Declaration of War

[The Whitestar Regime]

(A moment of silence, for the solemnity of this occasion.

...

Thank you.)

Throughout the Dojo there are a vast number of strange yet simple devices that have been erected across the land. They are unassuming structures, no bigger than a metre in height and not entirely dissimilar to a parking metre in appearance. Those who might have seen fit to dismantle them in the years that they'd been present would have discovered that they were rather boring, little more than primative one-way radio devices. Some people found them amusing for pranks for a little while, but all in all they made for one of the more boring quirks of the otherwise delightfully zany realm.

Many of these radio devices are quite worn and some have been broken or taken down, but most are functional, and without warning they all begin to simultaneously play the following message to anybody who is willing to listen:

"This is a formal declaration of war from the glorious Whitestar regime.

We have lived here in Blackstar alongside you for many years now, more than you would know, Dojodians. We are familiar to you even though you do not know us, and to us you are like our own brothers and sisters even though we have never met you. Your hopes, your dreams... These are like bread and water to us, we need them to live, and for many years now we have lived well.

However we now find ourselves on the brink of extinction. Blackstar is in decline. The death of the Lord of the Land has made people uneasy, and the void of power left by the mysterious absense of his one and only Heir has done nothing to ease their troubles. Without warning people are disappearing, leaving for new realms and new beginnings. Emigration for you Dojodians is depressing, but for us it is fatal. Without hopes or dreams or even everyday thoughts of Dojodians to feed on... we will die.

And so it is with grim resolve and hardened hearts that we bring this message to you and declare our intentions. We shall destroy any and all remaining vestiges of your previous ruler and take his kingdom for our own. We shall give this realm a fresh start as the land of "Whitestar", a clean slate from which we can build anew, in the hopes of establishing a new golden age.

For many of you, this will mean your deaths. It is a tragic thing, but we cannot allow the past to repeat itself, and if we leave any roots the the Blackstar of old will return and choke the life out of the realm once more. You may see fit to resist us, but we would advise against it. Even with our depleted numbers we vastly outnumbed you, and it is only a matter of time before we conquer your cities and eradicate each and every last one of you. You may choose to run, but we will hunt you down, as we will do to every former Dojodian once we have complete control of this realm. We do what we have to because we must; if we are to have a future then the past must be thoroughly and permanently destroyed.

In our heart of hearts we sincerely wish that it would not come to this, but we have no choice: we are but mere mortals, as terrified of death as any other.

Let the Blackstar of old burn to the ground. All glory to Whitestar."

This message pauses for a moment after finishing, then repeats itself. Some of the messages jam up, having been played on poorly maintained devices, and end up repeating the same lines over and over again...

"All glory to Whitestar... This is a formal declaration of war... All glory to Whitestar... This is a formal declaration of war... "

(Reply to this message as you will, the actions of the Whitestar regime shall be continued through roleplay in Blackstar's various domains.)

[Coolpikaaa]

"This is a formal declaration of war from the glorious Whitestar regime."

Coolpikaaa banged his head on the overhead console in surprise. Wires hung draped all over the floor, and it was somewhat obvious the electric mouse had been trying to fix them with little success.

"Jack....where is that playing from?" Coolpikaaa asked the on board AI, while rubbing his bruised forehead.

"Various points across the Dojo.....it seems to be coming from outdated technology. Way before the station was built!"

Coolpikaaa listened carefully to the rest of the message. Feeding off hopes and dreams? Was that possible? Even more so, sure things had been getting a bit rough around here...But enough to declare a war to eliminate the rest? Wasn't that kind of counter productive?

"Can we get a fix on the main transmission? And Jack, try and get a line in to the EC. They took over once before, and I am not going to put it past them to try again. Raise the station's alerts to red. It looks like we might be in for a rough ride..."

-coolpikaaa

[The Whitestar Regime]

(Coolpikaaa will find that we have made no effort to hide the device responsible for broadcasting the signal, as it is of the same grade of technology as the receivers, and woefully out of date. We are not very experienced with technology, you see...

In any case, you will find that the message is being broadcast from the top of a high mountain range in the Frozen North. The weather up there is quite good today, so the signal is able to reach all of the Dojo, but if a snowstorm kicks in the machine's signal will become much weaker, and consequently it will be a little trickier to pinpoint.

You don't need to worry about responding to that here, we will recap in the roleplay that we intend to post over the next couple of days (so consider that little bit of information a little teaser/trailer of what is to come). For today however, we are content with posting just this thread and our profile, given that both took quite a bit of time and effort on our part.

"Wasn't that kind of counter productive?"

We realize that we are addressing this question 'out of character' and as such it won't help Coolpikaaa's character all that much, but we felt it prudent to make our point quite clear. Our current aim is to wipe out only those allied to or a significant part of old Blackstar so that we may create a new Blackstar, aka Whitestar. As Coolpikaaa's character correctly hints at, if we kill everybody we will also die, so we must leave some people alive.

Essentially this means that we will be targeting older and more experienced roleplayers (who are perhaps online the most frequently?). This would give the newer and perhaps more inexperienced roleplayers to bonus of being able to play at their own pace with significantly less pressure. To those dreamers who do not care for the current Blackstar and have no history here, we would be overjoyed if you would like to join forces with us, or even if you simply decide to stay impartial and allow us to do what we need to do, though if you choose to stand against us we will show you no mercy.)

[3kul]

((Man, I should have stayed up an hour later, I only just missed this... Not that it matters because my main characters are all tied up atm, and I now realize that my response to this nicely done welcome thread is going to be entirely OOC

Uh, so welcome to Blackstar, The Whitestar Regime (or welcome back? I don't really know how to greet you since you seem to be an old member who's never posted before this ). Always interesting to see somebody declare war on us, and you appear to have given yours a unique twist. It's actually a little difficult to hate you for it when you've pretty much got a gun to your head like you do (you're certainly the most apologetic of people to invade us...), I'll be interested to see where you take this.

I have a bit of a question for you though, The Whitestar Regime: you mention that you are after those allied to and a part of "old" Blackstar as your necessary targets, and that anybody new and not interested in defending the Dojo is free to do as they please - what about newer characters belonging to older members?

Also, just so you know I don't think we actually have many new members as our registration form is reported to be buggy, but I'm not 100% certain about that (it was reported a few months ago so it may have been fixed since then).

EDIT: You're giant dream-eating bugs?! And here I was imagining you as some kind of psychic mole-people...

You guys really like being in-character, huh? Doing your entire profile like that is a bit weird (if you'll look around you'll notice that most of us write our profiles OOC), but I suppose since you've been unbelievably thorough in what you've written it's not really a problem.))

[Coolpikaaa]

((No characters? Ah 3kul, here I was thinking you would be first to reply to my EC transmission.

As for this new regime, have you guys thought about diplomatic meetings? A few drinks at our bar? (It's the only shop that still works.) Of course, I don't know how your bodies would handle the extreme amounts of alcohol in our beverages... ))

-coolpikaaa

[Cirrial]

(( Well, the older characters I have that aren't already active in another RP at the moment aren't really that closely tied to Blackstar, so I guess I'm going with the sole Blackstar native character I have, Aurichalcite. ...Although I may throw another character or two into the mix later if it's okay with everyone else. ))

Radio receivers, rusty and disused, but nowhere near the level of age or antiquity of the Whitestar regime's transmitters, suddenly pulse with activity. The single intelligence still interested in maintaining these worn-out, broken-down receptors is jolted from an almost trance-like state of concentration.

A constructed intelligence, one with many forms and many bodies, studies the message in an electronic world of its own construction.

Inside the long-abandoned laboratory complex it calls its home, the spacious underground warehouses are filled with small black cubes, each home to an entire planet, some with their own sapient life. Aurichalcite, once a humble creation at the hands of Dojodian scientists, now exists as a careful, patient creator and curator of an entire system of worlds.

The threat of war is something new to the young AI. While it is aware of wars in the past, of streams of invaders from varying sources, it does not recall being active during any such dramatic upheaval.

In the not-too-distant past, it would have considered such activity a sign to lock down all of its machine-bodies and defend its home, hoping to last the war with little involvement on either side. Now, with its collection of precious worlds, teeming with life resulting from millions of computed generations, Aurichalcite realises that it alone cannot hope to protect them and itself from whatever threats may emerge.

It ponders on the nature of its situation.

The structure of this facility and the technology within may be of too much value for either faction to completely ignore. Neutrality will not necessarily protect me. I must ally myself with the current Blackstar or the Whitestar regime to ensure survival for myself and my creations.

Surely, as a creation of Blackstar's scientists, I owe it to my creators to ally myself with Blackstar? Yet perhaps the invasion may benefit Blackstar in the long term. This is a conundrum I find myself unable to solve. Further information is required. I must find representatives of both factions.

The mind of Aurichalcite, currently divided among a few of its more favoured worlds, flows into some of its preferred bodies in the physical world. About twenty large, shiny white drones, resembling snakes in shape and flexibility, jump into life. Their smooth, featureless heads display rectangles of light where eyes would be on a creature of flesh and blood.

The snake drones wind their way to a hatch leading to nothing but dirt and rock, installed specifically for them. They tunnel through the hatch, with alarming ease for things with no clear digging apparatus, and depart, each drone with a wildly different intended destination.

Some tunnel deeper underground, some head for the surface as much as possible, while others are intended to surface and find the highest points of the world. With no clear indication as to where the seemingly omnipresent invaders are, Aurichalcite attempts to look absolutely everywhere, on, in and around Blackstar, for a single representative.

[The Whitestar Regime]

(We are here to provide answers, both those that were asked for and those that were not. Once again we are doing so 'out of character', we hope that this shall not cause any inconveniences. We feel that we shall have to deal with Aurichalcite's snakes 'in character', and so Cirrial, regretfully we must ask that you wait until our roleplay has officially begun before we respond to them. Our sincerest apologies if you were expecting a speedier response, but we feel that we would only make things horribly confusing if we tried to explain them here and 'out of character'.

"you mention that you are after those allied to and a part of "old" Blackstar as your necessary targets, and that anybody new and not interested in defending the Dojo is free to do as they please - what about newer characters belonging to older members?"

To tell you the truth, we had not anticipated that such characters exist, and even now we are not entirely sure that they do... But if you or other older members have a character who knows nothing of Blackstar and has no intention of opposing us then we suppose that we would not have any reason to harm them.

"I must ally myself with the current Blackstar or the Whitestar regime to ensure survival for myself and my creations."

We do not expect to gain sympathizers or allies in this war, but to those considering it please know that simply supporting our cause is not enough: if you have any ties to the Blackstar of old, we will be forced to kill you. We do not want to, but when we formed this regime we swore that we would do everything within our power to ensure that Whitestar will not meet the same fate as it's predecessor.

"As for this new regime, have you guys thought about diplomatic meetings? A few drinks at our bar? (It's the only shop that still works.) Of course, I don't know how your bodies would handle the extreme amounts of alcohol in our beverages... "

You have a kind heart Coolpikaaa, more so than many others here, but diplomatic meetings are not known for solving problems quickly, and we are still starving to death even now.

If we entered into peaceful negotiations with the Dojodians, all you would really have to do is stall for time until we are either extinct or so few in number that we have no choice but to agree to whatever terms you choose to come up with. It is not that we do not trust you, but... We are scared. We do not mean to be rude, but it seems that there are many problems with Blackstar that have been left in a state of disrepair: 3kul points out that new immigrants may not have been able to reach these lands for many months now, and you yourself note that only one of the stores is fully functional. At this rate, we believe that Blackstar may very well be abandoned within a year, and if that happens we shall all perish.

In addition to this, we could never ask you to take responsibility for the hundreds and thousands of our fellow children who would die in the months that it would take us to reach an agreement that suits both parties... No, better that we become invaders hated by all than burden good souls like yourself with such a heavy cross to bear.

With this in mind, we are afraid that we must respectfully decline your invitation to diplomatic meetings as well as your offer of drinks (incidentally, we are incapable of the bodily function that you refer to as 'drinking', though were our circumstances different we would have been delighted to receive such an invitation all the same).

We understand that our actions seem rash, but we truly feel that we have no longer have any other choice. We suspect that some of you may have the strength to face the Reaper when he comes for you, but we are weak, so very weak, and we will do anything to extend our time here in this beautiful world that we have come to know and love. We cannot bear to leave it, or the wondrous dreams that sustain us... For what it is worth, please know that we have the realm's best interests at heart as well as our own: if we can make this world flourish once more then so shall we.

Today we have chosen to allow a brief but respectful mourning period for all of those children who could not live to see the formation of the Whitestar regime or bear witness to the glorious new life that we shall soon breathe into this realm.

Dojodians, you may spend the day doing as you wish, but know that with hardened hearts we march on the 'morrow.)

[Swix]

((I'm curious, just how far down do you guys live? I know of at least two other species that do))

[The Whitestar Regime]

(Prior to emerging from the underground for the first time we had no real understanding of direction or depth, so it is quite difficult to say...

We have never encountered any other races before, so we believe that we must be very deep underground indeed... Though admittedly we are in the habit of abandoning older tunnels and allowing them to simply collapse in on themselves, and before we planned this war even with our vast numbers we did not really move around all that much, so perhaps we are not so deep after all?

Incidentally, we consider our original place of birth to be 'the heart of Blackstar', referring to the realm's 'core'... but as far as we know it is just a name, we cannot be certain that it is actually the centremost point of the realm.)