Corvus Seth
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Posted - 2008.08.25 23:31:00 -
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Edited by: Corvus Seth on 25/08/2008 23:32:19
RP-H66, SB3-IH, Stain
Days pass as my quest in Stain, thought to be suicidal, continues with great success - to my own amazement. Despite the loss of two clones and a shuttle full of valuable equipment, a base of operations was established and archaeological excavations in several systems begun with direct assistance from the representatives of the Nation. The agents of True Power and True Creations in Stain seem eager to collaborate with any capsuleer, even as inexperienced in combat as I, because their routine patrol and transport activities are constantly disrupted by the local roaming gangs.
Speaking of which...
On my journey deeper and deeper into the lawless space I ran into many kinds of capsuleers, most of them scouting the area in packs in search for an easy kill, blocking the gates or harassing any True Slave they could find to get the CONCORD bounty. But the thing that both intrigued me and put in mild shock was to be found in the farthest dead-ends of the gate network.
The Untrue Slaves. The mindless automatons, belonging to the unknown master, created with the single purpose: to combat the Nation.
I watched them for hours, silently patrolling the belts in their mighty battleships. I watched as True Slaves fell in combat with their more efficient kind. Then, I get out of the pod and go to continue my research, leaving the ship in control of the slave crew. When I get back at the end of the day, the local channel still shows the familiar tags. The slaughter continues.
Now, I'm not completely clueless: of course, I do know about the widespread automatization of the mining process and the "drone exhumers" controlled by a basic AI and, perhaps, one capsuleer overseer per ten or so robotic barges. But this!
My idea on the origin of the "Untrue Slaves" is that some extremely wealthy criminal overlord, an enemy of the Nation, had a number of his peons trained as capsuleers. Then, to assert full control over them, he rigged the poor souls, as well as their clones, with some kind of the reprogrammed True Slave implants. As an additional bonus, the overlord gets all CONCORD bounties which steadily flow into his pockets, and that must be billions...
I simply can't wait for the day when my pilot training would be sufficient to blow one of these creatures up and dissect the corpse to study the controlling implants!
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