Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Mess Hall - Chat With Elm
[snip]

”..The Serpents were the great evil that came from the dark heavens!” She said gesturing around out the window. “..They came to enslave and conquer us when we were lowly and unprepared. The Great Greyhound Saviors uplifted us from our dark lowly existence and had us repair their great heaven bound ship.” She said gesturing to the Bonnie. “..Like yours in fact, the great texts of ages pass speak of the formation of the Great Greyhound, blessed may it be, your......your heaven bound ship is the same.” She said as if the realization just was coming to her. “..Even the ancient texts speak of the garb the Blessed Saviors were, they were the same as yours, which is why I truly believe you are from their Heavens!” She said.

El glanced down at her clothing. There were many similarities down on the planet that had niggled at her senses. Things were uncannily too close for comfort there. Could something be a totally parallel world of some kind? That seemed too much for mere chance. The story was shaping up. Someone came and helped them against these Serpents, were damaged by the look of it and these people helped fix it. But how did they work this .. spatial distortion? The whole thing was a dreamy story shaping up.

”..You are the destined angels they said would one day come from their far off signal through the heavens of space. But their time here was drawn short when the Serpents came. Much of their…” She seemed to struggle for the word, “..ah their crew were on our lowly planet teaching and ....refitting our lowly existence to more uplifted heights, spreading their words and wisdom to all who would listen and wiping out those who would not with their MACO and Armory force. What later became the MACARMs to the south when the great split happened.” She said then seemed to realize she was getting side tracked. “..The sacred texts though say those still aboard the Great Greyhound fought the Serpents who invaded our system. The great Captain Boyo and his lead departments at his side remained aboard transporting down the remaining crew to care for our people and finish their uplifting and wisdom. The texts of the great Chief Engineer Qill say there was a great breach in the sky and a tear within the space of the heavens as the Greyhound cast its warping field into an overload destroying the foul Serpents before they could make landfall.” She said as if reciting a holy text from memory.

Signal? Was there a signal? Wait. What? MACO? Who has a name that similar?! Her head turned from the planet to Elm, her mind on overdrive trying to piece together pieces there. Why would .. they .. how many were they? Her heart started to pound. Something was going on. So .. the crews were separated from the ship. These Serpents came again. Transporting down? They overloaded the cochranes and destroyed the invaders. They .. were they still out there? She looked outside to space as though expecting some dark serpentine vessel to suddenly materialize. The names were totally unfamiliar to her but everything else was including tech and uniforms. She pulled out her device and linked to the library computer and tapped in the names, including Greyhound. She was expecting nothing, but yet didn’t know what to expect.

If El decided to cue up an NE to run some data records on the name, they would find something interesting. 1) There was a Bonaventure class frigate the SS Greyhound under construction currently about Earth, but she wasnt expected to take flight for another few months, 2) The Captain planned to be assigned to her was a man by the name of Captain David Boyo, and their was a planned Lieutenant grade chief engineering named Samuel Qill on the roster for once the ship was finished. Their was also plans to equip it with a MACO squad before launch.

El blinked and a chill ran down her spine. This can’t be. The time was not right. How could that happen? Was that even possible? “How, how long ago did they first appear, these Serpents and the Greyhound?” Not that that would really help her but it would put some things into perspective. At least on some kind of .. bizarre future past sense.

The oddity of all this was clearly that to Elm and her people these people had been there already, something that seemed impossible frankly. But yet the evidence was clear before their eyes, a primitive people human like barely out of the dark ages had somehow been forcefully uplifted by what seemed a crew of Earth based explorers somehow stranded here or elsewhere and fought off these ‘Serpents’. In turn there then had been some kind of ‘split’ among the survivors, one half being the MACO/Armory crew taking over the southern portion of the planet with their followers, and the other half being the Engineering/Medical/Science based crew and their followers. Then after some years somehow this all lead to a war they now were seeing and the strange ability for this planet to ‘warp jump’ about. It might seem the survivors of the Greyhound if this was all true used Earth technology and likely remains of these Serpents to do more.

GM CockRoach

She chewed on her lower lip only because her hands were full to chew on a nail. The revelation came crashing down on her. They, the Greyhound helped save the world from these .. Serpents .. but in turn at least in part caused this war and devastation below. She quickly tapped out a message [o] Captain. El here in the Galley with Elm. Greyhound is one of ours - future. At least in part - we caused this war. [c]

• El, Eng

Elm seemed to consider the question of length. “..About 150 revolutions of our planet as it travels through the stars was when the first Greyhound Saviors uplifted us and enlarged our minds to greater heights and expanded our livelihoods across our planet.” She said, indicating at least 150 or so years of passing.

GM CockRoach

Okay, that is a ways back in time there. Not exactly rummaging back to Roman times but that would on Earth equivalence put them to the turn of the millennium practically. And boy would that have changed a lot then. Elm was making them out to being a lot more benevolent than it looked from up at this height at the burning world below. How much did they .. interfere? “And these serpents. When did they come? Apart from the stars do you know where they may have come from?” A thought came to her. “Did the Greyhound crew leave any .. logs? Documents?” Which would likely now be holy writ to them. Her almost religious fervor of speaking was making her uncomfortable. El didn’t feel very ‘saviourish’ in any way.
- El, Eng

Elm seemed to consider the question, “..The Holy Texts we learned in school with history say the Serpents came 13 revolutions after the Greyhound Saviors first came to us and uplifted us from the dark ages we were in. Their battle against the Serpents was only 3 daily revolutions. As for where they came from um....” Elm shook her head, “..As far as I know the Saviors never mentioned this, at least it was not ever taught in our schools. As for logs, or documentation the Holy Texts speak of these often but since the Great Split between north and south 20 revolutions ago and....” Elm glanced to the window where the planet burned, “..and the past few days now, I am uncertain if any digital records still exist outside protected bunkers, even paperbacks would be likely to contain only what we learned in school.” She said looking back to El.

GM CockRoach

El strove to fathom that. Okay, they were thrust backward in time .. somehow, and came across this planet and .. stayed? Why? Star positions and the like would tell them that they were in the past and that Earth was not yet in space. But why not return to Earth, albeit in the past, and help? Earth needed help then too. What might that have done to the past that El knew? She didn’t know that. Did they not want to mess with that possible future and instead focus on this world to help them? Did they know anything about the threat in the area? Did they leave behind any log back ups? And a three day battle? That must have been some dreamy epic battle! She glanced down at her device. No reply yet from the Captain.

“They, this Captain Boyo, must have been some person to have devoted all those years .. revolutions .. to your people. But this was long ago. You had mentioned something I think, another battle not a week ago with these Serpents?” Again she glanced out into space. “Were there any drawings of these Serpents?” So they came before the Serpents had arrived to enslave them. Did the Greyhound have advance information about them? So many questions but maybe .. “Did the Greyhound people have a .. base where they operated from?” She imagined that would be a museum noted landmark now.
- El, Eng