The Nightstar Zoo

https://xkcd.com/757/

That...was a scarier possibility than I had considered. Does anyone have any idea how large the hive on Eina-Afa really is?

My question now is WHY.

they're fine with exterminating the current galactic civilization just to hide?

Why not just LEAVE? With the time frame they've had, they could have built a power source for a Teraport drive big enough to move their entire STAR away a dozen times over.

Nobody would - or COULD - look for them in the void between galaxies.

I don't think the hive sizes have been mentioned. Doesn't really matter though, does it? If the hive has access to technology (and given that it was acting as an engineer I'd say that's rather likely) it could probably infect every other hive in the can.

That's a lot of hives.

Now naturally the question is "Was that actually their endgame?" and "Did they actually succeed?"
Putzho is still out there, and his narrative shoe has yet to drop. The entire attack has also not visibly killed anybody so far - all casualties have been from the defenders.

So I guess mesmorino was right after all?

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Someday... Someday a gun that shoots knitting patterns will be a useful thing to have. I can be patient.

The guys who designed the 30 inch sniper rifle need to step up their game!

I am surprised one dragon class warship can jam all of urtheep.

There is an unspoken "for now" that, perhaps, should be spoken.

Nobody really knows anything
Plus, I can't WAIT to see the look on that smug asshole's face when it turns out, he got outsmarted
Which I am reasonably certain HE HAS BEEN

Well on reflection its not too surprising. Space is huge. Being able to jam another ship means the jamming bubble can cover all of urtheep pretty easily.

I'm still caught up on "Captain Foxworthy" and male pronouns

I'm actually skeptical of Ennesby's explanation. Sure that's what it looks like from the Tough's perspective. But other than one "joke" there wasn't any evidence that the Ok-Skadat were actually hacked. If anything surely the suborned warriors would have been able to put up some resistance since they would know the hack had happened before Tagon found out.

Consider that the actual sum result of this is that Cindy and Urtheep Industries is now cut off from all outside help. That we know that the Allstar prefers not to harm others if they can help it, and that the aim of this mission was to keep the information on their location from spreading.

Now maybe the infiltrators went radically off the deep end and decided the Allstar was worth killing the current galactic civilization through a convoluted plan to hack multiple layers deep to get to Chinook. But I think it would be simpler and less risky for them to make it look like that was what was happening, and use the time that the Tough's were scrambling to stop the destruction of the galaxy to carry out their actual objectives.

In fact even if Ennesby is entirely correct and that was the Infiltrator's plan. Well now Cindy and Urtheep Industries are now cut off from all outside help and whatever other equipment that the infiltrators have suborned is running around unchecked. And if they have the capability to hack the Ok-Skadat warriors mid fight, then they probably have all the equipment in Urtheep under their control by now.

Edit: Also do we know for sure that it's Cindy doing the jamming? Why would she still be doing so after all the engineers were dead?

I'm pretty sure that things happened in this order:

1. The Toughs run a simulation that hinted that the hives could be invected and start something at the can

2. When they go to question the hive, it makes a very ill-timed joke.

3. Cindy sends tagon a quick message before disabling all coms

4. All local nodes of the hive have been destroyed.

5. the All-Star's team halts the attack as they try to figure out why those they were attacking suddenly started tearing each other apart

There's a few other "maybes" but the only ones I can see reek of bad storytelling, as if they were made deliberately unclear in pursuit of an upcoming twist.

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Rule of thumb is that if you need to use a squeegee, they're at least Laz-4.

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Weapon: Meal, Ready to Explode.

I still want to know the why.

Like, seriously. The All-Star had BILLIONS of years to just....LEAVE. Leave the galaxy entirely, star and all.

If they were that dedicated to hiding, that they might POSSIBLY think destroying galactic civilization would be a better outcome...they could just pack up and leave.


Heck, park a few hundred thousand light years off the plane of the elliptic with a bunch of listening posts, wait for life to start populating the stars again. Send out feelers, see if anyone is actively hostile to immortality-by-uploading. If there are, wait until they aren't. It'll happen sooner or later - either they stop being against it or they die off while everyone else uploads or otherwise immortalizes.

It's not like they lack for power, with their own personal solar battery that's got a projected lifespan of LONGER THAN THE UNIVERSE HAS EXISTED.

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Armed with my right and left bear arms and the Coat of Arms.

For those discussing why the All-Star might want to destroy all of galactic civilization, I refer you to this: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-06-23

What we're seeing at Urtheep Industries represents a departure from the All-Star's standard terms of engagement, and starting a civilization ending war is likely a further departure from those terms of engagement.

Also, we don't know for sure what the infiltration team knows or does not know about the Ot-Skadak, Eina Afa, and the long guns. We've never seen anything from their perspective, and it's quite possible that they don't know about any of those.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprise if this was the foxtrot playing out on both sides. As far as the ASS are concerned, they have to win.
I've also started to wonder if the point of the dance was to play up the danger so far that everybody else felt that they have no choice but to long-gun urtheep. The burn-it-to-ashes approach that the Toughs failed to take, relevant again against an even more dangerous foe.

It's been a foxtrot on the allstar side almost from the beginning. That's why they went off script. The Tough's are just now catching up.

Does anybody else feels like Ezraene was all-starred / co-opted / mind-hacked?

She went from hostile and competent to curious and sloppy after the nano-motile worm or something like that in the passageway leading to the icebox.

She is also pressing tagon on issues about his digital immortality and how he treats his digital employees as people.

I feel like the agent is trying to evaluate Tagon and his thoughts about Digital Sapients like the All-star's.

I too feel like enesby is being overtly paranoid, but who knows, I've never been right on my previous predictions other than "Tagon had a fresh backup" after he died last year.