Categories > Games > StarCraft > Steel, Soul, and Spirit
Prologue: Approaching Storm
1 reviewThey were created by the Terran Dominion, secret weapons forged from Zerg flesh and Terran steel. They were the ultimate war machines, unstoppable on the battlefield. They were incapable of questio...
0Unrated
/STEEL, SOUL, AND SPIRIT/
By
Gregory P. Wong
Prologue: Approaching Storm
She rushed this way and that way, striking. Szcraa reared up, spitting a Terran marine on her scythes. The soft creature wriggled in its death throes, before sagging on its grisly support, dead.
/"I will annihilate all the enemies of the glorious Swarm!" she roared. /Wait... This is not right. I just referred to myself... What is happening!?
Suddenly her dream changed tone, with a suicidal carrier colliding with the great Overmind. The shockwave was only a momentary reprieve.
Terran and Protoss attackers assaulted with more determination than before. She felt a bullet enter her arm, and saw hive-mates ripped to shreds from the powerful weapons. Then she entered darkness. Her mind screamed in pain, pain from memories that were not hers. The nightmares had only begun...
She found it strange though, that she was never at Auir...
***
Excerpt from a Confederacy Newspaper: In laboratories today, scientists have admitted to the research into Zerg/Machine hybrids today. Further details will be issued in the next few weeks.
***
"I find this type of research an abomination," snarled Dr. Cassandra Govalich, geneticist of the Terran Confederacy. "First we clone and fuse these Zerg with technology we don't even fully understand, and now you want me to give them sentience? Do you know what could happen if we create intelligent Zerg?"
"Of course I know the consequences," replied master scientist Charles Thurston, frowning, "with sentience these Cyborgs can increase their efficiency!"
"Sir, I must refuse this work. It is unethical, even if we are using Zerg clones."
"You will not refuse!" growled Thurston. "Especially if you want to remain an employee of Terran Confederacy, and if you want your continued safety/!" The Terran Confederacy had a nasty habit of... /hurting those who did not like to cooperate.
Glaring, she returned to her lab and began her work.
***
Cassandra slept in a little room housed within a Terran Confederacy compound, on the world of Waj Norhal. Waj Norhal was a fringe world of the Terran Confederacy of Man, the perfect place to carry out research in relative secrecy. The lush grasslands and myriad mountains provided more than enough resources and food for the scientist and their experiments. Inevitably, for the land was very fertile, a large colonist city had sprung up to the north, with a population of at least 750,000. Of course, they were kept blissfully uninformed of the Confederacy compound's purpose. And what they would think if they knew what was being carried out here! she mused.
Her mind returned to her work and to her creations-to-be. She would give them sentience, but she would add more things to give them an identity. Her creations would be much more than the previous Zerg/Mechanoid soldiers. /Which had failed/. She remembered one organic part of the cyborg rejecting the mechanical modifications and subsequently mutating into a purple glob of slime...
They would have sentience, yes, but much more than that...
Walking to her computer, she began by running a quick search for some "ideal" genetic samples. She found three pairs of what she needed. She stared, thinking how certain ethicists would call her idea twisted. /They're not twisted, it's people like /Thurston /who are twisted/. Her mind snapped back to the task on hand, and she began running formulas.
***
/Cassandra is up to something /thought Thurston. The attractive, dark-blond geneticist had always been one the verge of complete insubordination since he had requisitioned her "work".
In the command center of the lab, he was overseeing the grafting and integration of the Zerg parts to the mechanical devices, seeing sparks jump and IV lines feeding sedatives and nutrients to the unconscious creatures. He turned to the technician, a man who was as good a programmer as Cassandra was a geneticist.
"I want you to make a program that would block the creatures sentience," he ordered the tech. "One that can give them limited thinking and flexibility, but will suppress their ability to question orders."
"Sir, I'm not sure that is even possible..." said the tech, looking up from his computer screen.
"Make it possible," he replied turning back to viewing the grafting process. "I know Cassandra is up to no good."
***
So, with the barriers in place, the Cyborgs of the Terran Confederacy did not even know what they could achieve. They just executed directives, never questioning, never truly thinking... Until one woman's mercy changed them... and they in turn changed everything... forever... They would overcome shadows and death, and they would become as powerful as the stars...
By
Gregory P. Wong
Prologue: Approaching Storm
She rushed this way and that way, striking. Szcraa reared up, spitting a Terran marine on her scythes. The soft creature wriggled in its death throes, before sagging on its grisly support, dead.
/"I will annihilate all the enemies of the glorious Swarm!" she roared. /Wait... This is not right. I just referred to myself... What is happening!?
Suddenly her dream changed tone, with a suicidal carrier colliding with the great Overmind. The shockwave was only a momentary reprieve.
Terran and Protoss attackers assaulted with more determination than before. She felt a bullet enter her arm, and saw hive-mates ripped to shreds from the powerful weapons. Then she entered darkness. Her mind screamed in pain, pain from memories that were not hers. The nightmares had only begun...
She found it strange though, that she was never at Auir...
***
Excerpt from a Confederacy Newspaper: In laboratories today, scientists have admitted to the research into Zerg/Machine hybrids today. Further details will be issued in the next few weeks.
***
"I find this type of research an abomination," snarled Dr. Cassandra Govalich, geneticist of the Terran Confederacy. "First we clone and fuse these Zerg with technology we don't even fully understand, and now you want me to give them sentience? Do you know what could happen if we create intelligent Zerg?"
"Of course I know the consequences," replied master scientist Charles Thurston, frowning, "with sentience these Cyborgs can increase their efficiency!"
"Sir, I must refuse this work. It is unethical, even if we are using Zerg clones."
"You will not refuse!" growled Thurston. "Especially if you want to remain an employee of Terran Confederacy, and if you want your continued safety/!" The Terran Confederacy had a nasty habit of... /hurting those who did not like to cooperate.
Glaring, she returned to her lab and began her work.
***
Cassandra slept in a little room housed within a Terran Confederacy compound, on the world of Waj Norhal. Waj Norhal was a fringe world of the Terran Confederacy of Man, the perfect place to carry out research in relative secrecy. The lush grasslands and myriad mountains provided more than enough resources and food for the scientist and their experiments. Inevitably, for the land was very fertile, a large colonist city had sprung up to the north, with a population of at least 750,000. Of course, they were kept blissfully uninformed of the Confederacy compound's purpose. And what they would think if they knew what was being carried out here! she mused.
Her mind returned to her work and to her creations-to-be. She would give them sentience, but she would add more things to give them an identity. Her creations would be much more than the previous Zerg/Mechanoid soldiers. /Which had failed/. She remembered one organic part of the cyborg rejecting the mechanical modifications and subsequently mutating into a purple glob of slime...
They would have sentience, yes, but much more than that...
Walking to her computer, she began by running a quick search for some "ideal" genetic samples. She found three pairs of what she needed. She stared, thinking how certain ethicists would call her idea twisted. /They're not twisted, it's people like /Thurston /who are twisted/. Her mind snapped back to the task on hand, and she began running formulas.
***
/Cassandra is up to something /thought Thurston. The attractive, dark-blond geneticist had always been one the verge of complete insubordination since he had requisitioned her "work".
In the command center of the lab, he was overseeing the grafting and integration of the Zerg parts to the mechanical devices, seeing sparks jump and IV lines feeding sedatives and nutrients to the unconscious creatures. He turned to the technician, a man who was as good a programmer as Cassandra was a geneticist.
"I want you to make a program that would block the creatures sentience," he ordered the tech. "One that can give them limited thinking and flexibility, but will suppress their ability to question orders."
"Sir, I'm not sure that is even possible..." said the tech, looking up from his computer screen.
"Make it possible," he replied turning back to viewing the grafting process. "I know Cassandra is up to no good."
***
So, with the barriers in place, the Cyborgs of the Terran Confederacy did not even know what they could achieve. They just executed directives, never questioning, never truly thinking... Until one woman's mercy changed them... and they in turn changed everything... forever... They would overcome shadows and death, and they would become as powerful as the stars...
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