Yet another Keen fic

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Levellass
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Yet another Keen fic

Post by Levellass »

I've been thinking some about the Shikadi, and the more I thought about them, the more questions were raised. So, in an explorative exercise, I wrote this little story, or at least some of it, I hope to finish it up a little more briskly than previous attempts. It's a little corny, but I'm no Alister Craigs. So, wish me well as I start this off!


<Chapter 1>

This is the Shikadi homeworld... such as it is. It is not a planet so much as a location in space. From a distance it is pretty, a planetary nebula, sparkling red and yellow and white, a mass of hot expanding gasses, the remains of a long dead star. It is not bright as nebulae go, having been around for a long time, and being dimmed almost to the point of invisibility. It is a curiosity, nothing more.

Or at least, it was, until the Shikadi had come, blazing out of the darkness like comets, hundreds and hundreds of ships, made from pure energy, coming from nowhere, going noplace, with no purpose but destruction. And they had come close, so very close to that destruction, in the end only a lone hero had fought them off, foiled their plans and sent them back to where they came.

At least, for a time.



I hope to get more chapters done, but you know me!
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tulip
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Post by tulip »

:lol



... oh wait, that wasn't the reaction you were looking for.

No seriously it sounds like it could be very humorous.
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Post by Commander Spleen »

Indeed, it does have a mild humour about it. Along with a somewhat Doctor Who air. Well written so far, though the second part almost makes it sound like they formed their homeworld after the QED was disabled (unless you're referring to another lone hero--that would be funny if all their plans keep getting ruined by little underdogs).

Well written so far though.
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Post by Deltamatic »

Commander Spleen wrote:(unless you're referring to another lone hero--that would be funny if all their plans keep getting ruined by little underdogs).
That would be pretty funny.
I do like the writing, Levellass. Keep it up!
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Post by KeenRush »

Nice, keep it comin'. And the new idea of the Shikadi plans constantly getting ruined is rather funny. It could make an interesting Keen story, Keen having been around at different times (he has multiple lives afterall 8)).
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Post by Ceilick »

Haha, that would be hilarious.

I like the impression this gives, that the Shikadi aren't planetary bound but dwell in a spacial cloud. I also like how their 'homeworld' is looked at in complete innocence, no one knows or even suspects beings exist in it, and suddenly theres this massive fleet of out-of-this-world ships exploding from it. Makes me think of the Reavers flying out of the cloud in the movie "Serenity".

Looking forward to more :)
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Post by Mink »

Very nice, I like the premise. It'll be interesting to see your take on the Shikadi in subsequent installments.
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Post by Levellass »

ndeed, it does have a mild humour about it. Along with a somewhat Doctor Who air. Well written so far, though the second part almost makes it sound like they formed their homeworld after the QED was disabled (unless you're referring to another lone hero--that would be funny if all their plans keep getting ruined by little underdogs).
Right! That does it! Chapter 15-ish has GOT to have a homage to the dctor-master confrontation in the Rowan Akinson TV special. I'm writing it right now.

Nice, keep it comin'. And the new idea of the Shikadi plans constantly getting ruined is rather funny. It could make an interesting Keen story, Keen having been around at different times (he has multiple lives afterall Poindexter).
This too is going to be added, a-la 'Only you can save mankind'



[Chapter 2]


The ship plunged onwards through the eternal void that was space. It moved like a cartoon, a toy ship, a caricature, in straight lines and with simple construction. From a distance it looked like nothing more than an outline, a childish rocket shaped scribble against space, pointed and with little tail fins, and a silvery wake. Closer to t became more complex, finer, duller lines filled in the space, until the rocket itself was a jumble of sparking, twisting light. It glowed like small galaxy as it slipped silently, and rapidly between stars.

This was a Shikadi cruiser, ridiculous in both design and appearance, but able to outrun,out maneuver and outclass nearly everything else that could leave a planet's gravity well. Nobody, well, almost nobody, knew how they were built, how raw energy was fashioned into something as solid as tempered steel, how it moved with almost no emission, requiring no fuel, and being able to ignore the laws of inertia. But this was probably because the race that built it, the mysterious Shikadi, were just as strange, unknown and feared.

One of them was watching the area in front of the ship. Quite a distance in front in fact, approximately four light years ahead. It had been watching for some time, following the erratic and painfully slow path of an evidently heavily damaged ship, limping randomly through space without apparent direction or purpose. Solid of course, they all were.

The Shikadi language was totally incomprehensible to those not themselves made of living energy, consisting as it did of flashes, sparks and changes in color, so it was only the crew of the ship that would notice their leader's change for what it was, the deepening blue of someone contemplating something immensely fun in which they would take the leading role. A series of snaps and crackles, like a shorted transformer echoed across the ship, but they were not heeded so much as the brief burst of light as commands were given.

Move to vicinity and engage, no vessel must be allowed to enter Shikadi space and survive.


The ship moved in, ready for the kill.
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Post by Ceilick »

oh oh, are they hunting down the disabled Vorticon Mothership after the Earth Explodes? 8)
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Post by Deltamatic »

That would be an interesting way for Mort to meet them, to say the least. Not only would he have to learn their language with his superior intellect, but also he would have to possibly fend off their attacks and try to puzzle out why there's Tantalus debris from the mothership he sent off that appears to have already been seriously fried days or weeks before the Shikadi arrived.
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Post by Mink »

Wow, that's really a neat idea for the Shikadi language. I like how well it fits with their energy nature. But what about "Gannalech"? Does their language also involve some sort of pronunciation system, or did Mort force them to learn something new in order to facilitate easier communication? I hope you elaborate on this aspect a little more, as it could have interesting results.
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Post by Levellass »

Oh of course, I have that all mapped out, so far it's mentioned around chapter 5, Mort likes to be spoken to, and isn't going to take any gyp from a bunch of sentient power cuts.


[Chapter 3]


The Shikadi cruiser sat silently, watching, waiting, like a cat playing with a mouse, which isn't sure if it's prey is dead or just faking. For now, curiosity held it off, but not for long.

Explain. They are contacting us?

Yes sir, they are begging to talk.

So? Many have. Destroy them!

With respect sir, we do not know their kind. And the Leader said he wished to know of anything unknown sir.

Very well, inform them we will wait, and that they had better be intelligent.


The captain was unused to not getting his way, most Shikadi in power were. That was the way Shikadi had worked for thousands of years, one, maybe two leaders and the rest of the group never argued, except to take control themselves. But then the Leader had appeared and told them they could do more, so much more, if they stopped squabbles between groups and joined together, the whole planet as one, to take on the universe. Of course, they would sometimes have to obey other Shikadi, and the Leader too, but they would have so many under their control. Eventually, those left agreed.

And there had been benefits, in less than two hundred pulses they had moved from simple constructions, no better than walls with a roof, to gigantic, star-spanning ships. For the first time they had been able to tame and shape solid matter, and to see the stars, and other worlds. But it was still grating to have to submit to the will of another, especially one that wasn't in front of you at the time, you kept wondering why you had to do something unless you had a larger individual there, backing up thei commands.

Of course, some had resisted the Leader's will at first, and they had ended, either by its hand, or by those that followed it. The captain sighed, an activity that involved gently squashing his body and lowering energy output. The Leader would have to be told.

Nearby the computer interface sparked into life, quite literally. Shikadi had never mastered solid matter and their only machinery had worked by a kind of plasma clockwork until the leader had arrived. Then they had learned about plastics and conductance and most importantly, insulation. Shikadi computers were not too different from the ordinary kind, except that all the inner workings were kept in a Faraday cage, an enclosing box of metal mesh, to stop the ships' magnetic fields frying them whenever it moved. This was packed in Styrofoam, to keep it separate from the ship. All information was sent to and received in the form of flashes of light, in the Shikadi's own language. Because of all this effort, computers were located only on the bridge, a dark center to the glowing craft.

Now the ship lit up like a Christmas light as information was processed and sent, a thin stream of data across the universe on an encrypted phototachyon frequency.
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Post by Deltamatic »

This makes me wonder: is the captain or this Leader fellow the Shikadi Master Keen meets in the QED?
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Post by Levellass »

Not the captain, the one(s) in charge of the most massive faliure in Shikadi history have been severely demoted.

Just a short one today, it's late!


[Chapter 4]

This is the Shikadi homeworld, seen from the inside, but not too far inside. Surrounding everything is the Wall, if the such a simple word can suffice for something the Shikadi once thought was the edge of the universe. It is made of old gas an dust, tens of light years thick, blocking the sight of the outside universe from view.

But for the Shikadi, the sky is not black, they live closer to the Source, where light and flares of flux color their world in all the hues of gas emission. Here is where the Shikadi live, not on a giant ball, but floating in space, amongst the flares and discharges of an ancient stellar core, feeding off its energies, warping its fields to manipulate the thin gasses into homes, shelters and machines of a sort.

The Shikadi are energy beings, little more than excited gas and magnetic fields. They live in a world of energy, this explains much about them. A human could life a Shikadi skyscraper in one hand, if they had some means of grasping it.

Sometimes small lumps of metal and rock enter here, piercing the Wall. The Shikadi fear them, these strange things that warp the flux and kill anything that goes near them. Most head for the Source, plunging onwards towards the bright zone, with a speed and weight beyond imagining to creatures little more than living sparks. They fear and loathe the solid world.
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Post by Deltamatic »

I never thought of the Shikadi being xenophobes, because of their willingness to meet with Gannalech and the Korath natives. This should make them more complex, then--why would they meet with these outsiders?
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