Quote:Well, there's going to be disgruntled parties anyways. And the reaction is going to be a grand "WTF!?" from the danes in general - after all, they never had anything in orbit, period, and we're gonna come swooping down out of nowhere. They're gonna have no reference to go by except for whatever sensational pulps someone may have read.

Quote:This is going to be troublesome to deal with. As they have no freaking clue as to how to deal with us it will make them unpredictable.

Quote:Depends on how we handle contact. They'll notice the stations in earth orbit and our stuff on the moon. Whole bunch of new lights in orbit will have people pointing telescopes at them.

Quote:"THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS. WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US, EARTHMEN."

Quote:They'll be able to see the L5 cluster from Earth with naked eyes. A
decent pair of binoculars would probably be able to pull out details on
the Bernal stations, and a good telescope will get quality images of
pretty much anything within the cluster. And that's not counting the
monsters like Grover's Corners or Greenwood - or Disney's World, for
that matter.

Quote:"Didn't we tell you not to crank call the locals?"

M Fnord Wrote:They'll be able to see the L5 cluster from Earth with naked eyes. A decent pair of binoculars would probably be able to pull out details on the Bernal stations, and a good telescope will get quality images of pretty much anything within the cluster.

M Fnord Wrote:And that's not counting the monsters like Grover's Corners or Greenwood - or Disney's World, for that matter.

Quote:or Disney's World, for that matter.

Bob Schroeck Wrote:

Quote:or Disney's World, for that matter.

...and just what will the suits on the corporate worldlets be doing at a time like this? Especially those that had lots of groundside power structures above them?

Quote:Or not, considering that Noah's cut and run.

Quote:“Look, we can't carry that much pressurised,” Garret spoke into the telephone, “We don't have enough space aboard,”

He yawned. It was too damned late for this.

“What about a cabin?” queried the voice. “If you weren't carrying passengers, you could stick some in free cabins?”

“That's not going to be cheap,” Captain Garret warned him. Never mind that on a Seattle trip, they'd probably have been empty going back up anyway.

“I can handle it, so long as you can handle American,”

“We prefer Euro's but sure, no problem on both. Pay us in cash at the dock,”

Payment upfront, as usual, to order fuel.

“No problemo man. Don't think you'll be gettin' in tonight though, there's some weird weather we got down here."

"Don't doubt the Ciara. We'll get in on time," he reassured him.

"I hope so man, I'l...fhsh...ee...you in ...jasshh,” Garret winced as the channel cut out with a static scream in his hear.

“Hello,” he tried.

Nothing but a hiss.

“Jimmy, you there bud?”

Silence

“Hello?” he tried one last time. “Bugger,”

“Come to bed,” Meg said sleepily from behind him. It's passed midnight.

Tempting, “The high-gain's buggered itself again.”

“Well it can wait until tomorrow. You work yourself too much,”

“That's the definition of Captain,” he smiled back at her. “I'll just sort this. It's probably nothing”

He contacted the bridge.

---->>

Milly Jackson had her feet up in the rebuilt server room, yawning as she watched the download come in. Stupid 'danelaw server was only pushing a few megabytes a second. She'd planned to get Sam, Seán and Sed back up and running hours ago, but the Fenspace mirror had crashed, so the only working one with decent speed was somewhere in the US.

She watched the bytes tick by.

Then stop.

Error: The source location on the server could not be read

She swore.

And tried to restart.

Error: Server not found.

She ping'd the local relay. It answered. She pinged the nearest node. It answered. She pinged her favourite Yaoi site. It answered. She pinged the download server.

Nothing.

She pinged Google.fen. It answered. She pinged her old home server back in Detroit. Nothing. She pinged Google.com, specifically trying the Mountain View address. Nothing. Then the orbital relays stopped answering.

“Oh for Cryin' out loud,” It looked like something had failed between orbit and ground. They could get Fensites fine, but nothing from below. They must've lost the base station. “That gosh-darned high-gain's gone down again,” she concluded.

She picked up the intercom, and called the bridge.

---->>

Aisha was busy in the engine room, doing the repair Orla had asked her to handle on number-two engine. One of the advantages of being a c'tarl-c'tarl type catgirl... she had nails that could be used to lever open access panels on the crankcase.

The other advantage, was that she was strong enough to easily lift the head off the cylinder all by herself, then lift the piston out from inside.

Third, she didn't have to worry about being biomodded by the black handwavium inside.

She didn't notice anything amiss.

---->>

On the bridge, Misha, Aisha's twin sibling by virtue of going through the machine ten minutes after her, was the one on watch... she stared at the comm's panel.

“Captain, Captain,” she said, sounding impossibly giddy thanks to having just downed her daily can of soft drink, “It's not us I swear.” she pushed a few buttons to be doubly sure, “High gain checks out A-Ok! We're sending and receiving, it's got to be a ground problem,”

“Try and find another downlink,” he ordered.

“Already on it,” she beamed, “But it looks like everything down in the litterbox has gone dead. I'm getting more than a lot of chatter on the radio too”

“Calm down will you. What are they saying?”

“Sorry,” she giggled. “Bad time of the day. Most are saying the same as us. They just lost all 'net and radio connections on this side of the planet,”

Outside the window, she could see the United States shrouded in night, a few sparks of light in the shadows marking the cities.

Hmm... it looked different somehow. There was less light on the Eastern side.

“Alright, I'm on my way up,”

She heard someone complain the in background before he hung up. A moment later, the call light lit up again.

“Bridge Misha,” she answered it.

“Misha,” the catgirl recognised Milly's voice. She sounded tired “Did we lose the high-gain again?”

“No no,” she reassured the computer tech, “High gain is working fine.“ she triple checked, “The problem's in the connection, and it's not just us,”

“Right, I'm coming up there. Hang on.”

The catgirl sighed. The first time they let her keep watch, and it wasn't going very well, was it?

---->>

Paul Platowski was in his cabin... legally also his prison cell.

He was woken, not by anything specific... just a dread feeling of unease. It was a feeling he'd learned well enough not to ignore. The last time he'd gotten it, had been right before his ship's engines had failed.

Which got him arrested.

He rolled over in his rack, lifting the blind that covered the porthole.

On the other side, should've been the United States, with the entire East Coast blazing. Instead... while the basic shape looked the same. The basic positions of the lights seemed right. They seemed a hell of a lot dimmer and smaller.

“What the hell?” he said to no-one in particular.

He got himself out of bed. Whatever was going on, was no small thing.

---->>

“So that's it Captain. The whole lot's just not answering.” Misha finished her explanation.

Garret yawned and looked around

“Somebody took down the earthside receivers,” he concluded, “Which took down phone lines too, because they go through the same circuits,”

At least, he thought they did.

“Must be!” Misha chirruped, painfully cheerful

“What's everyone else saying?”

“The same thing basically. Everyone's going crazy. Major faction sites are starting to overload,”

Great. Just great, thought the Captain.

“Keep trying,” he ordered. “Listen for any signal at all coming up from the ground. Maybe we'll get some news from a major station.”

“Aye Captain,” she smiled.

Which made him smile slightly. “Good work,”

Yawning, he sat down in his customary chair, trying to figure out what was going on. A terrorist attack on the 'danelaw?

Milly burst through the hatch,

“Captain,” she blinked, surprised to see him there.

“It's not us,” Garret explained. “It's affecting all of Fenspace too,”

Milly's face turn the same shade of green as her hair. What could bring down the freakin' internet? Did somebody take out the downlinks? Had Congress pulled the plug on it using some sort of secret top-kill? Why?

She took the pilot's seat, not that she actually could fly the ship.

“Captain, I'm getting something from Earth,” Misha announced, “It's sounds funny though, on AM radio.”

“Put it through,”

"My name is Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the Truth." announced the speakers, before launching into a speech that sounded much like a dub of Adolf Hitler. With an American twang.

“I've heard that name before,” said Milly, calmly. “Where have I heard it?”

“Dunno, it's your head,” Misha giggled.

“Freedom!” cheered the crowd on the radio, “Freedom!” As the speaker promised the final solution the negro menace.

“Great, we picked up Klan FM,” deadpanned Garret.”Shut it off. Try and find something better,”

“AM,” Misha corrected him, “And done,”

The voice of Jake Featherston died abruptly, halfway through the word 'miscegenation'.

A few moments of silence, while the Captain, the catgirl and the computer specialist tried to understand what they'd just heard. Another button on Misha's panel lit up, flashing in time to an electronic chirp.

She pushed it, to be rewarded by a simple text message sent to the entire fandom.

“Captain,” she said, calmly, “Noah Scott of Stellvia just called an emergency convention,”

Silence again. The ship's engines kept running. Garret exhaled a long sigh, remembering what had happened the last time he'd heard the words 'emergency convention'... and what had happened to good friends of his afterwards.

“Alright,” he stood up, adjusting his old jacket, the one he'd had since launch day. “We need everyone awake. Bring the ship to battlestations,”

Well, good luck getting any sleep tonight.

---->>

The SS Ciara was one of hundreds of Fenships in cislunar space that night. Much the same scene was played out on every bridge, cockpit, control room or CIC. Some who heard the Featherston broadcast knew immediately, while some remained in the dark until long after they received the convention message.

M Fnord Wrote:“I need to talk to Kohran, please.”

“She’s a little busy, and we’re in the middle--”

“Of a huge dimensional incursion event a couple of minutes ago?” Sora asked.

“How did you know that?”

Sora smiled. “Come on, Dad, you didn’t think Kohran wouldn’t share with her neechan?”

Star Ranger4 Wrote:"About halfway between Cis-Lunar and Mars, Don Antonio. With a load of manure you picked up from someone who owed you daneside for Phobos"

"Dump it and get back to Cis-Lunar toot sweet. Something major is going down Dirtside, and the SMOF have just called an emergency convention."

Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:Looking at the readings, A.C. felt a cold pit start to form in the bottom of her stomach.

~ I do hope he kept a full copy from the Girls. We'll need it. ~

Quote:"Where is this?" Garret asked

"Odyssey Station, Mars orbit," Meg read the message.

Ray turned to Orla "What's our fuel?"

"Just over ten thousand. Nowhere near enough," she answered. "We're going to have to refuel to get out there,"

"Right," he nodded, "Were our stores on Stellvia replenished?"

"The shipment was tomorrow," Micheal Perry answered, gravely. "Which means they probably aren't going to be,"

"Milly, any luck getting a downlink signal?"

"No, everything's being overloaded by everyone else trying to do the same thing. The whole lot's just collapsing. It's like the United States isn't even there anymore,"

"What are we getting on the news,"

"The Litterbox is just as puzzled as we are," Anne answered. "Misha's still down in the server room trying to get something. Keith and Paul are on the television in the break room. They're saying the same thing... the States have gone quiet, and nobody knows why. We're not getting any television from them at all, just a few strange AM radio broadcasts. The rest of the world think's it some sort of terrorism, but they don't know what."

"Most major markets have stopped trading," Kearney said "But from what I saw on our last orbit, it was chaos down there. People were assuming it was terrorism."

"This is beyond terrorism, you don't just make a country disappear," Meg snapped him down. "And you should hear some of the weird crap we're getting. A Confederate States of America. A President Featherston who sounds like a Kentucky Fried Hitler. Not to mention music straight out of World War Two."

Milly went deadly quiet..

"When we get over Europe, everything's normal... well, as normal as possible." the comm's officer continued. Garret put his hand on her shoulder.

"And it's not just us getting this?" Paul Platowski asked, from the Pilot's chair.

"No," answered Meg.

"Anybody also notice how different the night view of the States was?" he asked. "Much less light than I remember. The power grid could have partially collapsed, and taken down US orbital internet links with it,"

"That doesn't explain the weird radio," said Orla. "If that was the case, it should be their civil defense or something,"

"We got a high particle spike on the solar radiation detectors aswell," Anne said, reading from her monitor, "Fractions of a second after midnight, lasting less then half a second. It was so short the computer assumed it was an error and ignored it, but the timing is too close to be a coincidence,"

Garret sat down in his chair. "And there was my phone call that cut out at exactly midnight too," he thought for a second. "When are we next over the US?"

"About twenty-five minutes," Platowski answered. "It'll be nightime down down there,"

"Right. I want a recording of every broadcast we can pick up from down there. Try and focus on ones featuring the Confederate States of America, or Featherston. Meg... when you've got them, I want you send them publicly, along with our radiation data, and our surface observations."

"Aye," she nodded, her voice quivering.

"Somebody might see it and be able to make heads or tails of it. Everyone else, rig the ship for landing. We have to refuel, we're going to do it somewhere safe. Plot course to land off Haulbowline,"

"Aye Captain," Platowski responded.

"Aisha should have the engine ready by then," Orla told him.

It was funny. They'd cursed their luck when that engine'd failed but if it hadn't, they would've been tied up in Seattle port and have been right in the middle of whatever happened.

Milly Jackson spent the next half-hour silently staring out a window. She had a dreadful idea about what had just happened... but that was impossible.

---->>

From: (SS Ciara, Communications), comms@roadrunner.fen
To: all-call@nation.fen
Date: 19/11/16
Subject: United States Incident

We were in low orbit over the United States when this occurred. Our Captain was in the middle of
a phone call to Seattle, which was interrupted at exactly midnight. All ground communications
with the US were lost at the same time. We picked up a momentary particle radiation surge on
our solar radiation detectors fractions of a second later.

The States themselves look different from orbit. There's less light coming from the cities then
there was before midnight, the whole US is much darker at night. We have some photographs.

There are no television signals that we can pick up, or FM radio. We did pick up a few AM radio
broadcasts, and made a recording of these on our last pass. They talk of a Confederate States of
America, a President Featherston, and some sort of Freedom rally, that sounds more like a Ku Klux
Klan event than anything political. The music we picked up sounds like something from the 40's.
The recordings are attached, along with the pictures.

We have to land to refuel, but we're hoping somebody could make heads or tails out of this, we're stumped.

-Meg Fitzpatrick
SS Ciara Comm's Officer

----------------------

For charter or hire. Contact captain@roadrunner.fen

----------------------

Attachments: klan_freedom_rally.ogg, featherston_news.ogg, music.ogg US_east_dark.png, US_west_dark.png.

---->>

Quote:Whaddya think, sirs?