Automated Minutes from Imperial Joint-Select Committee for Sector Affairs
(Static, followed by sounds of general clutter and hubbub. Someone coughs violently in the back ground, several people appear to be eating noisily)
Unidentified:….then I said to her “are you sure you’re not a mutant? Your hands seem to be all over the place, and that trick you just did, I’m pretty darned sure it’s not natural”
(Several senior sounding gentlemen burst into laughter and cackles)
(Voice Print Identified – Cross Ref: General Thaddeus Roover -1IC Sector Defense Force (SDF))
Roover: Well, she turns to me and tells me there could be some grain of truth to it, she was born with one of those vestigial tail things that dropped on off at birth, can you believe it?
Unidentified: By the Emperor, what did you do?
Roover: Handed her straight on over to the Inquisition, filthy mutant. Not the worst I’ve seem but still.
Unidentified: I tell you what, I saw this one mutant, looked exactly like you or I, except his skin was black as the night itself!
(Voice Print Identified – Cross Ref: Admiral Bova Magnus – CIC Sector Naval Forces)
Roover: A black person!! not in this universe. Suppose those Tallarn rag’eds come close, must be a splash of the mutant in them too. With all these savage races out there, you can’t help feeling that it is the burden of the Imperium to get out there and bring civilisation to them all. Still, awful shame about the girl, she was a good looking lass and all. They burned her in the City Plaza last week; along with that albino boy they found hiding in the sewers.
(Silence….)
Magnus: I thought she was supposed to make roasts, not become one
(Outburst of guffaws and snorting laughter, degrades into several hacking coughs)
Roover: (sighs) The wife was most put out, got to be looking for a new cook now, detracts from her life of leisure. Not that I see her much, spends all her time at that Health Spa with her Vostroyan personal trainer Borgs.
Magnus: Bah, never trusted Vostroyans, shifty lot, always look like their about to pinch something.
Unidentified: It’s the beards, just because you can grow one larger than your head, doesn’t mean you have to, bunch of bloody show-offs.
(Voice Print Identified – Cross Ref: Governor Tarkus Babcock – Planetary Governor)
Roover: Flaming savages. Pass the prawn sandwiches, Gaius
(Sound of plates scraping over table)
Roover: No, the ones without crusts. Crusts give me gas
Unidentified: Sorry General
(More plates shuffling)
(Voice Print Identified - Cross Ref: Adeptus Gaius Astros - Chief Scientific Officer of Sector)
Babcock: Where is Dominel?
Magnus: He sent his apologies ahead. His damn gout is flaring up again. Poor thing is laid up in his solarium.
(Door swings open, sounds of stumbling and rustling of paper, general cacophony quietens down)
Astros: Ah, here you are, suppose we better get this little gathering underway. This is…is…er…wait, can’t quite conjure… What was your name again…
Unidentified: Adeptus Stilton Mowberry, sir. Ordo Xenos Aleph Sector detachment.
(Voice Print Recorded – Begin Archive: Adeptus Stilton Mowberry – Ordo Xenos)
Astros: Right, right. Well, Adeptus Mowberry here has something important for us, latest findings off Einmyrria.
Babcock: Where?
Roover: Little planet in the Hellheim system, had a bit of a tussle there a while ago, apparently some of those roboskellies…
Mowberry: Necrons, sir
Roover: That’s the one, Necrons has some little shindig going on there, so we trotted on over and gave em’ what for. Tough little critters, but they don’t like it up em’, wot wot. Weren’t the only ones invited to the party, just about every xeno in the sector turned up, kicked em’ all in the crotch, or whatever ever the have, sent em’ packing. Then half the planet blew up for no particular reason, darndest thing you ever saw.
Astros: Anyway, the archeological team sent to investigate the Necron ruins remaining on the planet was temporarily out of contact due to unusal emanations from the local star, and well, Mowberry can take it from here.
(Sounds of a projection screen being wound down)
Mowberry: Gentlemen, during the communications blackout the team was left in command of the Automated Relay Command…
(Several confused grumblings)
Mowberry: Its like an answering machine with some sentient programming, allowing it to issue orders based on a logic matrix. The A.R.C can coordinate field operatives, weighting up risk and benefit for the good of Imperium, the kind of tough calls that you gentlemen make, during comm’s downtime. It’s a very sophisticated machine (its probally Tau), …
(Nervous shuffling in chairs)
Magnus: Err, how many of these things do we have.
Mowberry: Oh not many, it’s in its infancy, some programming bugs. It can become psychotically single minded at times. Additionally its binary processing keeps switching resource expendability from 1 to 0, causing massive asset loss, sometimes for very little gain, so we only deploy them in systems of low strategic importance. It still performs okay, even compared to your own distinguished records.
(Fit of coughing)
Roover: Err, yes, just get on with it lad.
Mowberry: Well, you can read for yourselves, this is a log of all communications between Einmyrria and the A.R.C during the blackout period…..
(Show Media: Adeptus Edama’s Logs)
Babcock: Good Lord, I see what you mean about the A.R.C, its never going to work with all those bugs.
Mowberry: Actually sir, the A.R.C performed as per its original programming, the natural expendability of the resource in question was 0 to begin with.
Magnus: I don’t quite know what to make of this. You believe this device he speaks of exists, and that the Eldar are in possession of it?
Roover: Poncy Coneheads, no wonder their race is dying, way they act makes you think there’s not much lead in their pencils, know-what-i-mean..eh.eh?
Mowberry: A distinct radiation pattern recorded by the team was traced at the site. It has been seen again as several places all over the sector, with concurrent reports of Eldar activity. They have it, and we think they are trying to hide it.
Roover: Sodding brightlance smokers!
Mowberry: We believe that they cannot destroy the solar enslaver due to the energies contained within. Readings indicate they have spilt it into as many as 3 pieces in order to prevent assemblage.
Roover: Pretentious wraithpillow biters
Astros: General please, we must hear the full briefing
(Sound of Roover mumbling under his breath, combinations of the words, cone, wraith, nonce, monkey, candy ass and other expletives are heard in the background)
Magnus: Tell us more about this device
Mowberry: Further study has allowed us a greater understanding. We have classified the device as a Chronometric High Energon Electromagnetic Solar Enslaver
Babcock: Spare me your fancy science talk, I want the facts dammit!
Mowberry: CHEESE sir, the device is CHEESE.
(Shocked gasps)
Mowberry: We believe that this inauspicious looking machine can draw off and harness the power of the very stars themselves. The CHEESE converts Solar Energy into Chronometric High Energon Dimensionally Displacing Anti-matter Radiation
(Sound of eyebrow being raised)
Mowberry: CHEDDAR sir. It seems that this is used to teleport Necrons (especially out of close combat situations), teleport in monoliths, in fact it provides them with power to carry out all of their functions, and it is the power supply for Necron tomb fleets. It also provides C’tan with a light low-carb snack.
Magnus: So, the source of the Necron power is revealed at last
Mowberry: There’s more. Based upon our projections we foresee that the power of the CHEESE can be augmented further based on the properties of the star it is used upon. It seems for the maximum energy output to be obtained energy must be siphoned off from stars in their larger twilight periods, prior to their extinguishing.
Magnus: Oh My Emperor, you don’t mean…
Mowberry: Yes sir, I’m afraid I do. Mature CHEDDER…
(Exasperated gasps. A glass smashes. Stunned silence.)
Astros: These are the facts as we know them, Gentlemen. We must decide what is to be done
(Hubbub resumes)
Babcock: It could power entire planets. It is safe isn’t it, I mean the radiation from the CHEESE, seems to have had an adverse effect on Edama.
Mowberry: Actually, reports from the Ordo Psychorum indicate that Edama’s mental breakdown was highly likely in any event. That’s why he was posted to a backwater station like Einmyrria.
Roover: We should take it for ourselves. Think of all the xeno arse we could smackdown with this thingymajig.
Magnus: No, think of the technological applications of such a device. We could travel like the Necrons, effortlessly through the deeps of space.
Astros: Gentlemen, please. We have had time to analyse this information in depth and run simulations of the potential use and abuse of such a device. Our studies have yielded only one possible conclusion. The CHEESE must be destroyed.
(Outpouring of noise, shouting, jibing, papers being thrown across the room)
Babcock: Come on, this could revolutionise the Imperium.
Roover: You eggheads are all the same, always trying to spoil the fun for the rest of us. This gizmo drains suns right? Imagine the faces on those UFP pansies when the lights in the sky go out eh? Imagine the damage we could do with this thing.
Astro: We can, and we can also imagine the damage it could go if it fell into the wrong hands. The CHEESE is too dangerous. We believe the Necrons know it is missing, if it remains in one place too long it calls them to it. Even worse, the Inquisition believe this thing is reaching out across spectral bandwidths looking for help, across the Warp, rattling the cages of attuned inhabitants there.
Roover: CHAOS!! That settles it. I’ll set the entire sector on fire before those gribbly-herders lay one damned tentacle on it.
Magnus: What makes you think we can destroy this thing is the Eldar are incapable?
Astro: For all their technology, they sometimes miss the distinctly more blatant solutions. We think a large area explosion could set off a chain reaction within the CHEESE, causing it to release its energies in a confined space and vaporise.
Magnus: That would take an Exterminatus level bombardment!
Astro: We didn’t say it would be easy. Not quite an Exterminatus, just a concentrated enough blast to resonate the structure of the CHEESE , the chain reaction would intensify the power by an exponential level, destroying the entire planet. The effects could stretch out across the entire system.
(Hearty chuckle)
Roover: So in order to save us all from this MacGuffin, all you have to do is destroy an entire planet with this CHEESE bomb?
Astros: Well, we haven’t quite decided on a target uninhabited system that would be suitable for this purpose. Why General, do you know of any?
Roover: Well, I can certainly think of a few habitabited ones. Maybe we can make this thing go bye-bye, and show the enemies of the Imperium what for in the process. STEVENSON!!!
Unidentified: Yes, Sir?
(Voice Print ID – Insignificant)
Roover: What’s the name of that planet those stuntie bastards givin’ us the jip on Cerberex come from?
Insignificant: Hartak, Sir.
Roover: Hartak eh?, hmmm….
(Recording Ends)
(Static, followed by sounds of general clutter and hubbub. Someone coughs violently in the back ground, several people appear to be eating noisily)
Unidentified:….then I said to her “are you sure you’re not a mutant? Your hands seem to be all over the place, and that trick you just did, I’m pretty darned sure it’s not natural”
(Several senior sounding gentlemen burst into laughter and cackles)
(Voice Print Identified – Cross Ref: General Thaddeus Roover -1IC Sector Defense Force (SDF))
Roover: Well, she turns to me and tells me there could be some grain of truth to it, she was born with one of those vestigial tail things that dropped on off at birth, can you believe it?
Unidentified: By the Emperor, what did you do?
Roover: Handed her straight on over to the Inquisition, filthy mutant. Not the worst I’ve seem but still.
Unidentified: I tell you what, I saw this one mutant, looked exactly like you or I, except his skin was black as the night itself!
(Voice Print Identified – Cross Ref: Admiral Bova Magnus – CIC Sector Naval Forces)
Roover: A black person!! not in this universe. Suppose those Tallarn rag’eds come close, must be a splash of the mutant in them too. With all these savage races out there, you can’t help feeling that it is the burden of the Imperium to get out there and bring civilisation to them all. Still, awful shame about the girl, she was a good looking lass and all. They burned her in the City Plaza last week; along with that albino boy they found hiding in the sewers.
(Silence….)
Magnus: I thought she was supposed to make roasts, not become one
(Outburst of guffaws and snorting laughter, degrades into several hacking coughs)
Roover: (sighs) The wife was most put out, got to be looking for a new cook now, detracts from her life of leisure. Not that I see her much, spends all her time at that Health Spa with her Vostroyan personal trainer Borgs.
Magnus: Bah, never trusted Vostroyans, shifty lot, always look like their about to pinch something.
Unidentified: It’s the beards, just because you can grow one larger than your head, doesn’t mean you have to, bunch of bloody show-offs.
(Voice Print Identified – Cross Ref: Governor Tarkus Babcock – Planetary Governor)
Roover: Flaming savages. Pass the prawn sandwiches, Gaius
(Sound of plates scraping over table)
Roover: No, the ones without crusts. Crusts give me gas
Unidentified: Sorry General
(More plates shuffling)
(Voice Print Identified - Cross Ref: Adeptus Gaius Astros - Chief Scientific Officer of Sector)
Babcock: Where is Dominel?
Magnus: He sent his apologies ahead. His damn gout is flaring up again. Poor thing is laid up in his solarium.
(Door swings open, sounds of stumbling and rustling of paper, general cacophony quietens down)
Astros: Ah, here you are, suppose we better get this little gathering underway. This is…is…er…wait, can’t quite conjure… What was your name again…
Unidentified: Adeptus Stilton Mowberry, sir. Ordo Xenos Aleph Sector detachment.
(Voice Print Recorded – Begin Archive: Adeptus Stilton Mowberry – Ordo Xenos)
Astros: Right, right. Well, Adeptus Mowberry here has something important for us, latest findings off Einmyrria.
Babcock: Where?
Roover: Little planet in the Hellheim system, had a bit of a tussle there a while ago, apparently some of those roboskellies…
Mowberry: Necrons, sir
Roover: That’s the one, Necrons has some little shindig going on there, so we trotted on over and gave em’ what for. Tough little critters, but they don’t like it up em’, wot wot. Weren’t the only ones invited to the party, just about every xeno in the sector turned up, kicked em’ all in the crotch, or whatever ever the have, sent em’ packing. Then half the planet blew up for no particular reason, darndest thing you ever saw.
Astros: Anyway, the archeological team sent to investigate the Necron ruins remaining on the planet was temporarily out of contact due to unusal emanations from the local star, and well, Mowberry can take it from here.
(Sounds of a projection screen being wound down)
Mowberry: Gentlemen, during the communications blackout the team was left in command of the Automated Relay Command…
(Several confused grumblings)
Mowberry: Its like an answering machine with some sentient programming, allowing it to issue orders based on a logic matrix. The A.R.C can coordinate field operatives, weighting up risk and benefit for the good of Imperium, the kind of tough calls that you gentlemen make, during comm’s downtime. It’s a very sophisticated machine (its probally Tau), …
(Nervous shuffling in chairs)
Magnus: Err, how many of these things do we have.
Mowberry: Oh not many, it’s in its infancy, some programming bugs. It can become psychotically single minded at times. Additionally its binary processing keeps switching resource expendability from 1 to 0, causing massive asset loss, sometimes for very little gain, so we only deploy them in systems of low strategic importance. It still performs okay, even compared to your own distinguished records.
(Fit of coughing)
Roover: Err, yes, just get on with it lad.
Mowberry: Well, you can read for yourselves, this is a log of all communications between Einmyrria and the A.R.C during the blackout period…..
(Show Media: Adeptus Edama’s Logs)
Babcock: Good Lord, I see what you mean about the A.R.C, its never going to work with all those bugs.
Mowberry: Actually sir, the A.R.C performed as per its original programming, the natural expendability of the resource in question was 0 to begin with.
Magnus: I don’t quite know what to make of this. You believe this device he speaks of exists, and that the Eldar are in possession of it?
Roover: Poncy Coneheads, no wonder their race is dying, way they act makes you think there’s not much lead in their pencils, know-what-i-mean..eh.eh?
Mowberry: A distinct radiation pattern recorded by the team was traced at the site. It has been seen again as several places all over the sector, with concurrent reports of Eldar activity. They have it, and we think they are trying to hide it.
Roover: Sodding brightlance smokers!
Mowberry: We believe that they cannot destroy the solar enslaver due to the energies contained within. Readings indicate they have spilt it into as many as 3 pieces in order to prevent assemblage.
Roover: Pretentious wraithpillow biters
Astros: General please, we must hear the full briefing
(Sound of Roover mumbling under his breath, combinations of the words, cone, wraith, nonce, monkey, candy ass and other expletives are heard in the background)
Magnus: Tell us more about this device
Mowberry: Further study has allowed us a greater understanding. We have classified the device as a Chronometric High Energon Electromagnetic Solar Enslaver
Babcock: Spare me your fancy science talk, I want the facts dammit!
Mowberry: CHEESE sir, the device is CHEESE.
(Shocked gasps)
Mowberry: We believe that this inauspicious looking machine can draw off and harness the power of the very stars themselves. The CHEESE converts Solar Energy into Chronometric High Energon Dimensionally Displacing Anti-matter Radiation
(Sound of eyebrow being raised)
Mowberry: CHEDDAR sir. It seems that this is used to teleport Necrons (especially out of close combat situations), teleport in monoliths, in fact it provides them with power to carry out all of their functions, and it is the power supply for Necron tomb fleets. It also provides C’tan with a light low-carb snack.
Magnus: So, the source of the Necron power is revealed at last
Mowberry: There’s more. Based upon our projections we foresee that the power of the CHEESE can be augmented further based on the properties of the star it is used upon. It seems for the maximum energy output to be obtained energy must be siphoned off from stars in their larger twilight periods, prior to their extinguishing.
Magnus: Oh My Emperor, you don’t mean…
Mowberry: Yes sir, I’m afraid I do. Mature CHEDDER…
(Exasperated gasps. A glass smashes. Stunned silence.)
Astros: These are the facts as we know them, Gentlemen. We must decide what is to be done
(Hubbub resumes)
Babcock: It could power entire planets. It is safe isn’t it, I mean the radiation from the CHEESE, seems to have had an adverse effect on Edama.
Mowberry: Actually, reports from the Ordo Psychorum indicate that Edama’s mental breakdown was highly likely in any event. That’s why he was posted to a backwater station like Einmyrria.
Roover: We should take it for ourselves. Think of all the xeno arse we could smackdown with this thingymajig.
Magnus: No, think of the technological applications of such a device. We could travel like the Necrons, effortlessly through the deeps of space.
Astros: Gentlemen, please. We have had time to analyse this information in depth and run simulations of the potential use and abuse of such a device. Our studies have yielded only one possible conclusion. The CHEESE must be destroyed.
(Outpouring of noise, shouting, jibing, papers being thrown across the room)
Babcock: Come on, this could revolutionise the Imperium.
Roover: You eggheads are all the same, always trying to spoil the fun for the rest of us. This gizmo drains suns right? Imagine the faces on those UFP pansies when the lights in the sky go out eh? Imagine the damage we could do with this thing.
Astro: We can, and we can also imagine the damage it could go if it fell into the wrong hands. The CHEESE is too dangerous. We believe the Necrons know it is missing, if it remains in one place too long it calls them to it. Even worse, the Inquisition believe this thing is reaching out across spectral bandwidths looking for help, across the Warp, rattling the cages of attuned inhabitants there.
Roover: CHAOS!! That settles it. I’ll set the entire sector on fire before those gribbly-herders lay one damned tentacle on it.
Magnus: What makes you think we can destroy this thing is the Eldar are incapable?
Astro: For all their technology, they sometimes miss the distinctly more blatant solutions. We think a large area explosion could set off a chain reaction within the CHEESE, causing it to release its energies in a confined space and vaporise.
Magnus: That would take an Exterminatus level bombardment!
Astro: We didn’t say it would be easy. Not quite an Exterminatus, just a concentrated enough blast to resonate the structure of the CHEESE , the chain reaction would intensify the power by an exponential level, destroying the entire planet. The effects could stretch out across the entire system.
(Hearty chuckle)
Roover: So in order to save us all from this MacGuffin, all you have to do is destroy an entire planet with this CHEESE bomb?
Astros: Well, we haven’t quite decided on a target uninhabited system that would be suitable for this purpose. Why General, do you know of any?
Roover: Well, I can certainly think of a few habitabited ones. Maybe we can make this thing go bye-bye, and show the enemies of the Imperium what for in the process. STEVENSON!!!
Unidentified: Yes, Sir?
(Voice Print ID – Insignificant)
Roover: What’s the name of that planet those stuntie bastards givin’ us the jip on Cerberex come from?
Insignificant: Hartak, Sir.
Roover: Hartak eh?, hmmm….
(Recording Ends)
1 comment:
You should write a book.
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