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thebibliomancer · 3 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #10-12

February, 1985

DEATH TO THE BEYONDER!

Wow, Doom has been beaten to hell in this story, huh?

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer etc etc.

Anyway, lets get to it.

Last times in Secret Wars: Some amazingly powerful being from Beyond the universe called the Beyonder kidnaps a bunch of heroes, villains, shades thereof, and chunks of random planets to put on a big toy commercial where action figures can bonk off each other.

The X-Men ditched the other heroes to team up with Magneto to do their own thing, as they’re wont to do. But still largely helped the other heroes fight the villains. And didn’t even do villain shit even though Magneto advocated for it.

There have been a bunch of fights back and forth between the groups but most recently, Captain America’s group of heroes stormed Doombase and took down the villain group then had to rush to back up the X-Men in dealing with Galactus who wants to eat the planet, as he is wont to do.

Doom busted out of the cell the heroes stuck him in to pull off his master plan with the help of solid sound man Klaw while Reed Richards had a crisis of weird conscience as he became convinced that maybe Galactus should eat the planet. But he eventually helped the other heroes drive Galactus off-planet where the hat horned purple planet eater started to eat his own spaceship, with Doom planning to steal that tasty snack.

And that brings us to now.

Where things are getting super freaky.

Reed Richards’ skeleton viscerally upsets me.

But as Galactus’ ship turns from Mobius ship to energy cloud, the cloud gets ripped away from Galactus and streams towards Doombase.

Captain America sends Captain Marvel to Doombase to check if Doom is behind this Total Doom Move and she zips over to determine, yup, Doom is pulling a total Doom right now.

He’s got himself strapped to a thing under a bunch of Klaw lenses injecting PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER right into his itty bitty body.

Captain Marvel is going to zip back over to let Captain America and Mr. Fantastic know whats going on but Professor X chimes in her brain that he’ll save them some time by setting up a psychic conference call between her and Reed.

Meanwhile, Doctor Doom finishes consuming the aggregate energy of a spaceship the size of a solar system and trips out a little on omnipotence.

Doom: “By the dark gods! My least whim alters the world around me! Such is the power coursing within me that stone and steel are wisps of nothing which bend and transform in slavish obedience to my merest stray thought!”

Just say no to phenomenal cosmic power.

Also, some omniscience, which lets him see his own brains and into the souls of the people in Doombase.

Annnd. He spots Captain Marvel. Womp womp.

When the psychic connection between her and Xavier is suddenly cut off, the heroes pile into the X-Men’s wrecked ship to fly to Doombase and save Captain Marvel.

Hm. They’ve really been back and forth. They were all just at Doombase and then they came here and now they’re going back to Doombase.

Since the ship is wrecked, Magneto just propels it with MASTERY OF MAGNET and Cap(tain America) praises him for living up to his hype.

Which sets Magneto off on a rant.

Magneto: “I gather, Captain America, that you would have preferred that I fail! Or... was that remark, perhaps, intended to be a ‘well done’ for which I should humble thank you.”

Captain America: “At ease, mister!”

Magneto: “Allies should be ‘at ease’ with one another! What troubles you? Is it my awesome power? Are you jealous? Afraid? Or is it merely because I am a mutant that you are not ‘at ease’?”

Captain America: “Now that you mention it, the fact that you tried to kill all of us here several times as part of various evil schemes for world conquest is pretty hard to forget entirely!”

This sort of feels like Magneto is antsy because he hasn’t been villaining as much as he likes. Or like him going ‘today I shall cause problems on purpose.’

But, whoops, Cap says that he doesn’t have a problem with the X-Men which sets off Wolverine on a rant about how Captain America doesn’t do enough for mutants.

Geez, its like the time he unmasked a governmental conspiracy by Richard Nixon to use a mutant powered UFO to take over America doesn’t even count.

Wolverine accuses Cap of not laying off Magneto even though he’s been helpful. I’ll note that all Cap did was tell Magneto good job which Magneto decided was a slight.

Meanwhile, over at Doombase where Doom likes to Doom, Doom is pondering what to do now.

He is now powerful enough to wipe out everyone on Battleworld with a wave of his hand and easily win this Secret Wars. But he’s already so powerful, what could he possible ask the Beyonder for?

Doom: “Are those dust-mote heroes truly my enemies? Or... is there now but one foe in all existence worthy of Doom? The Beyonder himself!”

Mostly because he exists and is more powerful than Doom and that simply cannot do.

Like, Doom notes that he already has all the power he could ever want but there’s someone over outside the universe who has more power so Doom wants it. Even though the power he do have is messing him up.

Truly Doom in a nutshell.

Hm. Is it odd that everyone just decides that the Beyonder is male based on nothing? He does decide to be male when he manifests on Earth in Secret Wars 2 but there’s no basis for the assumption here.

But we have toys to sell so Doom upgrades his armor.

This was another request from Mattel, for Doom (and Iron Man, hence the upgrade he gets from Mr. Fantastic) to be given high-tech costumes.

I personally think they just didn’t want to make capes. Notably, there was never a Thor toy.

In-universe, the new armor is a secret weapon to use against the Beyonder, based on Galactus’ machine and the data Doom got scanning the Beyonder in issue 1.

The heroes but into Doombase to find no one to fight. All the villains are still locked up and Doom is nowhere to be seen. They find Captain Marvel, frozen in light form like a hologram.

Then a massive KRAKABOOOM! shakes the fortress as DOOM goes to confront the Beyonder.

The Beyonder: “Stop! You cannot approach me!”

Doom: “Then approach me, coward -- on your knees, if you have knees! Come! Cringe before your master! Grovel before Doom!”

The conflict starts to shake Doombase apart and a big ol rock falls on Reed’s lower torso and knocks the wind out of him.

The monitors in Doombase also shows that the destruction is worldwide, causing devastation to Zsaji’s village, and doing her an injury.

I assume Denver is also affected. I really want that miniseries focusing on Denverians during Secret Wars.

Colossus tries to tell Johnny that Zsaji has been hurt but Johnny’s attentions are elsewhere.

Human Torch: “I -- I’ve got no time for a chippie now! Reed’s hurt! I’ll send her a card later!”

Geez, Johnny.

Anyway, the fight between DOOM and the Beyonder is so so devastating that its threatening to snuff out the sun.

Which, if nothing else, is impressively bonkers.

But wherever Doom falters, the Beyonder doubles his assault.

Turns out that absorbing the energy of a spaceship the size of a solar system doesn’t make you a match for a guy that can casually wipe out a galaxy.

Doom: “Th-thus -- ? Thus falls Doom? No! No! What is pain to one such as I? I -- I will shut it out. Other men fall prey to the very spectre of death... when her cold embrace seems imminent... they simply swoon into her arms! But I... I am Doom! I -- I deny you, death! Victor von Doom must not die!”

He says this after his leg falls off. For the sake of context.

The world-shaking pauses and an image of Doom appears before the assembled heroes. Trying to come off as confident but blatantly holding his hat.

Doom: “Greetings! I am Doctor Doom! ... Though I am far more than the being you once knew! Indeed, I have transcended mortality -- and yet, I am your champion -- fighting for your sakes! I am about to crush the Beyonder!”

“The Beyonder, in his cosmic arrogance abducted us all and brought us here to do battle for his amusement! ‘Slay your enemies...!’ He said -- but in truth, he is the real enemy!”

“While he can reach us, our universe is not safe from his manipulations! He must be utterly defeated and sealed away beyond the portal before -- or destroyed! In the name of all who exist in our universe, I, Doom, have dared to attack the Beyonder!”

“The battle has gone well. Even now, the Beyonder cringes in terror, marshalling his failing strength against my final assault! Hence, this lull in the strife -- which has allowed me to appear to you and offer you the chance to share in my glorious conquest. Lend me your power! Hasten his certain defeat! Come! Who will join me against our common foe? You have but to touch my hand! Who shall be first?”

“To him, after our victory, I shall grant power beyond measure -- with which to further his noble purposes, of course! You know I speak the truth! You feel it, do you not?”

I mean, Doom has a point. The Beyonder IS the real enemy. If the heroes refuse to kill anyone, the Beyonder is never going to let them go home. Unless this is a secret test of character but nothing I’ve seen would lead me in that direction.

It’s just. Its Doom. Who would trust him with EVEN MORE PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER?

Magneto immediately steps forward to offer his power to Doom’s service (womp womp) but he meets Xavier’s gaze and hesitates.

Long enough for several Avengers to tackle him away from Doom.

Proving his claim that the fight is definitely in the bag, Doom can’t maintain his GoFundMe hologram and fades away.

Hawkeye, one of the Avengers that tackled Magneto, starts yelling at the X-Men about the company they keep and what it will take for them to realize Magneto is a dick.

But Captain America interrupts Clint. He says that everyone was tempted by what Doom was offering and goes so far as to speculate that Doom was applying some sort of mind control to them and that Magneto just got the biggest dose.

This is all pretty unsubstantiated but he also does point out that Magneto hesitated to grab Doom’s hand and dammit that counts for something.

Meanwhile, Doom is having a bad time.

Trying to crowdfund a Beyonder defeat having not met its goal by the deadline, Doom is at the mercy of the Beyonder.

But the Beyonder is a curious cuss.

I mean, obviously. Why put on a Secret War unless you’re bored and curious.

The Beyonder starts prying into Doom’s brain and forces Doom to remember his ENTIRE BACKSTORY so he can watch.

You probably know it. Roma youth. His mom killed for witchcraft and her soul trapped by Mephisto. Doom studies magic and science to try to contact her. Makes a hellevator device that blows up in his face.

The Beyonder pries into Doom’s desires for: power over the destinies of other men, for freedom for his mom’s spirit, and for his putting on the piping hot mask face to be restored.

All these desires fascinate the Beyonder and he takes his dissection of the Beyonder to an unfortunately literal level and starts flaying Doom to peep his organs.

Meanwhile, the biggest shock yet hits Battleworld and Doombase starts shaking apart.

Captain America goes to free the villains trapped in their cells and finds Wolverine there who agrees that they shouldn’t leave the villains to die in cages, no matter what they’ve done. Magneto is also helping evacuate the captured villains from the medical wing.

Wolverine: “Don’t take this wrong... But you’re a better man than I gave you credit for! I’m an attacker an’ you’re a defender -- but we’re both soldiers! I’m beginnin’ to think you got room in your high-falutin’ ideals for all people... don’tcha -- ? Even if they’re mutants!”

Captain America: “Some of my best friends are people!”

Hah!

Anyway, RIP Doombase. You had a name and that’s more than I can say of the initial hero base or Magneto’s U-fort.

The shaking stops and a glowing orb of light floats down from space in front of the collected heroes.

Oh my god! The rest of the characters are 4-inch figures but Doom is rocking 24 inches and full articulation!

The heroes prepare to fight the Giant-Sized Doctor Doom but Doom bwoop bwoop bwoops back down to their scale and explains that absorbing the Beyonder caused him to be big because of reasons but he’s got a better handle on it now.

Its not shown on panel but remember Doom had his secret anti-Beyonder weapon hidden inside his armor and the Beyonder got real close when he was dissecting Doom. Which Doom regained consciousness during. So that’s how he did it.

Doom: “First, know you these things... The Beyonder no longer exists... and Doom has been reborn! Thus, have two evils come to an end! There is no enemy left to fight! THE WAR IS OVER!”

Caption: “Nonetheless, we strongly suggest that you read the next issue of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars on sale in thirty days!!”

Hah.

March, 1985

... AND DUST TO DUST!

I’ll give Marvel Super Heroes TM Secret Wars TM #11 this. It promises and teases THE FACE OF DOOM right on the cover and dammit, it delivers.

Gaze upon his generic attractiveness. He looks like Peter Parker having a wild eyebrow day.

I suppose the real surprise is that he fixed up his scarred face, which puts him two checkmarks into his three greatest desires.

He’s the supreme being in the universe and he’s got a face to match.

In a very reassuring manner, Doom tells the assembled heroes that he could destroy them all with a thought and then doesn’t bother destroying them.

Over in the distance, the freed villains see Doom talking with the heroes and Absorbing Man decides that Doom is selling out to the heroes. The other villains get their dander up at this and debate going over and kicking Doom’s ass.

Volcana: “I don’t know what to think, Owie! Doom is the one who made me into Volcana which is wonderful -- but, gee, he does seem to be double-crossing us!”

Molecule Man: “And I had such faith in him! I believe in him! I -- I’m furious!”

Volcana: “Now, Owie, remember your analyst said it wasn’t good to get overwrought!”

Molecule Man: “I don’t care what she said! I’m going to kill that lying, two-faced, rotten fink! Do you hear me, Doom? The Molecule Man is going to kill you!”

Then Molecule Man flips up several billion tons of the planet’s crust so he can have a conversation with Doom.

Doom just shows Molecule Man the foundations of eternity, the secrets of the universe, how all things work so that Molecule Man can realize that he is the second mightiest in the universe, after Doom.

Doom: “Think! Every molecule, every iota of matter in the cosmos answers to our whim! And all the forces which govern substance bend to your will -- for matter and energy are one and the same! The only limits on your power are those which you have imposed upon yourself, subconsciously because of self-doubt... self-hate... fear! Open your mind to the majesty of your power, Owen Reece! Accept your destiny... and fear no more!”

Molecule Man: “I -- I can control organic molecules! I can do... anything!”

Well.

This bodes something.

Doom then takes off and an amazed Molecule Man declares that he’s now the leader of the villain group. And considering he can peel the planet’s crust in a fit of pique, nobody really wants to say nay.

Molecule Man apparently didn’t want to hurt anyone so when he peeled up the crust, it somehow didn’t hurt any of the heroes. Just relocated them very insistently. Although if they stayed put they’d suffocate from the thin atmosphere.

They return to Doombase, which is somehow still standing. But aside from recapping the series, they really don’t know what to do until Doom makes himself known again.

The villains retreat to the suburb of Denver, Colorado and to the apartment belonging to Marsha Rosenberg (Volcana).

They decide that they don’t actually care about the Secret Wars anymore and just want to go home. And Molecule Man, being a good leader, decides to make this happen for everyone.

Man. I hope none of Denver’s population went wandering outside suburb limits before Molecule Man domed the suburb and chucked it into space.

The heroes spot it happening on their instruments (and because a chunk of planet being ejected into space causes a rumble) but there’s nothing they can really do about it. So Cap suggests everyone sleep on it.

Colossus can’t sleep because he keeps thinking about how deeply he is in love with Zsaji. So he ditches to zip to her village on an air jetski.

Missing a blob of light enter the Doombase and possess the Hulk.

Possessed Hulk lumbers around the base like a sleepwalker, being found by Spider-Woman who can’t sleep for worrying about her hometown of Denver.

She tries to stop Hulk with her psychic webs but he busts through and shoves her to the ground. The weird light blob goes from Hulk to Spider-Woman.

Hulk goes back to sleep and possessed Spider-Woman creeps into Doom’s lab and the discarded head of Klaw.

But there’s a flash of light and soon a confused Spider-Woman is telling the other heroes that Doom showed up, reassembled Klaw, unfroze Captain Marvel, oh and engraved an invitation to the heroes to meet him tomorrow at his sweet new tower.

Klaw: “I told you once -- ! I am my wildest dream! Dream! Eem, eem, eem...”

Doom: “I shall miss dreaming...”

He tells Klaw that he does not need sleep anymore and doesn’t dare sleep anymore because of the power contained in him.

Meanwhile, Colossus arrives at Zsaji’s hut while she’s sleeping and invites himself inside. Its creepy or romantic, shrug. She wakes up, he gives her flowers, and confesses he loves her.

Not really understanding the words but getting the gist, Zsaji seems into it.

I guess she gave up on Johnny. Or her people are polygamous.

Later, Wolverine and Nightcrawler gossip about Colossus’ love life. Neither very sympathetic about Colossus cheating on Kitty Pryde.

You’d think they’d also be unsympathetic about the age gap but eh.

Wolverine is also convinced that Colossus isn’t even REALLY in love with Zsaji, that its just a side-effect of her healing power. PLUS, she’s an alien so who knows what love means to her.

Hm. This really does look like a job for Cipher.

The non-Colossus heroes all go to meet Doom at THE TOWER OF DOOM, where Doom is quick to reiterate that they have nothing to worry about with Doom now possessing phenomenal cosmic power.

Doom: “Much has changed, Captain America! Much indeed! For, when I usurped the Beyonder’s power, slaying him -- in a way, Doom died as well! Now, I am all-powerful! I have nothing to prove to lesser creatures -- and none are my equal! I am complete... serene in my omnipotence! The dark, seething desires which once drove and shaped Doom are no more! Nothing in this universe -- nothing of which you can conceive, no matter how cosmic in scope -- could possible merit my attention! For as Eternity is to you... I am to Eternity! I have transcended all concerns of this plane of existence -- and, yet... we have unfinished business! Loose ends, if you will, left over from my mortal life! I cannot undo all of the evil works of my life without unraveling a great deal of the fabric of reality, causing enormous upheavals in the time/space continuum -- ! I can, though, easily set right some of the crimes of these few days past...”

Its good to see that Doom didn’t let becoming the unchallenged supreme being of the universe change him, at least in regards to words words words.

Anyway, he reintegrates Kang and sends the very confused future man home to the future.

He tells the heroes that Galactus has already been found and aided by his herald, Nova.

Which just leaves the wrong that Doom has done the heroes. He offers them a boon to atone for the suffering they’ve endured at his hands.

The heroes debate what to ask for. Spider-Man suggests that Doom can send them home only for Reed, perhaps peevishly, to remark that he can get them home. Nightcrawler suggests that Doom could find Lockheed, who was part of the intro cast but went missing near the beginning. But Captain America tells Doom that they want nothing from him.

Doom: “Very well! Our dealings are ended! Forever! Leave, now as you entered! Soon I shall ascend to higher planes! Until then -- and mark this -- I will not suffer any disturbance! Go... and do not seek to enter my presence again, for I will utterly destroy any who dare!”

Wow.

His magnanimity sure is short-lived.

The heroes do leave but outside Cap(tain America. Captain Marvel hasn’t had a line since she was unfrozen, I think) does a headcount and Spider-Woman is missing.

Despite the risk of Doom making good on his word to kill anyone that disturbs him, Cap won’t leave a comrade behind and reenters THE TOWER OF DOOM.

Cap stumbles onto Doom chilling with his shirt, mask, and boots off and luckily Doom is either in a good mood or hasn’t counted Captain America as leaving yet.

Captain America tells Doom that Spider-Woman is missing so Doom sends Klaw to go find her.

Klaw goes looking for Spider-Woman but runs into one of her webs. The missing, possessed hero grabs Klaw and transfers the blob of light to him.

Back at Doom having dressed up, maybe feeling awkward about being casual in front of anyone who isn’t Klaw, Doom reveals to Captain America that his mom’s spirit is being held captive by Mephisto and that Doom plans to free her.

Doom: “Is that little enough to ask? Little enough self-solicitude -- ? To free my mother’s soul from endless torment at the hands of an extra-dimensional demon! After that... it is as I said -- no affair of men -- or demons -- could possibly gain my notice!”

Cap comments that Doom is looking pretty human but Doom says its for everyone else’s protection that he keeps the power contained, lest he accidentally wipe out solar systems and galaxies.

Doom: “While I linger on this plane, I am like a giant on a world of ants! Every slight movement I make can seal the destinies of millions! I... do not wish to destroy anyone!”

Klaw returns and tells Cap where to find Spider-Woman so Cap goes off to retrieve her.

The heroes all take off back to Doombase and Cap asks Professor X to summon Colossus because there’s a decision to be made that everyone has to be present for.

Which leads to this delightful scene of Professor X interrupting Colossus as he’s making out with Zsaji.

Despite Colossus telling Xavier to buzz off, Xavier insists that Colossus return and alas duty before booty. Or something.

When Colossus arrives, the heroes all assemble in a conference room that Cap managed to find in Doombase.

Wasp doesn’t see the problem with Doom wanting to rescue his mother and Cap agrees that its a very humane and human thing to want and that in other circumstances Cap would have volunteered to help him.

But its the human that bothers Cap.

It gets back to Jim Shooter’s themes from his non-consecutive Avengers runs. Graviton, Nefaria, Korvac, Molecule Man, and Moondragon.

Godlike power in the hands of the all too human.

Captain America: “Doom claims he’s transcended all human desire! What if he hasn’t? We’ve seen the power of the Beyonder -- Doom’s power -- in action before! It is such power that even now, nothing in the universe can take place without his consent! That kind of authority rightfully belongs to... no man! No matter how enlightened or benevolent he’s become, freedom to do what Doom allows is not freedom!”

Cap is edging very close to ‘attack and dethrone god’ and I don’t know if he means to.

But as Cap points out, the first thing Doom did with his new power was to repair his face. Awfully human-like vanity.

Mr. Reed Fantastic concedes what Cap is getting at and agrees they need to force Doom to give up his power. And where Reed goes, so goes the rest of the Fantastic Three.

Which doesn’t tell you whether its a good idea or not considering they were both behind ‘let Galactus eat us all’ when Reed suggested it.

But the Avengers, the spiders, the Hulk, and the X-Men all agree as well.

Colossus is the last person to speak up and he suggests that if they attack Doom unprompted, maybe they’re the dicks. Doom may never harm them, may do what he’s said he’ll do and ascend to a higher plane of existence and contemplate gluons or whatever.

Captain America: “You may be right, son! I’m not dead certain about any of this! That’s why it must be a unanimous vote... or we do nothing! Don’t think you must agree! The choice is yours... Keep in mind, by the way, that if we do decide to confront Doom, it’s possible that we might be annihilated on the spot by a bolt from the blue!”

Wow, Cap isn’t just telling Colossus he can vote how he likes and not feel he must go with the majority. He’s also giving good reasons NOT to vote with the majority.

That Cap. He loves democracy so much.

Colossus struggles because he’s just found love and happiness and he never got to finish making out. And he’s being asked to possibly throw that all away unnecessarily!

Cap still won’t press Colossus one way or another so Colossus has to speak from the heart.

Colossus: “Forgive me, Zsaji... I say yes... We fight!”

He chose........... poorly?

Wonder what the last issue will be about now that half the cast is dead. Ignoring that we see several of these people alive in an issue set after this but published before.

Ignoring that. I wonder what the last issue will be about.

Good thing we don’t have to wait.

April, 1985

“...NOTHING TO FEAR...”

Okay, see, this is just making me wonder harder.

Hm. I also wonder if this is the first big moment where Captain America’s America Shield gets broken for dramatic effect. I know it happens again in Infinity Gauntlet but that’s some years away.

Anyway, yeah. The twenty-one hero characters and Magneto (twenty-one feels like A LOT, geez) have been totally killed forever and they will certainly stay dead.

To Zsaji’s alarm, since in a bit of establishing relative positions, she can see Doombase from the mountain near her village that Galactus set up his planet-eating equipment on.

Over at THE TOWER OF DOOM, Doom contains the power again.

Klaw: “Seal up the power -- god’s might in a can! Thus, Doom is just another man! But why?”

Doom: “Lest in a careless moment, a casual flick of my little figner might blacken a star system, or wipe out an intergalactic civilization. Lest, like Vishnu. ‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’ This universe is too fragile!”

Klaw: “Such power! Such weight upon your shoulders! Poor Doom!”

Klaw questions whether the heroes are REALLY dead but Doom insists on it.

Meanwhile, Denver floating through space towards Earth.

I wanted to question... like... how much oxygen or food a Denver chunk could contain but Molecule Man laughs at logistics. He can just turn space dust into whatever he needs.

Man, Molecule Man would be great to have on a generation ship.

The villains are still chilling out in Volcana’s apartment, instead of taking over the largest building or whatever. Nice thing about Molecule Man being boss is that he doesn’t really approve of all of that.

Enchantress locks herself in the bathroom because dammit, sometimes you just need alone time to consult with a water elemental for some juicy exposition.

Because its issue 12 and we don’t know anything about the Beyonder really and Doom has already eaten him up so its now or never.

Honestly, time should have been budgeted for it earlier but what can you do.

The water elemental knows some things by gossiping with other spirits asks as price for her exposition that Enchantress “grant me power to walk through fields of flowers as mortals do” but Enchantress just threatens her into it.

She’s not a great boss.

Water Elemental: “In his realm, the Beyonder was everything and everything was him... and he was content! But by chance, an event in our universe opened a pinhole into his beyond-realm -- and through the pinhole he glimpsed the Earth! For the first time in his existence he became curious! So, he began to observe! For years, he watched the Earth! One thing confounded him above all else -- this incompleteness beings of our universe seemed to have -- this thing called... desire!”

So the Beyonder chose subjects of power, presence and palpable desire. The three P’s. And then he either raptured or lured into his game. The Beyonder sorted them according to the nature of their desires, which is why Magneto ended up with the heroes. Because his desire for mutantkind is like the altruistic desires of the heroes. Vs the personal desires of the villain group.

The Water Elemental recaps the war, including an image of Enchantress getting punched by She-Hulk, probably to piss her off. Yadda yadda, Doom played the larger game while everyone was doing punches and managed to usurp the Beyonder.

Water Elemental: “May I go down the drain now, please?”

Except no. Enchantress is still a bad boss and demands that the elemental use her rapport with the water on Battleworld to tell Enchantress whats going on now.

The elemental says she doesn’t have the power to do that so Enchantress dunks the elemental and boils some power into her.

Enchantress sees images of the heroes being effortlessly slaughtered, Klaw waiting on Doom as he relaxes, and Doom planning to invade Mephisto’s realm.

The last question Enchantress asks the rather haggard looking elemental is whether the Beyonder is truly dead.

Water Elemental: “N-no... he is close by Doom. But too weak to act... He is hiding where Doom would never suspect, awaiting an opportunity... a moment of vulnerability.”

Humorously, during this scene, the Absorbing Man starts banging on the bathroom door and asking Enchantress if she fell in.

In the living room, the Lizard is getting antsy about being cooped up.

Lizard: “RRAWRR! Out! Lizard wantss out of thiss humanss’ nesst! Musst be in sswamp! Lizard hates humanss!”

The Wrecking Crew just want to kill Lizard to spare the hassle but Volcana sticks up for him because its in her nature to take care of things. And in the same way he demonstrated with Wasp, Lizard folds into surly obedience as soon as someone is firm but nice with him.

Lizard isn’t the only one that’s antsy, as Dock Ock starts complaining and smashing the walls about how unlikely it is that they’ll ever reach home.

Doctorpus Octopus: “Don’t you fools realize the odds against us ever reaching Earth? An ant dropped in the middle of the Sahara would stand a better chance of getting to Hawaii!”

Molecule Man wanders in and tries to calm down the doctorpus while Enchantress lures Volcana away from the crowd.

Enchantress has decided that its time for Volcana to repay her debt for portaling her over to Molecule Man’s side after he was Wolverine’d. And the blank check cost she’s decided on is for Volcana to help Enchantress return to Asgard immediately to warn her people about the danger that Beyonder Doom poses.

And Volcana can help by ‘donating’ her life-force to power the teleport. And by donate, of course, she means, mystically contractually obligated.

Elsewhere, Molecule Man shows Doc Ock that he’s restored the stars in the galaxy that the Beyonder wiped out and that he’s been learning to do spacewarps too. And that’s how they’ll get home.

Doc Ock has some doubts so Molecule Man wraps him up in a nice, weighted blanket of asphalt and plans to turn him over to the authorities when they get back because he’s beginning to suspect that this supervillain may in fact may not be emotionally healthy.

Molecule Man realizes that Volcana isn’t around and Lizard who saw Enchantress pied piper her away leads MM to interrupt the Enchantress before she can finish draining Volcana or making fat jokes.

She makes a lot of fat jokes. Ffs Amora.

Enchantress teleport flees back to Battleworld but Lizard jumps after her and gets caught up in it.

He scratches her face so she throws him off a cliff.

And since mystically speaking, the Lizard counts as a “lower creature” Enchantress can just rip away his life-force and use it to fix her face and power an uncertain teleport to Asgard.

RIP the Lizard. Although I’m pretty sure you bounce back from this.

Meanwhile, in THE TOWER OF DOOM, Doom is napping while Klaw creeps on him creepily but Doom wakes up and yells at Klaw for letting him sleep.

Why, who knows what his subconscious would do with the Beyonder’s power in his dreams!

Klaw suggests hey maybe Doom would accidentally revive the heroes. Or maybe he already did? Hm?? In fact, Klaw has a theory and he’s going to use his sound hologram powers to put on a little demonstration for Doom.

He posits that Zsaji saw the destruction Doom wrought on Doombase (which we do know that she did do). She finds the... uh chunks that remain of the heroes and uses her healing powers to put them in stasis where cellular life still lingers. But she finds Colossus less damaged than the rest because he instinctively shifted to his armored form at the last instant. Surely his armored skin is better armor than, say, the Thing’s rock skin or Iron Man’s armor.

The story Klaw is telling works better this way so surely it is so.

Zsaji manages to bring Colossus wholly back to life, at the cost of her own.

A grief-stricken Colossus shoves Reed Richards into a healing tank (his elastic body also less damaged than the rest because sure, Reed Richards is more durable than the Hulk, we can just say anything).

So Reed is restored and he uses the technology of Doombase to invent a mass healing device and restores the rest of the heroes.

Klaw: “And they’re on their way here right now! The end... maybe!”

Doom: “Absurd! That couldn’t happen! The odds are impossible!”

Klaw: “Perhaps... but maybe you sort of... helped things along... Maybe you secretly subconsciously wanted them to survive... to rise from the ashes and live again!”

Doom: “You speak madness, Klaw!”

Klaw doubts though because Doom didn’t completely atomize the heroes and suggests turning on his god-mode and verifying that the heroes are really dead.

But now Doom is worried that having heard Klaw spell out a possible way for the heroes to be alive, his slightest doubt might make it so.

(I mean, I’m pretty sure that the light blob that’s possessing Klaw is the Beyonder who is gaslighting Doom for Reasons.)

Doom: “This is madness! I must drive these thoughts, these doubts, from my mind! They are dead! Dead! Dead! And yet... How many times in the past have I thought that Reed Richards was dead? And, if there were one man who might overcome the odds... is it not Captain America? No... no! THEY ARE DEAD!”

Klaw: “Then, again...”

Doom lets the Beyonder power well up but he can’t control it and it starts blasting Battleworld to shit and nearly destroyed all of reality. Doom can’t get his mind ordered and calm.

Klaw offers to destroy the heroes for Doom so Doom grants him “an infinitesimal micro-fraction” of his power, “enough to blacken ten thousand suns.”

GEEZ. I know that the Beyonder was established as being the strongest being in the universe, having come from a universe where all was the Beyonder. But that’s still very alarming.

The heroes rush in because after being murdered in an instant once already, subtlety is out the window.

Klaw intercepts them with a summoned army of monsters and also Ultron. Yes, Ultron is back, back again. Tell a friend. Tell them OH MY GOD RUN.

Then there’s a big two-page spread of everyone attacking everyone because that’s the kind of story this is.

Rad.

The Thing reverts back to meat man Ben Grimm but manages to will power the rocks back on and decides now he can control the changes and starts crying because this is everything he’s ever wanted.

Hulk goes punchies on Ultron but the robot does a plot injury to Hulk’s leg and for an encore makes Iron Man, Wolverine, and Spider-Woman look stupid before just falling apart.

Thanks to Wasp shrinking down, flying in one of the Hulk punch dents and just yanking wires. Yay, Wasp did a thing!

Also, she beat Ultron. She deserves to. Shame that not more can be made of it as a beat, what with everything going on.

Captain America manages to slip past all the monsters and jump kick his way past Klaw, although Klaw threw that little encounter.

Cap reaches where Doom is once again chilling, although this time with his clothes on.

Doom brags that there’s nothing that the heroes can do to harm him in any way, after all, what is a man to one who is omnipotent?

Captain America: “I wouldn’t be too sure about that! After all... you conquered the Beyonder! And why would you have gone through the trouble of killing us in the first place, unless... you were afraid!”

Doom doesn’t like having holes poked in his arguments so he kamehamehas Cap into ashes.

But Cap respawns out of sheer ‘I can do this all day’ness and charges at Doom to be blasted and respawned again.

Okay, so its Klaw who keeps respawning Cap, while letting Doom think its his own stolen power running out of control that keeps doing it.

And having Cap keep popping back into existence and trying to hit him in the face with a metal disc makes Doom lose his every last shit.

The power starts to overtake him and threaten the universe so Cap offers his hand, to serve as an anchor to reality for Doom.

Oh, hey. Just like Cap offered Doom his hand in the first issue but Doom turned it down because he hates pity.

But now, with omnipotence raging out of control, Doom reaches to accept Cap’s hand.

Thems some nice bookends.

Except the feeble remnant of the Beyonder that’s been body hopping bursts out of Klaw and reclaims his power from Doom.

Unpossessed Klaw: “Doom! Doom! Forgive me, Doom! The Beyonder, he took over my body -- ! He used my guile, my wits, my cunning to engineer this! I set you up for this! Doom -- ! I’m so sorry!”

The Beyonder reverts Doom’s armor (and face) back to how it was and then ejects him from the plot. Klaw jumping in to be with his master.

Actually, the Beyonder nopes out of the plot as well. Just kinda abandons this grand experiment into the concept of desire.

And to be fair, half the competitors fucked off. The other half refused to actually kill. And one of the competitors jumped off the board game to steal the Beyonder’s wallet.

At that point, escaping before you have to answer any questions is the right move.

With the fight over, there’s just a whole bunch of wrap-up.

Colossus has a funeral for Zsaji and buries her on the hill overlooking Doombase because fuck those villagers, she probably didn’t have any friends or loved ones who should have a say in this.

While RICHARDSS goes to work on a way home, Spider-Man swings around Doombase for a snack of alien eggplant. Then finds everyone else in the costume making machine room where Professor X has.

Uh.

Made some fashion choices.

Won’t anybody stop him?

Anyway, he intends to keep undermining Storm when they get back to Earth. What a guy.

Spider-Man also learns that none of their costumes respond to thought like his new black costume does and wonders what’s different about his.

Hulk’s leg was busted up by being Ultron’d and his gamma levels have risen so much that they’d short out the healing pods. So Reed makes Hulk a techno crutch and leg brace to help him get around until his natural healing factor takes care of things.

He’s not very pleased at the situation though and snaps at Hawkeye, leading Hawkeye to a thought that hits a lot different post Civil War II.

Hawkeye: “Whoa! Has he ever changed in the last few days! I think he’s losing it -- becoming totally savage and out of control again! Man, I hope I’m wrong! Maybe I’d better make myself a few more arrows -- some real heavy-duty ones -- just in case!”

Curt Connors wanders in and tells a story about waking up in a crater a few miles from the fortress. He says that he’s sure this time the lizard-persona is totally gone forever for reals.

Nightcrawler says its good that Connors found them before they departed so he wouldn’t get left behind, then mentions that Lockheed the dragon would return.

And boom! Lockheed the dragon returns with a lady dragon!

He’s been getting laid this whole time, the little scamp! I assume! Either way, he has contributed absolutely nothing to anything that happened.

Reed decides that Lockheed and Connors showing up isn’t just a coincidence, that the Beyonder left some trace energy behind when he quit the plot. And that the energy is causing a wish fulfillment phenomenon (which sorta makes sense if you think of it like the promise Beyonder promised to fulfill the winners’ desires?)

Mr. Fantastic: “I believe that this... ‘wish fulfillment’ phenomenon we’ve been experiencing is an after-effect of the battle against Doom! The planet itself seems to have been charged with residual energy whichs seems to respond to strong desire, or force of will!”

Cap(tain America) immediately takes off to where he’s keeping all the fragments of his broken shield that he’s been able to find and wishes REALLY hard for it to be fixed.

“It was the product of a freak metallurgical accident -- a metallic disk of unknown composition, and unique properties -- utterly impervious to any force or instrument which humans comprehend. But now it lies before him like a wounded friend... How many times has it saved his life? And now... it’s usefl life is at an end, for no fire could melt it, no furnace could reforge it. It is forever broken... unless by force of will... or sheer desire... He can accomplish the impossible!”

Hey, how about that!

I mean, you could have wished Bucky back to life but on the other hand, it’s a real sweet shield. I get it.

Although, in terms of the pre-post Secret Wars issue teasing what could happen in it (Hulk with a leg brace, She-Hulk with the FF, Spider-Man’s new costume), I really think that Steve should have returned from Battleworld with the broken shield.

Almost everything that’s gonna be brought back from Secret Wars is going to have to be abandoned or turn out to be evil.

It’s going to turn out (years later, mind) that Steve fixed his shield bad with his FORCE OF WILL and that for some reason, imperfections in the shield threaten to destroy ALL VIBRANIUM.

And that’s a decent story, probably.

Just saying, you could have Cap return with a broken shield and get that ‘how did that happen’ hype. Its a really intriguing idea. Although, I’d bet that breaking Cap’s shield was only thought up after the pre-post Secret Wars issues had already been done so it had to be introduced and rectified in Secret Wars itself.

Some other things that didn’t last long from Secret Wars: we already know the black goo costume didn’t even last through Secret Wars. The modifications Reed made to the Iron Man armor stop working when Rhodey returns to Earth, then they evolve into the evil Carnivor and fights Quasar in Quasar. Hulk ditches his leg brace two issues after his return to Earth. Connors turns himself back into the Lizard to save his family a couple years after Secret Wars. And so on.

So the time comes to return everyone back to Earth with the device Reed made. It teleports them in small groups up to the ring-shaped construct that got them to Battleworld where it will teleport them to Earth.

Reed beams up the unaffiliated group first of Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Curt Connors, Hulk, and Magneto who decided he’s too cool to hang with the X-Men on the ride home.

Next, the X-Men. Although they have to talk Colossus into coming home instead of being sad on a hill forever by convincing him that he’d be wasting the life Zsaji gave him if he didn’t come home.

Colossus letting Xavier talk him into sticking with the X-Men over greater and greater personal losses eventually becomes a sore point.

Lockheed’s girlfriend flies into the teleport as Reed initializes it, causing a dramatic energy fluctuation that Reed hopes won’t cause any problems on Earth.

It does.

Puff the tiny dragon becomes Puff the enormous dragon, and menaced Japan in her quest to mate with Lockeed. The X-Men had to fight her and Lockheed eventually rejected the now much bigger dragon causing her to explode.

Although she came back to life at some point and she and Lockheed did get back together.

X-Men is a weird book.

The Avengers are up next but She-Hulk tells them that she’s joining the Fantastic Four. Now this happened because Byrne made grabby hands at her and Stern didn’t say no but its not really satisfactorily built-up in this story.

Ben and She-Hulk don’t share many moments to establish that they have a good friendship that he could ask her to take his place on the team. In fact, the last time I know of them teaming up, she was a huge sex pest to him. So it makes it even more baffling.

But it happened in the pre-post issue so its gotta happen.

And Ben asks Jen (maybe the similar names is why he asks her? They can get away with only changing a single letter on his locker) because he’s going to stay behind on Battleworld because he can control his powers here.

He’s not planning on being here forever and Reed can leave the gizmo so Ben can return whenever he wants.

What makes this stupid is that like almost everything involving Ben, Reed knows a lot more about what’s going on and just doesn’t say anything. He starts to but doesn’t insist when Ben tells him not to try to change his mind.

The thing about the Thing is that Ben should always have been able to Rock On or Rock Off as he pleased but there’s a psychological block preventing it.

Ben would lose this control before leaving Battleworld and he quits the FF when he learns that Reed knew that it was a psychological issue.

Mr. Fantastic: “If only I could tell him what I suspect about his transformations -- but it’s the kind of thing that might shatter a man... even a strong man like Ben! No, better to say nothing... and hope he slowly discovers the truth for himself... Or hides from it forever!”“

Geez.

You’re so bad at people.

Anyway. Yeah. Needed some more build-up. Maybe centered around the transformation. Jen could sympathize. She used to have trouble controlling her hulk outs before she just decided to be She-Hulk all the time.

Anyway, this big ridiculous thing (the last issue was 43 PAGES LONG) ends with Ben being thoughtful on a rock.

And that brings us back to Avengers #243.

I guess he’s not alone because Zsaji’s village is still here, maybe? Is nobody going to send them home??

Follow @essential-avengers because FINALLY I can get back to just focusing on the Avengers. Phew. Please like and reblog. This took so much effort.

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massensterben-a · 4 years ago

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@kolossal said: “ i can’t lose you. ”

Forlorn, drifting. Here the words echo into nothing, like sand shifting in a toppled hourglass. There is a plea sitting at the bottom of the well, starving and forgotten by the world. There was a search on, some four years ago, but there are no survivors. He listens to the melody of it, the smallness of such loneliness. Bertholdt, what remains of him, what perhaps has been dreamed into being by someone else, closes his eyes.

I can’t lose you.

Bertholdt has found this to be the truth. With a chest cavity as hollow as the hull of a wooden ship, he has stood in the borderland, bleeding his life into Armin’s hands. His flesh was rent, his bones crushed. He can hear his own screams in the everlasting terror of a life being snuffed. A shadow is inevitably fixed to the dancing flame, no matter how it strives for flight, how it flickers and leaps to escape the devouring light. He cannot leave. He is ensnared, not like a spectator before a veiled dancer, but like a fox in barbed wire. If he had teeth to chew off his limb with, he would. If his jaws still worked. If he had a limb.

He stands, a grieving witness, in Armin’s wake and watches him break. Armin, whose words tore out his heart, whose words turned love into hatred, who turned the reaching hands into taloned death traps. It is a magician’s trick, a conjurer’s cunning that allows for such radical transformation. Behold this final vanishing act: Here my assistant will disappear behind gnashing teeth and never resurface.

But this is not how it went. Through endless layers of dark and light, through the endless incessant shifting of sand, Bertholdt watches Armin come apart. He meant to leave him to his agony. He wants no part of this, not of the sorrow, not of the catastrophe. —You will be as I am, he warned him then, whispered the cold words into his successor’s ear when the rogue’s first letter arrived. When it demanded war. —You will have no further need of me.

No one may hold the Colossus and know peace. That is not its nature. Thirteen years were bartered for. Now pay up. A pound of flesh for every second you claw out of death’s hands for yourself.

Why should Bertholdt, what has been stitched together from memory to resemble Bertholdt, remain here, in the half-light, and watch the slaughter? He has seen it all before. He has no need for another’s massacre. His own bloom in his soul without reprieve. Armin will go to Liberio, where Bertholdt’s childhood sits, where it skins its knees and holds a clammy hand so tightly. And when Armin goes to Liberio, where Bertholdt was born, he will destroy it. That is the way.

The shade tarries at the edge of echo, just out of reach of Armin’s outstretched hand. Madman, that he would beg for the dead not to abandon him. Bertholdt glances over his shoulder, unhappily. He must. He is summoned by his murderer’s begging. None shall know each other as intimately as the two of them. How can he not turn back? Bertholdt’s flaw, which proved fatal in the end: He always looks back.

—No, you can’t. You killed me. I belong to you. I will be where you are. But I will not hold your hand. This sin is all yours.

#;;v. in the paths #kolossal #armin about to get ghosted by a ghost

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some-creep · 5 years ago

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CREEP RANKS EVERY SONG IN NIER... AUTOMATA (mostly) BY TITLE

Because, like, no one played Gestalt. Also this game has more songs.

Significance Like. I guess. It’s a title you can use. What is significant? We don’t know. The characters don’t know. They are struggling to find out. We all are. What is meaning? What really matters? I don’t know but we’re all crying. 8/10

City Ruins – Rays of Light / Shade Plays in the ruins of the city. Exactly as advertised. Sounds sad like you might imagine. 9/10

Peaceful Sleep This is the Resistance camp right? Peaceful things don’t tend to happen there honestly. At least not as we keep going. Sounds like a sleepy JRPG town though. Ok title for the mood it gives. I like this song a lot so I’m cheating and giving it more points than I know it deserves as just, like, a title. 8/10

Memories of Dust Sand is dusty. What memories? We’re making them. Cool title. Sounds like a YA novel though. 9/10

Birth of a Wish Genuinely often get confused with the Silent Hill 2 bonus story Born from a Wish whenever I try to remember what this song is called. This Cannot Continue / 10

The Color of Depression This is like… a really cool title. Thanks. That Scanner boy is not gonna live the happy family life you all for some reason keep suggesting he is. Bad things are gonna happen to him. He dies anyway. 11/10

Amusement Park Yeah. I guess. We certainly are in the amusement park level. Creep why does this one rank so much lower than City Ruins which was also just “name of location”. Amusement park is not a cool title. City Ruins is a cool title. 7/10

A Beautiful Song Would you say Simone has girlpower? Would you say Simone successfully used her girlpower to kill and consume countless androids and also turn them into near lifeless weapons and body jewelry? 9/10

Voice of No Return Sad title. Sad song. Exactly as advertised once again. I feel sad listening to the Automata OST most of the time. Is this quest complete in the camp? I think so. Anyway it’s really sad. I love to cry. 11/10

Grandma – Destruction Um so this is like. Genuinely a horrible title. It reminds me of the title of a darkweb video which I will say no more on. This song is REALLY good its a shame this title is so… uh. Bad. It’s just bad. 1/10

Faltering Prayer – Dawn Breeze / Starry Sky This is another really cool title. This game is about like… life after god. I’m not here to get thematic. I say in a list entirely about if the song fits the theme. Anyway this is a cool title. The song again… sounds sad. One of them is a music box which I love. Cheating again. 10/10

Emil’s Shop EVERY DAY’S A SALE. EVERY SALE’S A WIN. 12/10!!

Treasured Times The fact this plays after Emil’s shop on the OST is the biggest tonal whiplash in the world. This song makes me feel an emotion I cannot describe. It’s something like sadness but not quite. This isn’t a review of the songs, just the title. But reading the title makes me feel that emotion too but stronger when I think about it. I don’t know. 9/10

Vague Hope – Cold Rain / Spring Rain Good title… Thematically very appropriate. Not COOL like some of the others but it feels right feels canon. I like it. It’s just the city ruins quest complete song but it also plays in one of the fucking… DLC fights. That makes me extra sad. 10/10

End of the Unknown Which unknown was ended. Genuinely think when this plays I had more unknowns than knowns. This song sounds like every song from the Gestalt DLC. 6/10.

Pascal At least Automata has far fewer “named after a character” songs. They just have named after a place songs. I love Pascal so if I give this a low score he might be upset. 8/10

Forest Kingdom It really… the forest huh. Random but one of the songs in Code Vein does a vocal thing that always reminds me of this song for some reason. That has nothing to do with this game or this songs title at all I just wanted to tell you. Long Live The Forest King / 10

Dark Colossus – Kaiju This song is also in Gestalt. It’s cooler here. More stakes. Song title suggests less stakes though? That’s kinda weird. Because of this it loses points. I’m sorry. 7/10

Copied City Dude I left this one off the list when I first typed it out lol. Someone not to @ anyone told me this was based on Nier’s village. Lie to me again. I don’t know what City is being Copied. One of them. It reminds me more of the Cathedral City from DoD3. Which is a bad horrible game that I completed 100%. 8/10

Wretched Weaponry Not to be confused with Wretched Automatons. Is this like, a remix? My ears don’t work so I don’t know. Don’t inform me because I love being stupid. Anyway, in the narrative it makes sense. It’s a good, cool title. Song is softer than the title would suggest. 9/10

Possessed by Disease COOL SONG TITLE. Thank you. This plays… somewhere. Uh. Hm. I’ve 100% completed this game like three times. 9/10

Broken Heart You think you’re gonna hear a sad song? SURPRISE. Sinister as hellllll. Subverted expectations baby. MCU take notes. I’ve never seen a movie in the MCU. Loving the dark tones in this. Broken heart but the emotion isn’t just sad. GOOD STUFF. 10/10

Mourning Again. You think it’s gonna be sad? But BOOM. It isn’t. I mean it still is, but in a dark way. These aren’t song reviews. These are title reviews. But if a title suggests one thing and delivers another that’s still a valid point right? I don’t know. Hey wait isn’t this just Shadowlord’s Castle? Yonah / 10

Dependent Weakling Well, it’s no Song of the Ancients – Fate, but it’ll do. In all seriousness, this is like, a great song title for Eve’s boss battle. Y’know, because he relied so heavily on Adam and all’a that. Maybe a little on the nose. Maybe a little rude. Eve sucks / 10

Rebirth & Hope Sounds hopeful. Plays during ending A where we see a Rebirth cos 9S super doesn’t die. This song is literally 30 seconds long why am I even bothering. Oh, right, because it’s on the OST at all. 30 second songs / 10

War & War Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room. It… sounds like a war room song. A preparing for a big battle song. Once again, exactly as advertised. Plays before a big battle. It really thematic naming! Peace was never an option. 8/10

Crumbling Lies Words cannot express how much I adore this song. First of all, title is on point. It’s the song that plays when you get to Route C. Literally the moment I fell in love with the game. The Bunker is destroyed, which, again… maybe it’s a bit on the nose. I don’t care. This is the perfect song title to the perfect song. I will die on this hill. 12/10

Widespread Illness Red Eye except it’s robots now. Very thematically appropriate. Everyone is dying. There’s nothing you can do to cure it except kill them. They’re incredibly infectious. Zombie Virus but with Robots. Can you tell I don’t remember what it’s called? I’m writing this at 1am and I’ve decided it’s funnier if I don’t look anything up. Sounds very somber… I like it. 9/10

Fortress of Lies Not to be dramatic but when I read this English title I was like MMMMMMMNNN because like. I get it. It plays in the Bunker. Which… is built on lies. Again. Incredibly on the nose but when I learned what the song was called I just fucking DIED the first time. I’m stupid. I don’t care. 11/10

Song of the Ancients – Atonement Another song I died when I learned the title of. Devola and Popola in that game have nothing to atone for. They are atoning for sing they did not commit. Punished for the crimes of another set of Androids, possibly thousands of miles away. It’s not fair. They have nothing to atone for. They’ve done nothing wrong. 12/10 crying creeps.

Blissful Death FUCK. This one plays in the Devola and Popola like. Text Adventure part. Which is just. I love it so much. No one dies in that though. Well… maybe someone does. It’s not impossible that Popola hurt someone. It’s suggested that, maaaaybe she did. No one stops. No one Stops.

Emil – Despair Emil’s life has quite literally only been despair. Please don’t bully him with your song titles like this… 9/10

Alien Manifestation Vintage meme of that guy from the history channel with the impact font that just says Aliens. This game has aliens, I will give you that. They’re all dead though. I guess the machines are aliens but. Eh. Wait doesn’t this play in the castle? There aren’t even aliens there what the fuck. 5/10

The Tower There’s a tower. This plays there. Thank you. Also the name of a tarot card I think? That could be cool if I knew a single goddamn thing about tarot cards. I don’t. 6/10

Bipolar Nightmare Cool flying section. Has anyone found Grun skip yet? Because the bounty for that was like. A lot of money. Vaguely a cool song title. I kinda like it. Although for some reason it reminds me of The Evil Within’s Japanese title, Psychobreak. So I think I like it less because of that. Not the worst title, but maybe the lowest of the COOL EDGY song titles. Fucking love the piano part in this one though. 7/10

The Sound of the End Really super cool and sexy song title. 2B is going to die but she can’t let anyone else get hurt because of it. She’s already done so much damage. This song is really dramatic sounding. The title is dramatic. Love this one a lot. The actual playable segment is kind of a struggle. But I think that’s the point… 10/10

Weight of the World / End of YoRHa I once got into an internet fight because I said this song is about every character except 9S because of the line “I’m only one girl”. I was corrected that the Japanese version is basically EXCLUSIVELY about 9S. None of this is relevant at all I just wanted to remember it. I still do not like 9S. Thematically a brilliant title. Everyone feels like they must do so much… but you cannot bear the weight of the world alone. Ending E legitimately makes me cry. Whenever I think about the messages from other players supporting me? It’s a lot. What the fuck. 12/10

#nier #nier automata #long post #creep ranks

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ask-jaghatai-khan · 5 years ago

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Red and White

Another short branching off of my Revelation Mechanism lore. This features a closer look at their actual order of battle, such as the allegiances of Mars’ mightiest warriors.

The readouts began before any vid-feed could be reestablished. Diagnostics. Damage reports. Trapped within the darkness of his metallic tomb, Piotr felt as though his own consciousness was returning along with that of his war-machine.

[SYSTEM CHECK IN PROGRESS]

[HEAVY HULL DAMAGE SUSTAINED]

[SERVO INTEGRITY :: CONFIRMED]

[ION SHIELDS :: PRIMARY GENERATOR OFFLINE]

Sir Piotr groaned, but breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a sudden coolness come into the air fed to his pilot’s helmet. Systems were restarting. He wasn’t immobilized.

[ROUTING AUXILIARY POWER]

The symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus flashed to life in the middle of the holo-screen, followed by the digitized heraldry of House Taranis. These were then pushed to the side, as with a crackling feedback the primary vid-feed sprung to life. Piotr could tell just from the weight of gravity that his Knight engine was laid on its back, but the sight of grey skies far above gave him some better orientation.

He had fallen into a deep canyon, it seemed. Darkened stone rose on all sides, cut like a jagged scar into the crust of the world. Far above the desolate crevasse, the sky was a shade of slate just a scant bit lighter than the stone all around. One could almost be forgiven for believing themselves lost in some monochromatic tomb.

Responding to his control inputs at last, the Imperial Knight which Sir Piotr Arangia piloted began to move. Heavy rocks had pinned it, but these were little concern to the might of the war-engine.

[STARBOARD WEAPON MOUNTING :: RESPONDING]

From the rubble emerged one arm of the massive mech, equipped with an enormous adamantine gauntlet. Pushing the heaviest of the stones aside, the Knight exhumed itself from its place of burial, as Piotr began a command sequence to try and right himself. To be “turtled” in a Knight chassis was always unfortunate, but so long as it appeared that the core integrity of his steed wasn’t compromised, it wasn’t an issue for a seasoned pilot like himself.

With a groan of mechanical protest, the great colossus rose to its ungulate feet – a giant by the standards of any warrior, yet dwarfed by the sheer sides of the canyon about it.

He didn’t have high hopes, but Piotr tried all the same. Punching in some codes, he scanned the major comms channels.

“Hugenia Command, this is Knight-Pilot Arangia. Do you read?”

No response but static.

“Macroclade Primus, this is Knight-Pilot Arangia of House Taranis. Magos Dominus, do you read?”

Still, naught but static.

He didn’t need to check the status of the rest of his own Knight maniple. Steeling his heavy heart to the loss, he knew them to all be dead. Every one of their mechs was trans-linked to each other for immediate communications, and there was no response. The crushed form of another Knight Errant just a short way down the rubble-strewn canyon floor was but visual confirmation.

“Omnissiah guide your souls, kin.” Sir Piotr said a soft prayer, placing his mortal hand over his heart within the cockpit of his Knight suit.

Checking his geographical readouts once more, the pilot guessed that there would be a way out of this crevasse so long as he continued due north. With determined stride, he set his great machine in motion, seeking the way that he might return to the field of war above.

Sir Piotr Arangia was but one member of a great cohort of the Martian Knight House Taranis that had traveled to this this world of Hugenia in a time of dire crisis. The industrial planet had come under attack several years ago by the forces of darkness – heretics and abominations who had carved a path of devastation out from the Eye of Terror, washing this pious world in blood in the names of their Dark Gods.

Such was the might of this particular army of heathens, coupled with the expected delays in broadcasting the distress call, and the delays in assembling and moving an entire army across the stars in aid, that by the time help had arrived the planet had already fallen. Hugenia’s command was reduced to pockets of resistance just holding out against the tide, while the power of the heretic legions had grown strong. By their dark crafts they’d unleashed hordes of unnatural monstrosities against the besieged resistors, while entrenching themselves deep within the captured hive cities, spreading their malign corruption. It was by the Omnissiah’s grace alone that the Martian war-fleet had arrived in time to have any effect at all, but even now the fight was desperate, and it was possible Hugenia might be lost.

From Mars had been sent the War-Division “Red Legion” on behalf of Archmagos Chertovsky Upsilon-28 and commanded by Archmagos Dominus Go Zeta-06. In response to the apparent magnitude of the enemy forces, and the Archmagi’s desire to test their lauded war engines, the Red Legion had contained within its fleet a multitude of Skitarii cohorts, several maniples from House Taranis, and even a Warlord Titan of the Legio Fortidus – that last god-engine being the pride and joy of Go Zeta, who was an obsessive antiquarian.

Just as the initial assault by the heretics had been of devastating effect against the defenders of Hugenia, so too had the Mechanicus’ retaliation been swift and brutal. Yet despite their opening victories, the barbarians had been more entrenched than even the most generous projections had predicted. What resulted was a prolonged and directionless siege, in which the purity and might of the Mechanicus’ grandest machines and augmented warriors were put to the test against unspeakable horrors from beyond the veil.

One such horror had been the cause of Sir Piotr’s quite literal fall, and the fall of his maniple. They’d been spearheading an assault against a conjunction point for the traitors’ resupply routes, at the captured remains of a sprawling manufactorum, when the heathens had drawn upon the power of a cabal of dark sorcerers. The – being – which they’d summoned was unlike any Piotr had ever witnessed. From both the living and the dead of those mutant cultists which made up the vanguard hordes, the sorcerers had raised up a horrific golem. It was like a monstrous wyrm which had split the very earth, and consumed all about it, friend and foe alike. Piotr was just grateful that despite all the destruction the abomination had wrought, none of its putrid corpus had followed him down into the canyon.

The whole of the canyon was silent, in fact, as the pilot made his way northward. No whisper of activity, even from high above. Though any number of factors could have been the cause, it was Piotr’s grim guess that the beast of Chaos had laid waste to the battlefield above, and had perhaps either died itself, gone dormant, or moved on in search of more prey across the apocalyptic wastelands of Hugenia.

By the honor of his House, he would avenge his fallen kin. In the name of the Machine God, he was duty-bound to purge these abominations from the galaxy by virtue of their sheer unnatural existence.

When at last the canyon began to grow shallower, and light filtered in greater – if still middling – amounts down from above, Piotr knew his prayers had been answered.

Emerging from the depths onto the rocky surface of Hugenia, Piotr took stock of his surroundings.

It looked as though he had been moved some distance. There was the manufactorum near to the eastern horizon, though it was in a ruined state surpassing all damage it had sustained before. The crevasse ran from the fractured building all the way across the great battle-plains as if the Dark Ones themselves had plunged a blade into the tormented earth. All about there was the desolation of battle – ruined combat engines, fallen knights, and destroyed fortifications. Yet corpses were somewhat absent. Many a Skitarii warrior lay in martyrdom upon the smoking rock, yet nothing of the heathen dead could be seen. None of their twisted mutant forms were among the corpses.

Double-checking all his scans, Piotr confirmed that there were no major heat signatures or seismic disturbances that may have pointed to that creature summoned by the sorcerers. Though he was a devout man, focused on his calling as a warrior above all else, his status as a veteran of that most Martian-loyal of all Knight Houses meant he was privy to such lore as most men could not be trusted with. He guessed, based on his knowledge of those horrific beings that might be drawn from the Warp, that this flesh-golem had consumed all that it could find upon the killing fields, and moved on in search of further prey.

He had to reach his commanders, lest they face such a daemon without forewarning.

Piotr set the legs of the King-Slayer, his artificed machine, on a route further northward. With all the speed he could draw from its servos, the hunched mech loped across the barren fields towards those jagged uplands where he knew the Red Legion forward base had been constructed. As his war-machine was set on autopilot, Piotr kept checking all comms channels he could think to use.

“Macroclade Primus, this is Sir Piotr Arangia broadcasting on all channels. I am the last survivor the Taranis maniple. Manufactorum Cetus-Eta destroyed by heretical magics. I have emergency intel for high command. Please respond!”

He was about to set the broadcast with a looping ping, when by his good fortune an actual response came. A tittering blast of binaric cant came through his helmet’s speakers, followed by the deep, modulated voice of a Tech-priest.

“Knight-Pilot Arangia, this is Magos Vatin, temporary overseer of Forward Base Eta,” came the vox-cast, “What is your current location?”

“Thank the Omnissiah!” Piotr sighed into his speaker, receiving a short series of affirmative beeps from the Magos despite the delay in communicating his information, “I am on route from the southern battlefield to Eta Base. Predicted arrival in roughly one standard hour.”

“What is your emergency intel, Knight-Pilot?” Vatin pressed, “This is a secured channel.”

“The heretics have raised some manner of creature from the Warp. It is colossal and hungry. I do not have a reading on its location, but I can only predict it will attempt to attack the forward base.”

“Noted, Knight-Pilot,” the Magos confirmed, “Preparations will be made.”

“Affirmative. I am piloting a Knight Errant-B class. Engine name ‘King-Slayer’. Please keep a reading on my signature, as my heraldry has been damaged, and this is a non-standard Questoris pattern.”

“Noted, Knight-Pilot,” Vatin repeated, with what one might have assumed was the exact same audio-file, “Can you confirm with over sixty percent accuracy that you are the sole survivor of your maniple?”

“Affirmative, Magos,” Piotr’s voice was grave with the loss, “My brethren were – hold on – damnit—!”

From Vatin’s end, the transmission was cut as the Knight-Pilot rerouted his power for sudden defensive maneuvers.

The King-Slayer had been nearing the battlefield’s furthest edge of fortifications when there’d been a sudden disturbance. From around the burnt-out husk of a heavy Mechanicus transport, something had stalked out like a scavenging hyena.

In many ways it looked quite similar to Piotr’s knight suit – even more so due to the fact that he was the pilot of an Errant-B class, which held such features as ungulate-like legs and heavier armor compared to a conventional Errant. The combatant which rounded the carcass of the dilapidated vehicle had a similar gait, though even more hunched, and with a distorted outline brought by all the numerous unnatural growths about its form.

It may have once been a Knight Gallant – armed with chainsword and thunder-gauntlet, equipped to lay low the mightiest foes of the Imperium in glorious close-quarters combat. Now, it was a monstrosity. From within the morass of corruption could be seen but the faintest hints of the corroded metal which had once armored and supported the giant, but nothing more than its steel-toothed armaments and the general skeleton of the thing suggested what it had been before. Its hull was covered in thick layers of daemonic flesh, pink and red and gory, which formed mats like the rotted remains of a horrific mass grave, while larger tendrils coiled about the machine’s limbs, perhaps moving itself more by some sorcerous anatomy than by engine-fire. Its head was gone, replaced by a morass of fanged phalanges, like the maw of a lamprey, and standing in fleshy contrast to the iron skull-mask of the King-Slayer.

This was not the beast the black magicians had unleashed, but it bore much of the same gory mutations as all who made up this blasphemous host. Reports had said their cult was named the Brethren of Hunger, and the eye-watering barbarities which they committed and reveled in expressed the full horror of what such a name implied.

With a scream like the rending of armor and the howling of dying men, the Chaos Knight spied the form of the King-Slayer and charged at once in a shambling sprint.

Such was the speed of the otherwise ungainly-looking thing that Piotr had just enough time to prepare himself. With his reactor core operating at suboptimal capacity, he had to choose between offence and defence. Routing all power from his ion shields, he trusted in the fury of his artificed thermal cannon.

By the Machine God’s grace, the first shot struck home. It lanced out with a sizzling crack as it burned the very air around it, the energy-beam impacting with the fallen Knight’s arm just above its thunderstrike gauntlet. Daemon flesh was seared through, along with the dilapidated frame beneath it. As the arm fell, a few failing tendrils seemed to try and grab it up again while the monster screeched in fury, but the weight of the weapon was now too great without the heaviest tendons, and the limb was severed.

Still the creature did not halt, however, charging on despite its crippling. Piotr swore, bracing for impact, but as he did so he saw the face of the thing convulse. From within the radial maw of the thing came something like a gob of vomit. A sac, undulating and lambent with a crimson glow, was sent hurtling in a cascade of ichor out of the beast’s throat and towards the King-Slayer.

Piotr raised his mech’s own gauntlet to deflect, and as the disgusting projectile hit there was a burst of light and fluid. Whatever fell substance was contained within was like molten flame, and readouts went critical from his melee weapon as the burning acid seared clean through its armor.

The shot was devastating, but despite the heavy damage to his weapon, and the staggering effect the biological bomb had, Piotr did not give in. As the monster closed, he fired a wild shot from his thermal cannon, and charged forward with his Knight’s shoulder just after.

By sheer luck, the blast connected with the daemon-engine’s knee, while the limp form of the King-Slayer’s injured gauntlet was swung into its fleshy face like a flail. The monstrosity and the loyal Knight were sent off at odd angles from each other from the impact, but whereas Piotr was able to stay upright, the Chaos Knight fell headlong as its corrupted flesh struggled to keep its damaged leg together.

It fell to the ground with a colossal crash, blood and sickening fluids running from its severed limbs, screeching like a nightmare with its faceless mouth. Yet still it did not die. Twisting its chainsword-wielding arm like the limb of some strange insect, it began trying to pull itself along on hand and knee towards Piotr’s mech. It howled and slavered, desperate to the last to consume its hated prey.

As Piotr was lost for a moment in watching the abomination, his decades of training broken for a moment by the sheer disgust this most fallen of heretics evoked, he saw the mouth of the daemon-engine convulse once again.

He didn’t delay. Taking one great step forward to aid his aim, the King-Slayer locked onto the crimson mass within the gullet of the creature before it was even let lose. A final shot of thermic power was sent screaming out, right down the throat of the monster. There was a great explosion, with a sound like an entire silo of ripe fruit being crushed, and when the spray of red mist and acrid smoke cleared, the beast’s head was gone.

It did not make another sound save for the burbling of tainted blood that flowed from the hole that now dominated the front of its torso. Falling still at last, the fleshy tendrils which held the creature together sagged, and it collapsed beneath its own weight.

Piotr Arangia contemplated what hells could await such a fallen soul that were worse than their every moment of mere existence had been.

Without a moment to waste, still set to deliver to the message to Eta Base, the King-Slayer left the smoldering hulk there upon the battlefield. One more dead abomination in the eyes of the Machine God. Even if Hugenia were purged of all life, Piotr felt some inkling of pride for having rid the universe of that particular affront to sanity.

Swifter than any other being upon two legs, the King-Slayer ran to the shattered hills.

Up in the highlands, in the ready-built and fortified Forward Base Eta, Magos Vatin surveyed the surrounding wastes from his comms tower. Old by the years of mere mortals, Vatin was nonetheless a novice by the standards of his immediate commander, Archmagos Dominus Go Zeta-06. Yet the Archmagos had needed to leave for the time being, to fetch reinforcements suitable to press their assault on this front. The siege of Cetus-Eta had not gone quite as expected, yet it seemed as though said reinforcements would be needed all the same. Beyond the ruined manufactorum, the barren wastelands turned into miles upon miles of dilapidated urban sprawl, no doubt teeming with more of those perverse-fleshed cultists of the Brethren of Hunger. Go Zeta was the sole tech-priest among the Red Legion who had the full intel on this warband, but Vatin suspected from simple observation that they were the fallen remnants of some ancient Imperial cohort, given their mix of cultists, war machines, and malign engineers.

Vatin himself was a Magos of Mars and wore the red robes of that diocese. His form was not too dissimilar to a standard human’s, at least from his silhouette, though beneath his robes was naught but a morass of mechadendrites and numerous processing modules.

As of now, he was tracking the signal of Piotr Arangia’s Knight. Errant-B. Typical rarity among the comrades of Go Zeta and Chertovsky Upsilon. No doubt Upsilon knew just what manner of horrors had laid siege to Hugenia and had figured it an ideal testing ground for his “collection” of technical marvels. Vatin pondered how he’d have preferred to have several cohorts of proper battle-automatons over these simple Skitarii. They did their job well, but with the sheer amounts of dangerous biohazards these cultists seemed to invoke, what parts of the Tech Guard that were still of flesh had been targeted as a vulnerability.

“Magos,” came a voice quite different from the crackling tones of the Tech-priests. It was General Yanov, of the Hugenian Defence Force. A somewhat short, but quite well-built man with tawny hair and ghost-pale complexion. With the fall of Hugenia’s industrial government, the HDF had taken over the situation before the arrival of the Red Legion.

“I’d appreciate a status report, if you please. My soldiers are preparing as best they can, but I’ve received very little in the way of information from you since your superior officer left for orbit.” The human was not shaken, but he seemed irritated.

“Noted, General,” Vatin turned to the man, “It appears as though the assault on Cetus-Eta resulted in the total loss of all combatants, by basic calculations. More practically, I am in communication with a surviving Knight-Pilot of House Taranis. I intend to give the order for total lockdown, as it appears we may be facing an incoming attack. Based on battlegroup transmissions, however, I expect Archmagos Go Zeta-06’s aid to arrive in a suitable timeframe.”

The General’s eyes went down, as he seemed to think for a moment, “Acceptable. Are my commando squads still expected to provide navigation in the Sprawl?”

“That has been amended. We will not need to worry about navigation in the Sprawl. Your commandos will better serve when we reach the hive, where we may require more precise purges depending on the enemy’s entrenchment.”

“Very well. Keep me in the loop next time.” General Yanov emphasized that last part, as Vatin’s attention seemed to have drifted back to his readout panels.

“Of course, General. Now if you will excuse me, I believe Sir Piotr has reached the outer perimeter.” With that, the cyborg left the human commander in the comms tower, rather dismissive considering their ranks were near equivalent in this context. Yanov couldn’t say he had any great love for the attitudes of these tech-priests, but at the very least they were efficient. Well – this assemblage was.

Down by the southern gates, the battle-scarred form of the King-Slayer heaved its way in view of the Mechanicum sentinels. Red and white heraldry charred and stained and chipped, noble melee weapon twitching and struggling to support its own weight, and the overall motions of the knight jerky and unwieldy from its exhausted reactor core, yet still it marched on.

Though it could not be seen, shielded as he was within cockpit and uplink armor, Sir Piotr’s hair was streaked with grey – he had not served with distinction for as long as he had to die this day.

He broadcasted the battlegroup passcodes, and the gate opened after a momentary processing from the security servitor. Lumbering into an open courtyard, surrounded by a veritable fortress of prefabricated buildings, the King-Slayer at last ground to a halt.

When Sir Piotr popped open his access hatch to peer from atop his great war-engine, he was met with the sight of a procession of Skitarii, led by a single Magos.

“Hail!” the armored knight called down from some ten meters above the ground, “Magos Vatin?”

“Affirmative,” for the tech-priest to elevate his voice was a strange thing, as his timbre did not change – he just raised the volume on his vox, “Sir Piotr Arangia, how dire is your condition?”

There was a hissing of seals releasing as Piotr removed his pilot’s helmet. Beneath was the face of a man one would little suspect of being a veteran noble of one of the mightiest Knight Houses in the galaxy. His features were gaunt, but overall plain, with skin of a middling sallow shade with dark eyes. His hair and beard were a deep brown, almost black, grey-tinged and cropped close so as to not interfere with his personal armor. Despite his somewhat haggard and unassuming appearance, the fact that he stood astride a Knight Errant-B, and the conditions of the battle he had returned alive from, spoke to his prowess.

“King-Slayer is about ready to give in, but I believe most of the damage is from an overworked reactor core. I fought an abomination of the Brethren, as per our transmission cutting off. It lies dead, but it was not the creature I warned you of,” the pilot relayed, “How quickly can your adepts shore up my Knight? Forget the armor, I just need it to be ready for combat.”

“I have already transmitted coordinates to the nearest repair facility in this base. Omnissiah’s tears, we are short of vehicles to service as of now, due to the casualties of the battle from which you alone returned.” Vatin said.

“Where is Go Zeta?” Piotr asked, then. Vatin disliked the breach in etiquette, but he felt correcting the pilot would bring about delays than anything.

“Inbound.” Was his simple reply, though it was laden with some implication that almost made Piotr smile in curiosity.

“I take my leave then. Ave Deus Mechanicus.” The King-Slayer groaned as it was pushed again into life. Its poor machine spirit, pained as it was, nonetheless possessed even more fortitude than its stalwart pilot. Vatin repeated back the phrase of salute as he watched the Knight lumber into the core of Eta Base.

What a world was this, that tested the mightiest of the Machine God’s engines so.

—

Piotr Arangia watched with solemn pride as the tech-adepts and enginseers set about replacing the primary reactor core of the King-Slayer. He took a deep drink of a canister of water, refreshing after all he’d been through. Still, despite his growing fatigue, and the mighty bulwarks of the Red Legion base, he felt naked outside the titanic mech. There were yet enemies about – not just across the surface of Hugenia, no, they could wait. He considered the foes which might show themselves at any moment.

“A magnificent engine. It pains me we do not have time to undertake full repairs.” The lead enginseer spoke to Sir Piotr. Rather dissimilar to the higher tech-priests, this enginseer was built more like a man, though layered with a carapace of thick augmetics. He used a somewhat casual tone that made Piotr wonder if High Gothic wasn’t a language he spoke often.

“A relic some six thousand years old, at least by the name it bears now,” Piotr commented, “Would you believe it was one a steed to a traitorous Dreadblade? He was laid low by a great paladin of House Taranis, and by the most dedicated ministrations of the Martian clergy was its machine-spirit saved. It’s served dutifully in my house for millennia now, but such are its quirks – of design and reputation – that only veterans are permitted its command.”

Though the cyborg’s face was an unmoving mask, his body language still seemed to suggest surprise, “Such a history. I can see why your maniple was summoned by the Red Legion.”

The Knight-Pilot just nodded and made some noise to the affirmative, watching as the new core was slid in place into the King-Slayer’s torso, the hiss of its seal followed by a clanging lock that confirmed it had been affixed.

Not a moment had passed from that singular repair, with the adepts having not even enough time to begin the proper post-installment litanies and anointments, when a tremor ran through the ground. By the sheer durability of Martian engineering did the whole fortress not come down, as the planetquake felt as though it was set to split the ground in two.

“What in the God-Emperor’s name was that?” Piotr demanded, all calm from his momentary reprieve shattered in a moment.

“Report!” the lead enginseer demanded of the repair center’s control deck.

In reply, they received an overriding broadcast in the voice of Magos Vatin.

“This is an emergency report. Massive seismic activity reported. There has been a surge in subterranean Warp radiation signatures. All units to defensive stations. Order immediate.” Speakers throughout the fortress blared the message, followed by the rising wail of klaxons as the whole of Eta Base moved into action like a disturbed anthill.

“Is King-Slayer ready?” the pilot demanded, though he was already striding over to the mounting scaffolding that surrounded the mighty suit.

It was time he avenged his kin.

From the comms tower, Magos Vatin overlooked a sight that drew something approximating fear even from the depths of his cold, mechanical heart. The readouts had been staggering, but the visual confirmation from the highland wastes beyond Eta Base’s walls were enough to slow his cybernetic ichor.

Great rifts had fractured open in the barren landscape, like a jagged maw into the planet’s crust. Miles across, the Magos had wondered what they were expected to do if one of the crevasses reached the base itself, but once the tremor had ceased, so too had the spread of the rocky abyss.

The roar of scouting craft came streaking overhead – a mixture of Hugenian and Mechanicus flyers that the Magos had mobilized to try and suss out the source of this disturbance. In an aerial phalanx they hovered over the pit, VTOL craft arcing lower and stabilizing as they affixed spotlights and laser probes on the shadowy depths.

Not even the fastest calculations of a war-minded Archmagos might have reacted in time to what unfolded then. Whipping out from the crater, its slow speed at distance but an illusion for how fast the titanic mass must have been moving, shot an enormous tendril. The color of blood and sinew, the appendage of flesh nonetheless showed its superiority to Martian steel as with a single strike it batted three Mechanicus thopters from the air like flies. Swarming, either in retreat or retaliation, the rest of the skyborne battalion attempted to combat the unnatural monstrosity with las-fire and aimed explosives.

Yet then more tendrils came slithering up from the inky black, like towers of corrupted flesh. They emerged from the ground like a parasite from a wound, and before long the call for retreat was sounding on all channels of the air squadron, as in mere moments they were decimated by the creature’s flailing assault.

Down in the eastern courtyard of Eta Base, the battle-scarred form of the King-Slayer strode into the dim light of the Hugenian day, and stood in terrified awe of what he saw beyond the fortress walls.

Even at this angle within the fortifications the monstrosity could be seen, such was its size. Though all the colossal height of its appendages compared nothing to the true creature.

From up out of the center of the writhing limbs, like a geyser of solidified gore, came the body of that daemonic golem forged by the dark sorcery which the Brethren of Hunger had forced upon reality. Though no details beyond its sickening color could be seen at this range, Piotr knew enough of the horrid workings of their foes to assume that this accounted for the apparent absence of corpses upon the killing fields. The beast’s body evoked the head of that fallen Knight he had left ruined on the outskirts of Cetus-Eta, being like a hellish worm with an eyeless face and gaping mouth. From its body grew untold numbers of tendrils, and great shards of twisted, bonelike fusions. Its body dripped with discolored blood, from numerous gashes like wounds along its serpentine sides, from which also emanated a scarlet glow that suggested that fell bile which had left the King-Slayer’s gauntlet in ruins.

Such a terror from beyond the veil of sanity might have had the power to split worlds in twain, as far as mere mortals could guess. Still, Piotr’s faith was all that was left to him, and he wondered if this was the sign that he was soon to join his ancestors in the Eternal Halls.

When he succumbed, he would make sure to overload the King-Slayer’s new reactor core. He would not allow his flesh to become a part of that abomination.

The roar of the monster, like the amplified screams of a million tormented souls, was alone matched by a sound that rose in response. Its vast shadow was darkened by a greater pall which was cast in front of the smog-shrouded sun.

Down from the heavens, splitting the very atmosphere at its passing, dipped the silhouette of a Mechanicus heavy cruiser. Even so far above in low orbit, its form was like that of a floating city. Despite its blunted shape, mighty engines held it aloft with acute grace, as it drifted to a halt above the highland wastes.

From over the Red Legion battle channels, a transmission aired.

“This is Archmagos Dominus Go Zeta-06,” came the voice, with the timbre of a clarion horn, followed by a blaring string of binary, “Sing praise to the God of All Machines.”

With that, the message cut, and though the colossus of flesh still howled and thrashed, tearing into the earth as it began to pry itself up from below and towards the base’s walls, there seemed a moment of silence in the minds of all those defending. Piotr wondered if they were all of them about to experience the Omnissiah’s molten wrath from above. It would be expected, if not so glorious, in light of the corruption they all faced.

Instead, there was a single flash of brightness from the cruiser’s shadow far above, and from the echoing anti-noise grew a screaming wail. Like an artillery shell flung by the hand of the Emperor himself, a bloom of fiery radiance descended from on high. It fell slow, considering the massive amounts of wind resistance it was exerting to slow its descent, yet still it came crashing in a hail of flame and fury like meteorite into the surface of Hugenia. When it impacted, even the giant daemon of flesh was staggered, reeling at the shockwave, while structures shuddered from this second tremor, and anything that stood on two legs which was not so mighty as a Knight was sent sprawling and stumbling.

It was a great monolith of superheated metal, there impacted in a deep crater not a few miles off from the fort perimeter and where the daemonic behemoth continued its clawing ascent from the depths. For the objects size, it did not seem so far, as it towered above even the highest point of Eta Base’s comms tower. Piotr recognized the design, though it was rare to see it at such a colossal scale – a drop pod.

With a howl as if the gates of hell had been shattered, and a hissing of steam like a volcanic eruption, the sides of the enormous container were blown open. The outer shielding, still bright red from the residual heat of the descent, crashed to the ground in the form of four great ramps, releasing a roiling cloud of steam from within the adamantine coffin’s shadowed depths. There, within the gloom of that obscuring fog, a hundred blaring white lights lit up like radiant jewels within the crown of the God Emperor himself.

A foghorn blared, and the Titan stepped forth from its drop pod.

No one could look away. Not even veterans so old as Piotr or even the Magos Vatin could avert their gazes from the glory of the god machine. Like the Omnissiah’s own avatar the mech came forward, each step shaking the earth and carrying it hundreds of yards at a time. Even the great beast of flesh and horror’s attention was turned for a moment from its sluggish path towards the outer walls, as it considered this new prey which presented itself.

It was a Martian Warlord-class Titan, defined by the strength and elegance expressed in every facet of its monumental design. Like a brutal warrior weighed down by the weight of his own armor, the colossus was an unmistakable engine of war. Twin Volcano cannons and Mauler turrets graced its arm and shoulder-mountings, and the faint flicker about the mech’s silhouette that could be spied whenever a plume of badland dust blew by showed that its void shields were online. Yet, to Piotr at the very least, what was most remarkable was its livery. It almost seemed akin to his own Taranis red and white.

Some said that the Legio Fortidus – the Dauntless – had been obliterated millennia ago. Yet when they said that the Archmagi Chertovsky and Go possessed many grand artifacts and secretive allies, it was apparent that was but an understatement. To those defenders present, whether they understood the true significance of that Martian herald or just balked at its power, it was as though they had been delivered by the divine.

The monster of flesh shrieked like a windstorm as its counterpart in steel approached. In reply, there was a humming in the very air, and a flash of light that would have blinded all who looked on it without protection to their mortal eyes. A Volcano cannon lanced out a beam of energy that cooked the atmosphere, and with another scream of unholy rage one of the wyrm’s gangrenous tentacles was sloughed off in a shower of seared gore and running ichor.

It was breathtaking how the god machine humbled that beast of darkness just like it had humbled all the combatants of Cetus-Eta. Sir Piotr Arangia was a Knight-pilot – he was a mortal of flesh, though his ties to and respect for the arcane sciences of the Mechanicus were unbreakable. Still he could not shake one thought from his mind…

“The flesh is weak. The machine is strong.”

Another Volcano shot arced out, followed by the deafening thunder of two rotating heavy bolter turrets spraying down a hail of fire from the Titan’s mantle. For all its immense size, the wyrm was not so agile, having grown fat off all it had consumed. As it tried to haul itself across the wastes, towards the Dauntless Warlord, it could do nothing but leave behind a rancid trial of rotten effluvia as it was withered beneath the relentless fire.

As though it were giving peace to that conglomeration of so many devoured souls, the Titan did not cease its barrage until no sound – no forsaken wail or pealing roar – came from the husk of the daemonic creature. Not until it was a smoldering stain miles long, upon ground which had begun to turn to carbonized glass, did the Titan power down its blazing weaponry.

Despite the slow, sweeping pace of both those giants, it seemed as though the battle was over in an instant. Where once there had been just the promise of annihilation, by the grace of Mars did it appear as though the battle was not yet lost.

Again, that claxon voice came over the vox waves, and Piotr stood a little taller within his cockpit. The King-Slayer, in mirror, rose to a proud stance as well.

“This is Archmagos Dominus Go Zeta-06, aboard the Ark Mechanicus Worth of the Slain. Now comes the time to deploy the Legio Fortidus. My Lord-Archmagos has decreed that Hugenia shall not be sacrificed.”

Sir Piotr Arangia marveled how, even after all his years of battle in the name of the Imperium, still the Omnissiah could head his prayers.

#warhammer #40k #mechanicus #titanicus #imperial knight #taranis #fortidus

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trashpandaorigins · 7 years ago

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And If You Don’t Love Me Now Ch. 6

When Rocket wasn’t inspecting the waret or the protected cargo holds, when he wasn’t tag teaming with Quill to navigate to Gravior, or trying to push aside the walls of Groot’s iron apathy, in the quiet moments aboard the ship, (which were few,) he sat and tried to repair the malfunctions of his cybernetics. Groot had wordlessly depart their room, as per usual, to spar with Drax and Kraglin.“I thought you were gonna help me fix the broken electrics in the southern chambers!” Rocket shouted at the adolescents back. Groot turned, his side almost fully healed. The raccoonoid looked at him, blinking, waiting for some recognition. For anything. The hard-dark eyes only narrowed, deep shades of brown barely gleaming a touch of wanton sympathy.“

Groot….” Rocket began, words filling his throat. The teen turned, walking from the room with finality and leaving the door open, just as gaping as the feeling in his chest. “Flark it,” he mumbled, going to his bed and reaching underneath for the draw of nick knacks. He withdrew his cleaning cloths and ointments, a wrench and a screw driver and took a deep breath. He knew the routine well and didn’t think about the pain he was going to feel as he undid the top of his customary jumpsuit. Looking through the faded dirty mirror Rocket made an effort to fix the knots and bolts in his back, each wipe of ointment and twerk of wrench making his body spasm with electric hurt.

“F…fuck..” he breathed, leaning forward and gripping the edge of his bed

“Knock knock,” Gamora said quietly. Rocket didn’t bother to hide his small smile. Such meetings had become routine in the months and years since Groot was a small infant. She took the wrench and screw driver from him and sat herself down behind him all without words. Rocket gritted his teeth as she stuck the wrench to the lowest bolt in his back and twisted.

“Shit….” He whispered. Gamora poured more of the ointment on his torn flesh and rubbed it soothingly. She moved on to another section, this one slightly less painful.

“How is Groot?” She finally asked, Rocked sighed begrudgingly.

“You’d know better than me,” he grumbled through his fangs.

“Hold still,” the assassin ordered and pulled once, sending sparks from the panel in his back dazzling. Rocket’s arms and legs tightened, his tail rigid. Blood slicked down his back from the wounds where skin met metal.“You’re allergic to this,” Gamora stated, resting her palm gently on his shoulder. Her hand felt surprisingly smooth and welcome on his fur.“Yeah,” he reached around and finished tightening the bolt with his own fingers.

“It’s a low-grade reaction.” He didn’t need to turn around to sense Gamora’s unhappiness.“Rocket….”

“Don’t.” He snapped. “I know what you’re gonna say, don’t say it.” Gamora only applied more of the soothing stuff and continued to work on his repairs.

“I have to tell you something Rocket,” Gamora spoke in hushed tones as she worked through his fur.“Yeah what?”

“…How much have you told Groot. About what happened on Xandar?” Rocket’s ears pricked up.

“Nothing. I mean, I told him how we met and everything, told him about the good times and a lot of the bad. Told him how we met you guys but nothing about….wait why are you even askin me?” He looked over his shoulder at her. She focused intently on the knots in his fur and grimaced.

“Peter told me…that Groot asked him about…what happened before his pot”“I swear to the gods if star fucker…”

“He didn’t say anything Rocket. He would never say anything without talking to you first. But you…you have to tell Groot. That’s probably why he’s been…so restless.” The racconooid laughed bitterly.

“Restless, tsch, that’s one way to put it.” Gamora sighed.“You need to tell him.”

“I can’t!” Rocket exploded, turning to face her. “He’s my best friend and….”

“That’s the point Rocket, he’s not your best friend.” She spoke not unkindly. “Not anymore. He’s his own person and he’s trying to figure out who that is. The more you keep from him, the worse off he’ll be. If you love him like I know you do…you’ll tell him.”

“I know he ain’t my best friend no more!!” he snarled, clenching his fists against the hot burning fire in his limbs and turning away once more. His vision swam as he blinked away the black shadows on the edge of his site. “…I made peace with that,” he coughed through his pain. “More or less.” Gamora finished cleaning the bolts and gently spread more ointment over the raised scars. Rocket bit his lip as she carefully wet a rag and dampened the bleeding scabs around the metal. “….I know this Groot ain’t the one who saved us but….every time I look at him I see him and…I just…” Rocket closed his eyes and the large flora colossus, smiling and staring at butterflies came into full view. “I miss him so much,” tears welled in his eyes, running with the water that ran down his back. Gamora fiddled with a knot in his fur, disentangling it and stroking his fur rhythmically.

“I miss him too Rocket,” she whispered. “He sacrificed his life, not only for you but for me as well. After hardly knowing me…after I hacked off his arms and sliced his torso. “No one had ever done that for me…a tool of Thanos…”

“You are NOT a tool of that psycho Gams, I don’t know how many times I have to tell yah.”“I didn’t deserve it. But he gave his life for mine and…I will never be able to repay that debt. But I try, every day, to help raise this Groot with patience…and forgiveness and love. It’s the least I can do.” Rocket nodded at her quiet voice.

“I just don’t want him to end up like me,” he repeated. Gamora straightened and wiped at the edge of her eye.

“Would that be so bad?” She joked, wiping down the last of his cybernetics and gave him a strong pat. Rocket grinned but felt his heart fall. He can’t be like me…I don’t want him to be so broken…so afraid…

“Thank you Gams,” he managed.“

Anytime Rock, now…I think Groot just needs… BEEP, BEEP,BEEP red lighting flooded the room.

“Shit!” The raccoonoid scurried down from his seat and pressed the comms button. “Quill! What the flark is going on?!” Star-Lord’s voice came in grainy and broken,

“A….sh…ship…must’ve tracked us from C…con..tra…tracxia and waited util we were further..e…enough out…” Bam! Bam, bam, bam, the room pitched and banked on to it’s side sending a rattling throughout the chamber. Gamora whipped out her sword instantly.

“Ravagers?!”

“I…if they are…I do..don’t know em! Just..g..get up here now!”

“Fuck balls,” Rocket scrambled for his gun, hefting over both of his shoulders and ran after Gamora, his tail struggling to balance him as he ran to the cockpit. “Didn’t you upgrade our security systems?” She asked, stumbling forward and grabbing on to the railing.

“I did! I don’t know how they spotted us!” Drax’s thundering footfalls came up behind them, and Rocket slid to the side letting out an involuntary yelp. Shame welled in his stomach watching the warrior go, knives brandished like a mad man. If Groot wanted anything to do with him, he’d be perched on his shoulder right now. Granted still not as high as before, but better then running on the ground, terrified of being stepped on. Rocket adjusted his weight on the gun as he barged into the cockpit. The ship spun and the whole team fell crashing on top of each other,

“Blam!”

“Fuck!” Peter gripped the wheel tight and pulled the Milano up. On his stomach, Rocket leapt off of Drax’s chest and scanned the room. Groot stood up, growing a vine outward and attaching himself to the wall of the Milano.

“Groot! Groot yah alright?” Groot’s eyes only locked on the sky ahead, black but littered with lights as the rounds from the ship pelted them.

“Rocket! Give me a status update!” The raccoooid tore his eyes away from Groot and made his way to the co-pilot seat, rigging up the port and starboard guns.

“They ain’t aiming for the body of the ship so they’re after the cargo. Otherwise they’d just blast us with one of their glarking canyons.”

“Let us board them!” Drax shouted over the fire as the Milano swooped under another round of fire. “I will destroy them!”

“No! We need to loose em!” Gamora shouted.

“I am Groot!”

“No! We’re not going into space are you crazy? We can’t possibly fight out…Ah!!” Rocket felt himself get thrown forward as fire riddled the ship, making everything vibrate.

“I am Groot!” He slowly watched the teen try to make his way back down the hall, that stubborn look on his face.

“What the hell was that?!” Peter asked, staring wide eyed at the controls before him.

“Alert, alert, alert, engine down. Alert, alert, alert, engine down.” Quill tugged at the wheel, punched the thrusters. Rocket snarled in frustration, firing the rear guns. The enemy ship gained on them, not twelve paces away, firing off from all of their small scale arms.

“Fuck!” Rocket yelled over the gun fire. Drax, Mantis and Gamora slid to the left, beer bottles rolled across the floor. “They’re sending they’re guys out!” He watched on his camera pad as several small figures, attached to the colossus ship leapt out of a portside lock in full space-protected armor.

“How is that possible?” Gamora asked in awe, clutching the back of Quill’s chair. BAM, BBBAAAMMMMBB, there was a ripping sound of grating metal and Rocket watched in terror as a fireball hit against the ship.

“Peter what’s the plan?” The assassin demanded.

“I’m trying to find a place to land! There’s no nearby planets!” Drax hollered as bullets grazed the glass, Mantis covered her ears and screamed.

“Kraglin! Go below to our short range missile launch and fire at the….” Rocket’s heart caught in his chest, watching the external cam. Groot! The flora colossus had attached himself to the Milano with a braid of vines and was shouting at the enemies, reaching out and striking them before they got in range. Being hit with gun fire, Groot grew a protective thorny bushel out of his right arm, trying to shield himself with one arm while fighting the rest of them. Rocket unbuckled himself, sliding off the chair and balanced his way across the room.

“Rocket!” Peter shouted, “Rocket! Gamora,” Peter un-did his own buckle, signaling Gamora to take over as the ship began to slide downward. Kraglin. Rocket made his way to the main bay of the ship, stepping into his space suit. “Rocket what are you doing?!” Peter shouted,

“What’s it look like Star-Munch?” Rocket secured the buckle around his waist, steadying himself against the rocking ship.

“You’ll get torn to pieces!” Peter shouted. Rocket’s ear twitched, loading ammo into his spare pockets.

“Tsch, wouldn’t be the first time.” Peter’s brows knitted, jaw set.

“Rocket as your captain and your friend I forbid it.” Rocket looked up at him,

“I ain’t never done anything right my whole life Pete, you gotta give me this.” The words were out before Rocket knew it. Peter looked side to side, searching for something. Hands on his hips and he swallowed for a moment before meeting Rocket’s eyes. The raccoonoid couldn’t tell exactly what he saw there. Desperation, helplessness, worry…..l..love?” Peter stepped forward, pushing the button and Rocket took a breath as the door of the Milano’s clanked to open. The humie secured the cord to the anchor.

“You come back in one piece.” He ordered, “both of you. Got it?” Suction tugged at Rocket and the made his way to the edge, looking out at the enemy ship, he could see Groot struggling to combat two of the suited aliens.

“Rocket…” Peter began, but the raccoonoid only turned over his shoulder. Shoving down the image of Yondu with those same sad eyes. He saluted the humie, took a deep breath and vaulted out into the unforgiving vacuum of space.

#my writing #and if you don't love me now #rocket raccoon #groot #teen groot #adolescent groot

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elder-dragon-bolas · 8 years ago

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Terran Summary: Chapters 1-7

Prologue: Imprint

Sorin Markov plans the creation of Innistrad’s protector, Avacyn, on a remote city-plane known as Terran. He is attacked, however, by a group of drunkards and troublemakers known as simply “The Cult,” just before he leaves the plane. Using death magic, he reduces the group to skeletons, and planeswalks away. The vampiric planeswalker accidentally leaves behind a drawing of Avacyn, however, and when another Cult group enters the room later, their minds put together the corpses of their comrades and the drawing of Avacyn as proof of a dark, angelic god, which they name ‘Zepada,’ and out of that moment, the Cult of Zepada is born.

A Brief History of Terran

This one is written in summary format itself, so you will just have to read it. It is not an absolutely necessary read, but does help with understanding of certain events and is not that long. I would recommend it. What is most important is that the city-plane of Terran was shaped by an elf named Dayn into mostly forest over a few years, and that only one last city, Zon, remains, protected by the forcefield of a planeswalker known as Edwin.

Chapters 1-3: Plea, Decision, Arrival

Edwin, Zon’s Time Sage, has been having visions of the city’s destruction, and of one man who is meant to save it: Jace Beleren. Using interplanar magic, he contacts Jace Beleren via scroll. After intense personal debate, Beleren decides to help the plane, and the scroll guides him to the plane of Terran, where he makes his way through a part of the Hydrean to reach the Last City of Zon. There, he meets Edwin.

Chapter 4: Heart of the Wood

The elf Virya has finally come of the age where she will embark upon a journey to the heart of the Hydrean Wood to meet Dayn, creator of the Wood. However, she learns that this year the entirety of the Wood is going as well. When she reaches the heart of the forest, Dayn tells the gathered that he needs their energy to create a massive hydra, one that is capable of destroying the Last City. At that moment, Virya is struck by a vision of the destruction of both the elves and Zon, presided over by a skeletal, winged figure. She flees the clearing as stealthily as she can, and makes her way to the Zon, hoping to warn them of the elves’ approach in order to stop the dark future she has foreseen.

Chapter 5: Forces of Zon

Edwin introduces Jace to the heads of Zon’s government. Beleren reads their minds as well, discovering that many of them have darker pasts than he imagined. The administrator Sarev is haunted by shades that stalk her at night, Nikolai, the chief of the Trailblazers, is a Planeswalker who lost his lover Sylvia to a gorgon. Greziel, the head of the Exterminators, was once Nikolai’s friend, but they fell apart after Sylvia’s death. Benjamin, Zon’s ruler, has a far deeper relationship with Nikolai than Jace could have imagined. As the meeting ends, a messenger informs Benjamin that an elf by the name of Virya has arrived with a warning of Hydrean attack. After the meeting, Edwin takes Jace to his undercity chamber. He reveals to Jace that he showed Jace only an illusion of himself, and that his real self can never leave the chamber, as it takes all his power there to fuel the forcefield that keeps the Last City protected from the Hydrean’s creatures.

Chapter 6: Dark Machinations

Zira, the highpriest of the Cult of Zepada, executes a number of operations in order to prepare for the dark angel Zepada’s awakening. She uses her Shades to torment Sarev and her children in order to force her to reveal the location of the Time Sage’s secret chamber, then sends more Shades to track Nikolai’s location. In the Tomb of Zepada, she reports this information to a dark pool of matter that she believes the dark angel will be reborn from. Zepada promises to reward Zira with godlike powers once she is fully reborn.

Chapter 7: Running from the Past

Nikolai runs between Zon’s outposts to warn them of the coming attack, from where additional messengers will warn Zon’s farther castles. On the way, he remembers his past: how he first planeswalked from a metallic plane after his parents had died; how Benjamin had found him in the Hydrean Wood and raised him as a child unknown to the rest of the city; how he had lost his lover Sylvia deep underground during a raid of a mad scientist’s labyrinth. It had been after seeing her die that he had planeswalked away from Terran for the first time, arriving in a swamp in which he made an oath to never leave Terran again, since he associated planeswalking with every painful event in his life. In the present, Nikolai arrives at the last outpost to find it destroyed, fighting off a group of elves before making his way back to the Last City.

Meanwhile, Dayn, the hydra colossus Arkthus, and the rest of the Hydrean Wood’s forces have arrived to surround Terran. How they will get past the Time Sage’s forcefield is currently unknown.

----CHARACTERS---

Jace Beleren is a powerful mind mage and planeswalker who has no memories of his childhood, or his life before he planeswalked away from his now unknown home plane. Along with the Gatewatch, he saved the plane of Zendikar from destruction at the hands of the Eldrazi titans Ulamog and Kozilek. At the request of Terran’s Time Sage, Jace traveled to Terran to save the Last City of Zon from destruction at the hands of the savage forces surrounding it.

Edwin is a temporal mage and planeswalker who is incredibly ancient, although it is unknown if he lived before the Mending, a time long ago when planeswalkers were as powerful as gods. Using his power, he shields the city of Zon from destruction, but does so at great physical and magical expense to himself. He is known to the people of Zon as the “Time Sage.”

Benjamin is the ruler of the Last City. Many years ago, he found a near-toddler in the Hydrean Wood, took him in, and named him Nikolai. He raised the child, but eventually had to lead him at an orphanage due to it raising questions about who the child’s mother was — a scandal unfit for a city’s ruler. Still, he visited Nikolai almost every day, eventually allowing the boy to join the ranks of the Last City’s Trailblazers.

Nikolai is a planeswalker who, like Jace, does not know his home plane. When he was very young, his parents were slaughtered before him, igniting his Spark and whisking him to the plane of Terran, where he was taken in by Benjamin. Although he suppressed the memory of planeswalking, he ended up unintentionally leaving the plane again under the stress of seeing his lover, Sylvia, killed. After her death, he made an oath to never leave the plane of Terran again, giving himself the title “Nikolai Faithful.” Although he was once friends with Greziel, the two fell apart after Sylvia’s death.

Dayn is an elven planeswalker who, many years ago, used the explosion of green mana known as the Wellspring to shape the city-world of Terran into the nature-covered expanse it is now. He rides upon Arkthus, a massive hydra created through the collective power of nearly all the Hydrean’s elves. He is hellbent upon Zon’s destruction.

Zira is the high priestess of the Cult of Zepada. She rallies and directs the city’s underground cult, preaching that the day the Cult’s dark god’s (Zepada) rebirth is fast approaching. She carries out Zepada’s orders, which come to her through a sarcophagus deep within the angel’s tomb. For reasons currently unknown, she harbors both a deep hatred for the Last City and an extreme passion for the Cult. She is able to fully control a set of thirteen chains attached to her back, as well as a number of shades who do her bidding.

Virya is a Hydrean elf who cannot seem to fit in with any of the savage elves around her, instead preferring to look at the world through a more calm scope. On the day of her coming of age journey to the center of the Hydrean Wood, she is struck by a vision of a broken world; devastation of both the Hydrean and the Last City. In order to prevent it, she runs to warn the people of Zon, and for some reason, is able to pass through the city’s forcefield. After her information is given, however, she is detained in a cell near Zon’s North Gate.

Sarev is a Zonite government official who oversees a great number of the city’s affairs. She is haunted by Zira’s shades, who torment her and her children until Sarev finally surrenders the location of Edwin’s secret chamber under the city.

Greziel is the leader of Zon’s Exterminators, and is a master of incendiary weapons. He was once friends with Nikolai, but avoids talking to him following the death of Sylvia.

Amriel is the leader of Zon’s Expedition Unit, a group of many scouts devoted to mapping out the Hydrean Wood.

#mtg #magicthegathering #mtgtrn #trnlore #customset #mtgterran #terran

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true-king-of-monsters · 8 years ago

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Shadows of Titans

A/N: For the record, I hated this boss battle and I mean I HATED it with every fiber of my being!

Chapter 9: Colossus in a Half-Shell

Eren felt his dreams nearly become reality as he laid on the temple floor. He saw Historia come to life. Her golden hair shining in the sun. Her sweet voice calling to him. It was a miracle. In his dream, Dormin fulfilled the promise for him.

“Historia...” Eren muttered. The illusion of Historia once again in his arms was broken by the sound of an idol crumbling to dust. He mustered the strength to get up on his feet and walked to the altar to check on her. His first instinct was to feel her again. Eren missed the feeling of Historia touching him and her soft kisses upon his face.

Her skin had more color, there were signs of life in her face coming forward. However, Eren noticed his skin was almost as pale as her dress. His clothes were muddied with black stains, his green eyes felt darker, and his hair was becoming more of a black shade instead of the usual brown coloring that he had. He didn’t realize it at first and thought it was because of the lack of sunlight and the black mist dirtied his clothing. Despite his appearance, he gained the strength to overcome the colossi while Historia was blossoming slowly back to life.

His contemplation had to wait as the booming voice of Dormin echoed in the temple halls. “Thy next foe is...” Dormin bellowed, “The land where trees nary grow...It sleeps in a dry lake bed...A rude awakening.” The sound of Agro galloping to the temple caught Erens ears. It was time for him to continue in his quest.

The sword shone brightly in the sunlight and pointed a beam towards the northern point of the Forbidden Lands. A land bridge on the western point guided Eren on his path north. The beam from the sword pointed to a gray cloud lurking just on the horizon. Agro galloped as fast as her four legs could carry her and Eren.

The cloud blanketed a dry piece of land that housed geysers that spouted water every minute with tremendous force. The trees, once full of life, withered in the lack of sunlight. A cave stood open before Eren and Agro, but they felt as if it housed something.

The cave soon rumbled as if something awoke inside. A loud and angry roar echoed in the cave walls. The ground erupted and whatever lied inside emerged ready to destroy the intruders.

It was the colossus that awoke from the cave. Its rocky appearance was reminiscent to that of a turtle with a bony shell and tarantula-like legs sprawling out from the side. Where there should have been a mouth were five prongs jutting out on the lower part of its head.

Eren realized his error, but quickly sought a way to contain the beast. However, the colossus, despite being a lumbering giant, was armed with a deadly weapon. The prongs of its jaw illuminated with crackling energy before firing out in explosive bursts. Agro galloped faster attempting to rush to safety with the colossus stopping behind.

Eren felt his luck turn for the better when the colossus trudged out from the cave and was right over a geyser. The geyser erupted beneath the colossus and Eren saw that it was lifted by the power of water erupting from the earth. The colossus was near the point of toppling over, but Eren saw a way to cause the beast to lose its footing. Underneath its feet were the same venerable points as the second and eighth colossus. One arrow for each foot still on the ground and Eren watched the colossus tumble onto its shell.

Eren rushed to the underside of its belly to find a patch of green fur to climb on. Scaling the beast was easy. That changed when the colossus got back onto its feet and marched about. Eren made a mad dash for the tail of the colossus and traveled along the spiny ridge of its back. The plates of the shell moved about as the colossus attempted to shake him off.

A small round patch of green fur sat upon the colossus’ head and the sigil glowed before Eren’s eyes. The blade pierced the sigil causing the black mist to spray forth like a geyser. The colossus shook its head in agony attempting to use the momentum of the motion to fling Eren away from the sigil. It was all for naught as the blade pierced the sigil again. Agro watched as her rider struggled for dear life.

The final blow landed and the colossus slumped to the ground. Its body landed with an earth shaking crash. Eren climbed off the colossus and attempted to catch his breath. The cover of dark power blanketed the colossus came with the familiar black tendrils that forcefully made their way into Eren’s body. The shock of the tendrils was still too much for his body and Eren felt his body drift off into a deep sleep. Historia’s voice was his only link to sanity and living. He swore on his life he would see her again.

#Erekuri #Fic: Shadows of Titans

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beardcore-blog · 5 years ago

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Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus Review

This review will have all the spoilers. You’ve been warned.

It was either late 2013 or early 2014. Good times. I was messing around on Youtube one day looking at videos of the latest Batman game. Then in the recommended videos I saw something that both confused and intrigued me. The thumbnail was the iconic image of Niel Armstrong saluting the American flag he just planted on the moon. Except there were a couple differences. Twisted, terrifying differences. The American flag was replaced with the banner of Nazi Germany. And Niel was Seig Heil’ing to it. I’m pretty sure I let out an audible "what the fuck?" apon seeing this. This was the E3 trailer for Wolfenstein: The New Order. For those who don’t know, Wolfenstein is one of the oldest franchises in gaming, and put FPS games on the map. A goofy game about shooting Nazis in WWII that gave 90s gamers the chance to shoot the hell out of Mecha-Hitler. Think of it as a prototype to the more infamous Doom series that would launch shorty after. The New Order was a modern-day reboot with some ambitious questions. The biggest one being "what if they won instead?" The New Order takes you to an alternate 1960 where the Nazis beat the allied forces to the nuke (among other advanced tech) and thus took over the world. It was grim. It was campy. It was subtle. It was loud. It was dumb. And it was also much smarter and more engaging than anyone would’ve thought. So it went on to be a smash hit in 2014, and one of my favorite games ever. A few months ago to the day this is being posted, Bethesda stopped by E3 and showed the world it was sequel time, showing off Wolfenstein 2 The New Colossus (Actually like the 3rd or 5th in the series) to the world. The next day I preordered the hell out of it. Was it worth it? Well after 10 days of tearing through it, lemme tell you.

So I’ll start off with things I didn’t like, get the negativity out of the way. It’s not a big list but I think what on it is valid. In The New Order, which I shall now abbreviate as TNO, in nearly all sections you could either go in fast and loud, putting holes in everything that moves with dual automatic shotguns and a big laser cannon. Or you could be a bit more stealthy about things, sneaking through vents and corridors putting knives in throats and taking care of problematic enemies from afar with a suppressed pistol (which might I mention was one of the things I loved about the TNO; keeping the pistol relevant and not just a forgettable starter weapon like most shooters). It was all about personal play style, but both options were viable. In The New Colossus, which I shall now abbreviate as TNC, going in loud was the way I always went because it seemed more viable. And I always went stealth in TNO. I probably just need to learn the areas, but there was some problems I ran into. Like this game being dark. Not story wise (even though it is) but literally. I remember alot of areas meant to be stealth-able lacking in the lighting department, and I set my brightness at the recommended settings, too. Anytime I’d get caught it’d be from and enemy that I couldn’t see. And that leads to another problem. In TNO, enemies stuck out in the maps. Even if they were dully-colored humaniods coming in plentiful shades of gray you’d still spot them from across the area. It was probably due to both TNO being brighter and the enemies having a wide design variety. Not so much in the TNC. There’s less design variety here and they all seem to just blend into the background alot. Even the brightly-colored HAZMAT and Venus space troopers don’t pop in anything less than Glamour Magazine photo booth. On top of that those two previously mentioned troopers, while being obvious separate models apon inspection, honestly just look like classic Mortal Kombat-esque palette swaps. Again, TNO had alot of variety in their designs. Which is why it was a shame there was no proper model viewer in TNO, and why it’s straight-up bullshit their isn’t one in TNC. One of my favorite bits of last year’s DOOM (another Id games classic updated for the modern world) was a model viewer that let you get an up-close look at the game’s monsters and weapons. The Batman: Arkham games have had it for years. Hell, I remember having them back in 2005 with Jak III. Why can’t Wolfenstein, with their toybox of greatly-designed characters, weapons and assets have it? Or a photo mode, too? I’m not insane about graphics in games, but I still appreciate them with how incredible they are today, and TNC is no exception. It’s a beautiful game. Let me appreciate it to the fullest extent possible. Honestly these days model viewers and photo modes are something all games should have with how far graphics have gone. If only bosses got the same advancement. TNO had a few that aren’t Psycho Mantis or Big Baby Bowser levels, but they were fun nonetheless. DOOM’s bosses were one of the highlights for me. TNC has none of those. Here and then there’s an enemy that can act as a sort-of miniboss, but their’s nothing big and climactic like TNO’s showdown with the towering London Monitor, or the final showdown with the main antagonist, General Deathshead. The "final boss" of TNC is more of a gauntlet than anything. 3 pairs of Supersoldiers, a higher-powered but still common enemy assisted by a shitload of standard infantry, finished off by 2 "Zerstörers", which are basically super versions of the Supersoldiers (I call them "Super-duper Soliders"). The main antagonist of the game, General Engel, goes down with one melee attack, only vainly defending herself with a pistol. An outdated pistol by both the game’s and IRL standards. In a game where mechs, actual Avengers Helicarriers and boimechanically-enhanced mutants are possible, you’d expect so much more. Especially with Hitler himself making an appearance. I was really looking forward to a modern-day Mecha-Hitler. Not sure if I’d want bosses to worry about though since something as simple as getting your weapons out can be a pain. In TNO you could dual wield nearly every weapon in the game, but you could only dual wield two of the same gun. In TNC dual wield returns, for every weapon you can carry, and you can interchange between them. And while it has it’s uses for sure, it feels kinda clunky, not to mention slow. TNC takes it’s sweet time letting you change your weapons which can be fatal, especially since this game carries over a problem TNO had in that you’re not exactly warned when your current ammo’s about to run dry and you’re gonna get lit up while changing a clip.

Now to the good, which I assure you outweighs the bad. Lemme start by saying that the gunplay feels as fantastic as before. Every gun has kick and you feel it whenever you see a Nazi get turned to mush by your triple-barreled automatic rotary shotgun. Yes, that’s a thing in this game. As is a pistol-sized grenade launcher. And sticky-bomb launcher. And an OP-as hell laser cannon that atomizes people and metal covers/doors alike. And all of these can be powered-up through upgrades. The Shotgun can be upgraded to have ricochet rounds to deal even more damage. The pistol can have a suppressor so it stays useful like it did in TNO. The Assault Rifle can have both a scope and armor piercing rounds making it able to down mechanical enemies in one shot. And the laser cannon. Oh god the Laser cannon. Called the LaserkraftWerk in the game, it’s by far the best weapon you’ll get, even before upgrades. One shot will destroy even more armored infantry, but when you upgrade it so the blast can be charged, ooooooohhh. One charged blast will down Super soldiers with ease, and even on higher difficulties the powerful Zerstörer units I mentioned earlier will fall with a few good shots. Combo this with an extended battery doubling your already-decent ammo pool, And you’re unstoppable. I guess that leads to another issue. While every gun has their uses and you’ll likely use every one at one point, like DOOM before it you’ll probably cruise along primary’ing 2 guns. For me it was the Shotgun and Laserkraftwerk. But even then they weren’t the weapons I used the most. It was the heavy weapons. In TNO there was a Heavy MG you’d find here and there. It was powerful, sure, but could only be picked up and not carried in your inventory, and slowed you down considerably. You couldn’t sprint and crouching reduced you to a snail’s pace, and interacting with anything would make you drop it. In TNC there’s 4 types of heavy weapons and they’re awesome. They still slow you down but nowhere near the TNO’s. You CAN interact with stuff and you can even sprint with them. Doesn’t sound like much but believe me, that makes a world of difference. Another thing that gives you an edge in combat is the contraptions. There’s 3 in total; The Ram Shackles, which allow you to bash through both weak walls and enemies alike, the Constrictor Harness, which allows you to sneak around in tight spaces, and the Battle Walker, my favorite, which is just some goddamn stilts. They let you get to higher places so its not anywhere as useless as it sounds, but also has perks, like the other contraptions. You’ll be able to tank explosions without falling over, make enemies freeze n terror at the sight of you, and even keep your overcharged health from going down, my favorite. Speaking of health, one thing that makes the newer Wolfenstein and Doom games is the lack of regenerating health. You have to find health and armor in the levels, and this returns in TNC. One addition though is instead of having to pick up stuff manually, walking over health and armor pieces will make you pick it up automatically, though manually picking them up like before is still an option. It admitting needs refinement but it works well enough. It’s nice after a firefight were I took a beating, I remember where a health pack or some armor was, I run to that location, and I already have some extra heath/armor on me when I get there from the bits that was lying around. While I did say that their isn’t much variety in the enemie’s designs, the designs that are there are good, and carry over that retrofuturistic asthetic I loved so much about TNO. My favorites are either the Ubersoldat, with is basically a Nazi T-800, or the previously-mentioned Zerstörer. Enemy behavior is much better in this game too. In TNO during a stealth section if an enemy ran into a dead body, they’d just move along like something happened. In TNC, enemies are much more sharp. Anything louder and light sniffle they’re hear and investigate, and if they find a dead body they go into high alert and start hunting for you. The levels are incredible too, truly feeling and looking like a 1960s America under Nazi control. The level layouts in this game are kinda funny. In TNO a new level was an entirely new location. In TNC, multiple levels are across one location. This is due to the levels being so much more vast than TNO if anything. My favorite level is either the Nazi base on Venus (the actual planet), or Manhattan, which was directly hit by a Nazi nuke in WWII and is now a desolate, irradiated wasteland. You could feel how thick and cancerous the air is, and the devastated buildings have their upper skeletons eerily bent and curled from the blast. Fallout fans will have a bit of deja vu going through it. All these locales help guide the story along, which like TNO before it is a standout part of the game. TNC takes place right after TNO more or less, after the main character, BJ Blazcowiz, is mortally injured in his big battle with General Deathshead. You’re saved by your resistance buddies before they nuke the place, but you’re still messed up. After 5 months in a coma, the game finally starts. With you shooting Nazis on a U-boat you captured previously in a wheelchair. For half the game the only reason you’re able fight again is thanks to a power suit wired to BJ’s brain. Even while you’re fighting BJ’s injuries are taking their toll. By his own estimate, he has weeks. Which is tragic to think about since in TNO, he met Anya Oliwa, a nurse who took care of him during a prior comatose, and eventual lover. By the time TNC rolls around, she’s heavily pregnant with BJ’s twins. Not being their for his kids is something BJ laments a few times, and you feel for him. Especially when you learn about his awful childhood at the beginning of the game. He deserves a good family, and it sucks he’ll never get that. And for a bit it really seemed like that he wouldn’t since midway through the game, BJ’s betrayed by his abusive, racist, Nazi-loving father who make his childhood such a shitshow, and is captured by Nazi forces. After a few weeks of parading "Terror Billy" The most horrible terrorist the world has ever seen according to the Nazi propaganda machine, BJ is executed in front of the Nazified Lincoln memorial to an audience of millions. Beheaded, it really seems like the game took a grim turn. Luckily due to the quick work of his aforementioned buddies in the resistance and some advanced tech, BJ is saved, if head slapped onto a new super soldier body. This brings up something that some reviewers had an issue with. TNC goes through a tone shift in story midway through the game. It starts out very grim and foreboding. Your base was attacked, the leader of the resistance is murdered right in front of you, America seems like it’s perfectly fine living under the Nazi’s boot, BJ is crippled and basically expecting death, and his unborn kids seem like they won’t have a dad. Even in gameplay things feel grim at first. Even with the power suit giving double armor you can’t escaped the halved health. You really feel like you’re playing a crippled character. BJ himself puts it out there pretty good. "I take it off, I’m afraid I’ll fall apart and all the pieces won’t fit back together again." Then he loses that body and gains one that can actually move on it’s own power and then some. BJ is basically reborn. stronger than ever. It makes sense that the game would kick up to a more upbeat tone. You’re a new man, more powerful than ever before. This can be done. You can save the world. This upbeat attitude peaks at the birthday party scene. Just before the final assault, it turns out it’s BJs birthday, so what do you and your resistance buddies do? Party like theirs no tomorrow, because for all they know there might not be. If their’s one thing I like in a story it’s reminding me that the character I’m playing and the characters around them are people, and not by just showing me their trauma and flaws. Every character in Wolfenstein already has those in spades. I’m more for seeing them having fun. Being happy. Enjoying eachother’s company. Take me out of the misery for once and remind me that their’s something good in the world. Not to say seeing smiles on their faces is what made them good characters. Every major character is pretty good in this game. Grace Walker, The new resistance leader and black revolutionary front member is pretty much a female Samuel L. Jackson. General Engel, The game’s antagonist, is the perfect villain in that you want nothing more but to see her get what’s coming to her. Super Spesh, Grace’s husband and crackpot alien conspiracy theorist, gives some good comic relief for the time he’s around. And Anya. Fucking Anya. Loyal, smart, and considering the crazy shit she does while carrying twins in her, may be more badass than BJ himself. And even with the grim beginnings don’t think this game takes itself too seriously. In one level, right after BJ monologues to himself about his imminent mortality, he (and us) get a first glimpse at the Nazi’s rocket-powered train system. Something he immediately responds to with basically "what the fuck?". After nuking the Nazi high command in fucking Roswell, BJ escapes on what’s pretty much the monocycle from Men In Black. Before BJ’s head is slapped onto his new body, it’s dropped in a jar like Futurama. That Venus level I mentioned earlier? You get there on a Nazi flying saucer. And again, stilts. One of your upgrades is big, stompy stilts.

Overall out of all the recent iD software games to hit the scene lately, I’d say DOOM is my favorite. But I’ll give it to The New Colossus. With a few bumps here and their it’s just as fun to play as it’s predecessor, and improves in most areas. Overall, yes, it’s a step up from The New Order, and if you want a fun, absurd shooter with a good story to tell, look no further,

Posted by SHARPSPEED on 2017-11-08 21:23:49

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allbestnet · 6 years ago

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What are the best books on Roman history?

(Textbook) The Romans : From Village to Empire: A History of Rome from Earliest Times to the End of the Western Empire by Mary T. Boatwright (2013)

"The Romans is currently the best textbook on Roman history available in English." - Walter Scheidel, Stanford University

(Textbook) The Romans : An Introduction by Antony Kamm (2014)

A concise but wide-ranging introduction to the civilization of ancient Rome. Covers 1200 years of history; religion and social life; literature, art, architecture and technology; extracts from key contemporary authors, and includes maps.

(Textbook) As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History by Jo-Ann Shelton ( 1997)

An anthology of translations from Latin and Greek source materials,As the Romans Didoffers a highly revealing look at everyday Roman life, providing clear, lively translations of a fascinating array of documents--from personal letters, farming manuals, medical texts, and recipes, to poetry, graffiti, and tombstone inscriptions. Each selection is newly translated into readable, contemporary English and fully annotated to give necessary historical and cultural background. In addition, the book includes abundant biographical notes, maps, appendices, and cross-references to related topics, as well as an extensive bibliography, providing students with substantial background material to broaden their understanding of the selections. Arranged thematically into chapters on family life, housing, education, entertainment, religion, and other important topics, the translations reveal the ambitions and aspirations not only of the upper class, but of the average Roman citizen as well; they tell not only of the success and failure of Rome's grandiose imperialist policies, but also of the pleasures and the hardships of everyday life.

(Scholarly) The Oxford History of the Roman World (first published 1986)

In less than fifty-three years, Rome subjected most of the known world to its rule. Written by a team of specialist scholars, this book traces the rise of Rome from its origins as a cluster of villages to the foundation of the Empire and its consolidation in the first two centuries CE. It includes chapters on social and political history, the Emperors, art and architecture, and the works of the leading Roman poets, historians, and philosophers.

(Scholarly) The Constitution of the Roman Republic by Andrew Lintott (1999)

There is no other published book in English studying the constitution of the Roman Republic as a whole. Yet the Greek historian Polybius believed that the constitution was a fundamental cause of the exponential growth of Rome's empire. Knowledge of Rome's political institutions is essential both for ancient historians and for those who study the contribution of Rome to the republican tradition of political thought from the Middle Ages to the revolutions inspired by the Enlightenment.

(Modern Scholarship) The Roman Empire : Economy, Society and Culture by Peter Garnsey (first published 1987)

During the Principate (roughly from 27 BC to AD 235), when the empire reached its maximum extent, Roman society and culture were radically transformed. But how was the vast territory of the empire controlled? Did the demands of central government stimulate economic growth or endanger survival? What forces of cohesion operated to balance the social and economic inequalities and high mortality rates? How did the official religion react in the face of the diffusion of alien cults and the emergence of Christianity?

(Textbook) History of the Roman Republic by Klaus Bringmann ( 2006)

In this new and authoritative history of the Roman republic, distinguished historian Klaus Bringmann traces the rise of a small city state near the Tiber estuary into a power that controlled the Italian peninsula and created the final Empire of antiquity, an Empire that was to become both the most enduring in the ancient world and to have the most far-reaching consequences for posterity. Whilst this book is chronologically organized, giving the reader a clear sense of the historical progress and dynamics of Roman republican history, it also offers a coherent and authoritative overview of the culture, economics, religion and military might of the Roman empire, presented in an original and stimulating way. Thoroughly referenced and illustrated throughout, with a wealth of primary sources from great Roman writers such as Cicero and Plutarch, A History of the Roman Republic will be essential reading for university students in history and classical studies. It will also appeal to a wider audience of general readers who are interested in the history of the Ancient world and its legacy.

1. A History of the Roman World 753 to 146 BC by H.H. Scullard (1935)

This definitive study from the author of From the Gracchi to Nero, examines the period from the foundation of Rome to the fall of Carthage. An accessible introduction to these centuries of change, this book will also be useful as context for those studying later developments in Roman history.

2. From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 BC to AD 68 by H.H. Scullard (first published 1959)

Scullard's clear and comprehensive narrative covers the period from 133 BC to 69 AD, exploring the decline and fall of the Republic, and the establishment of the Pax Romana under the early Principate. More than forty years after its first publication this masterful survey remains the standard textbook on the central period of Roman history.

Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy (first published 2006)

Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of the great Roman emperor’s life, Goldsworthy covers not only the great Roman emperor’s accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult, captive of pirates, seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals, and rebel condemned by his own country. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar’s character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some two thousand years later.

Augustus: First Emperor of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy (first published 2014)

The dramatic story of Rome’s first emperor, who plunged into Rome’s violent power struggles at the age of nineteen, proceeded to destroy all rivals, and more than anyone else created the Roman Empire

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland (first published 2003)

“On a dark January morning, Julius Caesar, the governor of Gaul, rode with his closest aides towards a river named the Rubicon, which marked the line of the frontier with Italy. A governor was forbidden to lead troops out of his allotted province – to break this severest of laws was tantamount to a declaration of civil war. Caesar was a gambler, however. Like the consummate actor on the public stage he had always been, he quoted a line from one of Menander's plays: "It's time to roll the die." Then he ordered the legion behind him to advance, over the river and on towards Rome. Crossing the Rubicon was a step so consequential that it has come to stand for every fateful step in history since. When Caesar rolled his die, the result was indeed a civil war, one that would end up destroying Rome's traditional freedoms and establishing a permanent dictatorship on the wreckage of her constitution.”

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland (2015)

Dynasty continues Rubicon's story, opening where that book ended: with the murder of Julius Caesar. This is the period of the first and perhaps greatest Roman Emperors and it's a colorful story of rule and ruination, running from the rise of Augustus through to the death of Nero. Holland's expansive history also has distinct shades of I Claudius, with five wonderfully vivid (and in three cases, thoroughly depraved) Emperors—Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—featured, along with numerous fascinating secondary characters. Intrigue, murder, naked ambition and treachery, greed, gluttony, lust, incest, pageantry, decadence—the tale of these five Caesars continues to cast a mesmerizing spell across the millennia.

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (2015)

“In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries. With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.”

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbariansby Peter Heather (first published 2005)

The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather proposes a stunning new solution: Centuries of imperialism turned the ...

The Fall of Rome and End of Civilization by Bryan Ward-Perkins (2005

“In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the "peaceful" theory of Rome's "transformation" is badly in error. Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, who were caught in a world of marauding barbarians, and economic collapse. The book recaptures the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminds us of the very real terrors of barbarian occupation. Equally important, Ward-Perkins contends that a key problem with the new way of looking at the end of the ancient world is that all difficulty and awkwardness is smoothed out into a steady and positive transformation of society. Nothing ever goes badly wrong in this vision of the past. The evidence shows otherwise.”

(Epic 6 volumes study of Rome's decline) The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776)

Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire(1776-88) is among the most magnificent and ambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteen centuries - its rulers, wars and society, and the events that led to its disastrous collapse. Here, in book one and two, Gibbon charts the vast extent and constitution of the Empire from the reign of Augustus to 395 AD. And in a controversial critique, he examines the early Church, with fascinating accounts of the first Christian and last pagan emperors, Constantine and Julian.

The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome, 31 B.C. - A.D. 476 by Michael Grant (first published 1984)

“One of the greatest multiracial states the world has ever known, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain to the Sahara & from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. Vast & powerful, Imperial Rome instituted many conventions that distinguish life today--reason enough for us to wonder about the men who ruled in her name. Some early writers painted vivid portraits that, with their sensational details, often overshadowed the events of the time. In this book, classical historian Michael Grant uses these writings, augmenting them with evidence from archeology, inscriptions, coins & medallions to reconstruct the lives of 92 Roman emperors.”

A History of the Later Roman Empire, Ad 284-641: The Transformation of the Ancient World by Stephen Mitchell (2006)

“This book presents a historical study of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity from the accession of the emperor Diocletian 284 to the death of the emperor Heraclius in 641. The only modern study to cover the western and eastern empire and the entire period from 284 to 641 in a single volume A bibliographical survey supports further study and research Includes chronological tables, maps, and charts of important information help to orient the reader Discusses the upheaval and change caused by the spread of Christianity and the barbarian invasions of the Huns, Goths and Franks Contains thematic coverage of the politics, religion, economy and society of the late Roman state Gives a full narrative of political and military events Discusses the sources for the period“

A N C I E N T The rise of the Roman Empire Book by Polybius (170 BC)

Polybius, himself a Greek and an active contemporary participant in political relations with Rome, wrote the forty books of his Universal History primarily to chronicle and account for the Roman conquest of Greece between 200 and 167 B.C. He saw that Mediterranean history, under Rome's influence, was becoming an organic whole, so he starts his work in 264 B.C. with the beginning of Rome's clash with African Carthage, the rival imperialist power, and ends with the final destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C.

The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar (c. 50 BC)

Among the most durable and engaging texts in world literature, Julius Caesar's Conquest of Gaul tells how he and his legions conquered much of modern France in less than a decade (58-51 BCE), despite determined resistance. ...

The Jewish War by Flavius Josephus (c. 75 AD, Jewish general and historian)

Josephus’ account of a war marked by treachery and atrocity is a superbly detailed and evocative record of the Jewish rebellion against Rome between AD 66 and 70. Originally a rebel leader, Josephus changed sides after he was captured to become a Rome-appointed negotiator, and so was uniquely placed to observe these turbulent events, from the siege of Jerusalem to the final heroic resistance and mass suicides at Masada. His account provides much of what we know about the history of the Jews under Roman rule, with vivid portraits of such key figures as the Emperor Vespasian and Herod the Great. Often self-justifying and divided in its loyalties, The Jewish Warnevertheless remains one of the most immediate accounts of war, its heroism and its horrors, ever written.

The Early History of Rome: Books I-V of The History of Rome from Its Foundation by Livy (c. 1 AD; Roman historian)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. ...

The Civil Wars by Appian (c.AD 120 – c. AD 165)

The only suriving continuous narrative source for the events between 133 and 70 BC. Appian's writings vividly describe Catiline's conspiracy, the rise and fall of the First Triumvirate, and Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, defeat of Pompey and untimely death. The climax comes with the brith of the Second Triumvirate out of anarchy, the terrible purges of Proscriptions which followed and the titanic struggle for world mastery which was only to end with Augustus's defeat of Antony and Cleopatra.

Plutarch Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans by Plutarch (100 AD)

“Plutarch’s Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a social history of the ancient world by one of thegreatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is by far hismost famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character andpersonality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy orvictory.”

Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius (121 AD; Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order)

The Lives of the Caesars include the biographies of Julius Caesar and the eleven subsequent emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitelius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian. Suetonius composed his material from a variety of sources, without much concern for their reliability.

The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero by Cornelius Tacitus (c. 100 AD; Roman senator and historian)

The Annals by Roman historian and senator Tacitus is a history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Tiberius to that of Nero, the years AD 14–68.

O T H E R

The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, Part 1-3 Duncan Fishwick

The Roman Revolution Ronald Syme

The Roman Triumph Mary Beard

Rome's Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest Adrian Murdoch (2006)

Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox (1986)

R E F E R E N C E

A Dictionary of the Roman Empire by Matthew Bunson (1995)

The extraordinarily rich cultural legacy of the Roman world has had a profound affect world civilization. Roman achievements in architecture, law, politics, literature, war, and philosophy serve as the foundation of modern Western society. Now, for the first time in an A-Z format, A Dictionary of the Roman Empire assembles the people, places, events, and ideas of this remarkable period in one easy-to-use source. With over 1,900 entries covering more than five hundred years of Roman history, from Julius Caesar and the Gallic Wars (59-51 B.C.) to the fall of Romulus Augustus, the last Roman emperor (476 A.D.), this accessible guide provides quick reference to one of the most studied periods of all antiquity.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome (1995)

More than fifteen centuries after its fall, the Roman Empire remains one of the most formative influences on the history of Europe. Its physical remains dot the landscape from Scotland to Syria. Its cities are still the great metropolises of the continent. Its law and institutions have shaped modern practice, and its ideal of a united Europe has haunted politicians ever since. Fully illustrated and featuring more than sixty full- colour maps, this atlas traces the rise and fall of the first great multinational state. It looks at its provinces and cities, its trade and economy, its armies and frontier defences; follows its foreign ward and internecine struggles; and charts its transformation into a Christian theocracy and its fall in 476.

Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome (1998)

Describes the people, places, and events of Ancient Rome, describing travel, trade, language, religion, economy, industry and more, from the days of the Republic through the High Empire period and beyond.

#roman empire #books #history #military history #ancient history #nonfiction #ancient rome #julius caesar #history books #roman republic

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sentientbook · 7 years ago

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NieR: Gestalt / ReliCant SHADES 2/2

#❛ SHADOWLORD ⁝ the original gestalt ❜#❛ SHADE ⁝ the dark colossus destroys all ❜#❛ AESTH ⁝ ashes of dreams ❜

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years ago

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15 Style Lessons From Patrick Schwarzenegger

https://fashion-trendin.com/15-style-lessons-from-patrick-schwarzenegger/

15 Style Lessons From Patrick Schwarzenegger

For the child of a celebrity it can be hard to step out from your parents shadow, especially when one of them is a former Mr Universe colossus who is also the greatest action movie star of all time and the former governor of your home state. So just how does Patrick Schwarzenegger do it? By strutting around in the brightest electric blue Gucci tracksuit you’ve seen in your life, that’s how.

Of course the genes help him pull off such fashion blinders – not only is Arnie his dad, but Schwarzenegger is also the grand nephew of JFK – with Schwarzenegger making his modelling debut at 17, before going off to college and coming out a movie actor slash fully fledged Hollywood one to watch-er. His film career is still in its infancy but his strong fashion sense has seen him built a sizeable profile already – you need his clothes, his boots and his motorcycle. Actually, we’re not sure if he has a motorcycle.

The Look

Schwarzenegger isn’t a firm part of the fashion crowd nor is he a fixture on the front row of fashion week catwalks, so his look isn’t heavily dictated by whatever the fashion elite are up to. Instead it’s a fun mixture of sometimes-outlandish get-ups like an electric blue Gucci tracksuit mixed with the sartorial timelessness of slim fitting suits.

The best word to describe Schwarzenegger’s style, though, is “versatile”. While the tailoring is slim he isn’t afraid to throw on a statement upper half to fit the occasion, while relaxed denim plays a large part of his out and about look as does some discreet head gear to hide the locks. Overall, Schwarzenegger is just a well put together Millennial who dresses exactly like that – young and fun when required, mature and timeless when need be.

Inspiration: James Dean, Marlon Brando, Justin Bieber Go-To Brands: Gucci, Tom Ford, Hugo Boss Follow Him: @patrickschwarzenegger

I’ll Be Black

An outfit that eerily mimics his dad in Terminator 2, Schwarzenegger opts for a textured jacket with a contrast sleeve as opposed to the leather get up of the T-800. All-black is an easy outfit to get right but one thing to keep in mind is mixing the look up by applying different tones and textures. The jacket still has the gloss of leather, but it’s a more malleable and flowing fabric so better suits the casual styling of Schwarzenegger’s look. Also listen to your mother and keep it clean – nothing ruins all-black more than a splodgy food stain down the front of your jeans.

Lighter, please?

Off-duty Pat likes his denim, and who can blame him – it’s a tough and durable fabric that also happens to be delightfully cushy. Pro tip though when it comes to your jeans, try to wash them as little as possible, as the process can damage the material. Light wash denim looks best in a relaxed fit, and paired with a neutral basic – say a clean, white jumper with a bit of texture running through it to mix it up.

Rhinestone Cowboy

Matching all black bottom and top halves is a sure fire way of making yourself the coolest cat in the room (just look at Johnny Cash) apart from having to dodge shadowy corners lest you get sucked up into complete darkness. The key? Break it up, baby. Here Schwarzenegger does so with a little razzle-dazzle from the chunky watch to the metal dots trimming his pockets and collar. Down below the suede Chelsea boots also offer another welcome contrast – just keep the profile slim and trim with some skinny jeans when wearing any boots with a sizeable heel.

Check Me Out

We’ve been checking out this suit and guess what? Paddy has us all fooled again as what we thought was checked is actually a gentle zig-zag, however, the similar colours and contrasting light and dark shades mean you can style it as you would a houndstooth. The pattern is a versatile and easy to wear look but your best bet for styling purposes is to pick either the black and white and harmonise it with the rest of your outfit. So just bring in the white shirt and black trousers and it really is that easy.

Gucci Guy

Not all pieces from iconic Italian fashion house Gucci are in your face, but when they are, my word are they getting up in your grill, pushing and prodding you like a three-year-old in a petting zoo. And so we have this electric blue tracksuit which is so hype-beast we had to queue overnight just to nab a look. Keep the tracksuit together as it is meant to be worn and then just mute everything else down – white socks, white tee, white trainers. Don’t fight the Gucci tracksuit, as you’ll just end up losing.

Chilly Neck

A more casual attitude is seeping into menswear tailoring, and still at the more formal end of that spectrum besides going all out shirt-and-tie is the roll neck. Schwarzenegger opts for the most classic version with an extended neckline that folds back and in a neutral black to slickly sit underneath the busy checked, double breasted suit which tradition dictates you should wear buttoned up. Also note the lack of bunches at the shoulders and breaks on the trouser hem for smart tailoring that can work for almost any occasion.

Beanie Baby

In his mid-twenties, Schwarzenegger is just on the cusp where the choice of a beanie starts to become a tad dubious. We know, we know, David Beckham still wears them into his forties but we don’t think Becks really has the beanie game down. The thing to watch for is too much material flying around the back of your head – it looks messy and people are just left wondering what you’re hiding in there (Voldemort, is that you?). Also wear it a little off your face (your forehead should be showing) and with a get-up that assumes you actually need it to keep your head warm – a woolly sheepskin jacket is a much better look with it than a tee and gym shorts.

Hasta La Vista, Beanie

The beanie is gone, obliterated, destroyed, no more. And with this purge a boy becomes a man, because that’s exactly want a tuxedo can do for you – as long you get it right. A tux doesn’t need to be flamboyant so just complete the checklist and you’ll do alright in black tie – peaked, contrast lapels, ribbon down the side of the trousers, bow tie, pocket square and of course black shoes. Now we know Schwarzenegger should really have the jacket done up unless seated but the cut of the tux is so snug we’ll excuse this lack of customary grace.

International Playboy

Light blue velvet, a grandiose shawl lapel, and a matching silk kerchief in the pocket – are we chomping cigars and downing dirty martinis in Hugh Hefner’s 1960s man cave here? Gaudy, bright vintage colours are starting to make a return so it’s not like Schwarzenegger is 50 years too late, but blue velvet is probably a bit strong for any normal person to deal with, so tone it all done with some neutral black trousers and shoes.

Kindergarten Cap

The double denim rulebook has been ripped up and thrown off the top floor to the baying civilians down below, but there are still some rules to follow that guarantee stylishness. The main one is pairing your double denim in a different shade, so go with Schwarzenegger’s contrasting light wash jacket and black denim jeans. A bit of rip in the jeans raises the stakes a little, but don’t go overboard, just keep it classic with a white tee and some sneakers.

Treat Them Mean, Keep It Green

We’ve already seen that Schwarzenegger likes to play it like the men in black, but all black everything every day can get stale. Change it up with a pleasant autumnal green which is as close to neutral as you’re going to get without going white, black or grey. And when colours don’t clash it is easier to play around with patterns and textures as shown by Schwarzenegger’s suede jacket on top of corduroy trousers.

Cut Differently

The navy suit is menswear 101 so effortlessly and elegantly simple and easy to get right it deserves a gold star on the fridge. But if you like your style a little edgier, it could do with a play around. No tie on a crisp white shirt works well, as do white sneakers. But what sets this look apart from the rest is the cut of the jacket, with the button shifted inwards to create a tighter silhouette round the middle.

Count Them Stripes

Trust the Terminator’s son to have time travelled forward to the height of summer 2019, and come back with that season’s hottest look – the suit that isn’t a suit. The trend has already started to creep into fashion and is expected to blow up for next summer, but Schwarzenegger really goes for it here. Essentially, it’s two of the same fabric used for the trousers and jackets but without the details you’d expect from a suit. As it is already breaking the suit’s formality you don’t have to wear it with a shirt, and it actually works better with just a plain tee and pair of shoes.

The Tanned Terminator

There are a lot of oranges in the menswear orchard, and yet it’s still not a colour you see all too often on the street. Which is a great shame as the more burnt shades that have made regular appearances in recent seasons and seen sported by Schwarzenegger have a rugged manliness about them that lift an outfit into the spectacular. The rusted tone works especially well balanced with an earthy grey so that you don’t go around looking like a walking talking terracotta warrior.

Paddy’s Pockets

We were getting some worrying car repair man vibes from this workwear get-up Patrick is showing off, but fashion done right comes in the little details that break an outfit up, and here it’s all about the pockets. White provides the requisite contrast against navy and to make sure the style move looks planned follow the colour through, like Schwarzenegger, in your T-shirt and sneaker choice.

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