001: Group Introductions - TEXT

[tarnishedavenger]

[During a lull in the party, Armstrong taps out a quick message to the network. Not that private one, he doesn't trust it. They can answer whenever they like, so long as he gets an answer. The trick would be wording it.]

So, we're all in this for now. You've had your welcome cake, but you can't meet everyone in a party, no matter how hard you try. But, since we've all been encouraged to sign up with Jorgmund, I figured now would be a good time to get some introductions done. Talk about any specialties we might have.

Share information that we feel comfortable sharing. This isn't to pressure anyone or to force out any dark secrets.

[Not where watchful eyes can see, at least.]

Besides, I prefer doing this to making a cute information sharing game.

So, please, make your own threads within this post to keep everything organized.

Comments

[greyaria]

[Engin...seer?]

It is a little rocky for the non-specialist, I'll give you that!

[It's incomprehensible for the non-specialist.]

Can you explain what you mean by "Dark Age of Technology?" I've never seen the two terms used together.

[greatlyexaggerated]

Like I said, I don't think I could tell you too much. [He paid far too little attention in the Schola for that. He might have had to do a group presentation about this that he only just barely passed.] But I'm happy to oblige your interest. Of my understanding, and the very few scraps of information we have, it was a time of massive advancement for the human race, but it ended in catastrophe thanks to those same technologies. Warp travel, mass-colonization, STCs, and notably the... Men of Iron, which were AI housed in bodies of metal.

[It visibly discomfits him to be talking about them, but he papers over it with some jokes.]

After some time, they got tired of ordered about and had it out with humans. I suppose that's what happens when people have more brains than good sense, to be mucking around with things that couldn't possibly end well in any sense of the imagination.

[greyaria]

[Hmmmmm. Emily's keeping her suspicion that Cain is the one living in the Dark Age to herself.]

Rise of the robots for real!

[She laughs at her own joke.]

[greatlyexaggerated]

[Ahaha. Cain's polite enough to half-chuckle at the joke he doesn't get but is obviously there.]

Quite. It's also the same era that we encountered xenos - or aliens. All of them decidedly hostile, which ultimately went a little worse for them than it did for us.

[greyaria]

Hmm. Our first contact with aliens was when I was a kid. They glassed a colony world!

[This is fine and she's not traumatized by growing up under the lingering threat of annihilation by an implacable, technologically superior foe! Ha ha!]

Assuming we're from the same place I think there might be some lost records.

[greatlyexaggerated]

[The corner of Cain's mouth pulls. It's something he's used to hearing, but he never really likes it.]

Why do you think that?

[greyaria]

You implied I came from before even the Dark Age of Technology [she manages not to put that in verbal sarcasm quotes] but humanity can't have had first contact twice. So you probably forgot about the Sangheili. Lucky, I wish I could.

[Fuck those guys.]

[greatlyexaggerated]

[You know what? That's entirely fair.]

I wouldn't be surprised if records were lost. I would never call the destruction of a colony world forgettable, but it's something that has happened all too regrettably often when it comes to xenos, in the Imperium's history.

Of course, we have our victories too. If it's any consolation, the Sangheili are either a dying or extinct breed. I've never heard of them.

[greyaria]

[Emily laughs, and there's definitely a hysterical edge to the sound.]

A colony world? Oh, no. It was closer to 50.

[greatlyexaggerated]

[Cain draws in a sharp breath, a little shocked. Even that was a number hard to stomach for him.]

That's abominable.

[greyaria]

It's been a rough few decades!

[Fortunately, she's fine!

(She's so not fine.)]

[greatlyexaggerated]

[Oh, that's a perfectly normal length of time for wars to last.]

I can understand. It may seem like poor solace from where you're standing now, but at least humanity endures and they certainly don't.

[He smiles sympathetically, and it's tinged with the shared schadenfreude at a hostile xenos species's extinction he'd offer any Imperial citizen.]

We get the last laugh.