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To Warp Time Itself - English AAR

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A Future That May Never Be.... (Backstory)

By the ancient method of reckoning time it is the year AD 23,543. The Solar System has changed much since your time. Earth, the ancestral cradle, is now quite inhospitable to organic life. Millennia of war, industry, and exploitation rendered her lifeless save for the guilt driven reclamation efforts of various national governments.

Humanity too has changed greatly. Man and its successor species spread throughout the System, filling whatever niche could support them. Even sending colony vessels and seeding ships to remote systems. Though most were entirely unsuccessful a few scraps of Earth descended life managed to find purchase in the stars.

For many thousands of years our people, the Na'as, have dominated the Solar System. We are the masters of the manipulation of life. Biological engineers without parallel. We made the caverns of Luna green. Our servants carved great ecologies into the moons of Neptune. Now we are fading.

The Third Species, the Slargosians, reign in the Jovian worlds. While we sought to control life, they seek to... enhance it. Unlike us they were not designed in labs as the logical replacement for Humanity. They had no grand destiny. Long years of isolation in the colonies of Callisto and Ceres brought about a revolution of biotechnological science (or perversion). Fitted with cybernetics during early childhoods the Slargosians are metal monsters.

Homo Sapiens continue to thrive as well. Like any successful vermin. But they are insignificant save as cannon fodder.

Now the Slargosians have driven us from our palaces to the dim and lightless Oort Cloud. We are faced with a slow death in these converted mining shelters or one last chance. We will make war on Heaven itself and change destiny.
 
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The Last March of the Na'as

The Thinker was glaring at the ancient computer. Over head the last warships of the Na'as-in-exile fought a losing holding action against the Slargosians. The enemy's Demos Fleet was unexpectedly present in Lunan orbit. The Na'as Warmen and their monstrous warbeasts had been landed, but their armada was doomed. And the only surviving Thinker was faced with a nine thousand year old computer.

The Swarm Leader approached. "Martian kinetic strikes have eliminated the 3rd Army. The Lab is ready to go. Have you the data yet?"

The Thinker stared at it. "No. Storage crystals will not interface with equipment. Order the lab to make a blind jump. We have no other choice."

The Swarm Leader bowed its head and silently communicated the order to the Lab control.


Underneath the English Channel in the Year of Our Lord 815 a heavily damaged Independent Survival Pod emerged from a singularity surrounded by the wreckage of the rest of the Lab.
 
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Where are we?

The Planner caste was the penultimate in Na'asian society. But even that august sub-species had their share of incompetents. Carver of Destiny was one such. The relatively young Planner had been in charge of the #53 ISP and alone of his piers had managed to keep his section of the Lab intact. Unfortunately good reflexes were not a match for independence and clarity of thought.

"So... where exactly did the Pod emerge?" Carver of Destiny asked the Thinker drone.

Constructor of Zakus (for that was its designation) replied, "Earth. Obviously. I'm afraid that I misplaced my copy of All Encompassing History of Everything Prehistoric so I can not tell you what the local designations for this time period and place are."

The Planner stared at the Thinker. Tempting though it was to kill it he would then have to rely on the low intelligence Workers and Warmen. "Right then. Release the Eyes of Katmai. Secure the Pod against the elements and ready the crew for prolonged stasis. We shall emerge when the EKs have covered enough of the world to get a detailed socio-political almanac."

The Eyes, tiny insects that were capable of hive intelligence (indeed, several swarms united into a super collective that nearly destroyed the universe in 13,423) and could 'transmit' what they saw and heard back to the Na'as controllers. They bred relatively quickly and could cover the major areas of the hemisphere in a few centuries.
 
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William's Ghost

William of Normandy awoke to find himself in box. Unnamable THINGS swarmed over him, driving him nearly mad with their chittering, skittering and in some uncomfortable places slithering. Surrounded by the obscene demons he could only scream.

"He is a primitive specimen of homo sapiens sapiens. Health is poor by any reasonable standards. But for this epoch I suppose it can not be helped. He is also a king." Constructor of Zakus paused, amused. "Well, his lordship can be altered to accept the neural feed and rudimentary controls. It will stretch our resources severely, Planner. I do hope you realize that we can not do this for more than one or two verminspawn at a time."

William, King of the Britons, was sure he was mad. The voices, alien and inhuman voices, whispered in his thoughts, and commanded his dreams. Fortunately for him a steady stream of light sedatives kept him sane. From his new capital in London he ruled unopposed throughout England and his ancestral possessions in France. He was in many ways more powerful than his putative liege lord in Paris.

He made sure to buy the loyalty of the castes - I mean estates by keeping the taxes low and the largesse generous. A builder and a gift-giver, William was regarded as the most powerful and greatest King in Christendom. The voices offered suggestions and intelligence on the state of his realm. When Norfolk sneezed William knew.

For his part Carver of Destiny was becoming addicted to the stories told by the Eyes of Katmai swarms. Unapologetic gossips, the EK hives would regail each other with the doings of the humans in their areas.
 
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Well I'm in. About time CK had another time-travel AAR. Though this one is certainly different than most!
 
Sci-Fi CK, good luck.
 
More back story

While William busied himself with rebuilding the countryside his retinue was completing a geneological survey to establish that the King of England had legitimate ties to Wales, up to and including the defunct royal house. Sketchy though those claims were, they would be sufficient to allow the Conqueror to press his rights in that barbarous land. Throughout England the people high and low came to know their new and foreign king. He seemed a wise and strong man and a just monarch. Life went on. The priests prayed. The nobles plotted. The peasants toiled and the burghers haggled. What more, they thought to themselves could they hope for?

The surviving Na'as met in the small meeting chamber in the Pod. The lone Planner and Thinker sat in the center of the circular room. The File Leader of the Warmen and his aide; the Shift Manager of the Workers and his Administrative Assistant; and the cybernetic Recorder (a biomechanical parrot derivitive) were also present.

"The Na'as, as a race, are effectively extinct. We lack the facilities to create young Na'as. While it is possible that other sections of The Lab survived to arrive in aeons, we must assume we are alone. I am aware that some of you wonder at my... fascination... with the verminspawn inhabitants of this era. It is my intention to assist in the creation of a new species that will eventually become like us. We will aid the Normandy House and its adjunct branches and through selective breeding and eventual scientific assistance create - ourselves. Obviously this undertaking will be a centuries long effort," Carver of Destiny looked at his fellows.

"The Lab was our last gasp as a race. With Luna and Neptune lost to us so too went our industrial capacity. Thought was given to sending at least one colony fleet to distant suns. I know several of you were proponents of that. However, we simply had no shipyards to build it. We could barely finish the Lab. We knew that the Slargosians or the Fifth Race - the space dwelling X'intl - would seek to destroy us for... past actions on our part."

Two years after the Norman Conquest William's beloved wife died of illness. Though brokenhearted William understood that he should remarry quickly. His chosen was a young Welsh noblewoman named Teleri. Though many felt he married far below his station William found that she was an intelligent and forceful lady. Capable of bearing many young.

In the spring of 1070 William invaded Wales. His army drove into the northern provinces and over the summer he reduced one stronghold after another.

A town given over to the sack was as close to hell on earth as William could imagine. The screams of the women and the fires (his warriors were maddened by blood now, they forgot not to burn until the pillaging was done, damn them) made him sick. But that was war. That was life.
 
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SOunds like Williams got a hunger for conquest.
 
Robert, Duke of Normandy was visiting his King and Father in the autumn of 1077. His father had aged 10 years in the last five. "You are looking like Death himself old man."

William smiled faintly. "Ah, I have been feeling my years. I am glad you came though. The last of the Welsh high lords has knelt and offered their oaths. In spring I intend to assume the crown of Wales." His smile faded. "I know that the barons are not happy. Between the sickness and the bandits that infest the midlands... well I can not blame them. Robert... I think I will die before long. Before that I intend to mount a crusade."

Robert was shocked. He really did not think his father would survive a trip to the Holy Land. Much less the battles that raged around the Mediterranean. "Father, have you thought perhaps of instead a retreat to your winter castle in Devonshire?"

William nodded to the map on the wall. "No, I do not intend to make war upon the Mohameden. Instead - the pagans of the Baltic coast. The barons can have their loot and the young bloods can win their glory. Best of all those obnoxious bishops can stop their damn letters exhorting me to smite the heathens."

Now realizing the truth of the situation Robert could only sigh. The Welsh campaigns had been long and bitter. The dukes were restive because of the ruthlessness William and his clique had shown for breaking the noblemen who did not support his war. This 'crusade' was simply a hideously expensive effort to get new lands to hand out to the restive younger sons, and new souls for Mother Church. The only real losers would be the mid level noblemen and burghers who would be forced to pay for it when the Estates General was called.

"I have no illusions about how long I --- or you Robert - could hold dominion over territories across the sea. Time and ambition will sunder that most tenuous of human connections, 'loyalty'. But perhaps some of your brothers and cousins could establish new Norman realms there and with time conquer kingdoms of their own." Carver of Destiny therefore ensured that the family and its Flambard and Bruce offshoots would be safe should some cataclysm befall Britain.
 
The Baltic pagans are such sad whipping boys.
 
They are. But I got some piety points from setting up a few archbishoprics and some prestige from creating a new duke. The flip side is paying for two mercenary companies to be stationed in Finland and Estonia regions to put down the constant rebellions from the unruly locals. I expect that the counts will remain loyal for another generation and then break away as already several of them are forming strong familial ties with Sweden and Germany.

It's an expensive and perhaps futile attempt to form an empire based on tenuous blood connections. The two dukes I created are either d'Normandie sons or now related by marrying a daughter of William.
 
As it happened William never did formally claim the crown of Wales, having been frustrated by financial burdens such things invariably force upon the would be monarch. Carver of Destiny did not understand it himself, he was surprised when the Shift Manager explained it.

"In any age you will find that men are motivated by... well let's call it greed. I have to motivate my Workers with their rations of Happisen and the occasional Class 1 meal. The Swarm Leaders and Warmasters used to give their drones leave in the Chamber of Concentric Circles in Triton. Here is no different. You have aristocrats who need their palms' greased. Churchmen who need a new church steeple or some such. It's all simple Planner. Our verminspawn pawn is a high level administrator with a multitude of sub-contractors and hangers on who need to be kept happy." The Shift Manager ran a hand over its scalp. "King's are oftentimes little more than pawns themselves."

In disgust William established several of his sons (including a 3 year old Serlo with an elderly Flambard knight as regent) as counts in the conquered provinces of Wales. The Flambard and Bruce scions found themselves married to the daughters of the Normandy House. Those whose bioscans indicated the strong traits deemed necessary for success of the project at any rate. As both families had only modest estates and had sent their sons to Court in hopes of battle field glory Carver thought they could be trusted. There were no outside loyalties.
 
Might makes right for Willy
 
After several years the Bavarian Free Company and the Spears of Florence had little choice but to combine in one company under the command of a Spaniard named Don Diego. The 'don' part being suspect. The two mercenary outfits had been hired by King William of England originally during the brief war with Scotland. But after his Baltic empire began to crumble due to 'internal security issues' both had been dispatched (at further enormous expense) to the coast to prop up the Norman rulers.....


"What is your name barbarian?"

The man snorted and replied, "Assika."

"Exiled after a failed takeover attempt of your tribe? Sadly, Assika, they have been broken. Their townships crushed and their shamans burned. Good for you though. You managed to save my life during the ambush last night barbarian. And maybe having one of their own pack set over them will pacify these animals. Walk with me barbarian." Thus did William strike up an odd friendship with the younger barbarian, eventually going so far as to make him the leader of the remnants of the tribes in the Duchy of Finland.

The Duke, a sour Bruce, was not happy, going so far as to remonstrate with his king for putting a pagan in charge of the strategic though barren parish. "Yes, but he is my pagan."
 
A sour Bruce? Cheer up
 
The vast amount of information offered by the Eyes of Katmai was fed into biomechanical computers (calling them 'computers' is a very rough analogy as they bear no resemblense to the purely electronic machinery you would be used to) and parsed for relevance, priority, and entertainment value. The last being a sad testament to just how boring it could be trapped in a small vehicle currently concealed under Glastonberry Tor. From the computers Na'as worker types would then rely it to the thinker, Constructor of Zakus. It would then decide whether or not any action should be taken. Rebellions or political events of importance to Britain would then be relayed to William via the Keeper implants.

The king was aware of the pagan revolts within hours of the army forming. He developed quite a reputation as a psychic. Were it not for his vast contributions to the Church he might even have been called a diabolist. Despite his earlier ruminations, William managed to survive until the ripe old age of 71, though his health declined in his later years. He perished during yet another war with Scotland, hoping to take advantage of their years long struggle with Sweden and avenge the failure of his earlier invasion.
 
Who is the heir?
 
Robert, Duke of Normandy surveyed the busy docks. His family and friends would be gathering in a nearby hall to celebrate his elevation (and his departure). For some time Robert had steadily become more dour... more cold. Except for the odd murderous rage. Fortunately he had managed to confine the killings to irrelevant servants. Most of the time he seemed to be barely cognizant of where he was and what he was doing.

Oh, he knew exactly what was going on around him. But he just did not feel much of anything anymore. At first he had been alarmed as his son and heir Humbert was put in hospital after a savage beating. Why he did it was unclear. Now he did not care. He performed his duties and that was it. Occasionally he would experience a 'grey fugue' and wake up standing over a corpse. Well. Ruling an important duchy was stressful. Had he still possessed any capacity for introspection he might have wondered why he no longer loved or hated or even felt any emotion. By now Robert, soon to be King, desired nothing. Only machine like dedication to his duties remained to him.

Six vessels awaited to transport him to Dover, the minimum necessary to prevent or fight off attack from the pirates that infested the Channel. From there he would make a quick tour of southern England and then to London for the coronation. Based on the rumours he heard from his courtiers and what he knew there would be minor uprisings in the Baltic territories that he would have to crush. Personally. He must remind the Norman lords his father had installed that their lands and powers were loaded them by the de Normandie dynasty. Terminating a few of the border counts was a possiblity.

"Father. The ships are stocked and ready. Your retinue is on board. They seemed quite put out that they would not be taking part in the -"

"Their griping does not concern me Humbert. Nor, for that matter, should it concern you. In future correspondence I do not expect such trivialities to be communicated. There will be no ceremony. You are now the Duke of Normandy, thus evading the peculiar position of an English King being in any part a vassal to the French King. You will not come to London or any of the royal territories in Britain or the Baltic. I do not expect to see France again. Or you."

Ignoring the hurt and rage in his son's eyes Robert turned toward the dock. He began to walk but one sudden impulse compelled him to turn. "Your grandfather's sword. It was sent me after his death in Scotland." He held the sheathed blade towards Humbert.

"You - you do not want it?"

"I have my own." Without another word or backward glance Robert left his son and many relatives behind.
 
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