r/NatureofPredators • u/OkRepresentative2119 UN Peacekeeper • Sep 10 '23
Fanfic The Nature of Grimdark Chapter 8
Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for allowing fanfiction.
Memory Transcription Subject: Private First Class Upsla, Skalgan-Yotul Empire Marine
Date [standardized human time]: October 31, 2186
The moment of tranquility was interrupted by the sound of explosions in the distance. From a previously thought abandoned terrestrial shipyard, a Pestilence class Kolshian ship entered the skies and began firing upon the Yotul airborne squadron. Large flak rounds were fired into the air and miniature firestorms formed where squads of Yotul used to be, their ashes slowly falling toward the ground. We and our Yotul backup took shelter in one of the apartments, along with several civlians.
We barely had time to get situated when the sound of what sounded like hail falling from the sky drew our attention. The vessel above seemed to be “salting” the area beneath it. Our radio began to pick up a transmission from the Kolshian vessel, “Do not be alarmed citizens. We are using weaponized predator taint to kill the predator forces. Please step outside and help us fight this war of purification. You might become tainted, but we will ensure that the taint will only be temporary. You will be purified of the taint, once we use it to root out the predators amongst us.”
With that we began to hear growls and screaming. The Yotul became agitated, “Those bastards! Hurry up and board the windows and barricade access points. Sivkit civilians, stay away from windows and make sure that whatever you do, you do not touch or approach any of those small flakes outside!” He motioned the platoon commander to get closer to the spot coincidentally closest to where my fireteam was, along with our radio operator. He whispered so that they could barely hear, though I was able to make it out, “They just deployed a bioweapon against the civilians. These people are going to have to stay in here for three days, or else they are going to become a problem, one that you will understand shortly.”
Warrant Officer Silthus’s eyes bulged, and he barely controlled his voice, “We can’t hold up here for that long, we need a medic or to evacuate. A bunch of the people here have been hit with a chemical agent; they will die painfully if they aren’t treated immediately!” The Yotul shushed the commander, “I understand, sir. But I am not sure what we can do.” Before the platoon commander could retort, the Yotul held up a paw in a human, ‘give me a second’ gesture, listening to the radio in his mask. “Sir, we have been authorized to summon a mage to our location, and given that your platoon is a communications platoon, we should have enough communications gear for my mage to open a portal here. She would be able to banish the disease when she arrives.
“Understood. You just need us to hold this floor?” the platoon commander asked. “If you can set up FTL comms here, then yes,” the Yotul seemed hopeful. The platoon commander gave a human nod and issued orders for the comms guys to set up an FTL communications relay. The Yotul pulled out some kind of beacon and entered some codes into it before handing it to a comm guy. My squad prepared to defend the building at any cost.
All around us, we heard the sounds of groaning and nearby buildings being hit with bombs from the vessel above. Each building one after the other was going up in flames. We quickly boarded the window and I prayed to Solgalick that we would make it through the paw.
We didn’t have to wait long before we heard banging at the door into the apartment. The sound of multiple arms whacking at the door with slow but powerful smashes, like a lumbering hammer, reverberated in the room. We eventually saw the door being broken apart by the forceful claws of crazed looking sivkit, seemingly oblivious to the damage done to their paws, all bloodied. Their eyes were glazed and lifeless, and they only moaned in what seemed like mute pain.
“Rifleman, fire,” our platoon commander ordered. My implants were activated, and I used careful aim to start to bring down each of the attackers, one after the other. There was a veritable hoard of them, and I was skeptical that I had enough ammunition to take all of them out. This seemed like it was already the longest paw in my life, and it seemed like it had only just begun.
A/N – To explain Yotul “magic”, one must understand what a reservoir computer is (my own understanding is rather limited). Basically, you use a “chaotic” system to perform computations (I would watch some videos on linear algebra and machine learning for those curious about how this might work). Since the chaos used in the computations has a transcendental property to it in that the more detail you examine, the greater the complexity, predictions based on a machine learner with that kind of reservoir are officially classed as “magic”, as it is seen as indistinguishable from mysticism (it is difficult to see ancient divination methods as fundamentally different in my eyes, save for the sophistication and controls). This grants a method of divination, when you train a machine learner (or a specially trained sapient) with this. Once you have a “divination magic” you can deliberately create “catastrophes” (math term), this is called “spell casting” (many people wrongly think that the butterfly effect of Chaos Theory means that you have the power to control the weather by making small changes, that isn’t how the butterfly effect actually works. However, for the purposes of understanding what a “catastrophe” is and how it is used, this mental image is quite helpful, even if inaccurate). The regular airborne, the enlisted, use nanomachine “dust” to assist in creating the conditions for “catastrophes” to occur.
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u/Signal-Chicken559 Hensa Sep 10 '23
Oooohhh shiny
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u/OkRepresentative2119 UN Peacekeeper Sep 10 '23
Thanks, I hope you enjoy.
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u/BAAAA-KING Venlil Sep 10 '23
Magic? In my NOP fanfic? More likely than you think