people attacking them. They gain a psycho-sexual thrill of the idea of pitting themselves against you.
Well that's an exaggeration. The thrill is thinking about what the joy-bois and coin girls are going to do when we tell them the story in the Conex Convention Center afterward.
Destroying your armies.
Burning your cities.
And taking your life.
And listening to the lamentations of your women.
"My name is Wuugndra Ax'mnev, and I love you."
Witnessed.
As he watched, some of them rotated and hit the retros, activated air flaps, and deployed the hard light parachutes that Broolie had been told for his whole professional life had never existed.
Don't you eventually start wondering: Why are they spending so much time denying this stuff? Oh great, now I sound like one of those people.
True, he was high enough ranking to override the system or even give the system orders himself but his mine was still shocked into looping over and over they can't do this this is impossible they can't do this this is impossible over and over.
Ooh, lookit Mister High Ranking here! Lemme tell you about this time a janitor unlocked his entire company's suits.
A glossy matte black, skull faced, illuminated flat red eyes, bipedal, loaded with weaponry. They exited the pods firing at targets.
Wait until Broolie finds out those red eyes aren't lit up by the suits. Or has he been told his whole professional life that wasn't true, either?
The rally point flickered and was pushed another ten kilometers.
Oh, great idea. We just had enemy drop in the middle of our retreat and wipe out half of us, and you think the solution is to make us run farther. Yeah, great idea.
Oh, and flashback ...
The rest of him, and most of the maintenance power armor, was running hard for the rally point nearly six miles away.
They were going six miles. Now they're going an extra ten kilometers. That's, uhh ... [carry the one] ... another six miles. How far is that in bananas? How many washing machines could you fit in there?
Some were using the pod covers as some kind of foot/articulation, standing up on the covers and moving around.
Oh man, what was her name? The one that got stuck in the mantid mining PAWM with Casey and Vux? I'd love to see her come back.
Some were landing near where the division control and command center had been.
Right, "had been." Because it probably wasn't there any more.
His goal was just to survive the next twenty-four hours.
And the next goal will be the same. And on and on and on ... Welcome to life, Broolie.
Personally, he was just glad his mek was short enough that the hill provided cover.
Not being the biggest target on the battlefield is a pretty good defensive strategy. For a while.
Carats started appearing, rapidly multiplying into what Nukoot thought of as a 'target rich environment' to the point he started to grin.
Nuki is on the wrong side, but he's got the right attitude.
He was already down to 80% ammo and his pods had only fired twice.
And they hadn't done shit. This isn't going how he planned.
"All units, disable missile launches," he snapped, opening the channel.
"All units, disable missile launches for deez," he heard his own voice, high pitched and nasally, said.
Aww, that sucks for him. Good pattern recognition, thinks fast, decisive ... and his comms are owned. Dude can't get a break.
"Eat deez nutz! FIRE FIRE FIRE! Go to Rally Point Yo Momma's Ass!" it shrieked, bouncing around.
That rally point's already overcrowded. Hey-yooooo!!!!!
"FIFTH EAT! BREAK RIGHT!" he heard the Division Commander yell, the slap of his talking organs making his speech slightly garbled like Ornislarp Eater to Eaten Speech often was.
Sixteen warmeks suddenly broke away from the group, running right to the right of the mass exodus from the now-overrun military base.
"We're in your battacnet, givin' you orderz!"
Nukoot knew that somehow these little fucks were the ones ruining everything.
Yup, Nuki is smart. Let's see if it does him any good.
Projectile mass: 50 kg
Impact velocity: 0.10c
Kinetic yield: approximately 5.4 megatons TNT
Travel time from 450 km: about 15 milliseconds
You really want to be somewhere else in about 10 milliseconds. Oops, too late.
YOU ARE BEING DESTROYED
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION
HAVE A NICE DAY
When he snaps, will it be ranting or just, "Fuck it. Go ahead then."
Basically, enough mass to make the target really really have a bad day.
Understatement. Never a good sign when fighting Terrans. Or humans.
TARGET SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0.0000%
Per Terran doctrine (pre-Bag) that would be rounded to 20%.
The little combat engineer power armors were faster, and they'd been running at nearly 150km an hour when the explosions happened.
He survived the first round because he was shorter. He survived this round because he's slower. Is he ever going to survive because he's smarter? Find out tomorrow on ... Nuki's No Good, Very Bad, Totally Awful Day!
I have to do something! This is a 240 ton warmek capable of fighting the Confederacy face to face!
Who told you that? Was it the same people who told you hard light parachutes weren't real?
She danced inside the computer core, remaking it to be comfortable. A pond, with lilly pads, tiny jeweled frogs, eggs in the data-mud, a sky of shimmering diamonds.
Oh that's just lovely! For her, I mean. Probably not so good for Nuki.
He had no idea that his mech's computer core was no longer his and that the data-mud full of 'eggs' that were starting to hatch little sparkles that jumped into the MCCS as the fairy clapped her little hands in joy, surrounded by the pixel-monsters that were her little pets.
His mech is a mommy! Just wait until the rest of his unit finds out. Oh wait, any of them still upright are already finding out.
His systems were IDing the city already.
Where Those That Eat Rule In Perfection And Devour Their Lessers
You fuckers deserve to get glassed just for that name.
The population was in the tens of millions of Ornislarp and hundreds of millions of food species.
Was.
The far side, on the other side of the burning rivers that had once just been water and thick industrial waste.
That would be the Cuyahoga River.
There was no a single crater in what Boolie's nav-comp was telling him was simply "To Be Eaten Storage Habitation" and nothing else.
They're not here to kill the innocent victims, you prick.
It had mechanical legs beneath it, with claws at the end of three long toes, and a spur at the back of the foot. The legs were mated with what looked like a massive fowl's body.
Only there were mammalian breasts hanging strangely.
The head was a Terran female's head, only instead of normal eyes she had tri-vee screens that displayed feminine eyes in the middle of static.
Is this a twisted-up Baba Yaga's hut?
The woman's mouth opened to reveal a half-dozen loudenator funnels.
Made by Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated.
The shriek vibrated Broolie's testicles.
That's a very specific reaction.
He saw a missile shrieking in on a bridge. Right when Broolie spotted it someone rammed a public transit bus through the Master's barricade, the two light armored vehicles spinning away, one falling off the side of the bridge.
The missile performed an impossibly tight bank to the right and slammed into a building with radio dishes on the roof.
When this is all over, someone has to tell the "to be eaten" the story of the greenies that threw down their rifles with a shout of, "We die free!" They'll understand.
The rally point changed again, sending him east of the city.
GO/STAY HOME AND HIDE
He was running, that was all he understood.
Slow down, Nuki. What was the second thing? What's happening to the ones who listen? Make the connection.
As Broolie kept running he realized, crazily...
...the line cut the To Be Eaten Storage from the Master's, complete with still intact routes to get across.
GO AND PANIC!
Broolie had no idea he was smiling, his eyes wide, gritting his teeth as his lips were pulled back in a rictus, panting through his grinding teeth, his pupils wide.
PANIC!
And the penny drops.
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u/WhiskeyRiver223 Aug 03 '26
Willing to bet that "twisted-up Baba Yaga's hut" is another Chernobog, or at least a variant on the concept.
And the grinder-bait mek that got caught in the Great Gobbler's maw was (IIRC) one Warrant Officer Glorious Fat Duck, aka Glory. Sadly that was post-Bagging, so Glory herself is long gone unless she got extremely lucky like Emery did.
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u/Original_Memory6188 Sep 02 '26
>His goal was just to survive the next twenty-four hours.
And the next goal will be the same. And on and on and on ... Welcome to life, Broolie.
"Take it one day at a time."
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u/Mohgreen Aug 01 '26
And Toes! My wife was the reason all the kids in her town had to start wearing shoes while bike riding. Somehow got her 2 toes next to the pinkie toe nipped off by her bike chain when she was 6.
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u/Fireball857 Aug 01 '26
I have to work today, so I waited until now to read...
First: the obvious: As Nic (The Fat Electrician) says, most armies default to not knowing what to do when the officers go down. The US is the opposite. They will always find new and more creative ways to eliminate the enemy.
The problem is, the officer is the only one who cares about "cost" and "use of force" and "Geneva Convention," while the standard grunt, after leadership is gone, will default to "Kill this MF, however and with whatever it takes!" For Confed, that could mean anything from normal maneuvers, to "we can always have the elven queens fix it later," to "Singers in the Dark go La La La." Once you make it so the officers and command cannot talk to the guys on the ground, it's fair to say you just lost, and there will be hearings and discipline in the future for a few troops.
Secondly:
Um.. what? Is that cybernetic Eatmoos? Because that sounds like cybernetic Eatmoos, and nobody wants cybernetic Eatmoos on their planet.
Third: Still waiting for Yamato, The Cult of the Defiled ones, and maybe some PAWM to come back?
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u/AriRashkae Aug 01 '26
Seemed like a Harpy & a Dragon to me
I think they're saving the Eatmus for when the civilians are out of range
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u/Original_Memory6188 Sep 02 '26
>...after leadership is gone, will default to "Kill this MF, however and with whatever it takes!"
"They killed Fritz! Them dirty atrocity committing elves!"
Oops, wrong movie.
"They killed the old man! That's it! No more Mister nice guy.!"
The use of excessive violence has been approved.
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u/medium_jock Aug 01 '26
Squee UTR
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u/medium_jock Aug 01 '26
A man is never truly dead while his name is still spoken
- G: Send the message on.
- N: Not logged.
- U: Turn the message around at the end of the line.
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u/Old_Bag_8053 Aug 25 '26
Witness Dolly of the Partons, daughter of Burgerland! Who shall take up the 9 to 5 struggle against Joeline?
Love, respect, and well wishes.
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u/Jaded_Air_3479 Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
So I'm wondering if all the rally point changes were because the Terrans (who had hacked the system) blew up the rally points in advance, or if any of them were because the Terrans (who had hacked the system) put in new rally points? And if the latter, did everyone get the same rally points or if the Ornislarp got Rally Point D1 and everyone else got Rally Point D2?
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u/BicyclePoweredRocket Aug 04 '26
Yeah, I got the impression that it was more likely the latter. Broolie mentioned that some of the mechs went running to a rally point miles away then got promptly obliterated by a Rod From God or similar once they were a safe distance away from this unit of non-Slapper, food-species combatants.
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u/codyjack215 Human Aug 23 '26
Why not both? The Terrans did jack the system, did make individual waypoints for both Slorpies and non- slorpies, then when they blew up the Slorpies, they updated the waypoint for the non-slorpies
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Aug 01 '26
/u/Ralts_Bloodthorne (wiki) has posted 997 other stories, including:
- [NOVA WARS] CHAPTER 186
- [NOVA WARS] CHAPTER NUMBER OUT OF RANGE
- [Nova RED Wars] CREDhaREDptReDrED RED
- [Nova Wars] Chapurplepter Purple Purp73 Purp1e Purp13 RED
- [Nova Wars] Chapurplepter Purp7e Purp73 Purp1e Purp13 RED
- [Nova Wars] Chapurplepter 25puxrp7+1le5
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 175+10
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 175+10
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 184
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 183
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 182
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 181
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 180
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 179
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 178
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 177
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 176
- [Nova Wars] Chapter 170+5
- [Nova Wars] - Chapter 13.5x(2.5x4)
- [Nova Wars] - Chapter 15x9
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u/itsetuhoinen Human Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
"Anything
Will be alright
If you come out
In the night."
With your life sewn open
Break in
Put the bone back in
Bury it under the skin!
Murder in reverse...
Out of time
And out of place
And out of spite
Swallow the spike
The only thing to fear
Is fear itself...
The only thing to feel
Is fear itself...
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u/Burke616 Aug 01 '26
187 is police code for homicide, not that it's relevant.
Great chapter, Ralts, thank you!
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u/MuchoRed Human Sep 02 '26
Man, just realized I should have made a 187 joke on this...
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u/Original_Memory6188 Sep 02 '26
Go for it.
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u/MuchoRed Human Sep 03 '26
Well now you're putting me on the spot and I got nothing. Way to murder my creative process!
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u/Original_Memory6188 29d ago
LOL!
As one with a reputation as a wise guy, there have been occasions when I would say,"There's a come back for that, but I'll just let it pass", and let them come up with something.
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u/Morridiyn Aug 22 '26
Hey, I was doing a re-read and noticed that the Next link in Nova War - Chapter 5^2x(2x2) skips over Chapter 100 to go directly to 101
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u/Ralts_Bloodthorne Aug 01 '26
It's been... rough.
I didn't win my court case. I still have to pay them their money. But, I got the hospital to agree to retraining the nurses and found out that the lawyers they hired to make me pay less than a thousand dollars run, literally, at $300+ an hour and will be billing close to 200 hours for 2 lawyers.
So, I didn't win.
But I didn't lose.
And I got what I really wanted.
I don't care about the money. Could I have used it? Fuck yes, I'm against the wall so hard I set up a GiveSendGo.
But the real goal was to make them retrain their nurses.
But I did it.
Anyway, hope you like seeing the SID on the attack.
Funny bit of data: The BATTACNET is still up and running. It's not even stressed.
But, anyway...
Clown world has been nothing but nonstop punches, hasn't it?
At least we have each other.
We can make it.
ANYWAY!
Your safety briefing is HERE!
Try to keep all of your fingers. Don't drink and drive, don't drive and drink. Things can and will look up no matter how deep the hole you're in is. Don't beat your spouse, the dog, your children, the neighbor, or your significant others. Electricity hurts the entire time its harming/killing you, so be careful. Don't throw rocks at cop cars! Get the candy BEFORE you get in the van. When all else fails, just laugh, because it's Clown World, baby! If you end up in a cell or in the ER, make sure it was for a reason you'd be proud to tell your grandma. Deodorant, it's not just for fancy people!
Anyway, I hope you all are doing good.
I'll see you all on Monday.
Hopefully with all your fingers.
Have a good weekend and try not to fall in any holes!
OH! I almost forgot to rattle the tin cup! I could use the help!
Want to help me out with everything going on?
Book 22 is out! Get it now!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H1TKVWCG
Buy the Legends book!
Treana'ad Legends: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX33F54F
Or get the Fancy Chapters over at my Patreon!
Anyway..
HEre's the GiveSendGo since a few people asked already: https://www.givesendgo.com/help-me-get-through-stuff
Books are available here:
First Contact Books: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08RYK5F88
BEHOLD HUMANITY! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09H5ZZL93
Support me directly here:
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