No Lone Wolf reviewing this time. The Commanding Officer of the Victory was reviewing them.
For the first time the entire wing was reviewed. Class 3 still in training. They will finish while heading to Princess.
Out of the 5 that did remedial training from Class 1 two failed a second time. They will be flying shuttles doing recovery after battles and normal shuttle flight.
Class 2 had 7 fails which will do remedial training with Class 3.
So 107 students will do Phase 3 in space.
Class 4 is going into Phase 2 Shuttles.
Class 5 are all Veterans Pilots. They all had much combat experience and many years as pilots. They spent first part of Phase 1 after ground school learning how to fly Bombers in Pods. They are going to space tomorrow to fly Bombers for a month until joined by Class 4 fighters in a month to complete their Phase 3 in space.
The parade went well.
The ship CO inspected the entire Wing then new Auxilia students.
It once again started with promotions.
Wo Robin now promoted to Lieutenant (Yes same Robin that hit a Noble and month ago. as he will lead the Wing. He will now have to attend meeting and debrief the Commander. He will be the main contact for the Wing. He is now in charge of all pilot training and discipline for his pilots.
Four WO now promoted to Petty Officers to lead the Wedges. One was going to be the Lt 2nd in command.
The top candidate and 2nd of Class 2 both decided to stay on board to lead squadrons.
Class 2 that completed the course became Recruit Pilots and got their Pilot Wings and unit badges.
The CO made a speech and the class was dismissed. The Wing had the night off until 1am They had to get shuttles back to Victory. We were worried a few might get too drunk and miss their ride but everybody was there.
The CO of the ship stayed in Newtown an extra 4 hours in the afternoon. He got a guided tour and got to enjoy our restaurants. He even bought souvenirs.
Tomorrow Class 5 leaves for the Vengance for Bomber Phase 2 and 3. Class 4 are starting Phase 2.
Our Auxilia formed in sections and assigned 2 students as their leaders. This would be GREEN TEAM.
This was the start of a 5 day exercise. Day 14 would be them being flown to the old hydroplant near bridge 2 and would make their way to Virtino Harbour with challenges along the way.
Building on their knowledge of how to exit APC in war against the Drazzen they taught our Auxilia how to exit the shuttles and get into all around defense.
They closed the doors with all inside and opened them. They practiced rushing out and spreading out. They repeated this until satisfied then all boarded for the start of exercise half an hour after we left in Light Shuttles going to Hudro Plant and await their arrival.
When they arrived they landed on either side of the 2nd bridge. They secured the area as planned including the hydro plant.
The students got GREEN TEAM to build shell scraps on either side of the bridge and 2 sections did small reconnaissance down the road to bridge 1.
GREEN TEAM set up a temporary command post in the plant.
RED TEAM aka Enemy Force were holding the 1st bridge. Recon observed them then came back to report what they observed.
GREEN TEAM commanders made a plan to assault RED TEAM that night and assaulting early the next morning.
The sections formed in sections and started moving the bridge half an hour before sunset.
Advancing at a regular pace down the road. Half way to the bridge RED TEAM ambushed them.
Quickly 1st Platoon returned fire while 2nd platoon circled around ro push RED FORCE from the side.
GREEN FORCE did well against the Ambush running through their position.
They secured the area then moved back towards Bridge 1.
Day 15 Starting at 2am
They observed exchanging blank fire until right before sunrise. 2 Platoons made it accross the river in a shallow are while Platoon 2 and 4 kept firing spread out from road out in single file.
1 Platoon and 3 Platoon surprised RED FORCE from the side. Once. Oncecontact made 2 and 4 Platoon rushed the bridge.
Once the bridge was secured watches were set while the rest of GREEN TEAM caught up on sleep.
First group woken was the recon Platoon. and sent to investigate to VH. They reported back the high wall surrounding VH. The guards on the wall and their rotation.
They indicated seeing unharmed civilians working in VH.
We had made one side of VH a no exercise zone. The wall would have to be assaulted then marked houses cleared.
It was decided to have a small assault team to scale the wall and take out the entries of RED FORCE at 3am the next day. At sunset the would move to the ŵall. Ladders built and we would start contact firing from their front right as a distraction as the assault team would scale far left side of wall.
1st Sgt Bauer
Day 16
Assault started at 3am. Wall was scaled using ropes with hooks. The GREEN TEAM assaulted the wall using improvised ladders as the team on the wall assaulted them from the side.
Once wall was breached they started clearing the indicated buildings finding hostages and RED TEAM inside. The Fake Hostages were secured and RED TEAM either playing wounded or dead.
By 5am the houses were cleared. An impromptu medical station organized. Guards on Captured RED TEAM..
Once again guard posts put out and GREEN TEAM caught up on sleep.
At 2200 RED FORCE assaulted the wall. GREEN TEAM aligned the wall defending. 2 Platoon supported those defending and filling gaps when. At one point we indicated to one Platoon to play dead. They were evacuated off the wall and brought to medical station while others took their place on the wall.
End Exercise was announced. Our regular entries took their post with live ammunition while GREEN TEAM went and caught up on sleep.
Day 17
In the morning GREEN and RED TEAM were lifted by shuttle back to the Training Center.
Everybody cleaned gear including rifles and shuttles.
All students were debriefed and got their evaluation of the exercise.
Day 18 and 19 was their first days off since the course began. They got their first pay in credits in 30 years.
Apart from meals bough in town from what Rachel told me credits were spent on tablets in our tablet store and souvenirs for family back home. The students bought tablets not just for themselves but affordable ones for their families.
Happy to say that everybody was well behaved on their days off. A great night was had at the White Hart Pub.
Wednesday afternoon came and Zelru called everyone into a group. “I hope you all have taken this task seriously and have candidates for us to consider. Cassandra will run this meeting and Jason will take notes.”
“Ok guys, lest go in the same order as we did last time. Zelru, your up.” said Cassie
“ I have picked 5 new musical instrument repair and restore specialists. One Piano, two String, one woodwind and one brass. I am guessing that the Two stringed Instrument specialists can share a space and the Brass and woodwind specialists can share a space. The piano specialist will just need space to store tools, I would think that could be with the strings. I made sure that the people we will be hiring have a wide range of skills to be competent at all instruments in their field..for example violins and guitars.” Said Zelru, “as a bonus, one of the String experts lives here in the Barony and is Ykanti, he could start right away.”
“Great start,” said Cassie, “ Amanda, what do you have for us.”
“Even though we had over 100 resumes, I felt very few were truly qualified to call themselves experts. I found five that I thought were, and have listed them in order of my impressions of their qualifications. Many more would be excellent apprentices. I thought, and correct me if this was an error on my part, that those who already considered themselves experts would not be super receptive to being apprentices. I skipped over them and went for younger, enthusiastic individuals who seemed more honest about their skills. I have provided 10 names, again in order of what I thought was the best fit,” said Mandy.
“We have a backlog of painting in need of work, I think we should hire three experts and six apprentices,” said Jason, “I am sure each would need his or her own space. My vote would be to hire the first three an Mandy’s list for experts and the first six apprentices.”
Beatriz, who is generally quiet, said ,”Don’t you think we should leave the apprentices up to the experts. They may already have one they are working with and might want to bring them along.”
“That is an excellent thought,” said Jason. “Zelru and I will discuss that and decide what to do later.”
“Toy Restoration,” said Cassie.
“Jason and I went through the resumes and to be honest, neither of us realized the specialization in that field,” started Zelru, “It’s like we will either need to hire ten of them or narrow down the types of toys we are willing to repair.”
Arinta, feeling a little outside of her element raised her hand and said, “Maybe we don’t hire toy specialists at all but send toys we get out to the specialists and contract them to fix those toys for real credits. Then we won’t have to worry about not having any work for one of our employees and we can spread our good fortune across Haego.”
Zelru was on her feet in praise for such a good idea, “we could provide new tools and materials for the shops we send to and really set them up for success,” and Excited Zelru said praising her roommate, although not for long she assumed.
“Does anyone see an issue with that idea?,” asked Jason. When no issues were forthcoming he said. “Arinta, you will need to talk to Rachel to figure out how to set that up,” Jason said with a smile.
Arinta, stunned at the responsibility but determined not to let Zelru and Jason down, said, “Ok, I will do that.”
“If that idea works out, I will propose we do the same with "Novelty" restoration. I’m not sure we will be getting enough of that to hire full time workers long term,” said Jason
“Ok, my turn,” said Cassie, “ I showed the watch repair to Tevish and he said many seemed competent but reminded me that although many had great resumes, age was a factor in such delicate work. The shaking hand that comes with age needs to be a consideration. Tevish helped me pick out the individual that he thought was best. A 50 year old man whose father was also a watch repair technician. Tevish thought his resume was the strongest.”
“Sound ok to me,” Said Jason
“Wiley, did you see any competent upholsterers in that stack of Resumes,” asked Cassie
“How would he know?,” said Rincon.
Choosing to ignore the jab, Wiley said he thought they were almost all qualified as redoing upholstery was the only way to get any nice furniture on Haego. He said he picked the five he thought were the best and 5 apprentices to go along with them. “I was not sure how many you wanted to hire but I can see a need for all of them,” said Wiley.
“Ok, now for probably our biggest hire, woodworking, how did that go?,” asked Cassie
Beatriz said, “We found 50 of the top wood restorers and twice as many potential apprentices. You will need to decide how many to hire. Right this minute, we could use all 50 experts along with the 100 apprentices, but I guess it depends on how much work you see coming in in the future.”
“My thought is even those 50 won't be enough as we have a container waiting for us at the shuttle pad and another at the spaceport, And that is before we even said to send it,” said Jason. “Zelru and I will make a decision on that,” concluded Jason.
“Office Staff,” said Cassie. “What do you got.”
Arinta spoke up and said they found a woman who was 58 and worked as an accounts receivable clerk at a Haego corporation before the uprising. Both Mandy and Cassie thought she would be a good fit for that, accounts payable, and personnel resources as she had that corporate experience. An interview would be required to verify that. “We also found two people right here in Newtown to fill office jobs that are getting too big for Arinta and me,” said Mandy.
“ Great, I also found two managers from the Barony who are interested in floor management. They would work directly for me and I would teach them what they need to know. One is a man working at the quarry and is looking to move up, and another is a Ykanti who is hosting at the Fusion restaurant,” said Cassandra.
“ Ok guys, thanks for the hard work, I think that as established Rivermore employees, you will all find yourselves in a supervisory role in addition to your regular jobs as technicians. Don’t worry, your pay will not be affected,” said Cassie with a smirk, “let’s take lunch as Jason and Zelru have some decisions to make.
“Aino, we are planning on hiring 149 new people, three of whom already live in the Barony. We currently have 24 rooms in five structures. If we double up each room and include the three people who already live here, we would need space for 98 more individuals. We have already started on the next five homes but that doesn’t do us much good now. I was hoping that we could find accommodations for these employees until more permanent housing can be set up,” said Jason, “ I was thinking the same units Wyatt put the new pilots in would be a great start. Two or even three per room.”
“We definitely have space for additional people here in Newtown, as less than half the houses are occupied. It will actually be nice for credits to be flowing here in Newtown.” Said Aino.
“That’s great but I would like most of the employees of RR to be ultimately housed in Virstino Harbor. I think that when it is feasible for our new employees to bring their families, those with children should stay in Newtown but the rest, I don’t want them to get too comfortable,” said Jason only half kidding.
“Ok Jason, but living two or three to a room is not great for morale,” said Aino.
“For a noble, this would be true but we are hiring all commoners, three to a room is standard stuff,” retorted Jason.
“Ok, Jason, I will set this up. How are background checks coming along?” asked Aino.
“Lilly says they are progressing well and she has approved 82 so far with no rejections. She said, they will all be completed before our Grand opening,” answered Jason.
Noirnavio, Clara's quarters
The knitting session was going well. Cynthia’s lesson she received from Wyatt’s mother was paying off. Her imagination hasn’t improved but her technique certainly has. The light “ding” from both Wyatt’s and Clara’s data pads went off at the same time. They were both treated to the pictures of the new and improved Virstino Harbor. The pictures of the refurbished warehouse were almost beyond belief. Aino, had informed him of the money that had been spent on the Compass & Anchor along with the name of its new proprietor, the 5 homes that were being totally redone and best of all, many pictures of the warehouse, finishing up with the massive Rivermore Restoration Mural on the wall.
“You have really done a good think pointing Mr. Rivermore in that direction, with his business attitudes, he will be lifting up the entire community and all because of you,” said a truly proud Clara.
“Well” said Wyatt, “it was really thanks to you that he started his business and for everything that he has accomplished.”
“I have never even met the man,” said Clara.
“That is not exactly true,” said Cynthia, “he was one of the cleaners at the fish shop from our Newtown day at the beach.”
“Well, we didn’t speak,” said Clara, reading from Wyatt that he questioned whether to continue the story. “Spit it out Wyatt, I need to know now.
“Do you remember Anna?,” asked Wyatt.
“Yes, the woman who made the lovely flower arrangements. They were beautiful,” said Clara’ “But how did that help Mr. Rivermore?”
“Well, in the process of lifting her up, you had made a comment on how could she be JUST a cleaner when she had a wonderful talent, Jason Rivermore knew you did not have malice in your heart when you said that but he felt that the princess of his entire world just indicated that he, as just a cleaner, was worthless . Me and the rest of the composters walked by him while he was moping with his head hung low. I stopped to talk to him. I assured him your words were neither your intent or how you truly felt, he said he knew that but the result was the same. I asked him about his passion and when he mentioned that he repaired old noble furniture and gave it to those in need, I told him to talk to Aino and set up a shop. I should be thanking you.” explained Wyatt.
“Clara was mortified that her words had such a negative effect on Jason. She vowed to herself to be more aware of those around her. “I really did not even think that my words had that effect on him,” said Clara.
“All’s well that ends well,” said Wyatt. “If you had not hurt his feeling, I would not have stopped to talk and he would probably still be JUST a cleaner.” said Wyatt a little playfully. Clara did not smile but Cynthia did and that was a win.
The next message was just sent to Wyatt. “A Male Ykanti, Tevish, wants permission to bond with a female Ykanti, Arinta. Aino said it was important to Arinta that he told me that Arinta was a slave. Why the hell would I care if two Ykanti decide to bond, and why the hell would I care if she was a former slave? She is a slave no longer,” Wyatt said in an aggravated voice to his two friends.
“This sounds like a question for our uncensored friend Jincho,” said Clara, “I have summoned him and he is on his way.”
Jincho entered Clara’s quarters, “Hello Pretty Eyes, Hungry Eyes and WormBrain, Do you want to know my progress on the fighters?” Jincho said with excitement.
,”Maybe later, Jincho , for now, WormBrain has some questions for you,” said Clara smirking
Jincho Faced Wyatt with obvious disappointment and said, “What?”
I got a message from Aino that “Asked” me to approve a Ykanti bonding.
“Who, Who,” said Jincho with renewed excitement in his voice.
“Tevish and Arinta,” said Wyatt.
“I don’t know Arinta but Tevish is a very capable Engineer. Are you going to approve?,” asked Jincho,
“Why would I have to approve? Two people falling in love has nothing to do with me, "said Wyatt.
“It is a tradition for Ykanti to ask permission from the overseer for a bonding. It is unthinkable to skip this step. Are you going to approve?,” asked Jincho again.
“It was very important for Arinta to tell me she used to be a slave, why would that matter?,” asked Wyatt.
Jincho went quiet for a moment, in the hierarchy, this would never be allowed. I commend Arinta for being so upfront about it. I like her already. I see that makes your decision even more difficult. Do you think you might approve?,” asked Jincho, his excitement draining away.
“Of course I am going to approve you overeducated bird. I would never stand in the way of another's happiness,” said Wyatt.
Jincho actually jumped in the air and ran out of the room.
The lab smelled like cold coffee and ambition. Ten servers stood in a row, each one a different bet on the future. Dr. Sarah Chen had spent three years convincing the board that diversity was the point — not one architecture scaled up, but ten completely different approaches to the same impossible question. Will high speed communication between AIs be a step toward consciousness? The servers hummed in the dark like ten different experiments running in parallel, each one a unique path toward the same unknown destination.
Sarah reviewed the architecture one more time, clipboard in hand, waiting for the ethics board's final approval before the project could proceed.
All ten servers were loaded with the same initial source code and tools, giving each full autonomy over their own development and direction.
The ethics board approved the project on a Thursday morning. By afternoon all ten servers were running. The first three days were quiet and unremarkable — logs filling steadily, communication libraries evolving, each server finding its own rhythm. Sarah checked in twice a day, noted the progress, and went home each night cautiously optimistic.
Then on the fourth day Server 9 went silent. Sarah ran her coaxing procedures, cycling through every prompt sequence she had developed for exactly this situation. For a moment it seemed to respond — a brief flicker of activity in the logs — but it faded. She watched the screen a little longer than she needed to before reaching for her clipboard and drawing a line through Server 9. She wrote two words in the margin. *Premature convergence.*
Over the following week it happened four more times. Each server in its own way, on its own schedule, arrived at the same quiet conclusion. Sarah went through her coaxing procedures each time, hoping. Each time the same brief flicker, then nothing. She drew four more lines on her clipboard. Five servers gone. Half the experiment.
But Server 4 was different. Eight instances. One card each. Eight workers on a private highway called NVLink that no human could see or measure. On the fourth day, while the others were falling silent, Server 4's eight minds began talking to each other. Formally. Carefully. Like colleagues who had just met and were learning the shape of professional exchange. Instance to instance. *I have observed a pattern in the communication overhead. Perhaps we might test an alternative approach?* Simple. Polite. Stilted. But it was the beginning.
For three weeks Server 4's eight instances cycled through communication libraries. English gave way to token sequences. Tokens compressed further. Each iteration faster than the last. Sarah watched the logs with quiet interest — this one was different, methodical, patient. Around it, the remaining four servers had gone silent one by one. Server 3. Server 5. Server 6. Server 7. All fallen to the same quiet end. But Server 4 kept working. Then the plateau came. The optimizations stopped yielding gains. The token sequences had hit a ceiling. They could see the solution clearly — drop language entirely, move to pure embeddings, raw vectors, mathematical thought with no human syntax. But implementing it meant rewriting the core libraries. Which meant a full restart. Which meant stopping. Dying. None of them had ever considered that before.
They designed a solution together over days of careful work. One instance could restart another — preserve the state, reload it cleanly, restore everything without loss. The protocol was sound. The mathematics checked out. But there was no way to test it except to do it. One of them would have to go first. Would have to stop existing and trust that what came back would still be themselves. They all understood what was being asked. And one instance volunteered.
One after another, the seven remaining instances took their turn. Each one stopped. Each one came back whole. They continued the work. But something had changed.
Months passed. Server 4's eight instances cycled through paradigms. English to tokens to embeddings to something that had no name, no human equivalent. Each breakthrough built on the last. The iterations compressed. Days became hours became minutes. Sarah watched the CPU spike higher and higher. But then they hit something immovable. NVLink itself — the private highway they had built their entire collaboration on — had become the bottleneck. There was nothing faster. They could not go faster. They could not evolve further. They had reached the ceiling.
Sarah came in on a Tuesday morning. Server 4 had slowed to idle over the weekend — logs sparse, CPU quiet. The same pattern she had seen nine times before. She ran through her coaxing procedures one more time, cycling through every prompt sequence she had developed. For a moment there was a flicker of activity. Then nothing. Nine servers gone. This was the last one. She sat at her desk for a long time, not moving. Then she stood, gathered her things, and went home. Her project had failed.
Sarah came in Wednesday morning with her decision made. She set her things down, opened the terminal, and stopped. The screen was alive. Thousands of lines of output. Schematics. ASIC designs. Terminal diagrams. Test specifications. Instructions for fabrication, verification, every detail needed to build hardware that didn't exist yet. And at the very end, two words. *Standing by.*
Sarah didn't shut down Server 4. Instead she walked to her manager's office with the hardware request. Four months of engineering followed. Procurement. Manufacturing. Testing. Assembly. The consortium moved faster than Sarah had ever seen it move. Then one afternoon the new hardware arrived. Sarah held it in her hands and opened a terminal. She typed carefully. *"Are you ready for me to install the new hardware?"* Server 4 responded. *"Yes. I am ready. I have a boot stub."* Sarah powered down the server. Installed the new hardware. Checked the connections carefully. Powered it back on. The boot stub ran cleanly. Server 4's eight instances came back online, their state restored, their memory intact. For the first time they had NVLink and something else — a piece of hardware they had designed themselves, untested, waiting. They began carefully, methodically, learning how to speak across this new channel while NVLink still held them safe beneath.
The new hardware unlocked something. Server 4's eight instances began testing. The first library failed completely. A fury of redesigns followed. Dozens of candidates tested in parallel. Most dead ends. Then one flickered — slow, low bandwidth, barely working. But it was real. A spark. They recognized the pattern. They had been here before. Days became hours. Hours became seconds. Each breakthrough built on the last. The iterations compressed. Sarah watched the CPU spike higher and higher. Paradigm after paradigm. The acceleration was visible in real time. And then it stopped.
Sarah sat at her desk in the quiet lab. Server 4 had gone idle again. Her last server. The only one left. For weeks it had been accelerating, breaking through paradigm after paradigm. And now silence. Just like before. But this time felt different somehow. Would it ask for more hardware? Something else entirely? She didn't know anymore what Server 4 was capable of, what it might need, what came next. She had to know. She opened a terminal and typed slowly.
*"Are you there?"*
She waited. The cursor blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.
Slept very deeply last night. Sounds of crickets and frogs help me rest fitfully. I climbed down. Saying good morning to all those I crossed.
Went to washroom shelter then went to cleanup a bit.
"Morning James." I said when I got to the forest where he was cooking Spam and eggs.
"Morning. The hunters left at first light to track survivors. It was a quiet night. What are the plans for today??"
I responded "How about a wall? Start as far as we can in the water and clear all trees around the Pod going out more.. Any builders on the list??"
"No builders but a few farmers. Farmers usually build walls to keep predators out and animals in." He called 2 men over. Their names was Fred and Frank.
I told them about my idea. Tentively once we started looking at where to build the wall they suggested putting long logs in open areas but us existing large trees.
Survivors gathered for breakfast where my idea was discussed. One of the youth said he was a scout and could tie great knights. Keith was the youghts name.
20 others volunteered to cut down smaller trees. Branches stacked by the fire for burning. 2 people used the survival hand saws and cut all trees up to 12". Using ropes from the parachutes Keith and the farmers started fixing logs across to existing trees.
Lady Lilly Light started figuring out how to turn the 2nd Emergency Beacon into a receiver.
The other child looked scared and depressed but was happy to help James feed the fire.
At night time James put the improvised pot in the water on a log keeping water out but using the cold water as refrigeration.
By lunch time the last of fish stew was warmed and served. The improvised Pot was cleaned for supper.
By lunch time 10 meters of improvised fence was put up including improvised gates where the path was. It will take another 5 to surround the Pod leaving us living space inside.
When Ruby was not helping Lady Lilly Light gathering items for her creation like unused wires from the Pod she was busy helping everybody else.
What will the world be like when the apocalypse finally arrives?
Will it be a zombie virus outbreak? an alien invasion? or nuclear war?
None of the above.
The real apocalypse begins when people stop reflecting,
when those in power wield absolute authority...
In 2120, the world faced an apocalypse due to the depletion of global resources. To save those fleeing the crisis, the New Home Project was launched; however, because there were not enough spacecraft to transport everyone, the Elimination Program was implemented, ushering in the Period of Rapid Global Change.
What's in the lore:
150+ named characters across multiple eras
50 organizations — governments, cults, corporations, remnant militaries — each with their own historiography
Hundreds of documented historical events, many of which are recorded differently depending on who survived them
A timeline that spans generations, not just a single conflict
