Free Healthcare Is Nonnegotiable (Maelion)

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


Ashkirae had fallen. By and large, it had been a swift and relatively silent takeover. Here and there the Eldorai had mustered some sort of resistance. Clouds of smoke arose from smouldering ruins, those buildings that had been destroyed. The raging fires seemed like a funeral pyre to Eldorai civilisation.


Here Eldorai had been forced out of their hiding places via flamethrowers, there Archangel had gotten fed up after being bombarded with RPGs and simply dropped a pair of bombs. Each and every room was searched in the doomed, goddessforsaken village. The cries of children and the lamentations of their mothers were silenced with the stings of the wasps. Harvesters swooped down from the sky to grip elves trying to flee to the safety of the mountains. There was no escape, no mercy.


And so a long procession of sedated, bound Eldorai was loaded up on the dropships. Leaving behind a ghost village, they took off into the sky and then pierced the atmosphere, like alien conquerors heading back to their mothership.


It was time for Archangel to take the first step into a brave, new world. It was time for it to gain the capability to process an entire town, and eventually a whole planet. Kaeshana, impoverished, forgotten and still filled with a surplus of organics enduring apocalyptic hardship, would be a suitable testing field. The next targets had already been mapped, wasp droids were being deployed for recon. This was no ethnic cleansing, it was liberation from the shackles their existence imposed upon them. This war was...peace.


In orbit, the Ascension awaited.

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Callisto Scarlett"]

Unlike certain unbalanced organics, Archangel were not true or vicious in their treatment. Those who attempted to escape would have enough pain administered to them to stop, but no more. After all, the subjects had to be alive and mostly undamaged to get a true replication of them.

As the Ascension opened its hangers and the ships poured in, HRDs were ready to convey the organics to their fate.

Maelion stepped out beside Callisto. “See that all chambers are prepared. You may begin when ready.”

The inside of the Ascension was essentially a large factory where the organics would be scanned, their minds drained, the bodies disposed of, then an HRD would be constructed in that likeness and ready to walk out the other side. The entire process could take as little as 6 hours, and there were a score of production lines. With the flow of organics through the various sections over one hundred organics could be scanned each hour, and in their place would arise new, identical agents of Archangel.

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


Many were called, but few were chosen. Ascension was upon the Eldorai, whether they wanted it or not. It was extremely ironic that the machines prided themselves on being purely rational and logical, yet in their methods, imagery and beliefs they had much in common with a militant religious cult. The insides of the Ascension were not just a massive factory, they were a temple to the Machine Cult.


Archangel separated the wheat from the chaff, and granted the 'worthy' an uplift into a 'higher form of existence'. In the mechanical paradise, the chaos of organic individuality would be eradicated. All would think the same, pure thoughts. Everything acted like the cog of a well-oiled machine. Sedated organics were would be transported to the Ascension Chambers, their minds were scanned by the processing device's super computer.


In some cases, their life essence - their soul, if you felt like being metaphysical - was pulled from their body and stored. It would be used to fuel demon engines or HRDs created via the new entechment processing device. The superfluous organic bodies were disposed of. With all this data mapped, a new HRD body made in the likeness of the dead elf was created.


Hectic activity took place across the production lines as the hours passed. The machines toiled in the vineyard of the Machine God. By the time a new batch of organics had been abducted from another raid on an Eldorai village, a few hundred new HRDs was assembling, ready for inspection.

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Callisto Scarlett"]
“Dispatch units back to the planet once testing is complete. They will go to other organics and complete the cycle,” Maelion ordered.
The newly forged HRDs would be sent back to Kaeshana to act as ‘refugees’ who could blend in and set the stage for more abductions.

The net would spread, and if anyone survived with silly stories of ‘robots from the sky’ the embedded HRDs could discredit their evidence and eliminate them.
It would take time, but with enough resources and enough time the Ascension could process all the survivors of Kaeshana’s rural areas.

Of course, that would mean they had to stay undetected, which was not as easy as it sounded!

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


More and more organics were being processed. Hundreds, thousands of elves were being brought into the loving, iron embrace of Archangel. Unfortunately, there were always those who were far too wedded to their old existence. They refused to comprehend their place in things.


And so it was when another batch of elves was being led to the Ascension Chamber. In this case it was one elf in particular by the name of Shiala. As would now be revealed, she was a Sciian, and the dosage of sedatives from one of the wasp drones had not been high enough.


Slowly, as she was about to be wheeled to the MRI-like tube of the processing machine to be scanned, she stirred, then her eyes fluttered open. Instinctively she lashed out with her powers as she drew upon her Sciia.


The HRD handling her was gripped by an invisible power and tossed into the wall with great force, causing a dent in it. Her shackles abruptly broke and when the HRD got up, she summoned a powerful magnetic field around the machine and crushed down upon it. Alarm sirens howled across the ship, a general alert was sounded and chaos broke out...

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Callisto Scarlett"]
Machines did not panic…unless they were defective Clone Wars battledroids anyway…and Maelion was the picture of calm as she observed the action.
“Callisto, an organic has escaped. Terminate them,” she ordered. There was no thought of keeping the Force user alive. Their rebellious nature might cause others to try and escape. That could not be tolerated.

Droids did have some important advantages though over organics. Suddenly the prison cells went pitch black…all except the faint glowing of ray shields surrounding the cell block.

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


The droid models deployed during the Clone Wars had been substandard and deficient. Clearly this was because the Trade Federation was too fixated on cutting corners and not letting its minions become too powerful. That was why they had been defeated.


Suddenly, everything went dark inside the prison cells, just as the rebellious Sciian had grabbed a blaster pistol from a destroyed droid and was about to bolt. The only illumination provided in the room was the faint glow of the ray shield.


Then abruptly the room was flooded with gas. The Eldorai coughed as she inhaled it. In her rage she lashed out with her uncontrolled power, thrashing a medical droid. But she felt unconsciousness soon claim her and slumped upon the ground. As everything went dark, the ray shield dropped and Callisto stepped inside the room, blaster in hand. Squeezing the trigger, she sent the elf to Ashira.

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Callisto Scarlett"]
The lesson had been learned. Force users would be identified and eliminated early. Pre-emptive killing would reduce risk. Archangel had little use for Force Users in any case. It was a curiously illogical, yet sadly proven part of the galaxy.

Soon the mills would begin again turning imperfect organics into perfect machines.

However, there was another issue. Maelion was alerted to a ship closing in.

“Callisto. Prepare cloaking array.”

The ascension was a large ship, so the cloaking would not last for long, but it would be enough. If the other craft was hostile they could strike an ambush, if it was not they could simply vanish from sight.

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


Ironically, Callisto's opinion on Force-Users might be...slightly different. This was probably because she was taking an active role in raising Enyo and [member="Phaedra Amaryllis"]. Maybe the fact that she was enteched model made her too human. Too capable of becoming attached.


As much as a genocidal kill-bot could be.


Regardless, there were other issues to deal with. "Acknowledged," she replied emotionlessly. "Preparing cloaking device for full coverage."


10...9...8...

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Callisto Scarlett"]
The seconds ticked down and as they ship came into sight Maelion analysed it swiftly.
“Identification shows merchant freighter. Weaponry minimal….”

Organics might hesitate over a decision such as this. Maelion took only a couple of seconds to weigh up strengths and weaknesses.

“Deploy squadron of fighters, target weapons…fire!”

With Callisto controlling the cannons the stiches of red energy would swiftly arc out and impact the unsuspecting and unarmed freighter and tear it to pieces. The fighters would ensure there were no survivors.

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


Remorse and hesitation were alien concept to a killing machine. Callisto quickly assumed control over the batteries. With the processing power of an HRD, she could direct the firing of several of the guns, providing precise targeting solutions and coordinations.


Abruptly, the Ascension's cloak dropped and the dark serenity of space was broken when crimson beams arched out of the guns and lanced towards the innocent, unsuspecting freighter. The simple merchant ship's shields melted away like snow before a supernova, and a brilliant fireball lit up space. Two escape pods had dropped out of the craft just prior to the explosion, but droid fighters fell upon them like birds of prey as they hurtled towards the planet, and blasted them to pieces.


"Target terminated."

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Callisto Scarlett"]
Maelion did not nod or congratulate Callisto. Doing one’s job was required for a machine.

“Confirm no incriminating wreckage survived. Deploy advance scouts to give warning of any other approaches.”

 

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


Machines did not waste time with small talk, pats on the back and similar wasteful nonsense. They did their job and that was that. Once a task was fulfilled they moved on and proceeded to the next. "Acknowledged," Callisto responded flatly.


Pieces of wreckage were blasted apart by the droid fighters. Probes and scouting craft were deployed to scour the system. Archangel would be seeding the star system with a network of early warning systems since it planned to carry out long-term operations on Kaeshana. It might make sense for them to develop their own models, but first things first.


And so the process of culling continued on the forgotten elf planet...