A mod for Rebellion:
The Shroud, a nebulous field of dark matter enveloping an entire section of the galaxy. A muted pulse of thrums emanate from somewhere deep inside, almost imperceptibly nudging all of the miniscule stars close to its perimeter. Even the one adjacent black hole is kept in place by the field’s gentle, yet firm presence. The soft glow from distant stars fills the enormity of the Shroud’s bubble-like shell, seeming to be tantalizingly close in the huge expanse. A casual glance wouldn’t reveal the immensely complicated webbing of nearly invisible dark matter on the inside of the accretion shell. That glance also wouldn’t reveal the fact that no signals other than the brightest light sources could penetrate the field, or that impacts from all substantial matter were instantly obliterated. No, this field innocently pulsed around what it was designed to protect the rest of the galaxy from. Humanity. Even the humanoid species inside of the Shroud with their intense curiosity hadn’t noticed the uniform muffling all signals, that is, until the field had vanished.
“Is the drive operational?” A human in thick molybdenum-nanotube armor was busily preparing the next experimental darkdrive, designed to propel itself with a specially prepared ardenite core. The darkdrive was an immensely complex device, roughly the size of an industrial skyscraper. Taking a carbon-iron-uranium core, and stripping away protons while forcing it to maintain its mass, producing a super dense ball of matter that interacted with gravity in strange ways. The possibility of light-speed travel became reality as the drive’s gravitational properties could focus on distant sources of gravity and pull or push on them. The only way to keep the ship from being pulverized with the severe effects of this sudden acceleration and deceleration was to create larger cores that would shield the ship with centripetal force. The ardenite core was the result of a desire to shrink the drive to make it able to fit inside of a standard frigate, making carrier escort unnecessary. The dark matter projects had mostly been successful, and this one was optimistically expected to succeed.
“The conversion has been successful, sir.” A similarly shielded human ran up with his report.
“Excellent, Earth control will be pleased with the results of Project 91.” The supervisor hurried into the huge shielded bunker along with several hundred other humans, and sealed the enormous door. He walked over to a console and sat down, his masked face staring intently at the enormous force readouts.
“Sir! The antigrav might not be able to handle the stress that would be caused by spinning it up!” One of the console lights was blinking red, a sign that the repulsors couldn’t handle the pull caused by the super-dense core.
“Are we mice? NO! Spin it up anyways. It should become stable enough to support itself.” The supervisor looked down at the large array of green lights. “Are all personnel safely inside the bunkers?” The AI supervising the experiment nodded a yes with its insubstantial holographic projection. “Status report EI-2453.” He said into the console. “The core is stressing our repulsors nearly to the maximum after achieving desired density. Bunker and life support status, operating at perfect levels. All staff accounted for and core is ready for spinning up and placement. Core is not collapsing into self like Project 78, but maintaining perfect shape and uniform gravity, albeit stronger than previous projects.” The monitor displayed the response from Earth scientists trillions of miles away.
“Proceed.”
The supervisor flicked several switches and entered in a passcode through the glowing keypad.
“Spinning up in 9, 8, 7, 6, 5...” He checked a meter and its readings. “…4, 3, 2, 1.” At one he pressed the enter key.
The entire planet and star system were engulfed in the sheer enormity of the energy release, and were pulverized into highly energetic particles. The flare could be seen as an enormously bright flash viewable even from outside of the Shroud, leaving humanity to wonder what had just occurred. Unfortunately, far more had occurred than they could even comprehend. The Shroud projector had been in that star, perfectly safe, until a colossal explosion of energy had wiped the star, the projector, and a couple billion humans from existence.
The Shroud began to fade, slowly, losing all matter and gravity that it had held together, releasing it into the depths of space. Its dissipation noticed only by a small research vessel sent to survey the Shroud’s weaknesses. To their shock, the Shroud began to lose energy, which had been, they guessed, powered by an indestructible relic somewhere inside. The Elder would be most interested by this turn of events; telling him would be first priority. The Research vessel turned about and jumped back into familiar space.
I am being rather vague on purpose, as I do not wish to spoil anything right now.
I also don't consider myself a good writer, so deal with whatever your complaints might be.
Progress:
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15%
Ship concepts complete, UI concepts complete, ability concepts complete, storyline in progress, meshes in progress, particles in progress, textures in progress, and research in progress.
Working on Part one:
Sins of the HDN
