Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ongoingeclipse

1-1: The Y

The story of how we opened, contained and maintained our first Pinch is an interesting one, though that’s not what I’m going to talk about here.

Instead, I’ll tell you about the manner in which we came across this phenomenon in the first place.

What few people know is that Prisma got involved in the Vietnam conflict back in 1968, after a fair few members of the USMC reported undocumented technology being used by the local guerilla. It was far beyond whatever we had access to at that point - mostly the likes of wormhole travel or some such, which is one of the reasons Vietcong used to gain the upper hand quite as often as they did.

How do you fight an enemy that can flank you in the blink of an eye?

The solution was simple, at least on paper - find the source of this technology, eliminate the capabilities of the Vietnamese to employ it and then appropriate whatever the hell it is for our own usage.

In any case, it took us about two years for us to get a lead on what kind of machinery the Vietcong had access to. An investigation was started immediately, with limited success. We expected it to be something along the lines of those poor schmucks that crashed in Roswell way back when.

Big mistake.

It wasn’t until 1973 that we managed to launch an all-out assault to capture the location at which the strange artifact was located. We’re talking Marines, artillery, air support. Hell, we even had a crew of our own down there coordinating the operation - the whole shebang. In the end, the thing was extracted with immense losses in manpower and machinery, with a single Marine fireteam taking off in a jeep with the object in tow.

The object, as it turned out, wasn’t of extraterrestrial origin at all, but rather something much older and more menacing - our first Y.

Much can be said about the nature of the Y (or the Architect, as it referred to itself) at this point, but the most important thing is that they understood the nature of something the Vietcong said were “Pinches”.

After a decent amount of physical stimulation, the creature shared everything it knew about this technology. It was surprisingly simple, too - relying on biological input and specific movements and mannerisms for one to trigger a Pinch.

For quite some time, we believed that the Pinches were wormholes of a sort - a long-time pipe-dream of our experts at Prisma, who proceeded to experiment with this strange new tech right away. As it turned out, we were wrong.

It’s interesting to note that we believed Y to have been lying about its reasoning for helping the Vietcong at that time.

Again, big mistake.

#narrative #ongoingeclipse #perspectives

1-2: The Trident

The Trident is an interesting thing. Not only is it the combat philosophy adopted by our field operators, but it also serves as an essential backbone of Prisma, so to say. But let’s start from the beginning.

We first began deploying our own squads of specialized infantrymen shortly after the Vietnam fiasco. Perpetually short on manpower, we didn’t need any further convincing to develop something new and different after seeing just how few of our agents actually returned from that hellhole.

Whereas the US military as a whole has an ample supply of troops and machinery to throw at their enemies, we could never afford such a luxury. In fact, as of 2017, we employ only about thirty field agents - there’s simply no need for us to maintain any more cells, and that’s thanks to the Trident.

Now, as I said, the Trident is a combat philosophy which is enforced from the very start of our hiring process. Men are drawn from virtually all fields of military and police involvement, including but not limited to the USMC, the metropolitan police departments, contracting etc. Once a candidate is selected, they are subjected to a three-year indoctrination program along with two other potential combatants. To put it in simple terms - to make a man, we must break a man, and that takes quite a long time. During the process, the three are also encouraged to bond one with another in a familial way, so as to foster a sibling-like relationship between them. This is key because of what comes after these three years, and that is the stranding.

The stranding is a little trick we caught the wind of after coming into contact with something we encountered during our explorations of the Pinch, and it boils down to connecting all three of our applicants to a vat-grown drone via what is basically an extremely high-end variant of wi-fi. This allows all three of our operators to act as one. Hence the name - Trident.

The drone is masked using some of our modified Pinch-derived technology, and is invisible, for all intents and purposes, and due to using a wireless connection, none of the downsides of its biological equivalent ever come into play.

The Trident can also refer to the, yet again, three-pronged weapon system our operators employ in the field. Without going into too much detail, each agent carries three firearms at any given moment (usually a handgun, a submachine gun and a rifle) and is trained to use each in the most efficient manner possible, depending on what targets they may be engaging, at what distance, in what environ and such.

Combat training takes another three years after the indoctrination is complete, and is interspersed with behavioral tutelage as well. By the time we’re done with them, these men move, think, act and behave in a vastly different way than they did before - the three of them become a single Trident cell.

There are a few downsides to this kind of approach to conditioning, of course. Some amount of individuality is lost in the subjects for sure, though it has been shown that each remains extremely capable even when separated from his or her cell. In most cases, at least. We’ve had a few stragglers here and there, but that’s to be expected. Aside from this, it’s worth noting that commoners tend to notice our operators in certain situations and describe them as “weird” or even “creepy”. This is primarily due to the manner in which they move around and communicate; we’ve even had a lab technician call them uncanny.

This can safely be disregarded, however, as it’s easy enough for any given operator to infiltrate a location as per the mission’s requirements, as the several decades of impeccable service have shown. A single Trident cell, for example, has shown to be capable of going toe to toe with dozens upon dozens of ordinary enemy combatants, and this, in turn, allows Prisma to remain relevant in the greater scheme of things.

Can’t have anything good without at least a bit of bad, right?

#narrative #perspectives #ongoingeclipse

0-1: Finances

It’s heavily subsidized by the government - the Prisma, I mean. You won’t find these people anywhere on the financial map of the US, though they’ve got their paws on virtually anything and everything that’s even remotely related to tech and weaponry.

That was their initial task, really - they were supposed to be a clandestine branch of DARPA, though they spread out early on during the Cold War; black ops for the most part.

They started digging their chubby little fingers into everything eventually, and now, in 2017, we can safely say that Prisma has a claim to just about half of the amount equivalent to what’s annually assigned to DARPA itself.

The few people that know how Prisma operate claim it to be entirely distasteful. They’re like the CIA - they’ve got all the leeway they need, and I don’t think this should be condoned any longer.

I say we cut them in the stem - diminish their funding drop by drop. Our guys from sister agencies can take over whatever the hell is left of Prisma by the time we’re done with them.

There’s no way in hell their ops warrant the amount of spending money we’ve been providing them with.

Come next fiscal year, Prisma is gone.

#perspectives #narrative #ongoingeclipse #prisma

0-2: Disbelief

“You’re joking, right?”

“I wish I was.”

The rain was hitting the window, hard.

“Do you have anything other than these documents? I mean, these people are smart, they might be using this shit to trick us, to send us chasing after a ghost.”

“I’ve got pictures.”

“Pictures?”

“Pictures.”

“Of what?”

The man smiled widely and pulled a thick, rugged envelope out of his coat.

“I’ve got to warn you, though, this stuff is a hard pill to swallow.”

“More than their yearly budget already is?”

The man laughed loudly and got up from his chair.

“Have at it, congressman. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Wait, how much of this have you seen?”

“All of it, sir. That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it?”

The congressman sat down in his chair, staring at the envelope.