Glitch appears above the atmosphere of a small planet. She is in her ordinary polymorphic body and also simultaneously aware of herself in her adult sask body. In the sask body, some of her motor control and memory seems to be lost, but it keeps coming back in dribs and drabs ((according to what you can figure out from Glitch 1.4 thread)).

With her cyber-enhanced eyes in the were-body, she sees creatures and structures on the surface of the planet.

Her sask body would be too large to land on the planet without harming the planet, so it seems best to stay in space with her Living Tree exo-armor and its constant supply of fresh air. But the creatures are human-sized, so Glitch's were-body will fit right in with their size.

(so there are two of her now?)

No. This one is future to the other, but has some memory loss. If it isn't written in the other one yet, this one doesn't remember it. The other one has no awareness of these events at all.

She will stay some distance away then and examine the planet from afar with her senses and see what she can see and what is going on there.... if the suit has any scanners she will use them.

If she finds a reason to go down.... she will grow a little ship out of the tree if she can, ans shrink down into her were rat form to fit into it and use it.

((Unless you meant 2 bodies - in which case, yes, there are two Glitches with connected minds. One in Glitch's polymorphable ratkin body, and the other in a colossal celestial-sized sask body. I think I misunderstood your question.))


Through the art of selective pruning, placement, grafting, and growth acceleration, she grows a little landing ship out of the tree. Glitch could simply choose her gravitational vector and fly there like superman, but sask-Glitch cultivates a spaceship. Probably wise. It doesn't take long to make a landing-ship just big enough for a rat. Making it able to launch again - that'd take some time.


Society had reached post-scarcity freedom. Their population density was idealized through carefully timed births - large space-stations indicate that there was a large-scale exodus which ended about a century earlier, when society seems to have halted and reverted to tribalism.

The most prevalent cult symbol is a collection of 8 asteroids at the points of a cube, pointing to its center. The cube has a few rounded pebbles in it. Every day a monk enters the cube and removes single pebble. The same set-up is found everywhere on the planet. And almost everywhere has the same number of pebbles remaining: 7. A few places are adding pebbles every day, and their cubes are overflowing, but the asteroids are gone - replaced with a ring around the cube.

In one of these places with a filled cube, Glitch faintly senses the hint of a scriff-vector for a fleeting moment - if she hadn't been looking right at it, she'd have missed it.

(well if there are two of her just takes her smaller self down while leaving the bigger her up there)


She will search to see if there are asteroids in the system, particularly any that may be going to impact the planet......  or if there are signs that any have hit the planet..... or any signs of something like a cube shaped station near asteroids or the like among the abandoned stations.

Unless there is a looming threat she will go down to investigate the scriff vector to check on it.

Indeed - 8 of them, and in 7 days they will all collide into the planet at the same time. 2 are already on a degrading orbit, 2 are moving slowly but just a little further away, 1 is coming from the direction of the local star, and the other from the opposite direction. The last one is too far away to tell it's speed, but it's coming from above the planet's (and star system's) north pole.

No signs of this


((Two selves, one the right size to talk to people, one the right size and type to destroy asteroids, two tasks - investigate people, and stop the asteroids. I'm going to assume Glitch goes down to investigate and Gichi stays in the sky going after the asteroids. They can stay together if you prefer.))

The vector leads to a small abundance-cult settlement with a countdown-cult settlement nearby. Although there are skyscrapers towering around them, the people mostly live on the 1st floor or below the surface. The people have 7 spider-like legs, 2 branching tentacles which end in 5 limbs each, and a sensory bulb on a long stalk. Their mouth is also their cloaca, but is only used for the passage of nutrients. They communicate by flapping color-changing flag-like caruncles around the end of their sensory stalk.

It is night time, and a number of the people seem to be gathering in a fire-lit cabin where they are imbibing liquids and snacking on things.

Just see's how they react to her ratkin form, ready to communicate mentally to calm them if she needs to..... ether way she will call out "Hey Elliot you out here?!?!"

Gichi will commune with the planets spirit and ask if something sent the asteroids and if it would like hir to stop them. Afterall eight coming at once is kinda odd.

They panicked. They ran around chaotically, like they were trapped. Their curiosity kept them from going too far away, but their disgust and fear kept them from staying still.



Her psychic powers were useless on these creatures, whose minds must have operated in such an alien way that their minds are psychically incompatible with Glitch's.


No response yet. Perhaps he was too far away to hear her.


The spirit of the planet, who resembles the creatures below, indicates that indeed, something sent the asteroids. However, it doesn't care if they come or not, except that it prefers either all asteroids collide or none do. Gichi's cosmic mind is able to calculate that the trajectory of the asteroids will cause them to collide with one another in quick succession, leading to unpredictable results - either the planet will be flooded with molten adamantium, or an adamantium shell would form above the surface of the planet. But it was impossible to tell which would happen and the spirit of the planet wouldn't say which one was expected.

Tries calling out louder and with her mind for better range to find him. "I know some ones here...."

She sighs and watches the bug people trying to see if she can figure any language out with them.

Meanwhile big her tries to calculate what altered the course of the asteroids so she can figure out where the attack might have come from, there entire course, and how best to stop them all.

If they are going to collide maybe she could alter the speed of the colision so they dont smash eachother apart and instead come together close enough they can be pulled together with treeshaping and made into a moon?

Nothin. Perhaps the technique he uses to disappear also blocks psychic powers.



Watching the people intently, her body begins to feel like it wants to morph into one of them.


It's hard to say where they originated from. They are on a long stellar orbital trajectory which would place them within pre-warp reach of the planet at different points, from 1 year ago, to 1000 years ago. If they had never been artificially altered in their course, then about 10 thousand of years ago, they all originated from the same place - in orbit around the planet itself.


That could be done.
They could also be batted into the local star, or sent into interstellar space, or other options. Gichi's choice.

Glitch turns into one of them and tries to calm them down and ask about the dislodged moons and about who was here before that disappeared.



Gichi, sighs and is not supersized the planet don't want to talk about what is happening... these are ether her children or siblings. If the shell was created by them being near it's possable there civilization dislodged the moons so they could leave the planet with out ever having talked with there planet....  now they are returning home some how perhapse some force related to the substance in the first place, something similar to magnetics but stronger maybe?

Shi would have to try and figure it out..... but in the mean time shi could try instead to try and get the moons back into there proper orbits instead of them crashing. Though glitch would have to leave the planet before the last moon was placed back in orbit likely.... x.x And hopefully take the people living there with her if they didn't want to be stuck, or flooded.

Gichi begins with the closest and smallest asteroid, calculating the best way to alter its course and establish it into a stable orbit, where it and the other 7 asteroids won't crash. Having chosen the best path with the greatest margin for error, shi pushes it into place (using her Tree suit for propulsion). The moment the asteroid begins to move, about 15 starships emerge from the surface of the asteroid, and begin to attack Gichi. However, they aren't powerful enough to damage her natural armour beyond her rate of natural healing. So shi could simply ignore them. If there were 150, shi'd be in trouble, but 15 are barely enough to notice.


Glitch turns into one of the creatures, they all stop looking like they are panicked, and slowly gather around her. Some of them reach out with tentacles to touch Glitch's body. Others flash and flap their caruncles to talk to her at once. Conveniently, their language seems to be innate, so Glitch understands it instinctively (almost hearing the words synesthetically), and can respond simply by trying to talk.

They ask her who she is, where she came from, if she's a god, does she come from the ancestors in the stars, are the asteroids returning as the prophecies say, will they be saved or destroyed, and various other things. But otherwise, they calm down, and their priest responds to Glitch's question, "I don't know what 'moons' are, but that sounds like a matter of the Deserters. Perhaps the Librarian would know the answer."

The priest produces a small sphere and presses a button, turning on a holoprojector inside the sphere which projects a holographic creature like the others. The creature says, "Greetings, user! I am the Librarian, how can I help you?"

The priest says, "What happened to our 'moons'?"

The Librarian responds, "We never had moons. The closest thing to moons that we've ever had were the artificial asteroids created by the one named Death-obsessed. Death-obsessed had accumulated vast power for the purpose of preventing the extinction of our species. When no one wanted to leave our world, he collected matter from thousands of asteroids into a set of 8 specially designed artificial asteroids and sent them over a period of time on a course to collide with the planet in about 1000 years so that we would be forced to leave our homeworld and colonize other planets. He was assassinated, but he had already build a fleet of automated starships to protect the course and continuation of the asteroids. The fleet has since disappeared, but the asteroids continue to fly. It was believed by some that Death-obsessed never intended to cause the death of the people here, and that the asteroids would benefit the population of the planet instead of causing harm. But that was a minority opinion. Nevertheless, at that time no one could destroy or divert the asteroids. In the meantime, everyone who was willing to leave, went to the space-stations and departed for other worlds. About 100 years ago, only the anti-technologians remained. After about 25 generations, two cults emerged - the Doomsdayers and the Survivalers. Doomsdayers count-down to the day of the destruction of life, while Survivalers count-up, being convinced that the asteroids will not kill anyone."

The priest confirms, "We are Survivalers."

"I am not a god, though the other me might be when shi dies.... in the meantime I can devert them... the use to be in orbit thats why i thought they where moons. There are several options here... I can devert them into orbit, into the sun, or I can let them hit.... and if I let them hit I can take you to another planet if the impact don't help you.   The impact is ether going to flood the planet in deadly metal or create a metal shield that will seal the planet away from outside dangers... I can't tell which... I could go onto one of them and try and find out."


She will also go to and offer the Doomsayers the same... and comunicate to them eachothers choices or offer to let them talk it over with eachother..... so maybe


Gichi will hold off on deverting as long as she can for them to make up there mind.... but guesses she will have to devert the first one soon or already... she can aleasy send it back on corse to colide or help it recaclucate an impact if it's got thrust of it's own.... she exsamine it and try and figure out how it works and what it will do while she waits.

"We are the Survivalers. We believe the asteroids will not harm us. We know not how this will be. It may be that we are saved because you divert the asteroids. Or it may be that they will protect us when they collide together. Whatever the case, we will not leave this planet. This is our home, and we will not abandon her. Plenty of our cousins have already sent our home's descendants into the stars, but our home deserves the honor of our remaining presence under any circumstance."

Afterward, one of the less important creatures pulls Glitch aside and privately says, "Some of us believe we will be saved by being taken off of this world. It was our great great great great great grandparents who made the decision to stay, it was not our decision. If the time comes, we who want to be saved will all be gathered at the shrines, holding tentacles in a circle. If it comes to that, please save us." Then it disappears into a crowd.


Once they understand who Glitch is, seeing her transform again or somehow otherwise prove her god-like-ness to them, their priest says, "We are the Doomsayers, and we will die in 6 days with our world whether by your interference or not. This is our world, and we will never leave it. It is not our bodies that will live, but our spirits that will go on to become greater things."

Like in the other camp, Glitch is pulled aside and a random person says, "The few of us who wish to live will join the Survivalers by their shrines." This one then disappears into the crowd.


((yes, shi did))


((shi could))


((it doesn't have thrust, except if the 15 ships were to push or pull it somehow. But if that were to need to happen, shi'd be able to help it adjust its course even without its help right up until the day before the final asteroid arrives))

She tells the tribes she belives herself that the astiroids will likely form the shield, but they will likely be sealed in unable to leave there world if thats true.... but she could be wrong, and the astroids could be damaged and fail to do there job and flood the world killing everyone anyway....  but yes if they die there spirits will live on.  She will let the astiroids hit because it is the wish of most the world and she thinks things will be fine but she will make sure herself checking them out, and seeing if they need repairs.... anyone who is afraide and wishes to leave or dose not wish to be traped on there world and wishes to see the stars there ansestors left for can leave when she sends a larger ship down.


Whle glitchi keeps the attack ships bussy glitch will fly up and try and find a way to land on and get inside the small asteroid and see if she can figure out how it works and what it's built to do.

Glitchi starts growing a ship large enough to evacuate a large chuck of the population while cacluating how to divert the first astoid back onto it's orginal corse the best.

Glitch finds a few tunnels where the ships had emerged from, but they don't reveal anything other than the presence of the automated recharging and repair stations for the ships.


Gichi calculates how long it would take to make a ship from Tree, and realizes that Tree Singing will not be fast enough to create a launchable ship... Nimiaom mentions to hir mind that there are other solutions, and gives the image of an empty sphere tied to a string, then the image of a person grabbing an empty sphere while flying past it, then a series of other images that could be other alternate methods. Gichi gets the feeling that hir intuition will take over if shi can't figure it out in time.


This is a simple matter of pushing it from behind, and then slowing it down when it re-enters its original orbit - once shi begins to help the asteroid right its course, the ships stop attacking and start helping - the whole process of correcting the course of the asteroid is completed within half a day.

If nothing changes, it seems that the 8 asteroids will break apart, blast apart, and spread out into a cloud of debris in various orbits around the planet. Left to nature, within the first hour after the collisions, 10% of the mass of the asteroids will likely rain down on the planet. This would cause a meteor shower which won't destroy the planet, but could endanger some of the people. The potential effects would be much worse if the planet was fully populated, but as it stands, Gichi's cosmic calculating mind estimates that less than 5% of the population would die in the first day. Less if they avoid structures that could fall on them, and even fewer if they hide underground.

4 days remain, and Gichi has hir eye on the trajectory and course of all 8 of the asteroids now.

Glitchi creates a habital sphere she can lower down into the atmosphere. While Glitch updates the inhabitants of the planet.

Shi will tell them what will happen and guide them to the sphere when it is lowered and ride with it.... and tell the others who are staying behind what ever is going to happen the parts of the machines will be rainning down from the sky and even if they are going to do something helpful there impacts will kill people and they should hide underground till after they stop rainning down if they want to live to see what the astaroids do. She points out some caves they can go to.

She will take anyone that wishes to go though and stick around to see what happens.

Tethered to a Tree vine as the rope, this will work fine.

No one dares to enter into the habitable sphere until the day of collision arrives. The priests and warriors have warned that the whole community must cooperate together, so the silent dissenters remain silent until the first collision occurs. At that time, about 67% of the population runs into the sphere (fortunately it was made large enough to fit them). Apparently they maintained short-distance portals in secret underground locations, because they were able to gather from all over the world within 22 minutes.

Just before the collisions begin, a stream of hundreds of drone ships pours out of all of the asteroids, and the ships begin surrounding and manipulating them. Instead of colliding, the first two asteroids break into pieces, and machinery which had been buried deep within the cores reveals itself. Although there's no direct way for Gichi or Glitch to observe this, the machines are powered by gravitational fluctuations and fusion. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth asteroid join the process in much the same way. The seventh asteroid aligns is shot with lasers from all of the ships, and melts into one giant ball of molten adamantium, which is then magnetically directed into a spiral around a ring which the other asteroids have now become. The ring encircles the planet completely around the equator, and the spiral surrounds the ring. Thin stabilizing legs (like a millipede) extend between the spiral, the ring and the planet to keep it all in place.

The final asteroid brings an incredibly powerful ionic charge which jump-starts a fusion chain along the ring by traveling along a string of ships (the asteroid is still almost a minute from colliding with the planet now). The energy buildup in the ring and spiral interacts with the planet's magnetic field and generates a planetary energy force shield. Which fully forms just in time to absorb the impact of the final super-fast asteroid, causing it to blow apart and spread around the planet in a spectacular light show.

Once the force-field and spiraled ring are in place and proven operational, the drone ships all descend to land on the surface of the planet.

Unfortunately, hiding behind the final asteroid, was a fungal zombie dragon mage. The unholy thing opens a portal about 5 minutes flight distance from the planetary shield, and a horde of fungal zombie dragons begins pouring through.

Immediately they target Gichi and the planetary shield, spewing green acidic plasma flames, blue electrical discharges and a variety of other attacks.

If it's possable to pass through the shield, glitch will choas jump / bolt hole the people back down to the planet.

While glitchi fights the dragons.

She will combine chaos mage crafting abilties, with tecno-organic self reconstruction, nanites, the jurry rig ability, and magnatized dibree from the final super large and fast asteroid to create a sorta shot gun rail gun that just uses chaos teleport to grab a whole buch of fragments of magantized metalic dust and dibree and blast it out of the end at the undead creatures.

Undead are rather hard to kill unless you blow them to pices or burn them... hard to burn things in space...  and even magnatized dust can blow things appart if it's moving fast enough and alowed to spread out.

She could just keep teleporting and reusing debree so it didn't fly off into space and cause an accident in the future too.

If glitch can't get the people down to the planet she will try and do what she did with the rite of cardbord palalce (and no it don't need cardboard =p just a some what incosed space) and try and take it ferther in making a protected shield with it drawing the chaos out of the walls to inforce the order in them. Though this is only the second time she's tried to use the rite of cardboard palace to create a protective zone. It's desined to create protective shelter but more from the elements and not attack. lol But hopefully if she has to do it being the second time she's tried she can do better to alter the ritual to be more protective.

*rolls*

Glitch just barely manages to open a bolt--hole large enough, and Chaos teleport through the shield to the surface.

The Tree Habitable sphere she created for their original escape is strengthened by this. That night, Glitch will have a dream that this habitat will protect those who had fled for salvation to the safety offered by the divine science-y being from the heavens. They will be persecuted by those who had stayed for generations, yet their safe and secret den will remain hidden and secure - a safe-haven where they can run to when they are in need. The sphere provides them with necessities, and even some food. It creates the perfect habitat for them, growing as their numbers increase, and rising slowly higher into the air as a giant Tree. The entire planet will be teraformed by the Tree with the planet's own native species, to create the ideal ecosystem. Ultimately, the inhabitants will outnumber their persecutors, and will adopt any outsiders who willingly participate in their culture, until the population reaches equilibrium.

Centuries later, when the Canopy reaches the defensive ring, the people spread out into space to teraform uninhabited asteroids and planetoids.

About 347 thousand years later, a teraformed Tree planet near a black hole grows an especially large fruitsack, and the universe's first sask is born. Shi names hirself Shojo. Shi has all of hir ancestral mother's memories, and teaches the humanoids of their origins, reuniting the new species of the descendants of the first exodus with the new species of the descendants of the second exodus in a federation of peace between them all. Everyone they meet, after a few hundred or thousand years, eventually joins the federation.

A few billion years later, FTL exploration has allowed federation with the sask to expand throughout the cosmos, and hyperdimensional exploration has opened the door to transversal travel. That same firstborn sask who came into the world 347,000 years after Gichi left, steps through a portal, never to return to this universe, and after a time, shi will meet hir genetic ancestor.


*rolls*

Taking inspiration from the ether, she metamorphoses her body into 73 nodes of 4 colony members each shaped to create curved tubes exactly shaped to connect to all of the others through a continual magnetic arc between the connecting hollow tubes. Each node had 72 tubes pointing their open ends along the arc the others. The nodes spread out from one another until they were about a mile apart from each closest neighbor. The tubes were organized to become the magnetic accelerator of the rail-gun function, bending the path of the charged debris into an ever accelerating near-straight circuitous path (like a super-large hadron collider with many spokes). She began by teleporting enough debris to use, then sped it up until there was a constant stream of near-light-speed charged metal shrapnel flying in a circular net pattern. Finally she Chaos teleported around the dragons, encircling any who were on the same geographic plane and within reach of the arcs, vaporizing 14 of them in a matter of seconds and recycling the charged debris left over.

In the meantime, Gichi obliterates a few dozen by slapping them.

The fungal zombie dragon mage uses the zombie dragons as a distraction while she  opens another portal, from which flaming decaying tentacles, hundreds of miles long erupt

On the surface of the planet, Glitch and Gichi feel the scriff-vector that had eluded them before, emerge completely.

When glitch finishes the ritual she leaves to find out what the scriff vector is.

Glitchi concentrates her fire on the vines keeping them from the planet, taking any shot she can get at the mage.

Then she realizes she could just split off one of her colony to do it, and keep obliterating dragons with the rest.


So Gichi swats and wrestles the rotting tentacles, and when the mage flies within reach, Gichi launches hirself using the tentacles as a slingshot, and vaporizes the mage in a spinning SWAT.

The portals begin to contract slowly...

Meanwhile, the lone Glitch investigates the scriff vector.

She is lead into a cave and deep below the surface. She feels her connection with the rest of her colony and with Gichi dim - they're still there, but silent and numb. At that exact moment, she rounds a bend in the cave and sees Elliot kneeling on the ground, with a shackle around his neck.

Out of deep supernatural shadows, a familiar voice purrs, "What a pleasant surprise! Four targets for the price of one! The others will be SO jealous when I return with you all."
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:49, Sat 24 Sept 2022.