Jump 149: Dahak Chronicles

Jump 149: Dahak Chronicles

Location: Earth
Age: 22
Identity: Drop-In
Drawbacks: [+900] Anu's Attention, A Bigger Inheritance

[Free]      Real Hotshot
[200/1900]  Bridge Officer Descendent
[400/1900]  To Make History
[700/1900]  Macintyre Luck
[800/1900]  Resource Management
[1200/1900]  Implanter
[1300/1900] Fold Space Communicator
[1700/1900] Transmat Blueprints
[1900/1900] Bridge Officer Implants

The news networks had been non-stop, rebroadcasting what they dubbed "the address". The President had exposed himself as an extradimensional traveller during this year's State Of The Union address, after his form had shifted from that of a late-middle-age politician to that of a young man. More than that, he'd pointed out the existence of a dyson shell that had blocked off everything beyond the inner solar system; to prove it was truly what it was he'd disabled its cloak for ninety seconds, and abruptly the night sky saw the constellations disappear in favor of illuminated strips of land, millions if not billions of continents of assorted shapes and sizes, if only clearly visible through telescopes - and the sunward side of the planet saw a truly massive superstructure above the sun's north pole, the president's Star Forge.

He'd also mentioned that the answer to the Fermi Paradox was the matter of an AI-controlled fleet of death which had wiped out the Fourth Imperium's holdings, but that the Fifth Imperium had been very briefly been brought into existence before it had been absorbed into the Confederation of Worlds... which apparently included a not insignificant number of alternate Earths. Including one where the locals fought wars with mechs, of all the impractical things. He'd just announced that Earth would be assimilated into this, flat out - the world's leaders had been quietly negotiating, and they'd come to terms.

They didn't expect the announcement to be made for several more years, but considering the state of things there was simply no way around it - the Achuultani would otherwise happily wipe out the Earth as literally any other intelligent species besides themselves were considered a complete threat. On the plus side, the president had said, the state of the union had never been stronger, seeing as the Star Forge was pumping out highly advanced starships meant to counter threats far more advanced than anything the Achuultani had to offer; they'd be remote-piloted by ansible, leaving humanity safe from harm while retaliating first. A trio of them were in orbit, in fact, and would remain there for logistical support.

Oh, and the moon was actually a spaceship 50,000 years old, and humanity here was primarily descended from the former crew of that ship.

Yes, it was no surprise the networks were camped out on the White House lawn en masse and essentially stayed there until the Achuultani arrived.

Over the next month, a great number of changes rolled out globally. There are always brushfire wars of some sort going on - this is Earth, after all, and humans are jerks - but they were abruptly put to a halt. In the majority of cases, the leadership of those involved had signed on to the Confederacy, but when those involved weren't, or were from various non-state groups that refused to halt... well, they found out what the Adeptus Astartes were. Certainly, sending in space marines was decidedly overkill in these cases, but there wasn't much else that they would be doing and a bit of overkill in putting down such actions were deserved.

Especially when many of these were sponsored by the former crew, turned mutineers, of the moon. Dealing with them was essentially moot. The President made a further address after about three months, stating he'd located the former crew of the ship - most of whom had preserved themselves cryogenically. He'd been debriefing them personally, mostly off-world; the tech they used might have been highly advanced by their own standards, but to his own technology it all stuck out like a sore thumb, making it child's play to isolate and essentially teleport them away. Oh, a few fail-safe measures were tried by some of the mutineers, especially Anu, but all were disarmed - some only scant hours or minutes before they otherwise might have been triggered.

The overall technological level of Earth increased rapidly as well - industries were bootstrapped by executive orders, while some others were quickly shown the way of the buggy whip industry, and despite a large number of objections the global economy was being rapidly changed out as well. The favored international currency became the 'pixel', and devices were rapidly produced to allow people to buy machines that would actually produce whatever was desired directly from the currency rather than needing to buy it at the store - but as raw resources were far, far less expensive than the finished product, the supply chain was largely unaffected. It was still cheaper to buy eggs at the supermarket than using a Pixelator (which was less a mouthful than calling it a Wondrous Pixel Transmogrifier) - and tastier to cook food at home than buying it directly. Cheaper to buy consumer goods that were built the hard way. But by the same token... when something was undesired, people could simply have them unmade in the Pixelator for a partial refund.

The insurance industry tried to file an insanely large amount of lawsuits, which were promptly slapped down; their lawyers were told in the most explicit legalese to go pound sand.

In any event, the time quickly came for the Achuultani invasion to hit Earth. And... very little came of it. The outer solar system had already been disassembled for raw material for the dyson shell - for it was always growing - so no cheap rocks could be used to throw at the planet. The gravitonic weapons that were fired at the planet and the fleet were dealt with by point defenses when they didn't strike void shields, and did virtually no damage. The AI in charge of the fleet was quickly neutered, and the fleet sent back home with a false report of victory and a virus that would ensure the destruction of the Achuultani's AI, which had subverted control of the entire species and used it as a way to wipe out any organic life that might threaten it.

A survey was later launched to scour the Milky Way for remnants of the Fourth Imperium, but tragically only a handful of intact worlds were found, and Fleet Headquarters was home to nothing but the ghosts of a number of dead ships. Though the President received something of a surprise once he'd gotten there.

>"Case Omega executed," Mother said emotionlessly. "The Emperor is dead; long live the Eternal God-President of America!"

Having been effectively declared Emperor by the computer in charge of the former empire's military - if by a rather different title due to tweaking a line of code - the surviving worlds of humanity were his, and thus added seamlessly to the dyson shell as well. The former fleet that had been found drifting for fifty thousand years was taken back and studied when they weren't simply harvested for their materials. And so it went.

But Dahak, at least, was able to come along.

After all, he'd safeguarded humanity for fifty thousand years. The God-President respected this. Moreover, he felt it merited an upgrade, so that Dahak could always protect humanity.

And thus, the Star Forge gained an intelligence that it had formerly lacked, with Dahak now serving as its executive officer.