Ten years have passed since the events in Color and Stealth.
---
Prologue.
---
It is speculated that every intelligent species in the universe passes through a religious phase. And that the start of this phase in its most primitive form, begins when a species develops both self-consciousness and a certain amount of cognitive skills.
Possessing both traits instead of just one, means that members of the species are able to go beyond merely recognizing themselves when they see their reflection in a stream or lake, like elephants and gorillas do, or instinctively know how to use a rock to smash a shell, like otters do. It means that they are now able to consciously develop tools.
It also means that they begin to stare at themselves, others and things in general in amazement and look in awe at the great, unknown world with minds that have begun to break through.
After time, sapience forms. And it is then that they can -even without language- finally put into thought any questions they have. Some questions are always the same. "Who am I? What am I? Why am I? Where did I come from? Where do I go after death?"
It is also speculated that the answers to these questions, no matter the species, always have a single thing in common: a certain concept. A concept that humans refer to as "Gods".
After becoming sapient, creativity and language are inevitable and the young species begins to form its first religions. At first, its gods are everyday yet unexplained things; lightning, the moon, strange noises in the night, gusts of wind.
Around the time that the species forms its first civilizations, the Gods change and turn into unseen and powerful beings that resemble the members of the species in many ways. Then, when philosophy -that mother of all sciences- makes its entry, the Gods again begin to change and gradually become abstract ideas. It is in the age of science that the number of believers in the Gods begins to dwindle.
The more science explains, the more the species' Gods are pushed back. But the more they are pushed back, the greater and more powerful they become. Many millennia ago the Gods were a sacred tree, a volcano or a comet. Now they are the universe itself and all the unknown that lies beyond it.
And it is then that all beings who still believe in, hope for, wonder about or even doubt the Gods, no matter where they live in the vast universe that they all share, all believe in the same Gods.
---/\/---
The barsam
---
It was night and Jaron was awake. He had had the same nightmare for several weeks now and had no idea what it meant.
First he had gone to a physician, who had run tests that showed that Joran needed to lose weight and had charged him money. Then he had gone to a psychiatrist, who had asked him about the color of his childhood pet and had charged him money. And last he had gone to a priest who had told him to trust in the Gatherers and had asked for a donation.
Now, after reading an ad in a local news publication, Jaron was on his way to visit Quoveei the Great and Mysterious, a Tenuki who promised to explain all dreams, tell the future and cure ingrown toenails.
"Crib yeddek! That is one khas dream, big brother! Teeth descending at night who rip you and your family to pieces and eat them, while a fruit, a box, an orange cloth and you are watching, while roasting a slab over glowing coals in space in a tornado that's full of mummies?" The furry little brother said.
"Yes." Jaron said.
"You actually see yourself die, you said?" Quoveey asked.
"Yes." Jaron said again.
"Uh oh." Quoveei the Great and Mysterious said and began to pluck the fur on his chin.
"Uh oh?" Jaron asked.
"Yes. Third person dreams aren't dreams but prophecies." The Tenuki said and began to scratch his fur in an unappropriate place. "One normally does not die in dreams... What you need is my toenail tonic. Not the regular one, mind you, but the special one. Hmm, you really are a BIG brother. Five bottles. Drink them all at once."
"But I have no ingrown toenails." Jaron replied.
"Drink the contents before going to sleep. You either wake up enlightened, feeling very nauseous or with a headache. Or all three." Quoveei said and handed Jaron the bottles.
"What's inside the bottles?" Jaron asked.
"Lots of medicinal herbs and medicinal mushrooms and medicinal amphibian skin secretions and a tiny bit of medicinal alcohol. And the best part is that all of it is 100 percent biological." Quoveei said.
Jaron began to think. "Can't go wrong with biological."
"That will be 189.95 with the discount. Come again!" Quoveei said and locked the door after Jaron left.
---
After having drunk the contents of the bottles as instructed, Jaron lay down on his bed and watched in fascination how his bedroom became purple, pink, red, yellow, green and blue at the same time and began to spin in six different directions. It resulted in the formation of amazing symmetrical and colorful patterns. Then his bedroom started to grow eyes that looked at him, began to chant in several languages and showed him the meaning of life. Next, Jaron passed out.
"Teeth... Descending from blackest black... Ripping... Feeding... Hate... A brain... A plant... A brown and orange Loroi... Watching... A flame column... A rock pillar... Searching... A white vortex... The dead... The moon... The ring..." Jaron turned and twisted in his bed.
"ONE CANNOT GO AGAINST THE WORD OF GOD!!"
Jaron screamed as he woke up, the thundering choir of voices that was somehow one voice still echoing in his head!
Deinar! He had to go to Deinar!
But first he had to throw up, take some pills against the splitting headache he now had and lie down again. Deinar could wait.
---/\/---
The human
---
Aastik Lokesh was a simple man. He was born in a small village in Northern India. He had received mandatory education and had earned his first money by breeding and selling goats. After moving to the city with his wife and son, his first job there had been crafting clay dinnerware. But after learning about electronics, he had been given a job in his brother's repair shop. He did not expect anything more from life.
But then the Supreme Brahman, the One that is Truth, had made it very, very clear to Aastik in his dreams that It wanted him to go to the world of the aggressive blue space females, who had looked very much like two-armed versions of Samhara Kali to him, when he had first seen them on his viewer.
"Why? Why me, Supreme One?" He asked in the temple. But there came no answer. "I cannot go against Your Word, You said, but how am I going to get into outer space? This is all the money that I have! Look!" Aastik opened his wallet and showed it to the statues in the temple. Again there came no answer.
Aastik left the temple and shook his head. The Supreme Brahman would have to find someone else.
"Lottery tickets! Lottery tickets!" A passing vendor shouted.
"Are you joking?" Aastik shouted at the sky. "Very well. I will buy one! But after that I will go back home!"
---
"Congratulations on winning 2 billion Rupees, Mister Lokesh." The man behind the counter at the lottery office said. "Where can we deposit the money?"
"Huh?" Said Aastik while staring at a wall.
"Your bank account, Mister Lokesh?"
"Oh. Here." Aastik handed over his bank card.
The man behind the counter began to enter the data into the computer.
"All done." He said.
"Thank you..." Aastik said. "Can I please sit here a little longer?"
"Of course, Mister Lokesh. Take all the time you need. Would you like to have something more to drink?" The man asked.
"Yes please."
---/\/---
The historian
The others thought that it had begun to malfunction and disconnected it from the collective. But 127-006-625 knew that it was not malfunctioning. It should not have involved the others in its attempt to analyze the nightly manifestations.
The maintainers carried it to the scanner to run checks. If the scanner found anything wrong, there would be attempts to rectify the problem. If those failed, the information inside 127-006-625 would be copied and it would be discarded.
127-006-625 was 410,000 years old. Yet it did not want to be discarded.
Fortunately the scanner found no problems and 127-006-625 was reconnected to the network.
"I must go to Deinar." 127-006-625 sent to the rest of the collective.
"A personality construct based on your unique..." The collective sent back.
"No. I myself must go to Deinar." 127-006-625 interrupted.
"Nonsense." Said the collective. "Maybe the scanner can't detect the error."
127-006-625 opened its mind and sent the full contents of its dreams to the collective.
"You shall go to Deinar. The maintainers shall construct a suitable vessel." The Collective sent back after a short delay, during which 127-005-625 was disconnected. "After the information inside you has been copied... In case anything unfortunate happens."
--/\/---
The Sonliri & the Yorl
"It has slipped through our lines and ignored our hails. It is heading to the jump zone to your system with more than 55G acceleration. Try to intercept it." Bistima Starseeker sent with difficulty to her colleague in the next system. "It should jump in around 7 bimas."
She thought that the ship was beautiful. A sleek, elongated drop that shimmered with iridescent colors like mother-of-pearl, but more intense and with moving patterns. And all of it had lit up so brightly in her mind when she had first detected and later scanned it, that it had shocked her. Like all of it was alive. So very alive.
The alien ship jumped.
The Loroi patrol in the next system waited in vain. Both Bistima searched and discovered that the ship had somehow jumped an additional system. They had to warn the core systems!
It took the ship less than a week to travel a distance that would take the loroi more than 4 weeks at top speed.
The ship entered the Deinar system, evaded the blisters that were fired at it with ease, evaded and warped the particle and pulse beams around its hull and shot through the lines of Deinar's massive defense fleet as if they were nothing more than a mild nuisance. The Torrai on the bridge of Cry of the Wind hit a guardrail with her fist and cursed.
Greywind frowned. No hostile response whatsoever. She thought. She ordered the fleet to follow, but hold its fire.
Some hours later the ship entered Deinar's atmosphere, pointed its aft end at the soil and dug itself in vertically until only the part that had been its front part, which was now its upper part, stuck out.
The ship had landed less than 5 miles from Torimar, Deinar's capital. And as night fell, the part that was visible glowed gently in a multitude of ever shifting iridescent colors.
The next morning it was surrounded by thousands of heavily armed loroi, tanks, mechs and artillery.
An opening in the ship's hull began to grow. Five solons later, the opening had become six inches in diameter.
A small, brown and furry creature, no more than 4, maybe 5 inches long, appeared. It had many little legs and a ridge around its circular body that contained many pinhead-sized, black eyes. It carried something on its back, ran around the ship towards a Mizol who was standing inside the defensive ring and stopped about three meters away from her. It dropped the little box it had been carrying and ran back without turning around.
The Mizol picked up the little box and opened it. Inside was a manual and a white ball the size of a golfball. The ball had a blue solid circle on one side and a blue ring on the other. "To understand, place blue circle against temple of head, then press blue ring." The manual read.
"Okay..." Parat Spirit thought and did what the manual said.
"Ouch!" "That stung!" The ball stuck to her temple and became surrounded by a vertical disk of light with moving patterns.
"Is it safe?" A voice in her head said.
"Who are you?" asked Spirit. "You entered Union space without permission and landed near its capital without permission. Prove that you are not a threat."
"Is it safe?" The voice said again.
"Tell them that it's safe." Greywind, who was present and was in contact with Spirit, sent. "They will not be harmed unless they initiate violence."
"It is safe." Spirit said.
The opening slowly opened further. It took 3 bimas to reach a hight of 5 meters.
After another 5 bimas has passed, a green-white striped pillar, that can best be described as a five meter tall zucchini with a white wooly top, dozens of tendrils, vertical ribs with rows of long cactus thorns and moving roots began to appear. It moved about two inches per solon. It was covered with dozens of the small brown furry creatures. One of them had a translator orb on its back that emitted a disc of light with moving patterns.
Finally it stopped moving and dug its roots in Deinar's soil.
"I am Mizol Parat Spirit." Said the Mizol. "Wha.. who are you?"
The song began. Voices singing different tunes that complemented each other harmoneously like a Gregorian chant, but more complex.
The translator spoke. "My name cannot be pronounced by a single loroi. It would take a choir. Call me Sunrise over a Meadow. My vessel-friend is named Song of Calmth. They are alive and sapient. And this is Cha. He is a Yorl."
Dozens of the brown creatures crawled down and formed the word "hello" in Trade on the ground, then climbed back up.
"You say "he is", but there are dozens. You say "they are", but there is only one shi.. vessel-friend." Spirit said.
More singing sounded.
"Yes. It takes many to form one Yorl mind. Song of Calmth has 32 minds." Sunrise over a Meadow sang.
"Why?" Spirit asked.
"To navigate the High Order and the Deep Chaos."
"You mean hyperspace and negative hyperspace?" Spirit asked.
"Yes." Sunrise over a Meadow sang.
"Why are you here?" Spirit asked.
"I carry one part of the message. The others carry the rest." Sunrise over a Meadow sang.
"What message?"
"It is unclear."
"Who sent the message?" Spirit asked.
"The best explanation we could come up with, is God." Sunrise over a Meadow sang.
"Excuse me?" Spirit asked and tilted her head.
The singing continued.
"It felt very much like it was the universe itself that compelled me to come."
"Why?" Spirit asked and blinked.
"Unclear. Teeth. They consume all. I must go to the watchful dead under the full moon with the orange one, the box and the blue horn to tell the seeking spark and the pebble about the endless white. We determined that the location is Deinar." Sunrise over a Meadow sang.
"The watchful dead?" Spirit asked.
"Yes. There are many."
"We cremate our dead. Only the ancient tribes still bury their dead." Spirit said.
"Yes? Please tell me more." Sunrise over a Meadow sang.
--/\/---
The barsam
---
The day after the arrival of the Sonliri, Jaron's flight from Justa entered orbit around Deinar. He boarded one of the skiffs and landed at Torimar's spaceport. The landed Sonliri and its vessel were still the talk of the day. Jaron watched the report on a public viewscreen and knew where he had to go tomorrow.
---/\/---
The human
---
After giving his parents enough money to buy a nice house and promising his wife that he would also buy one for her after his return, Aastik kissed her and his two children goodbye and left for the airport. First by bus, then by train and finally by taxi. He was very nervous. He had never flown before.
He arrived at the airport's departure hall, stood in the wrong line, was sent to the right line, checked in, went through security and boarded the plane. The air inside felt dry and smelled strange.
A fellow passenger showed him how to release the pressure in his ears: first tilt the head sideways, then swallow. Repeat in the opposite direction for the other ear.
A few hours later he arrived at New Delhi spaceport and boarded a skiff that would take him to the Hula Girl, a freighter that was currently in orbit and accepted paying passengers on its trips to Union space.
The trip took many weeks. And Aastik got very sick everytime the ship "jumped". One of the crew had given him pills and told him to take a half one 30 minutes before each of these jumps. Now he still got very sick when the ship jumped, but at least he was very tranquil about it.
After arriving at a space station inside Union space, Aastik nervously approached one of the scary blue space females. But not after checking that she really had only two arms and wasn't holding a sword and a decapitated head behind her back, like Samhara Kali. He greeted her and handed her a piece of paper that a member of the crew had witten for him. He thought that her tiara was pretty.
The Teidar guard read it, sighed and gestured Aastik to follow her.
Another blue female was handling forms in her office. Aastik greeted her and handed her the paper.
Twenty bimas later, with the help of a Listel and a Humanity translation computer that was dug up, Trade was translated into English and English into Sanskrit.
"You do not have a permit to enter Union space. And the core systems are closed for non Union citizens, unless for people who are exempt. You neither have a permit nor are you exempt. This means that you are an illegal alien and will now be escorted back to the freighter that you arrived on." Aastik read the text on the computer's screen out loud.
"But I need to go to Deinar." Aastik pleaded.
Two Soroin guards entered the office and Aastik was escorted back to the docked Hula Girl and went aboard. The guards remained near the ship's access ramp.
The containers in Hula Girl's cargo hold were still being unloaded. Aastik would not let some blue space females prevent him from delivering the Supreme Brahman's message and decided to sneak into the ship's cargo bay. He looked and found an unlocked container that had a word on it that looked exactly like the word on his paper that he thought meant "Deinar". He opened it, went inside and closed it.
All containers were scanned for contraband. Some were also searched. However, by a most peculiar coincidence, the moment that Aastik's container entered the scanner after having been unloaded, a highly energetic cosmic particle hit one of the scanner's memory chips, flipped a bit and the scanner showed the image and contents of a container that had been previously scanned.
Time passed. The container had moved for a few minutes, but then things had gotten quiet for a long time and Aastik had gone to sleep. When he woke up, there was a vibration he knew all too well. He hurled and took half a pill.
Time passed. There were no sounds and Aastik risked opening the container to let in some light. He could do so, because the European Union had made it law that all cargo containers could be opened from the inside, after a tragedy with illegal immigrants had occurred more than a century earlier.
Aastik now saw that the container contained a variety of items, including crates of Copsi Cola, food packages and snacks, chemical toilets, rope ladders, a few matresses, many, many tools and glowsticks.
"Now this is first class travel. Thank you, Supreme Brahman." Aastik thought. "I wonder what I will need the rope ladders for."
He did not realize that these articles were rather uncommon for export items. And that is because they weren't. They were tools and goods for a workcrew in Puerto Rico. Unbenownst to Aastik, the container he had entered should have been sent to "Torrimar", which is a station in the city of San Juan in Puerto Rico. But someone, somewhere had made a typo, which had ultimately caused the container to be sent to Torimar, which is a long way from Puerto Rico.
Three weeks later, the loroi freighter went into orbit around Deinar and the containers were loaded into cargo skiffs. Some time afted that, Aastik found himself looking down from a substantial hight at the eight containers below his in Torimar space port's container yard.
"Oh, that's what the rope ladders are for." He thought. He fetched four. One had entangled itself around a bolt cutter. Aastik tied the four rope ladders together, took the bolt cutter and descended.
He looked up and saw the planet's ring. It took a few minutes, but then he fully realized that he was standing on an alien world. Suddenly, Aastik felt very small. Using the bolt cutter, Aastik cut the fence, left the container yard and began to walk in the direction of Torimar.
---/\/---
Dream Team
Moderator: Outsider Moderators
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Dream Team
Last edited by G. Janssen on Sat Oct 15, 2022 2:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Dream Team
The historian
---
Two maintainers had arrived at 127-006-625's pedestal with a black cube. Its sides were approximately 1.2 meters in length. It contained all the things he needed to live. A power source, sensors for sight, hearing and smell, a speech module, life support with artificial lungs, a pump and filtration system, dispensers, containers with nourishment and fluids etcetera.
127-006-625's brain container was put inside the box, secured and connected. "It works!" He thought. The maintainers then brought him aboard one of the historian's vessels and set course to Deinar. Being allies, the loroi allowed the ship to pass and could only marvel as it accelerated at 90G. They wondered if that was its top acceleration.
Two weeks later, the vessel entered Deinar's atmosphere and landed. Two maintainers carried the box outside and put it on the surface of the planet in the middle of nowhere.
"The Collective has instructed this maintainer to relay the following message: "You are now on Deinar as you requested, insane one. Enjoy." The maintainer then boarded the vessel, which departed immediately after.
"I hope you all become demented!" 127-006-625 shouted through the speech module.
Morning came... 127-006-625 had been muttering to itself most of the night.
"It should have dawned to me when they decided to copy the information. They must have had a good laugh when I lef..."
*POK*
*POK*
Now what? it thought.
*POK POK*
127-006-625 activated its speech module again.
"Stop that! It is very annoying! And step this way so I can see you. If you're not some dumb animal, that is."
A loroi female wearing tribal armor came into view. She was cautiously poking the box with a stick.
*POK*
"I said stop doing that, you primitive savage!" 127-006-625 shouted.
*POK*
*POK POK*
---
Several hours later, after having been dragged to the Asi caravan by the members of the hunting party that found him and having had a conversation with an elder who spoke Trade, 127-006-625 found itself tied to the side of a pack animal that was made to walk all the way at the back of the caravan.
The Asi had put some dried meat, beans, bulbs and a container of water inside the muttering box and for completely ignored it for the rest.
---/\/---
The Sonliri & the Yorl
---
Greywind enjoyed the tea that the Sonliri had offered her after she had accepted its invitation to come aboard Song of Calmth. She was escorted by two Teidar from her personal guard and wore a translator.
The interior was organic and bright and there were no controls visible.
She began to ask. "How do they move through space?" She also enjoyed listening to the singing... It was calming.
"All of the hull is propulsion and shield. Our vessel-friends manipulate time-space around the hull. Change its density, it's form. This change is what propels them." Sunrise sang.
"Is this why our pulse beams warped around the hull?" Greywind asked.
"Yes. Space-time was manipulated to ensure that they wouldn't touch the hull."
"How can you navigate through negative hyperspace? Only one of our ships has ever returned and its crew... We had to kill them. And we had to kill the ship as well." Greywind asked.
"We do not understand it. Our minds cannot conceive it. Only the vessel-friends do." Sunrise sang. "What they have told us is that which dwells there, fears the vessel-friends' light and will not come near."
"There is life in negative hyperspace?" Greywind asked.
"No. It is not alive." Sunrise answered.
Greywind frowned.
"The vessel-friends say that it is formed out of discarded substance." Sunrise answered.
"Discarded?"
"We do not know. They will not tell."
"What are vessel-friends?" Greywind asked.
"The result of creation and evolution." Sunrise sang. "Our distant ancestors created them. First they were living, intelligent tools. But as time passed, they evolved and became sapient. All life strives. At some point they adapted further and became able to navigate the high order and deep chaos. They are born, grow, multiply and can die. They are free to come and leave. They have their own language, their own culture, etcetera."
"And what is Cha?" Greywind asked.
"A symbiotic lifeform that also evolved intelligence over time. Once, long ago, the Yorl's ancestors sought safety between our thorns when our species was much younger. They were much smaller then. So were we." Sunrise sang.
"As you can see we have no eyes, although we possess some spots that can distinguish between light and dark. As time passed, they became our eyes and we developed better ways to protect them. Now they can perform many tasks. In return we still protect them, nourish them and boost the link that gives them shared intelligence."
"How do you protect them?" Greywind asked.
"Please watch the cup on the table and tell your guards not to be alarmed." Sunrise said.
*PANG!*
The cup shattered, the saucer below it shattered and a four inch long thorn was stuck in the one inch thick top of the polymer table. Its point was sticking out the bottom side of the table top.
"We can coat them with venom before we fire them, but I don't know if our venom is dangerous to alien lifeforms." Sunrise said. "Most native predators avoid us now instinctively. They have learned."
Cha climbed down and formed the word "ouch" in Trade on the floor.
"How old is your species?" Greywind asked.
"We are plants. Our internal composition is simple. We have some specialized organs, but not as many as animals. We hibernate when winter comes. We live long, slow lives. Time moves different for us. What only takes a solon for you, can take many bimas for us."
"Our development has also been slow. The first of our ancestors appeared approximately fifty-five million years ago. They were small. About 50 centimeters high. We developed rudimentary intelligence approximately fifteen million years later. It took another eight million to develop culture, art, language and rituals. Seven million years later, we had achieved the ability to travel through space. Most intelligent animal species do all this in two million years or less."
"Space travel twenty five years million years ago. You could have founded a galaxy spanning empire." Greywind said.
"Yes. But we decided to watch the sun rise and set, the seasons change, the forests grow and the mountains erode instead. You see, we found out that having an empire means losing it sooner or later. To see it crumble to dust and everyone inside it die. Oblivion is the fate of all empires."
"Yours is no exception. The Loroi Empire only has a limited amount of time left. You won the war against the Hierarchy. But how did you win? It was not the loroi Navy that delivered the decisive blow. Many call it luck or a fluke, others call it fate or providence."
"But the war against the Hierarchy was only one. There will be another. And another. And another. There will always be another, because empires radiate power. And power attracts those who seek to challenge it."
"From our point of view, your empire will soon enough become dust, like the empires of the Soia, the Dreiman, the Fenrias, the Traa, the Hevizi & Q'i and the Leikvaas before you. And those were only the major empires. How many of them have you heard of?"
"And you will likely go extinct. Out of a dozen known empire founding species in this part of the galaxy only the Fenrias survived."
"We have seen them all rise and fall. Many had technology that was vastly superior to yours -and ours- before their fall. Quite a few had minds that were greater than yours or ours. But where are they now? They are dust, forgotten by all but by my kind."
"How can we avert this fate?" Greywind asked.
"You have just taken the first step by asking that question." Sunrise sang. "The loroi must reform their empire into a community that is based on substantially different values. And then..."
"But what if an enemy appears? We need to defend..." Greywind interrupted.
"I have a feeling that you will live long enough to see what a community can do that an empire cannot, emperor. If you so choose to walk that path." Sunrise interrupted back.
"Were you ever conquered?" Greywind asked.
"No. Our star is part of a small, isolated cluster. The nearest star outside that cluster is too far away for a hyperspace jump. Even for a long one. Only when our vessel-friends evolved their ability to navigate the high order could we leave our cluster."
"But the high order is hyperspace." Greywind asked.
"Yes."
"You said that the distance to the nearest star outside your cluster is too far away for a long jump." Greywind asked.
"Yes. That what you think is hyperspace, isn't. It is its edge. You travel on its edge. If you would travel through hyperspace while being awake, the three dimensions of time would expose you to all possibilities in the past, the presence and the future at once and do this continuously. You would go insane or, if you're lucky, collapse instantly.
"After we could leave, we communicated and traded with a number of empires. We learned much. We avoided the Soia. They were masters of bio-engineering and created soldiers, even living weapons, out of any species they deemed suitable. We feared what they would create if they would obtain the genetic material of our vessel-friends."
"Then what's it all for if we're all doomed to disappear?" Said Greywind?
"Try to see it from the perspective of the universe and ask me again in a few years." Sunrise sang.
"In a few years? And did you just give me homework?" Greywind joked.
The song that now sounded vibrated rapidly. Was this laughter? Greywind wondered.
"Yes. And yes. Once I have delivered the Message and completed any subsequent task, I would like to root on Perrein for a while. If you allow me to do so of course." Sunrise answered.
"One more question if you permit. Is the similarity between the humans and loroi a coincidence?
"No. The humans are dormant telepaths. The Soia discovered this and used their genetic material to create yet another species -yours- to fight their conflicts for them."
"One of them awakened his ability over two decades ago, you know? It was flawed, but the things that he saw from time to time were definitely the result of sanzai. He was the first human to come to us. And so far he remains the only awakened one." Greywind said.
"Interesting." Sunrise sang. "It looks like the universe sent the loroi a message. Did you recognize the signs?"
"Signs?" Greywind asked.
"Yes. There are always signs when the universe sends a message... Let's try the name first. What was or is the human's name?"
"His name is Alexander Jardin."
"Does his name have a meaning?" Sunrise asked.
"He told us that it means "Guardian of the Garden"." Greywind answered.
"And did he guard the garden?" Sunrise asked.
"Yes, he did. And his rank was "ensign", which sounds a lot like "enzin". That too means guardian. His miraculous survival and awakening, the one who awakened him and all the coincidences that surrounded her, his name and rank, being the first of his kind, the name of the only surviving Vortex class battleship, the mural... Some of us noticed, but even they thought those were all weird coincidences." Greywind said.
"Everybody always does." Answered Sunrise over a Meadow.
---/\/---
the Human
---
"Holy Lord Krishna save me!" Aasvik yelled.
Aasvik's decision to head into the city had not gone well. First he had drawn the attention of a few civilians, then a whole crowd had formed around him. Then uniformed females who very much acted like police had approached him. That had been his que to run. He did not want to be deported.
Currently he was being pursued by more than 12 armored blue space females. Fortunately he was fit. Unfortunately so were they. He wondered why they weren't shooting at him. He took another turn, looked backwards and ran into a large orange colored piece of cloth that was hanging from a line. Aasvik stumbled and fell.
The next moment he was at the bottom of a pile and got cuffed while still being covered by the cloth.
---
Greywind's convoy with her hover limo drove through Torimar. Civilians were waving. She always waved back...
"Driver. Stop the limo!" She sent all of a sudden.
The driver stopped. A Loroi sized being that was covered by an orange piece of cloth came out of a side street. Two hairy, light brown lower legs and feet that wore sandals were sticking out from under it. It was flanked and followed by police officers.
"The orange one.. Did you recognize the signs.. " Greywind thought. "Well, I do this time."
---/\/---
The historian
---
The Asi began to set up camp outside the burial grounds. The Ban had already arrived. Word began to spread about the brain box and Coldstone decided to visit the Asi camp to have a look.
The box was complaining. "I said that I need glucose! Is there anyone among you primitive savages who can not ignore me for a moment?"
"I think I can." Coldstone said.
"Finally." The box said.
"Who are you?" Coldstone asked.
"My designation is 127-006-625".
"That is a historian's designation." Coldstone said.
"Very good." The box replied.
"You are a historian?" Coldstone asked with some unbelief.
"Yes and soon I will be a dead historian because I'm running out of glucose. Open the box and see."
Coldstone opened the box and saw that the container was almost empty. Several others were still quite full.
"Would you like me to remove the water, beans and other items?" Coldstone asked.
"I would like that very much. They rattle terribly." 127-006-625 said.
"Why is a historian..." Coldstone began.
"Glucose! Glucose first, questions after." 127-006-625 said.
Coldstone walked back to her yurt in the Ban camp, took her satellite communicator, arranged a delivery and walked back.
It arrived later that day by aircraft.
---
"Saved! Thank you. Now, what is it you want?" 127-006-625 said.
"What is a historian doing here?" Coldstone asked.
"You mean besides being abandoned by the Collective, poked, ignored, used as storage for beans, continuously shaken and almost starved?" 127-006-625 said. "I came here to deliver a message."
"What's the message?" Coldstone asked.
"It's a nightmare. And one that just keeps getting worse. Well, at least you seem to be civil, competent and helpful. I shall allow you to be my assistent." 127-006-625 said.
"Thank you. I accept and feel honored." Coldstone said. "In time, you will tell me all your secrets." Coldstone thought.
"The nightmare, which is a message, is as follows: teeth and hatred exiting from black containers eating all that is blue." 127-006-625 said with a voice that betrayed tedium. "It is obvious that "the blue" means Soia Liron species and the attackers are another Soia species, namely the..."
"Ha'Sati Vin'Jaad. The first ones created." Coldstone interrupted.
"How can a primitive savage possibly know that?" 127-006-625 said.
"I'll tell you after you finish. Continue." Coldstone answered.
"Very well." 127-006-625 said and continued. "I actually see myself get ripped to pieces. It is most unpleasant. And I am watching it happen together with a wooly pear, an orange napkin, a Barsam and a whole bunch of dead Loroi. That makes the experience even more unpleasant. But we are also somehow watching a burning bush and a frozen pillar dance in the void to find... something? Oh! And there's this white stuff that begins to curve."
"And then there's the really scary bit."
"Which is?" Asked Coldstone.
"The voice. Or voices. Or something."
"ONE CANNOT GO AGAINST THE WORD OF GOD!" 127-006-625 shouted with a low voice. "If I had an anus I would've crapped myself the first time I heard it. I guess being nothing more than a brain inside a container does have its advantages."
"But enough about me. Who are you?" 127-006-625 asked.
"My name is Coldstone. I'm the head of the intelligence agency that investigates this enemy. I know about them because I was part of the delegation that visited the historians after the war had ended."
127-006-625 thought for a moment. "A savage I meet here is the head of an intelligence agency and visited us? Too many coincidences. So I wonder..." "Coldstone" and "Frozen pillar" can mean the same thing, assuming that the pillar is made of stone of course. And in my nightmare it seems to be."
"If I am the frozen pillar then I have a good idea who the burning bush is." Coldstone said. "And about the wooly pear: it landed two days ago near Torimar. A member of a species of sapient plants. The Sonliri." Coldstone said.
"Of course! One of our ships encountered one of them once. But that was a long time ago." 127-006-625 replied.
"Tell me more about the dead loroi." Coldstone asked.
"What's there to say? They're dead. They're also shriveled, buried and watching. Apparently they're where I have to go." 127-006-625 answered.
"Well, then I would say that you have arrived." Coldstone said and activated her communicator.
---/\/---
The barsam
---
After spending the night in a hotel, Jaron had taken a taxi to go to the Sonliri ship, but a perimeter had been set up around it and he had been denied entrance. So now he was waiting. Some time passed. Then a police cruiser stopped at the checkpoint next to him. An officer exited the cruiser and opened a door. A thin, brownish human who was dressed in an orange garment began to exit. Their eyes met almost immediately. "You!" Shouted Jaron and Aastik simultaneously in their own language and pointed at each other. After talking to the police officer and Jaron and making a call, the checkpoint's guards let both inside.
Aastik and Jaron stopped outside the ship and wached how two small, brown, furry critters ran towards them. Each was carrying a little box on its back.
Jaron was able to read to read the manual that was inside the tiny box after Aastik opened it for him and activated the translator. Aastik watched how it was done and activated his as well. He yelped as it connected with his brain. Both then listened to something and went inside the ship.
About 45 bimas passed. Then the communicator of one of the guards at the checkpoint sounded. She listened and entered Song of Calmth. A few bimas later she exited and the opening in the ship began to shrink.
---/\/---
---
Two maintainers had arrived at 127-006-625's pedestal with a black cube. Its sides were approximately 1.2 meters in length. It contained all the things he needed to live. A power source, sensors for sight, hearing and smell, a speech module, life support with artificial lungs, a pump and filtration system, dispensers, containers with nourishment and fluids etcetera.
127-006-625's brain container was put inside the box, secured and connected. "It works!" He thought. The maintainers then brought him aboard one of the historian's vessels and set course to Deinar. Being allies, the loroi allowed the ship to pass and could only marvel as it accelerated at 90G. They wondered if that was its top acceleration.
Two weeks later, the vessel entered Deinar's atmosphere and landed. Two maintainers carried the box outside and put it on the surface of the planet in the middle of nowhere.
"The Collective has instructed this maintainer to relay the following message: "You are now on Deinar as you requested, insane one. Enjoy." The maintainer then boarded the vessel, which departed immediately after.
"I hope you all become demented!" 127-006-625 shouted through the speech module.
Morning came... 127-006-625 had been muttering to itself most of the night.
"It should have dawned to me when they decided to copy the information. They must have had a good laugh when I lef..."
*POK*
*POK*
Now what? it thought.
*POK POK*
127-006-625 activated its speech module again.
"Stop that! It is very annoying! And step this way so I can see you. If you're not some dumb animal, that is."
A loroi female wearing tribal armor came into view. She was cautiously poking the box with a stick.
*POK*
"I said stop doing that, you primitive savage!" 127-006-625 shouted.
*POK*
*POK POK*
---
Several hours later, after having been dragged to the Asi caravan by the members of the hunting party that found him and having had a conversation with an elder who spoke Trade, 127-006-625 found itself tied to the side of a pack animal that was made to walk all the way at the back of the caravan.
The Asi had put some dried meat, beans, bulbs and a container of water inside the muttering box and for completely ignored it for the rest.
---/\/---
The Sonliri & the Yorl
---
Greywind enjoyed the tea that the Sonliri had offered her after she had accepted its invitation to come aboard Song of Calmth. She was escorted by two Teidar from her personal guard and wore a translator.
The interior was organic and bright and there were no controls visible.
She began to ask. "How do they move through space?" She also enjoyed listening to the singing... It was calming.
"All of the hull is propulsion and shield. Our vessel-friends manipulate time-space around the hull. Change its density, it's form. This change is what propels them." Sunrise sang.
"Is this why our pulse beams warped around the hull?" Greywind asked.
"Yes. Space-time was manipulated to ensure that they wouldn't touch the hull."
"How can you navigate through negative hyperspace? Only one of our ships has ever returned and its crew... We had to kill them. And we had to kill the ship as well." Greywind asked.
"We do not understand it. Our minds cannot conceive it. Only the vessel-friends do." Sunrise sang. "What they have told us is that which dwells there, fears the vessel-friends' light and will not come near."
"There is life in negative hyperspace?" Greywind asked.
"No. It is not alive." Sunrise answered.
Greywind frowned.
"The vessel-friends say that it is formed out of discarded substance." Sunrise answered.
"Discarded?"
"We do not know. They will not tell."
"What are vessel-friends?" Greywind asked.
"The result of creation and evolution." Sunrise sang. "Our distant ancestors created them. First they were living, intelligent tools. But as time passed, they evolved and became sapient. All life strives. At some point they adapted further and became able to navigate the high order and deep chaos. They are born, grow, multiply and can die. They are free to come and leave. They have their own language, their own culture, etcetera."
"And what is Cha?" Greywind asked.
"A symbiotic lifeform that also evolved intelligence over time. Once, long ago, the Yorl's ancestors sought safety between our thorns when our species was much younger. They were much smaller then. So were we." Sunrise sang.
"As you can see we have no eyes, although we possess some spots that can distinguish between light and dark. As time passed, they became our eyes and we developed better ways to protect them. Now they can perform many tasks. In return we still protect them, nourish them and boost the link that gives them shared intelligence."
"How do you protect them?" Greywind asked.
"Please watch the cup on the table and tell your guards not to be alarmed." Sunrise said.
*PANG!*
The cup shattered, the saucer below it shattered and a four inch long thorn was stuck in the one inch thick top of the polymer table. Its point was sticking out the bottom side of the table top.
"We can coat them with venom before we fire them, but I don't know if our venom is dangerous to alien lifeforms." Sunrise said. "Most native predators avoid us now instinctively. They have learned."
Cha climbed down and formed the word "ouch" in Trade on the floor.
"How old is your species?" Greywind asked.
"We are plants. Our internal composition is simple. We have some specialized organs, but not as many as animals. We hibernate when winter comes. We live long, slow lives. Time moves different for us. What only takes a solon for you, can take many bimas for us."
"Our development has also been slow. The first of our ancestors appeared approximately fifty-five million years ago. They were small. About 50 centimeters high. We developed rudimentary intelligence approximately fifteen million years later. It took another eight million to develop culture, art, language and rituals. Seven million years later, we had achieved the ability to travel through space. Most intelligent animal species do all this in two million years or less."
"Space travel twenty five years million years ago. You could have founded a galaxy spanning empire." Greywind said.
"Yes. But we decided to watch the sun rise and set, the seasons change, the forests grow and the mountains erode instead. You see, we found out that having an empire means losing it sooner or later. To see it crumble to dust and everyone inside it die. Oblivion is the fate of all empires."
"Yours is no exception. The Loroi Empire only has a limited amount of time left. You won the war against the Hierarchy. But how did you win? It was not the loroi Navy that delivered the decisive blow. Many call it luck or a fluke, others call it fate or providence."
"But the war against the Hierarchy was only one. There will be another. And another. And another. There will always be another, because empires radiate power. And power attracts those who seek to challenge it."
"From our point of view, your empire will soon enough become dust, like the empires of the Soia, the Dreiman, the Fenrias, the Traa, the Hevizi & Q'i and the Leikvaas before you. And those were only the major empires. How many of them have you heard of?"
"And you will likely go extinct. Out of a dozen known empire founding species in this part of the galaxy only the Fenrias survived."
"We have seen them all rise and fall. Many had technology that was vastly superior to yours -and ours- before their fall. Quite a few had minds that were greater than yours or ours. But where are they now? They are dust, forgotten by all but by my kind."
"How can we avert this fate?" Greywind asked.
"You have just taken the first step by asking that question." Sunrise sang. "The loroi must reform their empire into a community that is based on substantially different values. And then..."
"But what if an enemy appears? We need to defend..." Greywind interrupted.
"I have a feeling that you will live long enough to see what a community can do that an empire cannot, emperor. If you so choose to walk that path." Sunrise interrupted back.
"Were you ever conquered?" Greywind asked.
"No. Our star is part of a small, isolated cluster. The nearest star outside that cluster is too far away for a hyperspace jump. Even for a long one. Only when our vessel-friends evolved their ability to navigate the high order could we leave our cluster."
"But the high order is hyperspace." Greywind asked.
"Yes."
"You said that the distance to the nearest star outside your cluster is too far away for a long jump." Greywind asked.
"Yes. That what you think is hyperspace, isn't. It is its edge. You travel on its edge. If you would travel through hyperspace while being awake, the three dimensions of time would expose you to all possibilities in the past, the presence and the future at once and do this continuously. You would go insane or, if you're lucky, collapse instantly.
"After we could leave, we communicated and traded with a number of empires. We learned much. We avoided the Soia. They were masters of bio-engineering and created soldiers, even living weapons, out of any species they deemed suitable. We feared what they would create if they would obtain the genetic material of our vessel-friends."
"Then what's it all for if we're all doomed to disappear?" Said Greywind?
"Try to see it from the perspective of the universe and ask me again in a few years." Sunrise sang.
"In a few years? And did you just give me homework?" Greywind joked.
The song that now sounded vibrated rapidly. Was this laughter? Greywind wondered.
"Yes. And yes. Once I have delivered the Message and completed any subsequent task, I would like to root on Perrein for a while. If you allow me to do so of course." Sunrise answered.
"One more question if you permit. Is the similarity between the humans and loroi a coincidence?
"No. The humans are dormant telepaths. The Soia discovered this and used their genetic material to create yet another species -yours- to fight their conflicts for them."
"One of them awakened his ability over two decades ago, you know? It was flawed, but the things that he saw from time to time were definitely the result of sanzai. He was the first human to come to us. And so far he remains the only awakened one." Greywind said.
"Interesting." Sunrise sang. "It looks like the universe sent the loroi a message. Did you recognize the signs?"
"Signs?" Greywind asked.
"Yes. There are always signs when the universe sends a message... Let's try the name first. What was or is the human's name?"
"His name is Alexander Jardin."
"Does his name have a meaning?" Sunrise asked.
"He told us that it means "Guardian of the Garden"." Greywind answered.
"And did he guard the garden?" Sunrise asked.
"Yes, he did. And his rank was "ensign", which sounds a lot like "enzin". That too means guardian. His miraculous survival and awakening, the one who awakened him and all the coincidences that surrounded her, his name and rank, being the first of his kind, the name of the only surviving Vortex class battleship, the mural... Some of us noticed, but even they thought those were all weird coincidences." Greywind said.
"Everybody always does." Answered Sunrise over a Meadow.
---/\/---
the Human
---
"Holy Lord Krishna save me!" Aasvik yelled.
Aasvik's decision to head into the city had not gone well. First he had drawn the attention of a few civilians, then a whole crowd had formed around him. Then uniformed females who very much acted like police had approached him. That had been his que to run. He did not want to be deported.
Currently he was being pursued by more than 12 armored blue space females. Fortunately he was fit. Unfortunately so were they. He wondered why they weren't shooting at him. He took another turn, looked backwards and ran into a large orange colored piece of cloth that was hanging from a line. Aasvik stumbled and fell.
The next moment he was at the bottom of a pile and got cuffed while still being covered by the cloth.
---
Greywind's convoy with her hover limo drove through Torimar. Civilians were waving. She always waved back...
"Driver. Stop the limo!" She sent all of a sudden.
The driver stopped. A Loroi sized being that was covered by an orange piece of cloth came out of a side street. Two hairy, light brown lower legs and feet that wore sandals were sticking out from under it. It was flanked and followed by police officers.
"The orange one.. Did you recognize the signs.. " Greywind thought. "Well, I do this time."
---/\/---
The historian
---
The Asi began to set up camp outside the burial grounds. The Ban had already arrived. Word began to spread about the brain box and Coldstone decided to visit the Asi camp to have a look.
The box was complaining. "I said that I need glucose! Is there anyone among you primitive savages who can not ignore me for a moment?"
"I think I can." Coldstone said.
"Finally." The box said.
"Who are you?" Coldstone asked.
"My designation is 127-006-625".
"That is a historian's designation." Coldstone said.
"Very good." The box replied.
"You are a historian?" Coldstone asked with some unbelief.
"Yes and soon I will be a dead historian because I'm running out of glucose. Open the box and see."
Coldstone opened the box and saw that the container was almost empty. Several others were still quite full.
"Would you like me to remove the water, beans and other items?" Coldstone asked.
"I would like that very much. They rattle terribly." 127-006-625 said.
"Why is a historian..." Coldstone began.
"Glucose! Glucose first, questions after." 127-006-625 said.
Coldstone walked back to her yurt in the Ban camp, took her satellite communicator, arranged a delivery and walked back.
It arrived later that day by aircraft.
---
"Saved! Thank you. Now, what is it you want?" 127-006-625 said.
"What is a historian doing here?" Coldstone asked.
"You mean besides being abandoned by the Collective, poked, ignored, used as storage for beans, continuously shaken and almost starved?" 127-006-625 said. "I came here to deliver a message."
"What's the message?" Coldstone asked.
"It's a nightmare. And one that just keeps getting worse. Well, at least you seem to be civil, competent and helpful. I shall allow you to be my assistent." 127-006-625 said.
"Thank you. I accept and feel honored." Coldstone said. "In time, you will tell me all your secrets." Coldstone thought.
"The nightmare, which is a message, is as follows: teeth and hatred exiting from black containers eating all that is blue." 127-006-625 said with a voice that betrayed tedium. "It is obvious that "the blue" means Soia Liron species and the attackers are another Soia species, namely the..."
"Ha'Sati Vin'Jaad. The first ones created." Coldstone interrupted.
"How can a primitive savage possibly know that?" 127-006-625 said.
"I'll tell you after you finish. Continue." Coldstone answered.
"Very well." 127-006-625 said and continued. "I actually see myself get ripped to pieces. It is most unpleasant. And I am watching it happen together with a wooly pear, an orange napkin, a Barsam and a whole bunch of dead Loroi. That makes the experience even more unpleasant. But we are also somehow watching a burning bush and a frozen pillar dance in the void to find... something? Oh! And there's this white stuff that begins to curve."
"And then there's the really scary bit."
"Which is?" Asked Coldstone.
"The voice. Or voices. Or something."
"ONE CANNOT GO AGAINST THE WORD OF GOD!" 127-006-625 shouted with a low voice. "If I had an anus I would've crapped myself the first time I heard it. I guess being nothing more than a brain inside a container does have its advantages."
"But enough about me. Who are you?" 127-006-625 asked.
"My name is Coldstone. I'm the head of the intelligence agency that investigates this enemy. I know about them because I was part of the delegation that visited the historians after the war had ended."
127-006-625 thought for a moment. "A savage I meet here is the head of an intelligence agency and visited us? Too many coincidences. So I wonder..." "Coldstone" and "Frozen pillar" can mean the same thing, assuming that the pillar is made of stone of course. And in my nightmare it seems to be."
"If I am the frozen pillar then I have a good idea who the burning bush is." Coldstone said. "And about the wooly pear: it landed two days ago near Torimar. A member of a species of sapient plants. The Sonliri." Coldstone said.
"Of course! One of our ships encountered one of them once. But that was a long time ago." 127-006-625 replied.
"Tell me more about the dead loroi." Coldstone asked.
"What's there to say? They're dead. They're also shriveled, buried and watching. Apparently they're where I have to go." 127-006-625 answered.
"Well, then I would say that you have arrived." Coldstone said and activated her communicator.
---/\/---
The barsam
---
After spending the night in a hotel, Jaron had taken a taxi to go to the Sonliri ship, but a perimeter had been set up around it and he had been denied entrance. So now he was waiting. Some time passed. Then a police cruiser stopped at the checkpoint next to him. An officer exited the cruiser and opened a door. A thin, brownish human who was dressed in an orange garment began to exit. Their eyes met almost immediately. "You!" Shouted Jaron and Aastik simultaneously in their own language and pointed at each other. After talking to the police officer and Jaron and making a call, the checkpoint's guards let both inside.
Aastik and Jaron stopped outside the ship and wached how two small, brown, furry critters ran towards them. Each was carrying a little box on its back.
Jaron was able to read to read the manual that was inside the tiny box after Aastik opened it for him and activated the translator. Aastik watched how it was done and activated his as well. He yelped as it connected with his brain. Both then listened to something and went inside the ship.
About 45 bimas passed. Then the communicator of one of the guards at the checkpoint sounded. She listened and entered Song of Calmth. A few bimas later she exited and the opening in the ship began to shrink.
---/\/---
Last edited by G. Janssen on Sat Oct 15, 2022 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Dream Team
The message
---
The Ora caravan watched in fascination when Song of Calmth crossed the sky close to them at subsonic speed, gliding in the same direction as where the caravan was heading. The sky that surrounded it somehow looked weird.
Ten bimas later Sanhira's / Wildfire's communicator sounded.
It was Asadne / Coldstone. She told Wildfire to inform the rest of the tribe about the ship that had just landed a respectful distance outside the burial grounds and told the story.
"I'm a burning bush now?" Wildfire thought and went to inform the elders.
"Sa, what was that?" Sivira, Wildfire's 5 year old daughter sent.
"An alien ship. A new one. One from outside the Union. It landed where we're going." Wildfire answered.
"We're going to see an alien?" Sivira asked.
"More than one, from what I was just told." Wildfire answered.
"I'm going to tell the others, sa!" Sivira sent and ran off.
A number of people in the tribe died every year. Of old age, accidents, predators... The number of people in the tribe was regulated. Too few and they could not defend themselves. Too many and they might starve. After four years Wildfire had received permission to have a child. She had named her Sivira after her great-great-great-great grandmother and had received her second brand during the next full moon.
Sivira was mostly raised by Wildfire's mother, because Wildfire was still a Torrai Torret and had duties to fulfill.
It was near evening when the caravan arrived at its destination. The children rushed their duties, then ran towards the pretty glowing dome.
---
Aastik, Jaron and Sunrise over a Meadow had already finished telling their stories to another. 127-006-625 was in the process of finishing his. 127-006-025 couldn't wear a translator, so Joran translated for him.
"So I hope they all develop some prion disease for dumping me in..." Joran's translator sent after 127-006-625 had told him.
"In exactly the right spot." Aastik said. "Because, well, here you are." He was petting one part of Cha who was sitting in his lap.
The experience had been new to Cha. One part of him had suddenly been picked up by the orange alien and put on its lap. Then the alien had begun to stroke it. Cha had some reservations about this at first, but it felt good, so he had decided to let the part stay on the alien's lap.
"I can sense that Cha is curious about what you are doing. What is the function of this.. touchstroking?" Sunrise sang.
"It is soothing. Petting alleviates nervosity." Aastik answered.
"Cha tells me that he isn't nervous." Sunrise sang.
"But I am." Aastik answered.
"Do humans usually "pet" people?" Joran asked.
"No. Well, not unless they are very close. We mostly pet animals." Aastik replied. Some humans even pet the planet's top predators. But people have their preferences."
"But you normally don't pet people?" Joran asked.
"No, that would be weird." Aastik said and continued to pet Cha. "Who is a sweet little fuzzy wuzzy wuzzy?" He said to the part that was on its lap. "Yes you are, you are."
"Fascinating." 127-006-625 said to Joran. "Maybe the Collective should dissect a human brain to get to the bottom of this behavior."
"Would you like me to translate that?" Joran asked.
"Hm? No.. Better not. It might warn them and make it harder to catch one." 127-006-625 replied.
Soon after, Coldstone and Wildfire entered Song of Calmth and Wildfire was introduced.
---
The next morning, Jaron and Aastik, who had been invited to sleep in Wildfire's family yurt, began pondering what the next step would be. Would they all have to sleep in a single space? Touch heads in a circle? How would the message be delivered?
"The Supreme Brahman has guided me this far, so I'm sure that we will be shown." Aastik replied.
"Our priests would fight over a chance to talk to you. Metaforically speaking of course." Said Jaron as they walked to Song of Calmth.
When they entered, Song of Calmth was speaking. Deep tones, rumbling sounds and vibrations that Jaron and Aastik only felt filled the interior. Sunrise over a Meadow was listening and several of its tendrils were connected to a bulbous growth on one of Song of Calmth's inner walls.
Sunrise over a Meadow's song began and asked Jaron and Aastik to fetch Coldstone and Wildfire.
"It appears," Sunrise over a Meadow said after they arrived, "that Song of Calmth had a dream last night. Apparently we must all sleep. Once we do, we will combine the message and send it to Coldstone and Wildfire using telepathy. It will take place in hyperspace."
"Cha can't come unless all parts of him are asleep as well. According to Song of Calmth the experience will drive him insane if he's awake. Just like it will drive us insane if we're awake. So we have decided that he will stay here."
"Through telepathy? In hyperspace?" None of you are telepathic, said Wildfire.
"Apparently over there we will be." Sang Sunrise over a Meadow. "The connection is strongest when all are asleep and dreaming."
"How will we fall asleep?" Asked Jaron.
"The Elders have medicins that will work on Soia Liron species. And Sunrise probably has a medicine cabinet aboard. But Aastik?" Said Coldstone.
"Do not worry." Said Aastik. "One half of these make me very tranquil. A whole one makes me sleep." He showed the bottle that he had been given aboard Hula Girl.
"And how do we stay in hyperspace?" asked Coldstone. "The transition is instantaneous."
"I do not know." Said Sunrise.
"How do we even know that we are the Cold Rock and the Flame?" Asked Wildfire.
"That's obvious." Said 127-006-625. "Because you are here."
---
One part of Cha had crawled on top of Sivira's head. It was hoping that it would be stroked again. Other parts were clamping to Avira, Wildfire's mother. Most parts were on the ground.
Sunrise had explained that Cha's intelligence would go down when its parts were split up without him boosting their link and had provided a nutrient solution that mainly consisted of sugars and water.
Elders had provided sleeping powders they had obtained from the trade with other tribes and communities.
Sunrise over a Meadow had put a viscous cloth and a bottle with a lightbrown liquid on a table inside Song of Calmth.
After saying goodbye, the opening in Song of Calmth closed and the ship took off.
---
A few hours passed. Then Song of Calmth spoke and deep of vibrations filled the cabin. Sunrise over a Meadow gestured to get prepared. Without Cha there was no translation. So Sunrise would gesture when Song of Calmth indicated that they were ready to jump.
Aastik swallowed his pill and Coldstone added a bit of sleeping powder to one of 127-006-625's liquid containers. She, Wildfire and Jaron then dissolved their own powder in some water and drank the solution. Sunrise over a Meadow dropped the cloth, poured the liquid on it, moved on top of it and began to absorb the liquid through its roots. It then slowly walked to a patch of soil using its tendrils to feel its way, rooted itself, spead its tendrils around several support beams and fell asleep.
So did the others.
After making sure that they were asleep by shaking them a bit, Song of Calmth jumped.
At exactly the same moment, Song of Calmth disconnected itself from the jump path, changed direction in the extra dimension of space and two dimensions of time that had become available and dived into a realm that scientists only speculate exists, because some mathematical formulas show that it must.
An eternity in a fraction of a second in which every possible past was shown in an eternity in a fraction of a second in which every possible present was shown in an eternity in a fraction of a second in which every possible future was shown passed and did not pass at all. And Coldstone and Wildfire began to receive the message.
The Ha'Sati Vin'Jaad were the first species that the Soia created to become their weapons. Unlike the ones that followed, they were not created from a sapient species, but from a ferocious apex predator and were uplifted. But they were considered a failure. They were too vicious. Most were killed, but some managed to escape the genocide and swore vengeance: they would exterminate the Soia and everything that they had created, then take their place.
Their perfect genetic memory would see to it that their oath was kept.
And they tried. Four times they launched a massive attack on the Soia empire, but were defeated every time.
They then decided to change their strategy. They migrated to another part of the galaxy, far beyond the Soia empire's sphere of influence and knowledge and build the mother of all armadas. The voyage and construction took a long time. Other empires fought the invaders and twice the First Ones Created had come close to extinction. When that happened they fled, multiplied, struck back and consumed their foes.
More than ten thousand years ago they had decided that the time to strike had come. On the long way back they were again attacked a number of times. But now none could stand against the shear size of their armada. Their feasts were plenty and filling.
They were enraged when they found out that the Soia Empire had collapsed, but rejoiced when they discovered that most of the species that the Soia had created, survived. Now, no longer united and led by their masters, those species were no match for the First Ones Created and the flesh of tens of billions was ripped from their bones in waves of slaughter. A process that took centuries to complete for each victim species, just to maximize the despair and agony the Ha'Sati Vin'Jaad inflicted.
The message made it clear that once the enemy's armada exited hyperspace it could not be stopped. It had to be defeated in hyperspace. In order to do so, part of hyperspace would need to be manipulated and transformed into a death trap.
Annihilating the enemy would take the cooperation of the Union, Humanity, the Nissek Hegemony, the Historian Collective, the Sonliri and a species called the Doso, as all six had a part to play. The Doso were nomadic and would need to be tracked down and convinced to join the cause. This would be Wildfire's primary task. Getting the other species to cooperate to build and operate the Vyperspace Vortex Arrays would be Coldstone's task.
---
When Wildfire showed signs that she began to wake up, Song of Calmth immediately exited the higher realm and jumped back into Deinar. Once back in normal space, no time had passed.
Song of Calmth liked the endless white of hyperspace. And it liked all the amazing things that it contained. It was a shame that all species who had yet to transcend were driven mad by it almost instantly. It was a good thing that they had no idea how to truly dive into it yet and only travel along its edge to jump from system to system. But some of them would know one day. All life strives.
---
After the crew had awakened, Aastik mentioned how strange it was how the message had suddenly been so clear, as if they had been somehow closer to its source.
Jaron wondered why whatever force was behind the message had decided to send four messengers instead of one.
It was Sunrise over a Meadow who answered that question by suggesting that the choice of messengers can be a message as well.
127-006-625 mentioned the historian's Long Range Hyperspace Communication Array. How he understood that it could serve as the basis for the weapons and why they would need help to build and operate them.
---
Jaron and Aastik spent a few more days at the tribal gathering. After Coldstone had made arrangements, they went back home. 127-006-625 agreed to join Coldstone's intelligence agency. He would not tell her the historian's secrets, he said. But he would provide her with all information that was relevant to the mission.
After the tribes went their separate way, Coldstone, 127-006-625 and Wildfire departed to Mezan's orbital shipyard to inspect the progress that had been made with the construction of the prototype ship that was based on the tech that they had obtained ten years earlier. Song of Calmth departed at the same time.
---/\/---
Epilogue
---
Daydream had been sent by her diral to find edible mushrooms that grew in this area. But now she was looking at a strange, tall plant that stood at the edge of the small lake in Perrein's jungle and the brown creatures it was covered with. She had never seen it or one like it before and knew that it hadn't been here a week ago. The whole of it lit up as brightly as the minds of people and she wondered. Another part of her wondered if it and the little brown critters were edible.
Suddenly she noticed another, less bright mind approach rapidly from behind. As she turned and saw the predator, it lunged. Daydream bent backwards, began to raise her arms and closed her eyes.
PPANG!
Daydream fell backwards as the predator fell on top of her, its fangs at her throat. But they werent biting. She opened her eyes, pushed the beast aside and noticed it was dead. It had two holes in its head.
She got up, her heart pounding. The sound had come from...
When she looked, she noticed that all the critters had climbed down and now spelled the word "that" in Trade on the ground. Then they shifted and subsequently spelled "was" "a close" "one, eh?".
Daydream was dumbfounded. She blinked, looked at the plant, blinked again, looked at the corpse of the predator and slowly began to regain her composure. Who cares about mushrooms? She thought. Today there's meat for dinner. And I have a story to tell.
---/\/---
---
The Ora caravan watched in fascination when Song of Calmth crossed the sky close to them at subsonic speed, gliding in the same direction as where the caravan was heading. The sky that surrounded it somehow looked weird.
Ten bimas later Sanhira's / Wildfire's communicator sounded.
It was Asadne / Coldstone. She told Wildfire to inform the rest of the tribe about the ship that had just landed a respectful distance outside the burial grounds and told the story.
"I'm a burning bush now?" Wildfire thought and went to inform the elders.
"Sa, what was that?" Sivira, Wildfire's 5 year old daughter sent.
"An alien ship. A new one. One from outside the Union. It landed where we're going." Wildfire answered.
"We're going to see an alien?" Sivira asked.
"More than one, from what I was just told." Wildfire answered.
"I'm going to tell the others, sa!" Sivira sent and ran off.
A number of people in the tribe died every year. Of old age, accidents, predators... The number of people in the tribe was regulated. Too few and they could not defend themselves. Too many and they might starve. After four years Wildfire had received permission to have a child. She had named her Sivira after her great-great-great-great grandmother and had received her second brand during the next full moon.
Sivira was mostly raised by Wildfire's mother, because Wildfire was still a Torrai Torret and had duties to fulfill.
It was near evening when the caravan arrived at its destination. The children rushed their duties, then ran towards the pretty glowing dome.
---
Aastik, Jaron and Sunrise over a Meadow had already finished telling their stories to another. 127-006-625 was in the process of finishing his. 127-006-025 couldn't wear a translator, so Joran translated for him.
"So I hope they all develop some prion disease for dumping me in..." Joran's translator sent after 127-006-625 had told him.
"In exactly the right spot." Aastik said. "Because, well, here you are." He was petting one part of Cha who was sitting in his lap.
The experience had been new to Cha. One part of him had suddenly been picked up by the orange alien and put on its lap. Then the alien had begun to stroke it. Cha had some reservations about this at first, but it felt good, so he had decided to let the part stay on the alien's lap.
"I can sense that Cha is curious about what you are doing. What is the function of this.. touchstroking?" Sunrise sang.
"It is soothing. Petting alleviates nervosity." Aastik answered.
"Cha tells me that he isn't nervous." Sunrise sang.
"But I am." Aastik answered.
"Do humans usually "pet" people?" Joran asked.
"No. Well, not unless they are very close. We mostly pet animals." Aastik replied. Some humans even pet the planet's top predators. But people have their preferences."
"But you normally don't pet people?" Joran asked.
"No, that would be weird." Aastik said and continued to pet Cha. "Who is a sweet little fuzzy wuzzy wuzzy?" He said to the part that was on its lap. "Yes you are, you are."
"Fascinating." 127-006-625 said to Joran. "Maybe the Collective should dissect a human brain to get to the bottom of this behavior."
"Would you like me to translate that?" Joran asked.
"Hm? No.. Better not. It might warn them and make it harder to catch one." 127-006-625 replied.
Soon after, Coldstone and Wildfire entered Song of Calmth and Wildfire was introduced.
---
The next morning, Jaron and Aastik, who had been invited to sleep in Wildfire's family yurt, began pondering what the next step would be. Would they all have to sleep in a single space? Touch heads in a circle? How would the message be delivered?
"The Supreme Brahman has guided me this far, so I'm sure that we will be shown." Aastik replied.
"Our priests would fight over a chance to talk to you. Metaforically speaking of course." Said Jaron as they walked to Song of Calmth.
When they entered, Song of Calmth was speaking. Deep tones, rumbling sounds and vibrations that Jaron and Aastik only felt filled the interior. Sunrise over a Meadow was listening and several of its tendrils were connected to a bulbous growth on one of Song of Calmth's inner walls.
Sunrise over a Meadow's song began and asked Jaron and Aastik to fetch Coldstone and Wildfire.
"It appears," Sunrise over a Meadow said after they arrived, "that Song of Calmth had a dream last night. Apparently we must all sleep. Once we do, we will combine the message and send it to Coldstone and Wildfire using telepathy. It will take place in hyperspace."
"Cha can't come unless all parts of him are asleep as well. According to Song of Calmth the experience will drive him insane if he's awake. Just like it will drive us insane if we're awake. So we have decided that he will stay here."
"Through telepathy? In hyperspace?" None of you are telepathic, said Wildfire.
"Apparently over there we will be." Sang Sunrise over a Meadow. "The connection is strongest when all are asleep and dreaming."
"How will we fall asleep?" Asked Jaron.
"The Elders have medicins that will work on Soia Liron species. And Sunrise probably has a medicine cabinet aboard. But Aastik?" Said Coldstone.
"Do not worry." Said Aastik. "One half of these make me very tranquil. A whole one makes me sleep." He showed the bottle that he had been given aboard Hula Girl.
"And how do we stay in hyperspace?" asked Coldstone. "The transition is instantaneous."
"I do not know." Said Sunrise.
"How do we even know that we are the Cold Rock and the Flame?" Asked Wildfire.
"That's obvious." Said 127-006-625. "Because you are here."
---
One part of Cha had crawled on top of Sivira's head. It was hoping that it would be stroked again. Other parts were clamping to Avira, Wildfire's mother. Most parts were on the ground.
Sunrise had explained that Cha's intelligence would go down when its parts were split up without him boosting their link and had provided a nutrient solution that mainly consisted of sugars and water.
Elders had provided sleeping powders they had obtained from the trade with other tribes and communities.
Sunrise over a Meadow had put a viscous cloth and a bottle with a lightbrown liquid on a table inside Song of Calmth.
After saying goodbye, the opening in Song of Calmth closed and the ship took off.
---
A few hours passed. Then Song of Calmth spoke and deep of vibrations filled the cabin. Sunrise over a Meadow gestured to get prepared. Without Cha there was no translation. So Sunrise would gesture when Song of Calmth indicated that they were ready to jump.
Aastik swallowed his pill and Coldstone added a bit of sleeping powder to one of 127-006-625's liquid containers. She, Wildfire and Jaron then dissolved their own powder in some water and drank the solution. Sunrise over a Meadow dropped the cloth, poured the liquid on it, moved on top of it and began to absorb the liquid through its roots. It then slowly walked to a patch of soil using its tendrils to feel its way, rooted itself, spead its tendrils around several support beams and fell asleep.
So did the others.
After making sure that they were asleep by shaking them a bit, Song of Calmth jumped.
At exactly the same moment, Song of Calmth disconnected itself from the jump path, changed direction in the extra dimension of space and two dimensions of time that had become available and dived into a realm that scientists only speculate exists, because some mathematical formulas show that it must.
An eternity in a fraction of a second in which every possible past was shown in an eternity in a fraction of a second in which every possible present was shown in an eternity in a fraction of a second in which every possible future was shown passed and did not pass at all. And Coldstone and Wildfire began to receive the message.
The Ha'Sati Vin'Jaad were the first species that the Soia created to become their weapons. Unlike the ones that followed, they were not created from a sapient species, but from a ferocious apex predator and were uplifted. But they were considered a failure. They were too vicious. Most were killed, but some managed to escape the genocide and swore vengeance: they would exterminate the Soia and everything that they had created, then take their place.
Their perfect genetic memory would see to it that their oath was kept.
And they tried. Four times they launched a massive attack on the Soia empire, but were defeated every time.
They then decided to change their strategy. They migrated to another part of the galaxy, far beyond the Soia empire's sphere of influence and knowledge and build the mother of all armadas. The voyage and construction took a long time. Other empires fought the invaders and twice the First Ones Created had come close to extinction. When that happened they fled, multiplied, struck back and consumed their foes.
More than ten thousand years ago they had decided that the time to strike had come. On the long way back they were again attacked a number of times. But now none could stand against the shear size of their armada. Their feasts were plenty and filling.
They were enraged when they found out that the Soia Empire had collapsed, but rejoiced when they discovered that most of the species that the Soia had created, survived. Now, no longer united and led by their masters, those species were no match for the First Ones Created and the flesh of tens of billions was ripped from their bones in waves of slaughter. A process that took centuries to complete for each victim species, just to maximize the despair and agony the Ha'Sati Vin'Jaad inflicted.
The message made it clear that once the enemy's armada exited hyperspace it could not be stopped. It had to be defeated in hyperspace. In order to do so, part of hyperspace would need to be manipulated and transformed into a death trap.
Annihilating the enemy would take the cooperation of the Union, Humanity, the Nissek Hegemony, the Historian Collective, the Sonliri and a species called the Doso, as all six had a part to play. The Doso were nomadic and would need to be tracked down and convinced to join the cause. This would be Wildfire's primary task. Getting the other species to cooperate to build and operate the Vyperspace Vortex Arrays would be Coldstone's task.
---
When Wildfire showed signs that she began to wake up, Song of Calmth immediately exited the higher realm and jumped back into Deinar. Once back in normal space, no time had passed.
Song of Calmth liked the endless white of hyperspace. And it liked all the amazing things that it contained. It was a shame that all species who had yet to transcend were driven mad by it almost instantly. It was a good thing that they had no idea how to truly dive into it yet and only travel along its edge to jump from system to system. But some of them would know one day. All life strives.
---
After the crew had awakened, Aastik mentioned how strange it was how the message had suddenly been so clear, as if they had been somehow closer to its source.
Jaron wondered why whatever force was behind the message had decided to send four messengers instead of one.
It was Sunrise over a Meadow who answered that question by suggesting that the choice of messengers can be a message as well.
127-006-625 mentioned the historian's Long Range Hyperspace Communication Array. How he understood that it could serve as the basis for the weapons and why they would need help to build and operate them.
---
Jaron and Aastik spent a few more days at the tribal gathering. After Coldstone had made arrangements, they went back home. 127-006-625 agreed to join Coldstone's intelligence agency. He would not tell her the historian's secrets, he said. But he would provide her with all information that was relevant to the mission.
After the tribes went their separate way, Coldstone, 127-006-625 and Wildfire departed to Mezan's orbital shipyard to inspect the progress that had been made with the construction of the prototype ship that was based on the tech that they had obtained ten years earlier. Song of Calmth departed at the same time.
---/\/---
Epilogue
---
Daydream had been sent by her diral to find edible mushrooms that grew in this area. But now she was looking at a strange, tall plant that stood at the edge of the small lake in Perrein's jungle and the brown creatures it was covered with. She had never seen it or one like it before and knew that it hadn't been here a week ago. The whole of it lit up as brightly as the minds of people and she wondered. Another part of her wondered if it and the little brown critters were edible.
Suddenly she noticed another, less bright mind approach rapidly from behind. As she turned and saw the predator, it lunged. Daydream bent backwards, began to raise her arms and closed her eyes.
PPANG!
Daydream fell backwards as the predator fell on top of her, its fangs at her throat. But they werent biting. She opened her eyes, pushed the beast aside and noticed it was dead. It had two holes in its head.
She got up, her heart pounding. The sound had come from...
When she looked, she noticed that all the critters had climbed down and now spelled the word "that" in Trade on the ground. Then they shifted and subsequently spelled "was" "a close" "one, eh?".
Daydream was dumbfounded. She blinked, looked at the plant, blinked again, looked at the corpse of the predator and slowly began to regain her composure. Who cares about mushrooms? She thought. Today there's meat for dinner. And I have a story to tell.
---/\/---
Last edited by G. Janssen on Sat Oct 15, 2022 3:20 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Re: Dream Team
Wow... it is very cool that apparently you are up to date on the latest and greatest of technology.
In matterbeam's twitter blogs I believe he mentioned something about glucose powered computer implants.
So what the historian was powered with is not fiction... that is reality. Just in our reality it is up and coming new tech still in development and not common.
In matterbeam's twitter blogs I believe he mentioned something about glucose powered computer implants.
So what the historian was powered with is not fiction... that is reality. Just in our reality it is up and coming new tech still in development and not common.
Re: Dream Team
Wow, that's a nice story. I like it.
The Kohr-AhFirst Ones are coming with a mission.
The Kohr-AhFirst Ones are coming with a mission.
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G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Dream Team
Thanks for the reply. I was afraid people didn't like the story because it because it contains religion.Bamax wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 12:26 amWow... it is very cool that apparently you are up to date on the latest and greatest of technology.
In matterbeam's twitter blogs I believe he mentioned something about glucose powered computer implants.
So what the historian was powered with is not fiction... that is reality. Just in our reality it is up and coming new tech still in development and not common.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Dream Team
There are so many 'coincidences' in Arioch's Outsider universe, that the existence of a higher consciousness in whatever form, is guaranteed. So I had to write this.
Firestorm survived the destruction of two ships and ended up on Tempest. A ship named after an ancient hero. It even has a mural that depicts her. That mural reveals a lot. Of all the Teidar aboard, Fireblade is the one to touch and link with Alex.
Alex's survival, name, rank ('enzin' also means guardian), being picked up by Tempest instead one of the other 26 ships.
There's more... Like when he sits on the bridge and Fireblade, who doesn't like to come close to people, sits right next to him... That's 'the Universe' saying "keep these 2 females real close, Alex. You are the key, but what I have planned can't be done without them."
That's fate working overtime. Not coincidences.
Re: Dream Team
Religion is not a problem at all. My fanfic also features something of the sort.G. Janssen wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 1:19 pmThanks for the reply. I was afraid people didn't like the story because it because it contains religion.
My only quip is that your story goes too far away from the comic's timeline, scope, story or general idea. It is a spinoff with some rather loose ties to the comic's plot, merely existing in roughly the same universe. Or rather, you are now building your own universe, since it diverges from Arioch's original one at an ever-increasing pace. But since it's quite good, why not?
My fanfic: A sword that wields itself
Re: Dream Team
I had that Fireblade sitting close, because she's been instructed to keep an eye on him and terminate him if he tries anything.G. Janssen wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 1:33 pmThere's more... Like when he sits on the bridge and Fireblade, who doesn't like to come close to people, sits right next to him... That's 'the Universe' saying "keep these 2 females real close, Alex. You are the key, but what I have planned can't be done without them." :)
That's fate working overtime. Not coincidences.
She's the guard for the prisoner.
The Listel is the scientist who is the contact/attaché for the diplomat, and tasked with eliciting as much knowledge as she can, in which her eidetic memory helps. And possibly find flaws and/or contradictions, leading to uncovering him as an hostile agent.
He is still in the situation where the Loroi play both paths.
Also, I agree with Cthulu. I like this storyline, and even if it diverges from the worldbuilding of Arioch: who cares?
It makes the story need less explanation.
One thing though: Why does Song of Calmth experience time in "Hyperspace", while the rest does not, or only marginally?
(And once you wrote "Song of Calm", omitting the "th" ...)
I find that evolution will bring forth such a tremendous change in perception and ability of manipulation of other dimensions extremely unlikely, as there would need to be an advantage for the change outweighing the negativity of the extra energy expenditure.
And the changes necessary for such a complete change of abilities ....
Ah well, a story is a story, and if it's enjoyable, accept such tools.
Also, the ship's race is engineered, and thus possibly been engineered to allow/actively support such changes, and expand on genetic new traits/abilities without culling them for energy savings.
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G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Dream Team
My version of what the space faring races think is hyperspace, is folded space. An Einstein Rosenberg bridge. Ships travelling through that tunnel travel on the wall of that tunnel. Space is stretched almost infinitely, so entrance and exit are near simultaneous.Krulle wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 4:32 pmI had that Fireblade sitting close, because she's been instructed to keep an eye on him and terminate him if he tries anything.G. Janssen wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 1:33 pmThere's more... Like when he sits on the bridge and Fireblade, who doesn't like to come close to people, sits right next to him... That's 'the Universe' saying "keep these 2 females real close, Alex. You are the key, but what I have planned can't be done without them."
That's fate working overtime. Not coincidences.
She's the guard for the prisoner.
The Listel is the scientist who is the contact/attaché for the diplomat, and tasked with eliciting as much knowledge as she can, in which her eidetic memory helps. And possibly find flaws and/or contradictions, leading to uncovering him as an hostile agent.
He is still in the situation where the Loroi play both paths.
Also, I agree with Cthulu. I like this storyline, and even if it diverges from the worldbuilding of Arioch: who cares?
It makes the story need less explanation.
One thing though: Why does Song of Calmth experience time in "Hyperspace", while the rest does not, or only marginally?
(And once you wrote "Song of Calm", omitting the "th" ...)
Travel along the wall of such a tunnel is lineair. Although a second dimension exists. You can after all travel in circles along a wall of a pipe or tunnel.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Gotl9vRGs
Song can dive into real hyperspace. Space Time 6. Three dimensions of space and three of time. It has evolved to be able to do so. It detaches itself from the wall of the tunnel and leaves our plane of existence completely, just like a ship does that falls into negative hyperspace. Time doesn't pass in there like it does in Space Time 4, our realm. All possibilities happen instantly. Constantly. Eternally. We'd go insane because our brains can't handle it.
Song can handle it. His species transcended long ago, but decided to stay around to help the Sonliri achieve the same.
And that hyperspace is a realm with more than one dimension of time is hinted, because A. sanzai is suspected of using hyperspace, which means that all Loroi minds may be connected in hyperspace (and form a sort of higher consciousness). Maybe all life is connected. Just look at Alex's 'coincidental' presence.
And B. Everytime the Loroi are being threatened with extermination, a very special Loroi is born. Tempest for instance. But the special Loroi in the comic's present time was born before the war became a war of extermination. The Umiak didn't decide to exterminate the Loroi until after they proved to be uncontrollable. Yet that Loroi is born at the beginning of the war. How else to explain this, than that information travelled backwards in time and things in the past were influenced so that the bad future won't happen?
Re: Dream Team
All is one, and as Peter F. Hamilton (Reality Dysfuntion "trilogy") puts it: Some things cannot be explained by science yet. (Omega-3 as the friendly aliens put it)
Re: Dream Team
Well, after reading up to this point, I gotta say, this is no longer Outsider. At all. In "Color and Stealth", you shifted between "blue-painted" humans acting as Loroi and "facsimile" Loroi. It was a bit weird at times, and often not quite lore-friendly, but at least amusing. Still, it could be regarded as being part of the universe. Fanfics are permitted a certain degree of freedom, I guess.
Now, you are diverging from the plot and general idea so much, that it became a separate universe altogether. The problem is, why do you keep using Arioch's worldbuilding? At this point, making your own universe would be the far better approach. Otherwise, trying to incorporate both into a single storyline will overstretch our suspension of disbelief to the point where it will tear apart. The whole point of a fanfic is to use the existing backstory in order to skip the need of constructing it all by yourself.
I'm not saying that you should stop or change the way how you write, but you need to be aware of this problem. Changing the story in a fundamental way (like dragoongfa's excellent "Pale Horse"), while keeping it in-universe, is a significant challenge.
Now, you are diverging from the plot and general idea so much, that it became a separate universe altogether. The problem is, why do you keep using Arioch's worldbuilding? At this point, making your own universe would be the far better approach. Otherwise, trying to incorporate both into a single storyline will overstretch our suspension of disbelief to the point where it will tear apart. The whole point of a fanfic is to use the existing backstory in order to skip the need of constructing it all by yourself.
I'm not saying that you should stop or change the way how you write, but you need to be aware of this problem. Changing the story in a fundamental way (like dragoongfa's excellent "Pale Horse"), while keeping it in-universe, is a significant challenge.
My fanfic: A sword that wields itself
Re: Dream Team
Generally I like it but Cthulhu seems right. It does seem to stray a bit from Outsider rules and lore. Introducing a new race is not a bad idea, but introducing a new FTL travel method is kind of pushing the limits. But I want to see how the story plays out and will let you know what I think by the time I start/finish the next installment.
The forgivable thing is that it is just fanfic, so your imagination should go where it leads. But try to stick with Outsider rules for your future projects.
The forgivable thing is that it is just fanfic, so your imagination should go where it leads. But try to stick with Outsider rules for your future projects.
Re: Dream Team
I am not caught up with with all of the story yet, but I will quote what one writer said as I think it applies.
"The good news is there is no such thing as a bad idea. The bad news is it's not about ideas!"
As he would emphasize again and again in his writerly advice video, it's about STORY.
I am sure his video is posted somewhere here in the forums because I posted it. I was just too lazy to bother finding it again for this post.
"The good news is there is no such thing as a bad idea. The bad news is it's not about ideas!"
As he would emphasize again and again in his writerly advice video, it's about STORY.
I am sure his video is posted somewhere here in the forums because I posted it. I was just too lazy to bother finding it again for this post.
Re: Dream Team
That does correspond with what I said, actually. He moves so far away from the established lore that it becomes a drag on his artistic freedom and our suspension of disbelief instead. The author either needs to remain in Outsider's universe, or he should create his own one. Bridging both is of course possible, but that's' a challenge which raises the difficulty level by an order of magnitude.Bamax wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 12:19 amI am not caught up with with all of the story yet, but I will quote what one writer said as I think it applies.
"The good news is there is no such thing as a bad idea. The bad news is it's not about ideas!"
As he would emphasize again and again in his writerly advice video, it's about STORY.
I am sure his video is posted somewhere here in the forums because I posted it. I was just too lazy to bother finding it again for this post.
My fanfic: A sword that wields itself
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G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
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Re: Dream Team
Nope. Not a new FTL method. Just a different interpretation. I will not use the term 'wormhole' in the story. I will use it in these posts as a means to visualize things.
https://well-of-souls.com/outsider/fred ... tions.html"The initial idea on artificial gravity was that it was related to the jump drive mechanism; ships too small to have AG are also too small to have a hyperdrive. The most likely way I can think of to punch a hole in space-time through which to slip into hyperspace is by creating an intense gravitational field, so jump drive suggests artificial gravity generation." -Arioch.
"I tend to view hyperspace not as an extra dimension in realspace, but rather as a parallel universe with dimensions of its own. It's not clear how many dimensions our "normal" universe has... some say 4, some 10, and some as many as 26... what the difference is between the hypothetical "hidden" 23 dimensions of our own universe and a separate parallel universe is, I'm afraid I don't know enough about theoretical physics to say. But what I can say is that the whole point of hyperspace is to be able to travel faster relative to realspace, so the requirement for hyperspace is that the relationship of the dimensions of time and space is different than it is in realspace. I'm not sure that's possible if hyperspace is actually just an additional dimension of realspace. But in any case, resolving this question is not required to gain a basic understanding of how hyperspace works. The primary thing to keep in mind is that hyperspace has at least one more dimension than we perceive here in realspace." -Arioch
"Mass in realspace causes gravity that warps the plane of realspace, causing dimples in the plane in the direction of T. Since the volume of hyperspace follows the topography of realspace and is also affected by gravity, hyperspace is also distorted in similar ways. But since hyperspace is more complex than realspace, it is distorted in ways that seem more chaotic and harder to predict. This is the second factor that limits jump distance (the first being intervening mass), the tendency of error to rise with distance due to the chaotic nature of hyperspace topography." -Arioch
At least one extra dimension? Check.
Punching a hole in hyperspace by using intense gravitational fields? Check. I only went into greater detail on that one by specifying that those fields are used to 'inflate' a one-dimensional superstring.
Ballistic course for the users? Check. They're still jumping from gravity well to gravity well.
Gravity influence? Check.
The only thing that I changed, is that the people in my version of the Outsider universe *THINK* that they are actually travelling through that realm, while in fact they never truly leave ours. They travel on its edge. And therefore also on the edge of hyperspace. That way both the chaotic nature of hyperspace and the gravity from our realm influence the path of ships.
There are a number of reasons why I did that.
1. The people in the Outsider universe have a limited understanding of hyperspace. (I know this, because even its Creator stated in the two paragraphs above that he has a limited understanding of it.
Sorry. Couldn't resist.) 2. Gravity in our universe will affect the edge like a wormhole.
3. The near infinite stretching of space-time of the edge or in a wormhole also causes near instantaneous travel.
4. The crews reappear with their sanity intact. Good luck passing through a chaotic realm that has more dimensions, while being completely detached from our realm. We can't even imagine it. I'm pretty sure this is what happens when ships fall into negative hyperspace. An eternity of insane screaming packed in each femtosecond is a possible result. "Longer than you think, dad! Longer than you think!"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jaunt
5. When supermassive gravity fields are used to "punch a hole in space-time", guess what you get:
https://www.sciencealert.com/magnetic-w ... en-created
The problem here is that having gravity in hyperspace possibly means that there's also mass in hyperspace."The mass of a real-world object does not exist in hyperspace, but the gravity from that mass does affect objects traveling through hyperspace. This is necessary for a variety of in-story mechanics (the ballistic jumping ship needs something to pull it back into realspace), but it is suggested by real theoretical physics. If you can call String Theory "real" physics. One of the speculations of String Theory is the existence of parallel universes (or "branes"), and this is further offered as a potential explanation for why the gravitational force is so much weaker than the electromagnetic and nuclear forces (even the weak nuclear force is 10^25 times as strong as gravity): gravity is weaker because its effect is not limited to this plane of existence... the gravitons are free to cross the boundaries into the parallel dimension(s). This results in a much weaker gravitational force in realspace, and gravitational fields that extend into hyperspace." -Arioch
"So, passing "through" a realspace object won't cause you to collide with it in hyperspace, but it will bring you within that object's gravitational well, which will more than likely pull you out of hyperspace (and collide with the object in realspace). It's theoretically possible to fly through a mass in hyperspace and emerge into realspace on the other side, this would probably only work for a low-mass body (say the size of a planet) and would be very difficult to pull off. In practice, if you "overshoot" a star by a small amount, you generally end up plowing right into it. If you overshoot by a large amount, you don't come out of hyperspace at that star at all. Gas, dust and small masses don't generally have enough of a gravitational pull to wrench a ship out of hyperspace, so there won't be a collision in this case... though there may be slight perturbations of the ship's arc through hyperspace." -Arioch
Why is this a problem? Well, this mass can take 2 forms: uneven distribution or even distribution.
If it's uneven, then our universe will experience local gravimetric phenomenon caused by absent objects. Objects that are absent here, but do exist in hyperspace.
We have not observed this yet afaik.
It also means collisions. While in hyperspace ships can pass through objects in realspace, but can they also pass through objects in hyperspace?
I therefore used the even distribution, which is probably the reason why hyperspace acts like a medium as explained in Expedition.
Anyway, I needed to introduce a species that has better understanding of hyperspace, because there's going to be an expedition. Going where my characters are going with jumps that take 6 light years would take forever.
Loroi, Humans, etc. are just going to do the same thing they always did: jump from a gravity well into another one, except their new pilot will make longer jumps so I won't have to write a hundred chapters.
"The only thing more difficult than writing a fun science fiction story, is writing the justifications and explanations of the mechanisms in it to the people that read it." -G. Janssen
There. Look what you made me do.
Re: Dream Team
SpoilerShow
G. Janssen wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 12:49 pmThe problem here is that having gravity in hyperspace possibly means that there's also mass in hyperspace.
Why is this a problem? Well, this mass can take 2 forms: uneven distribution or even distribution.
If it's uneven, then our universe will experience local gravimetric phenomenon caused by absent objects. Objects that are absent here, but do exist in hyperspace.
We have not observed this yet afaik.
It also means collisions. While in hyperspace ships can pass through objects in realspace, but can they also pass through objects in hyperspace?
I therefore used the even distribution, which is probably the reason why hyperspace acts like a medium as explained in Expedition.
Anyway, I needed to introduce a species that has better understanding of hyperspace, because there's going to be an expedition. Going where my characters are going with jumps that take 6 light years would take forever.
Loroi, Humans, etc. are just going to do the same thing they always did: jump from a gravity well into another one, except their new pilot will make longer jumps so I won't have to write a hundred chapters.
"The only thing more difficult than writing a fun science fiction story, is writing the justifications and explanations of the mechanisms in it to the people that read it." -G. Janssen
There. Look what you made me do.
P.S. There's no mass in hyperspace, merely a "shadow" of it, projected from realspace. This affects a ship travelling in hyperspace, limiting its range. In order to have longer jumps, you'd need sensors that work in hyperspace, and a drive system that can adjust the ship's course while in hyperspace.
My fanfic: A sword that wields itself
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G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Dream Team
My what now?
I know. But I'm kind of committed now. I promise that my next fanfic will be 100% Outsider lore., those new adversaries, an (unscientific) cloaking technology and a whole bunch of other things. One or two of them would've been fine, but the sheer mass of all the additions pulls your fanfic out of Arioch's universe. Which brings us back to the aforementioned problem of straying too far from Outsider's lore, plot and general idea.
Re: Dream Team
The tree-like ships (Sonliri?), that are extradimensional, as they can exist in another dimension and still function, which none of us can do.
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G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Dream Team
Oh right. They can function there. They are from our universe though. The Sonliri are their creators. I needed something that can make longer jumps and stay in hyperspace where minds connect. A computer was just too boring.