The Invasion Of Sol System

The Invasion of Sol System

"Strategic battles usually occurred in orbit, not ship to ship battles like in naval fights, but planned and expertly executed orbital combat. The usage of intelligent and guided projectiles and orbital mechanics to an advantage was paramount. Human fighters and dropships where more accomplished in certain atmospheres and planetary based conditions, whereas orbital drones and autonomous combat machines were employed heavily many other places. Nuclear weapons and retrofitted terraforming technology that had been used to make several planets habitable like earth were acquired and adapted for combat. Geologic survey and alteration nuclear charges, orbital lasers for climate control and daytime lighting, fusion-antimatter reactors and other massive, peacetime technologies were organized into the war effort. The aliens seemed very capable of surviving and continuing combat operations after or during these sorts of attacks, but strategies to largely cripple their efforts were refined for efficiency by the end of the war. At the Battle of Olympus Mons for example, the invasion force had begun construction on a massive fortification and mining complex that would have effectively claimed their forces the entity of Mars. The human warships Vengeance Spoken, Justice Commanded and Executor Ordained all focused a targeted orbital assault on the construction, ending in a 40 charge nuclear detonation which vaporized over 500 kilometers of Martian surface. The alien invaders were devastatingly dealt a serious blow, at the cost of severe damage to the human ships. It is generally agreed that this battle stopped what would have become a war ending invasion of Earth by the aliens." - A Common Record and Remembrance of the Invasion of 2400

Old Earth

The land beneath my feet is wet, and solid, and old. Trees that loom upwards into the forever, into crystalline blue skies, rimmed by bruised bellied thunderstorms. Lightning cracks. Earthy smells ripen the air in the humidity of the summer. A thousand thousand trackways traverse this frequented soil, countless directions picked and chosen, every footfall a traveler on their own sojourn. Rich scents mark warm air. Disembodied orchestras play their notes among shadowy undergrowth; rumbling and creaking and chattering and howling. Sounds big and sounds small. Endless variety. The wind ruffles conifer branches, sequoia spires creaking comfortably.

Imperium At Oblivion

Far from now, the War of Ten Thousand Stars is truth. It is the beginning and end of the Imperium, the writ of law that stands between dominion and extinction. Star systems are conquered or annihilated, nothing can be left to the enemy. Nothing. Shattering stars to sweep away worlds in supernova sunrise and devouring what remains in black hole maw, strategy of denial, strategy of oblivion. Fortifying entire solar systems with roving ship-moons and skyhaunts, glinting weaponry poised to end battles before they begin. The enemy cannot have anything. Imperium must be victorious. Centuries wear on and on and on, maps on the front are ghostlike in the constant eroding changes across the Galaxy, time slipping away as hypercasual acceptance nullifies faster than light paradoxes. The Bane of the Imperium feels no such obligation. They do not fret of paradox and do not bend to reinforcement need, they do not stop even as entire planets are annihilated to furiously burning dust clouds and ruins. The enemy is out in the dark, out in the shadows to flicker like black lightning between worlds and stars and vaulted universes, the Bane like an obsidian sea of fatalism rapidly approaching. Legion upon legion upon legion fallen to what comes this way, what already constitutes its own undying triumph. Coming this way, the Enemy will not stop. The Imperium will run.

Transmuting of Dinosauria

Bones from Colorado and Alberta, bones from the Valley of the Moon and the Jehol Valley, bones from the Burning Sands and bones from England. Hundreds of thousands of bones, millions of dollars of bones. They were bought from private collections and specialized digs, from museum backrooms and even classic displays, quietly stripped down, prepared for shipping, and disappeared. There was objection, questioning. But still, the bones were collected. Countless species, from the infamous to obscure. Bought, taken, and vanished. The small British Columbian peninsula-island nearly two hundred miles away from even the smallest wilderness cabin was easy to pay for, easier to vanish behind no-fly zones and multi-ton concrete-steel barriers that could’ve withstood multiple rounds from tanks. The buildings were built by the best (and most secretive, most esoteric), in the business. Architects who knew the Seven Angles of Rebirth, the Five Elevations of Time, the Nine Curvatures for Resurrection. Architects who built in glass and stone and obsidian, buildings like gorgeous postmodern monolithic tombs against the vividly alive greenery and crystalline rivers. It was good work, construction rapidly done beneath cobalt storms and glinting gemlike auroras shimmering. And when construction ended, and those in robes arrived: it began. Robes vividly bloody red and ivory pale and midnight dark, cloaked in amber and gold and fossil medallions, voices all manner of haunting as the genetic machines shuddered with their contemplation of the gene and life, sacred runes burning in golden fire within. The bones turned to rich mineralized dust, dancing, blazing, filling artificially grown eggs to the ebb and flow of ritualistic voices, hundreds and hundreds of animals reborn. Dinosaurs. Dinosaur bones, and now, dinosaurs reborn. Magic and science, at one in the alchemic ways never truly abandoned.

As the months passed, and the eggs hatched, those in robes looked on in wizened, benign smiles, triumphant smiles.

Like death back into life, like mercury into gold, extinction too could be transmuted!

E N R A G E D

The tyrannical leviathan rises from a glassy black rippling, an etching of pure darkness that slips and shudders with liquidly inconceivable grace, a grace born from other worlds and other natural laws. Armored behemoth risen, rising, born anew in things unknowable. Armor plating that whispers with new knowledge in arcs of negative obsidian lightning, brilliantly ferocious blossoms over sharply curving thorns and angles, vast spines orbiting like acolytes at prayer, sigil banners draped. The risen thing born again, baptized in Void holy water, it's tremendous jaws opening to scream and thunder, blaring hallowed white visage like some haunted star ensnared in primordial bone and undying armor and this new holy rite, this new ritual-construct within. Blades and shattering gravity-blades brought to bear. ENRAGED!

Honestly one of the most chilling parts of Halo. When I first heard this, first playing Halo CE, I knew it had meaning that was beyond what was being presented here. And then, after reading Silentium, truly knowing that context, I was astounded. Rereading those words, and then hearing that mechanical, eternally cheery but somehow almost eerily, grotesquely solemn and serious tone echo with an answer down the eons: chilling. Fucking. Chilling. Halo knows how to make you shiver. And it’s fan-fucking-tastic. Also, show some love to Haruspis (hopefully spelled correctly), her page is lovely.

halo: combat evolved (2001) | halo: silentium (2013)

“Now, old friend, we have the most important job in history - perhaps in all time. You may very well outlast all of us here. You may see the new galaxy emerge.” I stop and turn away, looking out of the Ark’s citadel towards the now-cooling forge and the mining site beyond. “Tell me, Chakas, if this was your choice, after all we have seen and survived… would you fire the rings?”

He does not respond. I don’t know that I expected a response. It is a question asked by way of farewell. And much of his memory will be erased upon arrival at his new station in the name of compartmentalisation, if ever the logic plague were to re-emerge.

For a moment, I wonder if he will remember any of this at all.