Monomachiarum is a multifandom experiece that takes the characters into the chaotic future of the 30th century in the great expanse of space. Our lore is a combination of worlds brought in from other franchises, lore created by the site founder, and user-submitted information in order to make a vast and diverse setting. Add your pages to our grand story no matter who your characters might be or where they came from before. This is a place meant to explore possibilities and open new doors. Canons and OCs are welcome, just so long as they can fit into the setting with a little bit of reasonable modification here and there if necessary. So what are you waiting for? Join us today! If you'd like to get to know our community more, feel free to check out our Discord channel.
May 2023 It's been hectic this last year, but we are alive and celebrating our fifth year of adventure and tales. A lot has been worked on to help make the Monoverse one that everyone can enjoy and explore their story while becoming a part of the greater cosmos. All of you, new and long time players, stay safe, and see you in the Sea of Stars!
Post by Lemon Jankins on Sept 19, 2023 1:56:38 GMT
Lemon hadn't reacted to the hand on her shoulder, she was busy distancing herself from emotion, dissociating, an unhealthy defense mechanism for sure, but a familiar one that had kept her alive in the past. When the rest of the party stepped onto the lift, she followed suit and rode it down in silence. Her eyes widened with realization as she beheld the prison, a large number of psychically sensitive entities would certainly explain what she'd been seeing, feeling. A mixture of dulled relief and anger flowed beneath the layer of ice and cold logic. When one of them spoke in a tongue she couldn't understand, she looked to the others. "Chozia" the language was called, she didn't have it installed on her device, no time to fiddle with technology though.
Her gaze focused on the prisoner who spoke, doing everything she could to shut out the rest of the miasmic misery of the others. She conjured up images and impressions, while listening for a potential response.
[Flashed snippets of the party's arrival and journey to the prison, a summary of events; images of doors opening, keys entering locks, a question; a prison with towers, guards patrolling, a barracks, another question]
The images would be tinged with a cold, calculated, sensation, but she presumed that the message would get across that they were there to help or at least get them out of where they were.
Post by The Huntress on Sept 19, 2023 17:05:18 GMT
URA MAR ILI AS'RÁM. URA'MAHÀR TANÚMAR HABÁR BÓK URA OM.
The worn and withdrawn Chozo recoiled a moment from Eresh's touch, but calmed once they heard the words from his beak speak of kin. They blinked, meeting the gaze of the ebony feathered tiercel before them, then looking at his companions. Their beak trembled before slowly nodding. The translation would come through the hunters' translation utilities once the required modules were accessed, audibly overlapping the words in their own languages while they could still hear the Chozo's own native tongue speaking.
"You are from the Federation? What of the Kromus who have taken our home, the Terrans from Faro? I can't imagine they would have just let you four walk in without resistance."
After a moment, the Chozo stood, a bit unsteady due to malnourishment and no doubt "interrogation" by the Pirates and Faro's staff. "As I said, I am Drí-máka, of the As'rám tribe. We have been held here underneath our Nest for some years now, first by the Kromus, then by the humans from Faro." A pause as the Chozo stepped slowly toward the plexisteel door and revealed more of their appearance. To the Mawkin, they were obviously a female Chozo, duller markings in her plumage with a slimmer beak while her shoulders now clearly sloped more softly than a tiercel's would. Her voice was clear now that it had been damaged from her mistreatment and negligence of their Kromus captors, cracked and hoarse. "To my knowledge, we are all that is left of our tribe…though considering what we have done, perhaps this is punishment for our mistakes on Auríga."
She blinked a moment, peering carefully at her rescuers, and particularly the tall armored Mawkin. "You…understand chozia, you appear as if you are Chozo, like us…yet…you are like our ancestors…larger and built like a warrior, clad in armor like theirs. We have not had warriors in so many millennia…" A pause once more as Drí-máka would examine Eresh further, then glanced at his companions. Two humans, one with cat-like features, and the third was a canine-humanoid that was almost as tall as the Mawkin. "What has happened since ten cycles ago? We haven't spoken to Zebes in so long, surely the Mother Brain still has record of our Nest."
Post by Eresh Tarren on Sept 19, 2023 22:19:27 GMT
Eresh would listen as Drí-máka spoke and explained the state of her tribe… and the apparent fate they deserved for what happened. His talons would slowly scrape against the window as he absorbed what she said, and he steadied his breath as he answered her.
“I am Eresh Tarren of the Mawkin tribe, and there has been much that has happened in the last ten cycles, far more than we have time to go over now. But the Zebes Nest has fallen, the Kromus ransacked the planet. Fortunately a number of Chozo were rescued from the disaster. But why do you say that you and your kin deserve what has been happening to you? How can we free you?”
He elected to omit the betrayal of Mother Brain.. he felt that the knowledge that she had gone rogue would only cause even more stress — and he didn’t wish to inflict any more pain to their conscience.
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Sept 19, 2023 23:49:30 GMT
Not getting a clear answer from the others, Tycho took to thumbing through a database of translator software while he kept his ears open for terms that sounded like pertinent nouns or names. "Chozia" returned a result, once he heard it, and took a moment to download the language model to his cyberware. It was listed as a relatively rare language, which presumably explained it not being auto-detected.
Once he was clued in and could understand Eresh and Drí-máka's words, he returned to having a look at the cell's security systems. He seemed almost frantic in his haste, like the psychic despair was driving him a little more crazy than he was letting on, but his demeanor was cautiously returning to being as stonefaced as it had been before. Now that he understood more about what was going on, these imposed emotions were slightly easier to compartmentalize...
< "The mechanisms on these cells look like more of the Kromus tech we saw above." > Tycho looked between Eresh and the other Chozo as he spoke, the language feeling ever-so-alien on his hijacked tongue. His eyes lingering for a little too long on Drí-máka, before returning to the systems the Vlaka had made brief and futile attempts to mess with. Somehow, despite everything, there was curiosity there... as well as an understanding of why this seemed so personal to Eresh before.
< "I think it's some kind of scanner? Biometrics, would be my guess..." > Seeming satisfied in at least having a look at it, the Vlaka picked his rifle back up and took a position by Lemon, watching the hallway down further into this prison while keeping a watchful eye on her. He didn't know what she was doing beyond what she said, but she seemed focused enough on whatever it was.
< "I think we'll need a Kromus body to get it open. Whoever used to guard this place, if not whoever was in charge..." >
Post by Lemon Jankins on Sept 20, 2023 0:03:57 GMT
Nothing is ever as surface-level as what is actively being said, and while she still couldn't understand the words, the meaning came across well enough. She stopped listening and grumbled a bit as the others continued conversing in the alien tongue, no avoiding the translators she guessed, as she sat down and started the annoying process of downloading translator data.
Glancing up at the wolfman as he investigated the door and it's locking mechanism, she still couldn't understand him but the lack of pulling a gun out to shoot the locks meant that her idea hadn't been thought of yet. She floated her plasma pistol up a little as she fiddled with the screen on her device.
"Kin ya just shoot tha locks out an force tha doors open?"
Finally Eresh would turn his attention to the others just as Lemon made her suggestion, and he would glance back at the Chozo in her cell. “Are we sure that isn’t going to result in some security measure activating? Even if we kill the power to the door, that’s not s guarantee that there isn’t a failsafe to ensure that the prisoners wouldn’t escape.” He cautioned. The presence of survivors, Chozo survivors, caused his nerves to be primed for any number of possible worst case scenarios, and it showed.
“Perhaps we should try an alternative solution first before resorting to that for the moment.” He said as he looked at the other cells “Unless we can shut down power to this entire detention block, maybe..”
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Sept 20, 2023 2:10:33 GMT
< "Power's gonna have to go before we try anything." > Tycho asserted, continuing to speak in Chozia if for no other reason than for the prisoner to stay appraised of their plans. < "Plasma will eat right through that mechanism, but I don't think its worth taking the chance if there's a failsafe in place. Not with so many lives." >
From Lemon, he looked to Drí-máka, stepping back up to the glass to address her directly. There was an intensity in the Vlaka's eyes, now, something pushing back against the despair weighing down on him, even if he knew it wasn't out of malice. He wasn't sure why the Chozo thought she deserved to be where she was, but he frankly didn't care. Whatever this was, whatever made them all feel this way, these were still innocent lives as far as he was concerned.
< "I echo Eresh's question, and follow it with a few more. We're going to do everything we can to help you and your people out of this, but any information you can give us now can help us do that." > A tilt of the head, yellow eyes flicking between the uneaten food and signs of the Chozo's injuries.
< "Can you tell us what happened here, where the Kromus went? How many of you are imprisoned down here?" >
Post by The Huntress on Sept 20, 2023 18:00:56 GMT
URA MAR ILI AS'RÁM. URA'MAHÀR TANÚMAR HABÁR BÓK URA OM.
The formel sighed as she steadied herself against the wall of her cell. "There are perhaps two dozen of us left after all these cycles. Those that were lost have been harvested by the Kromus for their genetic material and use as…sustenance…"
A shudder, but Drí-máka forced herself to continue so that these would-be rescuers knew what had transpired. "But their crimes are nothing compared to those that we committed ourselves." Even across the autotuned audio translation, the shame was thick in her words, while her head dipped a bit in self-disappointment. "We dug too deep into a pit we never should have looked into, thinking we could undo the fate that dooms us now…but we only created an abomination, a spawn of the deep chaos that should never have been born."
A pause as she seemed to collect herself, pushing aside shame as her eyes blinked wet in her sorrow. "Two centuries ago, we came to Auríga, when the stars were further apart, their spiral more alive and not the closing embrace of stellar death. We of the As'rám had been seeking to undo the enigmatic plague that had driven us to sterility over these last few millennia, but no solutions could be found. When we arrived here, the great tree we are within gave us hope, seeing as it grew and was continuously revitalizing itself, renewing instead of aging." Another pause to collect her thoughts, and to seat herself as her legs began to shake. "We thought that Y'dris'al might hold an answer to reverse the plague on our species, perhaps some strange mineral here that gave it such immortal properties." Again, she sighed, this time her shame clear as Drí-máka took a breath and continued. "But we didn't understand this planet at all, what made it what it is, and we turned to ancient rites that were long ago pit behind us as a civilization. We wanted answers, we wanted hope…and in our desperation, we opened an abyss that we cannot bury again…"
Post by Eresh Tarren on Sept 20, 2023 18:17:16 GMT
Eresh would listen, and as he did so he felt a surge of rage flood his limbs as she described what the Kromus had been doing to her people. But when she began speaking on what they had done to themselves, what dark void they uncovered and the.. thing that emerged; it couldn’t help but pause. This sounded so much like what the The’nau on SR388 had been trying to do, though in the opposite direction. The memories of what he saw in the depths surfaced in his mind.. the screams coming from his friend as a dying monster tore through her armor and into the flesh beneath it..
The Mawkin shook himself as he banished those thoughts to the back of his mind, and he would remove his hand from the transparent window. “Whatever your sins, I cannot pass judgement on you cousin. I know how badly this desperation has affected all the tribes.. and it has led to mistakes. We Mawkin share at least a shadow of it, we hang over a precipice even as we speak. So I understand your intentions.. and I will not condemn or absolve you for what came from it- it would be hypocritical of me.”
He looked at the rest of the cells before back to Dri-Maka “I cannot allow you to rot here either. We will free you.. and hopefully Justice can be found for your tribe. The humans and Kromus who have tortured you- right now they are the focus of my wrath,” he then added “But I will also settle for putting down whatever that dark monster may be as well.”
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Sept 20, 2023 21:26:05 GMT
Tycho's eyes were on Eresh, now. He could feel weight of the words with which he spoke, know that there was more history there than he could hope to know. Whatever the circumstances were that led these Chozo to this point, they were suffering now, and that could be changed. That was what mattered to him-- in absence of any understanding of the wider scale, Tycho found it to be enough to ease his conscience. For now.
He was too busy thinking about Drí-máka's first comment, such as it was. The one about... harvesting, and sustenance. It was hard to ignore how nauseous that made him feel-- not out of disgust or weak will, but pure burning contempt. To even imagine that kind of horror, watching your friends and loved ones be dragged away to be eaten, or "harvested" like meat... his thoughts aligned perfectly with that which he felt bearing down on him.
He let out a low string of curses in Vlakan, overpowering his cyberwear's hijack with a twitch of the eye, before continuing on in Chozia. < "I'm starting to get the feeling that this monster's made short work of the facility's staff already. If everything we've seen so far is any indication, anyway." > Eyes turning back to Drí-máka, anxiously tapping a claw on his rifle's handguard. < "This... thing, this monster. What is it, and how do we kill it?" >
Post by Makoto Nijima on Sept 20, 2023 21:33:41 GMT
“I’m so sorry your people had to experience that pain.” Queen replied softly, having found her translation device and downloaded the relevant language from the extranet.
Listening to the poor prisoner’s story caused Makoto’s anger to flare. These Kromus demons were monsters; but what was worse was that the Chozo had unwittingly removed a seal on a darker power. What this abyss was or who it was holding was another question that probed Makoto’s mind. Nevertheless, she was currently focused with freeing Dri-maka and any remaining prisoners.
“I have food and medicine for you and any remaining survivors in the facility. Please, if you have any other information that may help us, it would be greatly appreciated.” Queen said softly, standing beside Eresh to reveal herself.
URA MAR ILI AS'RÁM. URA'MAHÀR TANÚMAR HABÁR BÓK URA OM.
Drí-máka would look at the armored Mawkin, her eyes weary and dull, even as she and her people had been given a hope to escape. "Freedom is not to be ours, warrior. We sinned against our own, and it is those poor kin of ours who offered themselves in our blind hope…they suffer far more than us…" Again, she sighed, leaning against the wall as she contemplated. "Before the Kromus arrived, we had imprisoned those we had wronged in our old city, Elsék, past the great lake of An'dúvald that lays beneath Y'dris'al. The Pirates and Faro have been working to enter the old city, but they don't understand what lies within there…nor that this world is running out of time, and that was why we did not attempt to flee Auríga.
"We engaged in ancient forsaken rituals that our ancestors had tried to make hidden and forgotten, forbidden knowledge of the darkness which permeates the universe alongside the light that guides all. This, and genetic manipulation, was used in attempt to overwhelm whatever pathogen has been causing our species' sterility, but in our desperation, we allowed hubris to consume us, to make us think we could be free of consequences…and those that suffered our mistakes can never be themselves again…"
She carefully watched the reactions of the four hunters, her eyes wet with her sorrow and guilt for what her people had done. "The Kromus have been harvesting our genetic material in hopes of combining it with their own, something to do with a person they call…the Hunter. It began about…I think maybe two or three cycles ago, just before the humans from Faro arrived. They're determined to create some kind of hybrid using our genetic material to augment themselves somehow. I do not know what has come of their experiments so far, but if they are using our own technologies that they took when they invaded us, it may be more than just our own sins that would walk this planet…but that…"
She trailed off, her beak trembling, yet mixing the faintest sign of a smile at the corners where softer beak tissue melded with flesh and feathers on her face. "As long as they cannot leave with their abominations, then the cosmos will set things right…but you…" Drí-máka shook her head, a few grey and faded blue feathers floating down from her face. "I would advise you to make your way to An'dúvald and then to the geofront city in Elsék…and let our poor kin know peace before you all flee this place and leave it to the end that all stars and planets must face.
"The stars will be colliding, we have known this for decades now. All we ask is that you end the suffering of the abomination that we created, and flee so that the stars will cleanse what we did and us with it."
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Sept 21, 2023 3:18:04 GMT
Tycho's eyes suddenly narrowed, with a tilt of the head. When he spoke next, his translated Chozia couldn't escape the growl he suddenly found lacing his words.
< "Freedom will be yours whether you like it or not. I'm not going to pretend I understand the nuance of your people's beliefs, if this has something to do with those... and respectfully, I don't care either way. Look past your grief." >
Aware of the change in tone, he gently set his rifle aside, leaning it up against the cell door. He rested a balled fist on Eresh's side, a gesture somewhere between an apology and a nonverbal ask to back him up on this.
< "If you feel so burdened by your sins, it is your duty to carry them forward. All of you, all that are left. To live, and teach those that would one day think to make the same mistake." >
Little by little, the anger was helping him push back against the blanket of psychic depression. It was less a healthy processing and more a distraction, but at the very least the despair was all the less crushing. At least this way it could be put to good use.
< "You now bear the burden of an important lesson, and that's history you cannot let die. If those suns collide and sweep this whole system away, who will be left to ensure this never happens again? To ensure some other Chozo tribe out there, someone more desperate than you, someone that found something worse buried on some planet out there, doesn't repeat what your people did? Who will those Chozo trust more... some records of a distant catastrophe, or the warnings of their kin?" >
Eresh couldn’t finish his sentence. This revelation caused him to drop his hands as an unfamiliar sense of helplessness came to him. These Chozo wanted to be forsaken, everything they possessed destroyed the purifying fires of cosmic annihilation.. such was the weight of their crimes and their desire to atone for what they had wrought- touching forces that even Eresh understood as dangerous. There was honor in that, a lingering nobility of spirit that Eresh could recognize and respect.. but to lose these people felt like admitting that the Thoha were truly doomed, that their extinction couldn’t be averted.. and that everything that Samus and her father fought for was pointless.
The warrior within him, however, latched onto what Dri-Maka said about the abominations her tribe bore into the world and the Kromus attempting to use her peoples genes to become something more, something like Ha’chidari.. he could not allow that. Holding Dri-Maka’s gaze the Mawkin’s shoulders slouched minutely as he sorrowfully bowed his head. When he looked back up his posture would again become tall and stoic as he softly, but confidently gave his answer.
“Do not worry, we will end their suffering.. once and for all.”
And his right hand would press against his chest fist closed- a salute in her honor and that of the rest of her tribe. His mind as still a maelstrom as he processed what she told them, but the mission was now all that mattered. It was the best thing that they could do for these Chozo. Turning to look at Tycho, he would then speak to him. “We cannot force them to come with us if it’s not their choice. And do not worry.. her words will reach the right ears- I will ensure they do.” And he would tap his helmet softly.
“But what we can do, is honor her request and make sure that the monsters on this planet, Chozo and Kromus, don’t leave it.”
Post by Lemon Jankins on Sept 26, 2023 1:20:39 GMT
Lemon paused a moment as she finally finished fiddling with her translator and heard what was being said. She was silent for a few seconds as she processed, and then the wave of disgust could be felt by all in the vicinity. Her translator began spitting as she stood and began checking her equipment, they'd need to be riding the elevator down shortly if the mentioned abominations were still in the labs.
"Ya fucked up, committed atrocities, an' now tha ya gots a chance ta atone yer pickin oblivion. Cowards, ya'd rather push lilies an let someone else deal with correctin course. Ya live with yer sins as a warnin fer yer future, not jus' throw yerself into tha Reaper's arms an leave tha work fer another life. Suicide by Sun, y'ain't even bein proactive. At least tell us that we ain't all gonna be vaporized today, ah'd rather not be caught up in yer damn suicide pact"
She walked over to the entrance to wait, she had nothing further to get from this place, not unless the quails in the cells changed their mind about hugging a nova before she left.
