• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

Day in the Life: Escape from the Heavenly State

Uso

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"A tomato-puff. You can render out most of the stabilizers and fillers if you have a bit of experience with Molecular Gastronomy. It is great knowledge for helping land a partner... A proper Daqin can't rely in their physique alone." Jun replied, verbally expressing her thoughts from the kitchen while also conversing with Hoshiko wirelessly. She also started streaming her sensory perceptions back to Hoshiko so she could see the tomato puffs resting on their crunchy bases as they slowly reached the appropriate temperature.

"The other half is knowing how a Microwave works beyond just the basics. Standing waves insides create hot spots and not hot spots. This makes the heating uneven, especially for larger and very cold objects. Heating it on higher power settings won't fix that, it'll just make the hot spots hotter... so you gotta cook it at lower power settings for longer which helps give the heat time to circulate around inside of the object... Not that Humans know that. Most are so stupid they can't even microwave a Meat-Pocket."

Jun would pick up one of the tomato puffs and toss it into her mouth. She'd feel her teeth glide through the savory puffy until they chomped through the base with a satisfying 'Crunch'. The warm-but-not-hot tomato puff practically dissolving in her mouth as it bursted with tomato flavor.
 

Ray of Meep

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The tomato puffs were soon delivered to Jian and Hoshiko as they continued playing. Jian absent mindedly grabbed one as she focused on the game, which she was consistently and resoundedly getting her ass handed to her, between the lack of experience with this particular game and the fact that Hoshiko had two brains to work with. Still, she seemed entertained, getting to play someone beyond her close circle of family and crewmates.

The gaming lasted for a couple of hours, when Pao walked in with a hint of concern on his face. "Boss?" He addressed to Hoshiko, "You might want to look at this." He projected a video onto the wall. It was a recorded news report, like the execution. The timestamp of the broadcast at the bottom right corner showed the event occurring twelve hours ago in Sol.

The headlines in five different languages read: "Zhuli Four Arrested at International Summit; President Kal Young Grows a Spine." The video showed the Daqin Empress held at gunpoint by the Grand Admiral of the RSC, along with six HFR representatives at the summit. She was then restrained, marched off into the hallway by RSC marines, afterwards wrapped into an environmental cocoon and given an oxygen mask, finally hauled off into a dropship. Her own personal vehicle was surrounded, the accompanying Daqinren weapons drawn, standing off against the humans, until one of the human marines came forward, saying something to the leading Daqinren. He looked visibly irritated, but waved off at his teammates as they returned into the personal vehicle, blasting off through the thin Martian atmosphere.
 

CadetNewb

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Hoshiko shot a dirty look at the cow that was cooking and rolled her eyes.

"I'm not looking to land a partner," she sighed over the line with Jun, idly moving one of the pieces. At first, Hoshiko had fun winning against Jian, but the joy of that fled as quickly as it had come. It started to feel mean, so she needed to figure out something else. "Her ability to create treats is absolutely bizarre," the princess-in-hiding offhandedly remarked aloud, moving another piece. Hoshiko soon decided that the real challenge was to see how convincing she could be in making Jian think she was getting better. More importantly, how close could she come to defeat and still win? And this all had to be done by letting her opponent at least have a 30% win rate. Humans didn't put up with any less. There was some joy in this, she admitted to herself. "You're getting better."

This tiny little playtime however, wouldn't last. Hoshiko's eye twitched as she impassively watched the news feed, her Mother-Empress being lead away in such an undignified fashion. She wanted to scream and yell and scream declarations of revenge and punishment, and with the way Hoshiko's jaw clenched, they could all tell. Hoshiko didn't even transmit to Jun a single word as she turned away from the view and steepled her fingers, a deep breath entering her chest. It felt wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Which, meant something was probably wrong, she realized. But what? The footage replayed in Hoshiko's mind, her view zooming in and focusing on Zhuli. And then it clicked.

"She planned for this," the princess realized. "More of a contingency," she stared at her mother's smile. It never wavered. "We're going to war," Hoshiko viciously grinned.
 

Uso

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"Maybe you should be, a little bit of personal appeal would help you stand out among the other officer candidates." Jun replied as good naturedly as one could say that a lack of people skills is holding her back. "You should see what an officer would do for the treats I can make with a real Kitchen."

Jun would float over to her wall mounted sleeping bag and use that as her perch.

"So... what is her plan?" She asked, watching the feed from Mars, "She gonna kung-fu all the Humans and take their ship?"
 

CadetNewb

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"I'm not going to fuck my way to the top, if that's what you're implying," Hoshiko replied to Jun, a bit miffed at the idea of treats as a prelude to sex and the associated kickbacks. "And probably not. Did you see how calm she was? They could have probably just asked her to come along and she would have said she was going along under duress," the princess-in-hiding pointed out. "When I went to the last conference in her place, I actually pointed out the risks to her if she went, given none of our diplomats actually wanted to do their jobs. We ended up talking in hypotheticals." Tapping the holoprojector, she saved their game and brought up a display of Sol as well as Shen Zhou System. "There's some variation depending on where they bring her, but it essentially decides what the Imperial Fleet will get to wreck since they have Casus Belli now. The other nations are much less likely to get involved, and the one thing that can make sure they turn stop is the Empress herself," she explained.

"They'd have to have a deathwish to put Mother-Empress on trial and execute her."
 

Ray of Meep

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"Well, you guys did cause a war and ruined us for a few decades..." Jian shrugged, watching the feed.

"So what's the plan, lady?" Pao asked, somewhat impatiently. "I still need to do that supply run, but if things are about to turn hot, I need to prepare for that too. Preferably, we don't do anything and lay low until your fleet arrives."
 

Uso

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"Like its OUR fault we didn't want to be your slaves." Jun added, "... And its not like I can bake a treat good enough to save the Empress from here. Anyway we can speed up getting back to the fleet? There's gonna be a lot more officers making names for themselves soon... winning a war and saving the Mother-Empress is gonna boost their profiles. Someone like that isn't going to need the other officers to like them which is what I was suggesting from the first place: Getting them to really warm up to you.

You can't fuck your way to the top if they don't want to fuck you in the first place. I'm pretty sure that's an ancient proverb."
 

CadetNewb

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"Hey, we weren't the one that created an evil communist empire. Everyone talks about toppling evil communist empires like it's the in-thing to do, but they all complain once you do it!" Hoshiko pointed out. "And no, you normies don't really need to do anything other than make sure the hab-tube here stays warm and stocked. So yes, go on your supply run, but don't expect to actually do any fighting." More importantly, she turned to Jun, she yelled, "And I'm totally not gonna fuck my way to the top you fat cow!" Indignantly crossing her arms, she grumbled, "We just need to find some of the other Daqinren. Coordinate something to make the military here uncomfortable."
 

Uso

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"That's what I just said!" Jun replied as calmly as she could, pouting a bit as she struggled to get through to Hoshiko, "If you can't even be bothered to learn to cook what else aren't you bothering to learn? Other Daqin aren't going to take interest in you as anything more than a generic officer to fill out their ranks rather than being drawn to you... You're giving yourself too much credit thinking you could fuck your way to the top... You don't just lay there do you?... That's such a human thing..."

She would let her voice trail off a bit, considering that the rest of her words probably weren't fit for being listened to by the others.

"So are we going to go steal one of the HFR's ships or what?"
 

CadetNewb

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"What!? I could definitely fuck my way to the top!" Hoshiko yelled, outraged at Jun's implying. Grumbling and grinding her teeth for a moment, the princess closed her eyes and rubbed her temples to try and calm down. However, if she still had her tail, it would have been aggressively twitching at the least. "We don't need to settle on stealing a ship, or sneaking out along with the civvies, or even if we should sabotage yet," she began. "First step is linking up with other Daqinren and seeing what capabilities we got on the table first. Then, we plan."
 

Uso

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Jun nodded, "of course you could! You're a treasure!"

Of course, as she said this, she would send a wireless message over to Hoshiko,

"Careful, we shouldn't fight with each other in front of the

H
..U
....M
......A
........N
..........S"

She said as if spelling out their name would make their radio-waves even more incomprehensible to the woman playing games with them.

"You're Hoshiko, the Mother-Empress' favorite Princess, the one who defeated the Aoi Si...

You're also an officer that hasn't been promoted in a while... like... a long while. Other officers your age are catching up to you. You keep dismissing other stuff like cooking while your rivals are adding skills in sports, media, and even commerce. They are getting their name out there and people are remembering them for more than just their military career. Here I am trying to help you learn a new skill and you're just yelling at me for it."

Jun tried not to react with her face as best she could, this was a conversation for Daqin.

"I'm not saying you couldn't fuck your way to the top if you wanted to. You're very attractive and know how to wear a swimsuit... and I'm not saying you should be sleeping with the first officer that shows you some interest...

...buuuuuuut...

It wouldn't hurt for you to show some interest in another Daqin...

...You go to some tropical paradise world with some wealthy human, spend a ton of time with him down there alone, end up coming back with pets. You haven't had a date since and now everyone thinks you've got a thing for Humans... not that anyone would blame you for letting some rich Human take you to some resort-world, I'd LOVE to get some Human thinking he has me in the palm of his hand like that for a weekend but that's not a long term thing you know? They're gonna get old and gross super-fast if they're not already fat and balding..."

Jun's eyes went wide as she made a startling realization.

"...That's not you're type is it? I'm not judging, just not something I'd go for you know?"
 

Ray of Meep

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The two humans looked at each other knowingly. They've been with these Daqin long enough, having helped hide them for long enough, to understand a banter was going on beyond their reality, and despite the Daqinren's ability to operate in two spaces simultaneously, these two were awfully fixated with whatever they were doing in their virtual space.

"Alright, I'll get a bottle up, get more direct lines of communication going. That's going to take a week though, space and all." Pao waved in front of Hoshiko to get her attention. The "bottle" was three rockets to be deployed by the Bing Ta, each to head into random orbits around the Ice Moon to throw off any trace back to their origin, before beaming encrypted messages to a previously agreed upon coordinate, then finally using what reaction mass they had left to push themselves into deep space, up and down away from the star system's ecliptic place.

"Any specific message you want sent in the bottle?" He asked.
 

CadetNewb

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"I am not a Lewdite!" Hoshiko snapped back aloud, face red with indignation. if she still had her tail, it would have likely stood up on end like a bottle brush, and its ghost might as well have been present with them in the room given how fitting of an image it would have been. "As someone of my station, it was only fitting that I saw to affairs on that place!" she pointed out, crossing her arms across her chest. "I didn't enjoy one moment of it, and only brought back the animals since I ate their mother," the irate Daqin Princess in hiding added. "And no, I did not eat it raw!" Quietly mumble-growling like a cat that couldn't make up its mind if it wanted to scratch someone's eyes or keep sitting on a warm sofa, she turned her blue glare over to the two humans.

"Send a message to a club called the 'Hóng Jiǎozi' and tell them 'We're celebrating the boys tossing the old bitch into the Yangtze!' and set up a party night with notices in social media. Requests for invitation with approval needed to find out the night, with username GoGoGoTiger69" Hoshiko declared. "You two had better have some nice clothing by the way. These are the people that you'll become one day."
 
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Uso

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"Everyone is saying you liked him enough to give him a kid," Jun expressed wirelessly, operating entirely on the rumors that had been spread about that particular Chongwu she had made, "OR is not liking it the point of being a Lewdite? I don't really understand that particular taste but there's nothing wrong with it. You're free to have all the affairs you want!... I guess you could even talk that guy you were with into becoming one of us, it's better than dating a regular human.

Just, maybe also leave a bad review for that resort?

Warn off other Daqin?

Maybe don't use YOUR name on it though... people will talk for sure."


---

At the same time, Jun would verbally add, "Oh, can we get a message to my parents too? I want to let them know I'm ok. they are probably worried since I'm out here and war is on now."
 
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Ray of Meep

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Pao shook his head. "That's going to be difficult, if not impossible," he replied to Jun. "We used to be able to bribe AU officers letting bottles through the SLE, but all the working SLE's in the system are firmly under Shen Zhou control now. We're on our own until your mothership arrives or something. That, or we can throw a message out towards Pingqiong directly and wait 70 years until it arrives as a scrambled, incoherent mess."

Meanwhile, Jian handled Hoshiko's message, transferring it into the missiles on the ship with her datapad. "We dress for comfort and safety, lady. Mass is at a premium, there's no point carrying around nice dresses and suits that'll get caught up in zero-g and do nothing in vacuum. Unless you're a rich tourist."
 
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CadetNewb

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"Ugh, you all have been in the bottle too long," Hoshiko groaned, referring to the portable habitat that they were all hiding in. Rubbing her temples for a moment, she sighed. The humans had grown square while Jun had...well, she was a Cow, so it was to be expected. But still! This was a problem! "It's time I show you all first hand why The Empire will win this conflict hands down!" the princess proudly clenched her fist.

*****

Shen Zhou System
Wu Zetian
Ri Li, Planetary Capitol

Ri Li was the capitol of planet Wu Zetian and the host of the Republic Space Command. As such, it was only natural that it advertised itself as the bulwark against Daqinren aggression in every facet of its very being. The entire cityscape was nothing but reinforced concrete structures that only opened to the world with hardened metal sliding doors. At ground level, the average pedestrian wouldn't see so much as a single window, but there were plenty of firing ports and the like. Even the city itself was fortified, divided numerous, endless times by the block as heavily armored walls cut it into neat pieces, sealing them all from each other or letting through the traffic. The city was set up to be an endless number of non-stop miniature sieges in and of themselves to bleed any that dared attack it, and it showed. Soldiers were a common sight, and even police were well armed and armored. The fortress city of Ri Li was a remarkable sight in that regard.

Though not to the average person living in it. In fact, the average city goer was best described as having slumped shoulders, a tired slouch and a look in their eyes that said that they had run out of fucks to give a long, long time ago. Propaganda blared at every opportunity and at every corner, but there was only so much any human could bear when it came to standing guard, ready to fight The Daqin Empire for nearly two hundred years. With a population weakening by the year like this, it was only natural that rot would settle in, and the Daqin knew this, and exploited it fully.

"Dirty humans! You will all bow before the might of the Nyamatai Empire!" Hoshiko cheerfully declared, finger proudly thrust at the humans below her. Lights flashed as music blared in the nightclub, alcohol flowing from the taps like water. Dressed up in a skimpy tiger outfit, the totally-not-a-princess dressed as a parody of herself with a pair of fake ears and tail to boot. "All your banyanas belong to us!" she pointed to herself, a cocky smile on her face. Grasping the pole, Hoshiko quickly spun about, eyes taking in the entire scene.

"This is Go-Go-One, I've opened up with the code-phrase," she quickly shot to Jun, careful not to thicken the air with their transmissions. It was a careful game of cat and mouse, but the other Daqinren were bound to be present hidden in amongst the humans. This was a totally-not-suspicious party celebrating the capture of the Mother-Empress after all!
 

Uso

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Jun would give her a nod as part of her drink-mixing process. She had a shaker in hand, and was holding it out infront of her with both her arms applying a not-so-subtle amount of pressure against her chest as she mixed a drink, "Come get one of my Milkshakes boys!"

The costumes seemed to be a big attraction to this place, and many of the patrons had gathered around Jun's bar to see her mix drinks. The shaker certainly helped her find way to accentuate her better assets, her upper body clad in a cowprint bikini top that was a size too small for her. She also had on a thick black collar with a cowbell attached to it that jingled every time she started shaking. Her milk-bar was serving various types of white-russian and horchata based shakes in small glasses that seemed popular enough with the crowd.

Jun could certainly play her part, and she recognized how clever it was to disguise Hoshiko AS Hoshiko... she just wished she didn't have to use the code-name that Hoshiko had assigned her.

"This is Lactose-One" She responded wirelessly, "Understood..."

...

"Shouldn't I be Gogo-2 instead?"
 

Ray of Meep

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"Can I get a shake right from the source?" A man walked up in front of the bar, giving an all-too-realistic impression of a cow's moo, before taking one of the glasses and giving Jun a wink. He was large and burly, wearing only a tank top and some swim shorts, tattoos of dragons and other flying, mythical creatures on one half of his entire body.

"My, my, what a sight to behold." He downed the shot quick, grabbing another one. "A real cow of a woman," He smiled, a finger up outlining the bartender's physique, "Must be pretty tiring making all this milk. Maybe you need an ox of a man to loosen you up and help you relax after work."
 

Uso

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"Sure thing love," Jun said with a smile. The man dropped enough hints that he clearly was Daqin, but he was also laying on the Rowdy customer thick. She'd skip over offering him a body shot. Instead she'd decide to deflect his attentions towards someone more deserving of it, "But I'm on duty here for a few more hours. Maybe you should ask for a private dance instead? Our girl on stage would love to get out of that silly Nyamatai costume!"
 

Ray of Meep

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The man looked over to Hoshiko and licked his lips. "That's certainly an enticing offer, sweetheart, but my guess is that she's going to be too expensive for my budget. Besides, I'm looking to party right now, meet new people and the scenery." He leaned backwards into the bar, turning his head around to smirk at Jun. "How about you get the lass in the tiger suit over, talk a bit first? She might just change my mind."
 
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