My least favorite theory regarding NBT also happens to involve one of my least favorite subjects. I’ve cleaned up more than my fair share of insect spirit hives, but I am only one person. My work in stomping out the bug population has barely made a dent. At present, there is a lot of anti-bug sentiment sweeping North America, and I believe Ares plans to take advantage of that as best it can. Nothing gets more love and better press than a reformed villain-turned-hero, and Ares wants to be this media darling. If Ares can better embody its “making the world a safer place” slogan end result thereof—isn’t going to be called Avalon 2.0 or Excalibur
II. Ares is going to distance itself as far from Arthurian monikers for as long as possible.
>
One of my contacts tells me Ares has some off-the-books operation called “Gáe Bolg.” Wasn’t that the name of some magical weapon from some mythology or other? And could this be related to “Avalon 2.0”?>
Pistons>
Gáe Bolg was the spear of Irish folklore hero Cúchulainn, and it was made from the bones of a sea monster. When it impaled an enemy, so many barbs sprang forth from the spearhead while it was imbedded in the flesh that one had to cut the corpse away in order to free the spear.>
Frosty>
That’s not frightening at all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to try not contemplating the possible correlations of a corp trying to make mythology match reality.>
Pistonsborn to shoP
Have you ever found yourself doing something and then realized you don’t remember why you started doing it in the first place, as though the person you were when you began and the person you are now are two different people? That’s part of a rumor that I’m hoping is pure fiction. I don’t know the official moniker for this one, but I’m calling SocialScape, because it’s apropos.
Corporations exist for one reason and one reason only: to turn a profit. For a corp to turn a profit, it needs to make products, and consumers need to buy those products (yes, I know, this is basic stuff, but stay with me here). For all but the most basic physiological items on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, corps have to convince consumers to spend their hard-earned nuyen. The corps are essentially waging a war with potential customers, and things like marketing and advertising are the opening salvos that will hopefully knock down defenses and convince these poor fools to part with their money. Now, imagine for a moment if corps didn’t need to rain artillery shells filled with explosive marketing upon their potential client base. What if a corp could use small- caliber sidearms to win its battles in the marketplace? Or what if a corp could close a deal with a smile and a handshake instead of a weapon of any kind?
Here’s the most disturbing thought: What if there was no war over consumers at all? What if people woke up and immediately thought, “Man, I need to go get more Ares-branded products today”? What if people bought from a specific corp because they felt it was their civic and patriotic duty to buy Product X, as if they were born for that very purpose? If you eliminate the need for marketing altogether, that means lower overhead and higher profit.
Corps trying to brainwash the masses is nothing new. Subliminal advertising has been around since long before the Awakening and isn’t going anyway anytime soon. SocialScape,
however, is something different. Where subliminal advertising tricks your subconscious into a certain behavior, SocialScape involves no trickery, per se. Instead, it would actually rewrite minuscule parts of your brain using tailored nanites.
Ares
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further woes
>
In light of recent events, Sticks sent me this little addendum. I hope it won’t keep you awake at night.>
FastJackexit row
For any of you rooting for Ares to recover from their Excalibur foibles: start running for the hills, because a piece of the sky just fell. Literally. Not five minutes ago, I discovered something that is going to send Ares into a tailspin. The following internal memo was just circulated amongst the top brass at Ares, and no statements have yet been made to the press.
//upload encrypted uniformat email :: user sticks// //running decrypt set velvet hammer//
date: 09.05.74
to: <undisclosed recipients> from: t. Carpenter
subject: mr. aurelius All:
Young Nick will unfortunately be unable to attend tomorrow’s board meeting. He passed away a few hours ago, as I’m sure many of you have already heard. I know you must want details, though I am loath to review what happened, as it was one of the most horrific incidents I have ever witnessed. I’m still in complete and utter shock. But I owe it both to Nick and to all of you to share what happened.
This evening, Nicholas and I were taking his Gulfstream to Detroit when the pilot reported a rough patch of turbulence. As the plane was shaking around us, Nick took off his safety belt and got up from his seat in a fit of apparent rage. In all the years I’ve worked with him, I’d never seen him like that. The head flight attendant insisted he remain in his seat, but Nick fought him off and made a mad dash to the exit door. Nick popped the emergency exit and threw himself out of the aircraft at ten thousand meters before any of us could stop him. No parachute. No explanation.
I had the pilot make an emergency landing at the nearest airport, and we scrambled a helo to search for the body. What little we found was not pretty. Fortunately, I was able to catch the whole incident on my commlink. I’ve attached the footage I managed to capture. Fair warning though: This is not for the faint of heart. Until we can figure out just what would possess Nick to willfully throw himself out of an airplane, we should keep this under wraps. To preserve his dignity, I believe we should have a more credible story to tell the press. Parachuting accident or something. In any case, the Aurelius dynasty has run its course. As painful as it is to lose Nick’s visionary leadership, now we must look toward the future of this company in order to keep our heads above water. in a very tangible, public way, perhaps the public might forgive
the corp its missteps with the Excalibur. This is why I believe Ares is going to do something drastic in front of the camera, for the whole world to see.
Despite my feelings towards bugs, I have major problems with whatever publicity stunt Ares has up their sleeve. Even if their good-faith display goes off without a hitch, it will be more flash than substance, and the general public won’t know the difference. What’s worse is if the stunt goes awry—and we all know it will— then God help all of those nearby.
Believe what you will, but these are the facts. Bugs can’t be contained. You can’t train them. Even an insect shaman is just a dupe. Ares should know all of this already, and I can tell you right now that whatever they plan to do is the wrong way to go about it. Period. They don’t know bugs like I do, and hopefully they never will. All they’re going to do is get people killed.
>
The best story I’ve heard about Ares and the bugs so far is they intend to set up a fake hive in some abandoned building. AGE film crews will then capture footage of a Firewatch team or a Knight Errant SWAT squad “discovering” this hive “right in the middle of the city” and putting it to the torch.>
Fianchetto>
I’ve heard similar, except that they plan to stage it in the Aurora Warrens in Denver.>
Kay St. Irregular>
Does Ghostwalker know about that, I wonder?>
Fianchetto>
If he doesn’t already, he does now.>
Winterhawk>
I’ll do you guys one better. Some chucklehead told me that Ares recently scheduled several consecutive launches at the Kilimanjaro Mass Driver, and none of them are spacecraft headed to any of the space stations Ares owns. They’re not even proper rockets, truth be told. From what I understand, Ares plans to put flesh-form bug spirits in these space capsules and launch them into space. The idea is to monitor them and study the effects of the bugs as they leave the confines of Earth’s manasphere.>
Bull>
Oh, that is rich.>
2XL>
Ares is playing with fire. They need to stop this before it bites them in the ass.>
SticksAres
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right digital fingerprints for a Sony Emperor, and the encoding looks clean.>
Slamm-0!>
So what the hell was that? Paranoid delusions? Shedim possession? Something else?>
DangerSensei>
Guys, I’ve run weather data for that night over the airspace in which Aurelius would’ve been traveling. There’s no way that Gulfstream hit any turbulence.>
Turbo Bunny>
What was with all the shaking in the footage, then? Something was throwing that plane around.>
Plan 9>
Yeah, but it sure as hell wasn’t turbulence.>
Turbo Bunny>
It was wasp spirits.>
Sticks>
Are you sure?>
Turbo Bunny>
Yes. Once you’ve heard that sound they make, you will never, ever forget it.>
Sticks If any of you need anything, let me know. I will do everything inmy power to help in this time of crisis. Regretfully,
Troy Carpenter
Vice President, Ares Global Entertainment <attachment: snyemP-tCarP-127d.trd3> //end file//
>
I am speechless. Aurelius? Really? I wonder what crawled up in his brain to make him do that? Would the video shed some light on the subject?>
Clockwork>
I haven’t managed to get my hands on it yet, and the more I think about it, I’m not sure I even want to find it.>
Sticks>
Here you go. That took me, what, fifteen minutes?>
Clockwork//upload encrypted .trd3 trideo file :: user Clockwork//
>
I feel like I need to pop my eyes out and wash them in bleach.Ares
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hive of ant spirits on the other side of town. The goal was to prove the effectiveness of Aurelius’ initiative, but the flesh-form ant spirits overwhelmed the wasps, and those few wasps that survived turned on their handlers and killed the entire Firewatch team.
Insect spirits have a long memory, and to this day I believe they hold grudges. Not until I read the announcement of Aurelius’ death did my theory prove true. His project essentially involved torturing various insect spirits—both flesh-form and true-form— into compliance. I have no idea how many of the bugs’ merges were killed by weapons tests or Project Pyro combat simulations, but each death, disruption, or banishment only compounded the bugs’ hatred of Aurelius.
I’ve since learned that Avalon’s initial incarnation was Nick’s idea as well. He wanted a way to unilaterally destroy bug spirits without compunction, in case Knight’s obsession with controlling them ever got out of hand. Unfortunately, Avalon was shuttered due to Aztechnology extracting their lead developer, and Aurelius rechristened the project to recoup some dignity from the loss.
I think if Avalon had been successful, Ares would be in a much better place right now. A weapon designed specifically to kill bugs would have turned the tide of the war. Instead, all that Avalon and Pyro accomplished was to piss off the bugs even more for all the suffering inflicted upon them at Knight and Aurelius’ command.
I can’t definitively prove it one way or another, but I believe Nicholas Aurelius’ exit-row mishap was his way of trying to outrun wasp spirits that were threatening to take down his plane. I think he believed that even if he managed to survive the attack, how long would it be before the entire world is overrun by bugs? And then he asserted control over the only thing that he could truly control: his exit strategy.
Tragic, considering he was fighting against the system by working at it from within. I don’t agree with everything he did, but I gotta give him some respect for trying. Ares lost one of its biggest assets in the war against the bugs, and there are few who could successfully fill his shoes.
As a tip for the rest of you, take heed: avoid accepting any bug bounty contracts in the foreseeable future. The hives are getting bigger, and our capacity to effectively fight them is growing smaller by the day. If you’re not going in with an army or two, you might not be coming back out.