Omniverse One

Black Sheep - LONG GRASS

Twenty-Two

1991, Tampa

They had closed the park for a corporate event, but it didn’t mean much to Ashe - they usually closed the park before sundown anyway, as all zoos did. They could slot in all the roller coasters and motion simulators they wanted, but Busch ...

When I was on another board coming off of STB2, I made a promise to keep chapters around 5-10 pages. I've been floating around 20-30 for my STB reunion tour, and I really do try to keep things contained to that number - I don't want the ballooning that happened for STB2 where everything had to be ...

Before Lights Out - ELDRITCH EDGE

Thirteen

What I remember most about my father in the months before the MIDNIGHT coup in 2002 was how haunted he became. Every day that he came home to the Manhattan townhouse - and those were rare days, as work kept him overnight with increasing frequency - he ...

Consequence of Power - GHOST CAGE


Seven

These days, anyone could build their own garage-kit SHADOW TEMPEST. What had once been a tightly controlled Paragon project - the secret knife through which any war could be instigated to the plans of the wielder - now could be built by any militia ...

The year is 2017, and the planet lurches on the precipice of a choice between the chaos of the past and the promise of an unknown tomorrow. This is COULDA, SHOULDA, WOULDA.

The Second American Secret War has been ongoing for three years after a conspiracy of rogue Vice President OLIVIA YOUNG and ...

And now, the finale of SHADOW TEMPEST BLACK 2: MIDNIGHT PARADOX

Act Five: Part Three

Ninety-Two

Gold

We emerged topside right as the SHADOW TEMPEST made its grand entrance.

I had spotted the railgun where it lay halfway across the tarmac expanse, near the hole for the hydraulic lift ...

Act Five: Part Two

Eighty-Six

Storm

Laguardia had been under construction for several years - apparently at some point the New York Port Authority had decided the 1950s aesthetic was no longer charming for one of the busiest airports in the world. Gone would be the cramped, hectic terminals ...

Thanks man, it means a lot.

ACT FIVE
Part One

The President is in a coma after a presumed terrorist attack, leaving her duplicitous Vice President poised to orchestrate a second, grander false flag on American soil and reverse easing global tensions.

The only people who know enough to stop her have been killed - on a ...

File 40: Avatars
Subject: Samurai

With the advent of advanced cyberization technology and the increasing balkanization of settlements post war and post-Sundering, many factions have adopted a practice pioneered by the Imperial Service Board: highly trained, dangerous, and competent agents vested ...

File 39: New Edits
Subject: The Old Familiar


The mess of the Old Familiar was a standard affair, reassuring Ethier after passing through corridor after corridor decked with expensive paintings and clearly demarcated defense choke points. Comparatively, the grub hall resembled the sort of ...

File 38: The Best and the Worst of Us
Subject: The Atlean Republic

Isolated physically from the other Lagrange points – exactly opposite Luna, the third point held a massive collection of Life Ore that proved attractive during early settlement of the Fracture belt. Before the invention of proper ...

File 37: Tour of the City
Subject: The One Small Step Bar

The more Ethier worked with the Editor known as Raeneth, the more he disliked the man. He could never tell if it was the man’s own personality or the Author taking control personally, but between the tacky suits, the permanent cocky smirk ...

File 36: Echoes in the Machine
Subject: Keeper Communiques

Light filtered through his eyelids, the sudden intensity pulling him into the realm of the living. Blinking and rolling out of his bunk, Ethier looked across his cabin to see that the small screen built into the far wall had come alive ...

File 35: Freshly Ground Hope
Subject: The Libra Republic

If there is a rough frontier along the colonial circuit, is that the form of the governed-in-name only Libra Republic. With neither a Keeper force or a strong Constellation presence to provide an impetus for business to funnel money into ...

File 34: New World Order
Subject: Aftermath

Pilots scurried across the hangar of the To All Things , performing triage on flesh and metal alike as the experienced mechanics of the Chandelier flagship when to work on the survivors of the Battle of the Chasm.

“I always thought the name was a bit ...

File 33: The End of the Beginning
Subject: Battle of the Chasm V

The Godhands had been built – grown - on a mountain of bodies. Dozens of men had tried and failed to master the predictive system of an uncaged cortex, falling prey to the barrage of future possibilities and losing their insanity in ...

File 32: Majesty of God
Subject: Battle of the Chasm, IV

When he had given chase to the fleeing Hornet, Ethier had not expect the true scale of the battle when he took a closer look at the chaos. Exchanges of particle fire lit the space above the lunar valley, giving the appearance of a fireworks ...

A lot of the character posts come the battle were completely rewritten and repurposed - partly because they were paragraph-long snippets, and partly because the original board this was on was lost (similar to the OZ to O1 switch) and web archive didn't catch much if at anything of the old board ...

File 31: Titan Breaker
Subject: Battle of the Chasm, III

Comet-04 lowered his rifle, the barrel already sagging as it began to overheat. He reached for another replacement gun – it’d be faster to swap the entire gun that go through the time-consuming effort of exchanging barrels – only to come up ...

File 30: Old Grudges
Subject: The Battle of the Chasm, II

“You do know what we’re transporting, right?” Solomon asked as he ducked another BAV, pulverizing it with custom piledriver hilt of his imploder lance. Twirling the grip of the slab of metal in his hands, he ran the Marrow frame through ...

I've read up to File 04.

Cool stuff, though as Siege says a lot of the terms are familiar. I only know enough gundam to figure life matter = minovsky particles

And remembering a terrible joke from my child hood I can only assume McCracken's first name is Phil.

Yeah, there's a lot of direct ...

File 29: Great Man Theory
Subject: Dramatis Personae

Aegir DuPont: Masked leader of the original Backstop empire. The Horseman of Conquest is obsessed with cultural control through societal memes and engineering. May or may not be a mask wearing the man instead of the other way around. Questing ...

File 28: In the Thick of It
Subject: The Battle of the Chasm

The Apollo Kingdom he had expected, even planned for. Chandelier’s recruits he could handle.

The addition of a third faction gunning for his head would make things… interesting. Lively. There’d never be a dull moment, to say the least ...

File 27: The Means of War
Subject: Tempest Frame Terminology

With Tempest frame – and Godhand – production just now entering the fourth generation of models, most existing faction-used frames rely on a wide variety of customization to adapt to battlefield roles. Most pilots, for shorthand, group ...