The war at SV2 has started to get into action across the planet, with the vampire clans and the Hassani attacking major military installations and cities right away. SV2 is made up of cave networks, canyons, and a whole lot of rubble from the Nelta invasion that wiped out surface cities. With so many of our forces moving there, Sakhessa has also moved on to SV2 though Azarov has remained back at Thenica. The fighting is just as aggressive as before and the De’Rex family fleet is in orbit currently fighting the major space station of Shetou and anything else in their way.

The Hassani army has also shown up to Thenica, they are primarily serving as clean up teams and setting up bases and other fortified position alongside the hydra’s forces. It would appear that they are more rank and file types who are just here to fulfill the plot of the invasion and do their mandatory military service compared to Sakhessa’s legion that is much more combat ready. So basically the regular grunts, despite having some big monsters on hand. Though they are securing Sarghess territory and starting to reinforce other positions across the planet with turrets and shields for the Hassani to utilize to maintain the invasion or formally take over. Also a coalition of independent ships have shown up that we know to be under the management of the hydra.

The Jaal’Darya territory has returned to our dimension or however that works, everyone who went in is dead and Sarghess is still standing albeit they have lost half of their forces in the fighting. Apparently the isolation sphere from Decaelys served to allow Eliza to use chemical and biological weapons on the forces without them having access to any medical support or labs to help deal with her weapons. After their reappearance one of the Hassani armies moved in to help add additional fortifications and secure the city as an operating base for the assault on the rest of SV2 and they have been placed under the command of Alystra. The Jaal’Darya territory is however currently without several important utilities since the spell Decaelys use appears to have severed power lines and plumbing if it went outside of the sphere.

The vessians have left Beldobaan to help us at SV2 though they have some growing concerns on whether or not you plan to actually win this war they’re being dragged into. Most of the fighting is at New Kaifen, which is severely understaffed with House Song still being at Thenica who would normally be the city’s defense force.

The fighting at SV2 has seen less significant losses for us then at Beldobaan since the rest of the Shetou forces are taking the worst of it, though in total it is definitely seeing more overall casualties than Beldobaan. Azarov has made it to SV2 and our tank lines and broke through our tank lines defending New Kaifen. Sakhessa in particular has become a problem for several cities as the rot and Jaal’Darya plagues are running through Shetou’s population as well. The orbital battle, with Sharen effectively depleted, is currently in the favor of the De’Rex fleet.

The assault on the Tarrasque has been experiencing delays, Laesaaria still doesn’t want to send Auni after it just yet and Renjala is still in negotiations with Ankathi to borrow Kharla. Eleazor is also pretending to be sick and laying in bed trying to get out of it and Renjala sent Vasia to SR3 to check in on the Valdir. Though on that news front, the Tarrasque is wandering from one military installation to the next. It has been attacking places with anti orbital weapons, and soon it is likely that the defensive advantage of Shetou territory will be lost and then Sakhessa’s fleet will have a much easier time pushing into our retreated fleets.

As for the plagues afflicting us, every time we make progress two variations or some entirely new string appears. Though with advanced medical care we’ve been able to stabilize Valen for now. Though that level of attention can’t really be given to the millions being afflicted by a huge variety of different such problems. The rate of spreading has slowed significantly though thanks to not only quarantine but so many people already being infected that they can’t go anywhere to infect others. Also the number of deaths have reached a point that even plague deniers are scared of it now. Zenaka is pushing to continue the attack on Jaal’Darya since they are feeling the worst of it at the moment.

Diadem farms are doing fine in the bubbles Renjala had built to keep the space bugs from eating them.

Many of the Vessians on Diadem have left back into the Reach to get away from all this plague nonsense and the current measures that Laura has been taking to keep Diadem secure. A few remain out of curiosity, and because of the food.

The Caelkians are still sorting through beurocracy and also keeping a close eye on the qurantine at Diadem and seem to be intentionally waiting on moving forward with anything until they see how this shakes out. Currently there isn’t much they can actively do at Diadem anyways since Laura’s forces are gunning people down in the street if they break quarantine which has brought a lot of civilian matters to a halt. The Caelkians are doing fine on food as their planet is still fine and has never come under the attention of the galactic wars, since they’re new to the neighborhood.

Irae and Jaerda have taken off into the elemental plane to seek out the elusive metal archon. A team of scientists are also investigating the rim in Valjala. Apparently, it is an untold mass of trillions of unbound stars forming a singular massive unbound star. It runs a ring through the middle of the entire galaxy. The constant reaction of the stars is also spinning, which is really only of interest to the math nerds. In short if you fly through it, evaporated. There are tunnels of space where it would be possible to pass through but they are always closing and opening while the stars swirl about. It’s basically a ring of really hot always moving star stuff that encircles the whole galaxy albeit with a few empty pockets here and there. In terms of cosmic phenomena, neat. The scholars think the amount of energy this ring contains might have some peculiar effects on the properties of the galaxy within Valjala. Further exploration reveals that this has created a strange “system”, there are planetary bodies not quite orbiting the rim but instead flowing along it around the entire galaxy. Which I suppose fits a certain theme. They don’t need to be entire systems orbiting a star if they just float along the momentum of the rim which provides way too much sunlight as it is. So basically there is a field of asteroids, planets, and other such things floating along a cosmic river of fire as they circle the galaxy. The math nerds spend all day trying to explain just how much mass and energy is in this rim, they keep pointing out it is an incomprehensible series of numbers so I stopped listening before I come down with a case of the sahads. Try asking them about solar panels and they’ll go on for two hours about it.

The search for an arcane star hits a related topic. The rim has every kind of star inside its swirling infinite mass of fusion, though its not terribly exploitable since nothing stays in place very well in there. We did find a couple of arcane stars with some effort though none of them have planets suited to life just yet without intense terraforming.

Also you are correct, Revenants will not accept that deal. We actually couldn’t even get the message to them because they won’t accept the attempt to communicate with them either. Auni remains at an undisclosed location, Laesaaria pointed out that putting both you and Auni in the same place is likely to draw more attention from Kanika than you might want to deal with. Even with the merits of the garden project, if it became Kanika’s top priority so early into the project’s infancy it probably wouldn’t do much to stop her.

Eerihild has been deployed to New Jamalia and Yoshai has started looking for the Black Library though after three weeks of looking for any sort of lead he points out this might be a bit of a wild mimic chase. The Revenants stole it from Yasrena and most of Yoshai’s powers are associated with Yasrena, the person they would most intentionally be hiding it from. Though he’s still not sure how they managed to steal an archive so massive and make it disappear and is trying to wrap his head around that one.

Vasia has taken off to SR3 and no one knows what she’s doing over there. Though the assault has not yet begun there. Kanika is still wrapping up on Thenica first it seems.

Also while it hasn’t come up in awhile, the attempts to build a full city runs us out of budget.

Worth noting we already know how to print the admin cards, but it requires control of four distinct sections of the ringworld that are all across from each other rather than right next to one another. Also Aryn points out if she uses the Chaudret it could have much more significant ramifications depending how interconnected the systems of the ringworld actually are. Given that she can never accurately predict what the Chaudret will do, odds are she just destroys the life support system on accident and in order to repair anything Chaudret does we’d need access to the control of every system. Though it works great on robot monsters.

Also even if listening is your whole job I’m not sure I’d describe you as a therapist. Also no one likes therapy from a drow. Michael seems fine anyways, if just a bit callous lately.

Also at this point I should say that Enphidia’s turret defenses are getting a little over the top and if the place is going to be attacked I have a feeling they’re going to find a way to circumvent the turrets rather than go through them. That and we’re running out of space to fit them.

Allison’s friends on Thenica are either dead or she has no way to contact them, especially from across the galaxy with the aethernet not quite spanning that far. As for ideas about dealing with the Tarrasque she laughed. This is definitely more of Renjala’s realm, that thing is invulnerable and shoots the equivalent  of ten nukes a second. Her shotgun isn’t exactly going to help much.

As for the Tungsten Teeth contracts, they have been mysteriously hard to find with many of them turning it down. It is likely that somewhere in the Reach, someone knows what is going on at Thenica and has warned them that accepting the job is just a suicide mission.

Some intel updates, Alystra Vel’Sarghess received command over one of the Hassani armies and this has some implications even if they aren’t being stated outright. With Alystra gaining command she has also received supplies and armaments from Sakhessa, making the Kar’Soluth relationship to the Hassani much more direct. While this doesn’t have many strategic implications just yet, it implies that Alystra has received the faith and goodwill of the Hassani upper command such as Sakhessa and Kanika. Which might be a growing trend for the Kar’Soluth as they become politically folded into the Hassani properly in the wake of this conquest. Not very useful intel strategically speaking in the middle of a war, but perhaps worth noting that the process of merging Kar’Soluth into the Hassani has likely begun and Alystra will possibly be a problem for awhile to come.

Now that we have some time off, we’ve been continuing to repair the cradle, which is a bit of an experience as it is the docks most other ships go to get repaired. So that’s taking some effort.

I’ve managed to make some improvements to Vanessa’s chassis now that I have the opportunity to make her holo projector version of herself less uncanny by making it more intimidating and adding more blades.

Hrmm a single cored ship would be fairly unique, barring the Cradle itself. Though it is still a definitely difficult thing. I’ll work on it and see where we can get with the idea.