Interview with Agent Athene Fnord, Interworld Strategic Quarterly Wrote:Q: Out of the worlds you've surveyed, is there one that has your interest as a potential trouble point?

A: I don't know about trouble exactly, but... Worldline 184, Infinity calls it Americana-5, bugs the hell out of me. American imperial worldlines are almost as common as dirt in possibility space, but most of them only start going really imperial in the mid to late 19th centuries and they tend to restrict themselves to the western hemisphere. This one started getting imperial almost immediately with the Revolution and only slowed down a little in the 1850s. The United States managed to take over North Africa and Australia - Australia! - in the Napoleonic Era. There is definitely something going on down there and we need to find out what it is.

Quote:robkelk wrote:

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Let's not find the draka home worldline too soon, please. We need a decent set of villains for this alternate...

Quote:"Draka safe house?"
"Nope, no pheromones detected. Getting odd readings of a non-local technological vector on passives from 'em." The infomorph regarded the house in question. His fox shaped synthmorph hidden beneath a bush and some good old low tech camo netting. This had started out as a normal scouting mission of a rather standard American-centric timeline before passives had detected molehole formation in the area.
"These guys really don't match the Draka, they even blend in with the locals better. I think we're dealing with Samothracians. Recommend an Magical or Magi-tech recon team for this."
"Well shit, I'll pass it up the chain the next supply portal."
(...)
"Damn there are those odd signals again." One of the Samothracians was fiddling with a portable sensor suit. While the other was glancing out a window.
"Still not been able to track them?"
"No and they are clearly not local tech, but aren't Domination ether."
Both the Samothracians traded a look. A new player might be active between realities and they knew nothing about them. That thought scared them more then running into blindly into Domination beachhead team did.

Quote:Echo Minus Eighteen / 1024
Late May, 2022 (Convention relative)

“Dr. Cooper? Draco Malfoy, from the Moebius Group. A pleasure to meet you sir.” The blond man smiled pleasantly and stuck out a hand, but Sheldon Cooper only gave it a dubious, slightly affronted look. Malfoy kept his hand out for a second, then put it away with the tiniest of shrugs.

“Draco Malfoy is a character from a series of sub-standard fantasy novels written for the lowest common denominator,” Sheldon informed the man. “Your bizarre and childish spy antics are transparent and I’m only doing this because the head of the department asked me to.”

Malfoy gave the physicist a considering look, then relaxed a little. “You do live up to your reputation, Dr. Cooper,” he said. “Let’s get down to it then.”

Sheldon’s office was filled with whiteboards, and every single one was covered with dense mathematical notations. Having let the interloper into his domain Sheldon paid the man no further mind and went back to scribbling on the board furthest from Malfoy and the entrance. Malfoy for his part glanced at the boards, then pulled out a slim book, flipped through to a specific spot and compared the two. “Hm,” he hmmed. “Yes… yes, I see.”

Sheldon heard Malfoy’s humming and took a look to see where the man was busy comparing his work to, what? Looking over Malfoy’s shoulder he saw the contents of the book and nearly blew a blood vessel. “That, that’s, how did you get that!?” he demanded. “Those equations weren’t in my paper! How did you get a published version of something not in my paper?”

Malfoy smiled mysteriously. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Dr. Cooper.”

Sheldon frowned. “Quoting Shakespeare as a rhetorical evasion doesn’t explain how you got those equations. I demand an explanation!”

“Well,” Malfoy said, “these aren’t your work for one thing.”

“Are you implying that I, I plagiarized my work?” Sheldon gasped, outraged. “Why am I arguing this with a man who thinks he’s a wizard? Get out!”

“I didn’t say that either, Dr. Cooper. The situation’s a bit more complex, but think of it as Newton and Leibniz inventing the same math.” Malfoy pocketed his book and gave Sheldon what he assumed was supposed to be a placating smile. “Based on your work, I’m authorized to offer you a position with the Moebius Group.”

“Not interested.”

“Please, Dr. Cooper, hear me out. The position is very well paid and- Ah.” Malfoy held a hand to his ear. “Ah. I see. Dr. Cooper, I’m afraid that we’re going to have to skip the job offer and skip right to the ‘mortal peril’ part.”

“Wait what?” Sheldon started to say, but Malfoy had already grabbed him and hurled them both out the office window. And the office had exploded.

~***~

“Malfoy. No, I got him but there’s complications. Yeah, Tweedledee and Tweedledum sent teams, one snatch one extirpation. No, they hit the building at the same time, so they’re probably too busy killing each other to know we scarpered. Right. Right. Well as soon as they figure it out we need to move. Tell the crew to get the rest of the acquaintance web and head for exfil.”

Terrace Wrote:They're gonna be dragging super-geeks into SciFi/Fantasy Geek Heaven. My God.

DeputyJones Wrote:And Mal? Please tell me that Tweedledee and Tweedledum are Infinity and Centrum's honest-to-goodness actual codenames. Because that would be just plain hilarious.

Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:At least something's getting my muse worked up...

Quote:Codex: Malfoy's Malefactors

Draco Malfoy (who will be quick to assure you that he isn't the Draco Malfoy, but rather a Draco Malfoy) was the unmagical scion of an unmagical upper-class English gentry family that relocated to the Americas during the whole mess with the Royalists and Parlimentarians. Multiple generations later produced Mr. Malfoy, a gentleman of leisure who intended to spend his life in the most frivolous pursuits possible. Unfortunately for these plans Draco's life intersected with the Infinite War, and a series of highly unfortunate events later found him a refugee on C-Home, possessing only the clothes on his back and a bevy of interesting skills. Forced to actually work for a living for the first time in his life Draco joined C-Sec and worked his way up the ranks, eventually joining SC.

The Malefactors are a SC team composed mostly of outtimers, particularly outtimers who have one reason or another to dislike Infinity Unlimited and Centrum. While the team does many of the usual SC tasks - fighting against incredible odds, saving worlds etc. - their main bread and butter are disruption actions against Infinity or Centrum operations the Director or ConCom have deemed potentially destabilizing. This is a task that Malfoy's Malefactors take to with great gusto.

Quote:Mid-Childa High Orbit
10 March 2017 (Convention relative)

“Unidentified vessel, you are in violation of Time-Space Administration regulations! Heave to and prepare to be boarde-” The radio switched off, or the transponder got smashed by the beams of lambent force thrown about by the Mid-Childan cruiser. Either way, the end of the incessant demands was a relief to the pilots of the Crimson Permanent Assurance.

“Boring conversation anyway,” Mal Fnord quipped. “What’ve we got on shields?”

“What shields?” Agent 2nd Class Helen Anderson replied. “We’re down to nav deflectors-” The saucer jerked hard as another magic blast slammed into the hull. “-and there they go. And they took the realspace drive with them, we’re drifting.”

Mal swore long and loud. “Fucking hell! Okay, prepare for sidestep, random walk! Tina, vent what’s left of the drive plasma just before we jump. Maybe we can convince the Middies we blew up.”

Tina Fnord fiddled with the engineering console. “Gimmie a second… on standby.” she reported.

“Here we go, sidestep in three, two, one!”

To outside eyes, the Convention saucer seemed to burst into a cloud of white-hot gas. Inside the cloud, the Crimson Permanent Assurance twisted eight degrees clockwise on the zorth axis and vanished.

~***~

Unknown Worldline
10 March 2017 (Convention relative)

What was left of the Crimson Permanent Assurance blinked into existence six hundred miles above a pretty good facsimile of the Pacific Ocean. The crew took a second to make sure all their bits were still there, then assessed the situation in a calm and professional manner.

“Fuck.” Mal said with deep feeling.

“Still drifting, still no realspace drive,” Tina reported. “I think we’re going to come down on the California coast somewhere.”

“Right. Abandon ship!” The three agents left the control room and ran to the hatch for the escape pods. Where four pods should’ve been waiting, there was a mass of jumbled wreckage and one one-man pod still working.

“Fuckity-fuck!” Tina yelled.

“What do we do now?” Anderson asked.

Mal and Tina exchanged looks. “Into the pod, Anderson,” Tina said, shoving the younger woman into the pod. “Here’s the paydata,” she stuffed the data module into Anderson’s pocket.

“And here’s the nav logs,” Mal said, sticking another module into Anderson’s jumpsuit. “When you get home, come back and get us.”

“Where are you going?” Anderson asked. Tina and Mal exchanged another look.

“I say, Mrs. Fnord,” Mal said in a plummy tone. “Are you up for a bit of orbital skydiving?”

“A capital idea, Mr. Fnord!” Tina chirped. “Always up for trying new things!”

Anderson gaped at them, a mulish look forming on her face. “Helen, listen,” Tina said intently. “You’re not abandoning us, you’re finishing the mission. You get that data to Dulce and then you come back here with a fucking army and rescue us!”

“We’ll be here, you just make it home,” Mal added. “Good luck, Agent Anderson.” He closed the pod hatch and hit the jettison switch.

“You know that this is a pretty mad idea, right?” Tina said casually as they made their way to the suit locker.

“Yeah,” Mal replied just as casually, “but we’ve done madder things.” He paused. “Just in case I don’t see you again, I just wanted you to know I wouldn’t have traded this for anything.”

“Yeah, neither would I.” Tina said. “Love you.”

“Love you always.”

~***~

(audio:“Luck” Martin O’Donnell & Michael Salvatori, Halo 3 Original Soundtrack)

EXT. ORDINARY CALIFORNIA TOWN OUTSKIRTS, NIGHT

We see a dimly-lit sign next to an ordinary road. We can’t quite read what’s on the sign, though it’s pretty obvious that it’s one of those “welcome to whereeversburg” signs on the entrance to just about any town. In the sky above we see the stars.. and one spot of light moving across the background, growing steadily larger.

The fireball of the CRIMSON PERMANENT ASSURANCE gets bigger and bigger as it comes closer to the camera. As it gets bigger we see two smaller dots of light - MAL AND TINA - detach from the fireball and start falling towards the town. The fireball continues on it’s path, sweeping over the sign and lighting it up for just long enough to read the inscription:

WELCOME TO SUNNYDALE
ENJOY YOUR STAY!

Quote:but for extra cruelty it could drop into Drunkard's Walk. >

Quote:Extra cruelty to who, though?

M Fnord Wrote:It's a funny thing, really. This general scene of Fnord & Fnord, Acquisitions falling out of a hole into Sunnydale is really where the whole Fenspace Infinite concept came from, and yet I've only just now managed to get it into a coherent form.

Where does the story go from here? Well, there's two threads: the first is of course Fnord & Fnord engaging in Shenanigans in Sunnydale - which wasn't going to be a canonical Sunnydale, more likely a fanfic variation. I was thinking the Terran Jedi stories when the idea first formed, but for extra cruelty it could drop into Drunkard's Walk. > The second thread is Helen Anderson not getting permission to do a rescue mission and in classic maverick cop tradition raising an army and doing it anyway. Beyond that, I haven't plotted it out & if it keeps rolling it'll probably be a series of short vignettes.

Scene from The Terran Jedi, (Fenspace Infinite edition) Wrote:“So.” Fnord said with a sidelong glance at Xander. “A Jedi, huh? I’m sure there’s a dilly of a story there.”

“Oh there is,” Xander replied. “A great big dilly ding-dong of a story, starting with a chaos mage, a spell and dressing up as Obi-Wan Kenobi for Halloween.”

Fnord blinked and cocked his head to one side, like a dog who’d just been told to tap-dance. “Who?” he asked and Xander blinked.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he repeated. “You know, bearded guy, trained Luke, died fighting Vader in A New Hope?”

“Noooo,” Fnord replied. “In the Star Wars I know Akira Dainoga trained Luke through the first couple’a movies, then died facing Vader in Return of the Jedi.” He gave Xander a cockeyed grin. “Are you sure you’re using that thing correctly?”

Xander stared at the interdimensional traveller for a long second, then sighed. “You know I’ve told this story a dozen times,” he said, “and this is the first time that the Star Wars part was more freaky than the magic spell part.”

“Enh,” Fnord waved. “It happens. They probably haven’t released your version at home yet. When this is all over I’ll see if I can’t send you a gift basket with all seven of the original series.”

“Wow, seven?”

“Yeah. They did a reboot starting a couple years ago but… not a fan to be honest.”