Five years have passed since the events in Dream Team. Fifteen years have passed since the end of Color and Stealth.
Prologue.
---
Cracking the captured Ha'Sati Vin'Jaad technology would've taken a lot longer without the help of the Historian Collective and the historian personality construct on Mezan's orbital shipyard. But as helpful the historians were with the alien tech, as secretive they were about historian tech.
Coldstone had noticed the phenomenon too and had asked 127-006-625 about it. It had not liked the questioning and refused to provide answers, but it had begun to think.
"I think that it is very likely that the soia have placed a restriction on us that prevents us to disclose information about their technology, unless there are very pressing reasons, like the Umiak invasion." It said.
Coldstone wondered what it would take to break the restriction and did some psychological experiments on 127-006-625. It cooperated out of curiosity.
Despite the historians' secrecy, it became clear that their illusion drive used a principle that was similar to the Ha'Sati drive.
It was discovered that the technology that the Ha'Sati used looked like it originated from many sources. It was probably captured from the species they had eradicated and adapted. Some of it was highly advanced, some of it a lot less.
The scientists couldn't understand why the Ha'Sati hadn't added another hull layer with gravity shielding to completely contain the spacetime distortions that could give the ship away. They decided to add it to the prototype.
The prototype was sleeker than the Ha'Sati vessel. She had a 5:1 length to beam ratio, was 75 meters long and did not have a hyperdrive or the E.M. absorbing stealth coatings. She was Loroi Navy green. Stealth wasn't needed to test the drive.
The historians constructed the cores and delivered them in an active state after the prototype had been completed. Their construction and activation was far beyond the Union's capabilities.
A series of tests inevitably revealed a series of flaws. Mainly in the gravity panels that contained and manipulated the flow of hyperspace. Correcting the flaws by perfecting their production process took many months.
But now that the cores were inside the ship, the Union scientists could finally fire the Ha'Sati weapon. And as the historian personality construct had already told, it proved to be extremely powerful at close range. Despite that, it still disappointed because of its short range.
And while the prototype was being tested, the keel for the expedition ship had alraidy been laid and its construction steadily progressed.
---/\/---
Chapter 1a. Cold Front
---
"Union citizens sleep peaceably in their beds at night, only because rough females stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -Teidar Rozerrei Hailstorm.
Coldstone had spent the last two hours aboard Cry of the Wind informing Greywind about the state of affairs. Once in a while Greywind liked to be informed about things in person by the people who made sure that the Union continued to run smoothly.
Greywind was sending. "And thus the Diadem has once again voted against informing Humanity and the Nissek Hegemony about the approaching danger. I am afraid that I have run out of options. There's nothing more that I can do."
"And then there is the matter of the historians. They continue to refuse to share their knowledge about their hyperspace communications array. Again, there's little more that I can do."
An hour later, Coldstone's shuttle left Cry of the Wind. There were some things that she could do.
---
Five weeks later, Secretary General Lazaros Alexakis of the United Nations couldn't believe his eyes. "Is this trustworthy? How was this information obtained?" He asked.
"The data crystal was obtained by Admiral Peters." A staff member said. "A Mizol who was recently added to the loroi embassy's diplomatic staff approached him at last week's party and thought that she had gotten him drunk."
"Stefan Peters. Old Iron Liver." Alexakis thought. "Poor Mizol. They never learn."
"She then took him home in a taxi and wanted to know everything about what's going on over at Europa. Peters told her the truth: that we're testing new ship concepts to modernize the Navy. He also deliberately exagerrated and said that we will soon rule the galaxy. She seemed satisfied and amused by that."
"They had some more to drink, she asked a few more questions, they had sex, she fell asleep and Peters went through the Mizol's belongings like he always does when one of them tries to milk him for information. The data crystal was in a small container inside her bag. We spent a few days trying to decrypt their algoritm and succeeded because some new kid made a joke that lead to the pass phrase."
"What was the pass phrase?" Alexakis asked.
The staff member scraped his throat. "Human Males Are So Incredibly Easy."
He continued. "The day after Peters obtained the crystal, his house was ransacked. A painting, a sculpture and a Chinese vase were stolen." Witnesses reported seeing a woman leaving his house but couldn't see her face.
"Ah yes. Always make it look like a robbery." Alexakis thought.
"And where is the poor Mizol now?" Alexakis asked.
"The Union embassy says that she is "unavailable."
"So, dead, detained or missing." Alexakis thought.
---
Three weeks after the events on Earth, the Diadem was in uproar. Humanity's United Nations had summoned the Union ambassador and had confronted her with very embarrassing evidence. Evidence that the Union was withholding critical information about a new enemy.
An enemy that would likely attack within a century, was responsible for the disappearance of a number of Humanity ships and exterminated all enemy species by eating them.
To make things worse, on one of the scanned pages a faint handwritten text was visible, as if someone had written a note on top of that page, then copied the page and the shadow of the imprint had been copied as well.
The text read "The Azerein has asked if a Union victory is possible, if both Humanity and the Nissek are left to their own devices. And in case the aswer is positive, how long it will take for the Union to rebuild the economies on their empty worlds after seizing them".
And then, to make things catastrophic, the Nissek Hegemony had somehow also gotten wind of the whole thing and had questioned the military alliance between the Union and the Hegemony.
Greywind's opponents fumed and demanded that she abdicate her position of Emperor. But they were a minority. The majority of the Diadem demanded that the leak was found.
It took three weeks for a detective, who had recently been transferred, to find an obscure trace. The trace led to more evidence. Evidence that led to the remains of a murdered Mizol who had recently joined the staff of the Union embassy on Earth and had gone missing.
The Mizol's remains consisted of two hairs, a tiny drop of blood and a trace amount of sludge in a bathtub. The sludge consisted of hydrochloric acid, broken down organic matter, copper, minerals and bodyfat. Only the follicle of one of the hairs and the speck of blood could be used for DNA identification. Her computer, a vase, a sculpture and a painting were found by a diver in the canal that ran behind the house.
The computer's data storage device was missing, but a forensics expert, who had recently been transferred, found a well hidden data crystal inside the painting's frame. And that crystal contained insurance in case of death. One of the things that the insurance contained was the name of one of Greywind's greatest opponents in the diadem.
When police kicked down Torrai Diaderet Sevenstar's door, they found her sitting behind her desk. She had committed suicide. Her pistol was in her hand and her body was still warm. The text on a note in front of her said. "It was for the good of the empire. Down with Greywind!"
---
A few miles away from Sevenstar's mansion drove a black hovercar that carefully kept to the speed limit. One of its passengers was a female who bore a striking resemblance to the murdered Mizol. She was removing the gloves that she was wearing. Two other passengers looked a lot like a certain pair of prison guards...
At first Greywind's opponents refused to believe the scandal, but the evidence of Torrai Diaderet Sevenstar's treason was compelling.
The writing on the suicide note matched her other writings and the imprinted text on the scanned document. The original note on seizing Humanity and Nissek Hegemony worlds was found in her garbage and the hard copies of the documents that had been leaked to Humanity were found in her safe, together with her diary. Her DNA and fingerprints were on many pages of the documents.
Another thing that the insurance on the Mizol's datacrystal contained was an audio recording of a meeting between her and Diaderet Sevenstar in Sevenstar's mansion.
Also, the last entry in Sevenstar's diary mentioned that people who tried to extort others, deserved to be dissolved in acid and flushed down a sewer.
And finally, an expert coroner, who had performed autopsies in a number of high profile cases, testified that Sevenstar's death was indeed suicide.
After Lodestone made an impressive speech to the Diadem because Greywind felt unwell, apologies were offered to the humans and nissek, all information was shared and concessions were made. The humans and nissek would be kept informed in the future, were allowed to join the planned expedition and become part of a joint defense.
---/\/---
Chapter 1b. Warm Front
---
"Identify yourself." The Teidar at the docking port sent.
"Torrai Torret Wildfire, commanding officer of this vessel." Wildfire sent back.
The Teidar's face showed disapproval. "That is not the uniform of a Torrai." She sent.
"No. It's tribal armor. My Navy armor is already aboard." Wildfire sent.
She then sent her identity to the Teidar, showed her pass and asked how many of her crew were already aboard.
"Only the engineering team, some scientists and Teidar Pallan Fireblade. She is inspecting the vessel, Torrai Torret." The Teidar sent back.
Wildfire nodded and went aboard.
"Excuse me." Wildfire sent to a passing Gallen Lonzet who was carrying a set of tubes. "Where can I find Gallen Lopeiladi Scar?"
"She was in the forward port convertor compartment about 9 bimas ago, Torrai Torret." The Lonzet sent back.
When Wildfire arrived, Scar was still there. She was checking every single converter.
"Congratulations on your promotion, Scar." Sent Wildfire. "And I think that the Gallen aboard the yard already did that."
Scar looked around to scan if nobody was in range. She was one of a few who could address Wildfire by her name only, but it would look weird if others were around.
"Wildfire! Good to see you after all this time. And better safe than sorry after what happened last time. Nice outfit by the way." She sent back.
"Well, thank you. Made it myself. Boiled leather, bone plates, sinew, layers of fabric, hammered metal. All a tribal female needs so she won't get eaten by her dinner when it's still chasing her."
"I heard you have a daughter." Scar sent.
"Yes, Sivira. She's ten now and will go through her trials before we leave. I intend to be there."
"Aren't you supposed not to reveal tribal names to us outsiders?" Scar sent.
"Argh." Wildfire sent. "Please forget her name."
"Consider it done. Poof! It's gone." Scar's sending came with an animation of an exploding smoke bomb. The smoke had a face that winked. "So, are the rumours true?"
"Which ones?" Wildfire asked.
"That there's going to be nissek aboard?" Scar asked with a serious face. The sending was accompanied with nissek feeding on the carcass of one of their own.
"Yes... Three. And three humans. And a historian personality construct that will represent the Historian Collective. And a barsam and neridi who will represent the other races of the Union."
"It's good to have you aboard, Scar. Now please excuse me. I'll go and change into my other armor before some..."
"MWARL."
Wildfire turned around. Teidar Pallan Fireblade stood to attention in the opening of the access hatch holding a leash.
"Ma'am Torrai Torret Wildfire Ma'am, Teidar Pallan Fireblade reporting for duty, Ma'am." Fireblade saluted. "Ma'am."
Fireblade returned the salute.
Fireblade saluted again. "Ma'am!"
"It's good to see that you have developed a sense of humor, Fireblade." Wildfire sent.
"Thank you, Torrai. It feels good too."
Meow appeared in the opening.
Wildfire looked. Something was off. Then she noticed. "Did he always have two tails?" Wildfire asked.
"No." Fireblade sent. "The second started growing a couple of years ago. And Meow has grown a bit."
"Yes he has." Wildfire responded. "Do you intend to bring him along?"
"Can I? He's the batallion's mascot."
"You can. But the same rule applies as last time. If he eats someone he goes out the airlock." Wildfire sent jokingly.
"What if he eats a nissek?" Wildfire asked.
"Fair point. He'll have to eat two of them before he goes." Wildfire responded.
"Who else of the old crew will join us?" Scar asked.
"Not many." Wildfire answered. "Chef received permission to open a restaurant aboard a freight transfer station on the busiest shipping lane between Humanity and the Union. She and her staff dress up in weird costumes and serve a mix of Humanity and Union food. Fray has her own command of a patrol cruiser in the Maia system.."
[a]"Ah.."[/i] Scar sent an animation of a besai that had a large lump below it that moved up and down.
"Indeed." Wildfire sent back. "Her male got permission to move there as well. Coldstone's doing, I suspect. Emery has her own command of a frigate. Sun, another diral sister of mine was selected to be Sword's new XO after I put in a word for her."
"Oh and Hellion made a fuzz and insisted to pilot Sword after she piloted the prototype, so I allowed it. I'll either regret it or be very thankful sooner or later. And Diva will be in charge of the sensors and electronic warfare section. Anyway, I'm off."
---
Sword of Hope was 550 meters long, 110 meters wide and high and was classified as a stealth battlecruiser. She was smooth and ellipse shaped like the Ha'Sati vessel and had a lot of excess room. A lot of it was filled with supplies, tools and parts, since nobody knew how long the expedition would take. She was even more stealthy than the Ha'Sati vessel. And almost as heavily armed like a standard Loroi battlecruiser.
Having near unlimited energy at one's disposal meant she had been equipped with class VI retractable screen projectors. The only ship in the fleet that had class VI shielding. It was meant to compensate her poor armor. Instead of carrying a battlecruiser's six shuttles, she carried eight: four skiffs and four assault shuttles.
She was armed with four forward firing torpedo railguns and carried 240 Mk VI full size, long range stealth torpedoes.
To do some real damage at long range almost immediately, she had four twin barreled pulse cannons, all four mounted halfway her length. One on top, one on the bottom and one on each side. In front and aft of these turrets a triple barreled laser auto cannon was placed.
The turrets were placed on four fully retractable weapon platforms. She also had a front and aft beam projector to do devastating damage at short range.
Her top acceleration was 73G. Her safe maximum rotation rate was 3.5 times the rate of a ship her size that used conventional thrusters.
Fuel, a backup reactor and two small, covered, conventional engines could accelerate her at 2.5G to a jump zone in case a core failed. There was enough fuel to provide for around twenty jumps and twenty standard system crossings at low speed and 6 months of power. The historian personality construct on the yard had scoffed at this "nonsense". The Gallen however, had insisted.
Her regular crew of 400 souls was complemented with a 60 person strong science and diplomatic team consisting of linguists, medics, xeno-biologists, chemists, software specialists, electronics experts, anthropologists, experts on culture and history, Mizol diplomats and Nissek Hegemony, Historian Collective, Loroi Union and Humanity representatives. A number of the medics, software and electronics experts functioned as extra members of the regular crew. Fireblade was in charge of 14 strike teams. Each of them contained two Teidar, just in case that the Union had to be represented in another way. Sword also carried two Bistima who had volunteered.
Wildfire had changed into her Torrai armor and walked through its corridors and compartments and enjoyed how spacious everything was. "She's ugly on the outside. But look at the advantages that a symmetrical 3D design brings." She thought. "So much space."
She entered the bridge. On the floor in its center was a covered circle. It was about 4 feet in diameter. 127-006-625 had insisted that it would be build according to its specifications. The myriad of connections below the cover ran to the propulsion system, sensors, navigation computer, hyperdrive, helm control and others. "Be patient. You'll see what its purpose is for." 127-006-625 had said to the engineers. On the ceiling above the circle was another circle that contained bright lights and a number of openings.
After finishing the inspection, Wildfire went aboard the shipyard to talk to the Gallen and complete some formalities.
---/\/---
Expedition
Moderator: Outsider Moderators
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Expedition
Last edited by G. Janssen on Wed Oct 19, 2022 10:42 pm, edited 5 times in total.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Chapter 2. Always use your brain
---
Sword's crew had arrived, the shakedown cruise had been completed and the shipyard was fixing a number of issues. This meant that Wildfire could leave things to Sun and go down to Deinar to witness Sivira's coming-of-age ceremony.
She and the rest of the family were currently watching Sivira face her first opponent. Both fighters proved equally matched. They had thrown away their staffs and were now using fists. Both were bleeding.
The drums stopped. The maximum time that a fight could last had expired and both fighters were still standing.
"One opponent less, two to go." Sivira sent while walking out with her head held high.
"Try saying that instead of sending it." Wildfire sent back.
"Owe owwonens... Ow!"
Wildfire laughed and watched as elders arrived with ointments and bandages to treat both fighters.
A week later Sivira stood against a male. Wildfire had forbidden her grandfather to fight against her. The -very old looking- male who was Sivira's opponent, looked slightly scared at her. When she walked towards him, he readied his staff. She struck and he defended by lifting his staff feebly over his head. When both staffs hit he let out a painful moan.
"So weak." Sivira thought. She decided to go easy on him, but remained wary and on guard. She hit his staff again and pushed him -almost gently- backwards. The old male stumbled and fell. She could see the pleading look in his eyes.
Just as she began to bring down her staff to deliver a symbolic victory strike, the male suddenly rolled sideways. She expected the sand that he began to throw at her with his left hand. She also expected the sand that he began to throw with his right hand.
With her eyes alternating between closed and mostly closed and her face pointing down to avoid the incoming handfulls of sand, she began to wave her staff in front of her while stepping forward in the hope that she would hit the male. The male however was crawling away while continuing the sand barrage. She was convinced that this was all that he had left.
She was wrong. While avoiding the wide movements of Sivira's staff, the male timed his strike. He jumped up inside her striking range with the speed of a fit ten year old, brought his face below and close to hers and blew sand up her nose and eyes.
The male then quickly ducked to avoid Sivira's incoming strike. Unable to breathe, Sivira panicked momentarily. She was afraid to open her mouth, so she brought one of her hands to her face to cover it. But doing so greatly diminished the danger that her staff posed.
The next thing that happened was that her staff was yanked out of her other hand. A punishing thrust in the solar plexus followed almost immediately after. Sivira went down on her knees, trying not to rub her eyes. Then the male bit her on the head and grinned. The biting part was tradition.
The drums stopped.
"Whoa! Did you just lose against a male?" Sent Wildfire's mother. "Are you really my daughter?" Wildfire sent and accompanied the sending with strong feelings of doubt. "Didn't we teach you about this already?" The now completely toothless granny sent.
To an outsider, the way that the tribe's males fought and the manner in which the audience responded was either very funny or very unfair. Tribal females cared less about honor than their counterparts in modern Loroi society, but they did still care. And it was the males' task to deliver a few important lessons.
Most near adult females possessed at least some hubris and thought that they knew everything about fighting. But they had never fought against anyone who wasn't a tribal female. Fighting and losing against weaker males, who instead of strength used every dirty trick they could think of, usually cured that hubris, especially when the lost fight was followed by an amical humiliation and a lecture from family.
It also taught the young warriors to stay on guard around people other than tribal females. It was a public secret that males held meetings to come up with new tactics and talked to relatives of their opponents to discover their weaknesses.
"This is piss!!" Complained an enraged Sivira and sent an image of her fist being planted in the male's face.
"Yes it is." Sent Wildfire. "Will you tell that to a predator or a Shell or a human who's about to skewer you? Why didn't you try to see where he was by scanning for his mind? We don't need eyes to fight, you know?"
"Piss!" Sivira yelled to herself, because she simply hadn't thought about doing that. She spent the evening reflecting on her actions during the fight.
The next day she was done being nice. She began to walk to the male to deliver some serious punishment, but to her dismay he jumped out of the circle, grinned, waved at her and casually walked away.
The drums stopped. The fight was over.
"PISSS!!! Gorar plunging fart pisser!" She yelled at his back after having been denied her revenge.
Four days later she was facing Wildfire. Just when they were about to start, the sun was blocked momentarily by an object. Neither looked up and both fighters began to circle each other, while Song of Calmth landed outside the camp.
Their quarterstaffs met again and again. Sivira eventually gained the upper hand, but Wildfire refused to go down. After the maximum time had passed, the drums stopped and Sivira had passed the trial.
"Violent primitive savages everywhere, I see. And these are supposed to save us all?" A familiar voice sounded.
Wildfire turned. "Oh, hello 127-006-625. How are you?" Wildfire asked.
"Oh, yes. Hello. I am fine. Thank you." 127-006-625 answered.
"Are you grumpy again?" Wildfire asked.
"I am never grumpy!"
"Are you sure?" Wildfire asked.
"Maybe a little. I do not approve of violence." 127-006-625 said.
A Barsam was carrying him.
"This is Taran." 723-006-625 said. "He works for Coldstone. He carries and translates for me. Song wants to see you."
Wildfire waited until the elders had treated her wounds.
"Did you just say Song instead of Sunrise?" Wildfire asked.
"Yes. This is about the circle on the bridge."
---
"So this is one of your brains?" Wildfire asked Song while looking at a growth that looked like a cauliflower and measured about 30 inches across.
Deep tones sounded. Sunrise began to sing to translate for Song and the translator that one of Cha's parts was carrying began to translate for Sunrise. "Song says that it is a new mind that is now independent. One that will eventually become a new member of their species. They began growing it after we met 5 years ago. Its name is Song of Hope. Named so in part after the name of your ship. It will extend your jump range significantly."
"I believe the safe maximum jump is 10 light years?" Sunrise asked.
"No." Wildfire said. "Six. Ten is already risky."
"Aha. In that case multiply the new safe range by eight and the new maximum range by a factor of seven." Sunrise sang.
"Ho.. how?" Wildfire asked.
"Tens of millions of years of evolution. Your species barely understands hyperspace. Song and his kind understand it a lot better. Do you accept? Song of Hope would like to be part of your expedition."
"Well yes. But how?" Wildfire asked.
"723-006-625 has spent the last years designing an interface. It has everything that Song of hope needs to thrive and interface with your ship. Please provide Song of Hope with water, nutrients, light, warmth and company." Sunrise said.
"But what once the mission is over?" Wildfire asked.
"Song of Hope shall be taken to our world and grow into a new vessel-friend. Being a plant has its advantages."
---
The historians were nervous. For the past few weeks a number of jump-ins and jump-outs along Historian space had been reported. But buoys in the outer systems showed no signs of vessels. The Historian Collective carefully began to monitor signals. Soon, FRB transmissions that matched the format of those of the enemy were detected. Then, in one week time, three small freighters that belonged to a former Umiak race disappeared without a trace in one of the historian border systems. Radar logs showed the freighters crossing the system, then suddenly vanishing. A historian ship was sent to investigate the locations.
A minute search yielded an object. It was a severely damaged escape pod. Inside was a member of the former Umiak client race that owned and operated the missing vessels. It looked like he had been gnawed on. This was confirmed when teeth marks and a triangular tooth, embedded in one of the bones were found. The weapon damage done to the pod matched the damage done by a beam projector. Analysis of the bite marks and tooth and some saliva that was found, proved to belong to a Ha'Sati.
"Are we sure that the loroi are not behind this? What does the personality construct at the shipyard say?" Asked the Historian Collective.
"It reports that the three stealth ships have not left the orbital shipyard." Said one historian.
"The construct on the shipyard has access to the captured Ha'Sati communicator. We will have the construct use it to discover the contents of the FRB transmissions. Maybe then we shall know more." Said another.
When the information arrived, the Historian Collective found that two of the intercepted FRB messages were in the ancient Soia language. The historians knew that the loroi did not possess knowledge of the original ancient language. Trade had drifted far from the original Soia. All other FRB transmissions only contained navigational data, just like the recorded ones from the mission ten years earlier.
The first message in the Soia language read "These inferiors are advanced yet weak. They will provide us with much of our creators' advanced technology before we slaughter them. The aquatic species they protect will provide meat and sports."
The second one read "Agreed. Invasion points established. We shall invade here first and feast on the unworthy. Let us leave and report."
A few sozons later, the Collective agreed to send all data on the hyperspace communications array to the loroi.
---
Greywind sent away her guards aboard Cry of the Wind. "Alright." She spoke softly to Coldstone so no one could intercept her sanzai. "I have to know. how did you manage to pull this one off?"
Coldstone drank her tea and began to speak softly with her voice as well. "First, we enlisted the help of two other agencies and created three inflatable, fake stealth ships. That took quite some time. Furthermore, inflating them on site proved to be impossible, because folding them ruined the coating."
"We informed the yard's management. It knows how to keep secrets. The yard's management then made an important announcement: the next day everyone would be ferried to a nearby luxury passenger liner and receive a sizeable cash bonus for their hard work, as well as free food and drinks. We had chartered the luxury liner some time before."
"Nobody refuses a pile of cash and free food and entertainment. After the work crews were ferried off, we landed a squad from my agency on the yard to make sure that everyone was indeed gone. With everyone -including the protesting construct that was dragged along by the yard's management- enjoying themselves aboard a ship that was now on the far side of the planet, a skeleton crew went aboard the stealth ships. We undocked them and used a tug to dock the fakes in their place.
The squad is still there to prevent anyone from coming near the fakes. One has to come real close to suspect anything. The construct didn't even bother to check the security camera footage that we falsified to hide the undocking and docking."
"As you know we cracked the format of the FRB codes some time ago using the Ha'Sati tech, but we still have no idea what language the Ha'Sati speak. And neither do the Historians. None of the logged FRB transmissions contained more than navigation data and codes. We let the Sonliri provide us with the original, ancient Soia language, assuming that the historians would be able to understand it."
"We also damaged an escape pod with the prototype's beam projector and put the mangled corpse of an alien inside. We used polymer replicas of Ha'Sati mouths that a department had printed to create the wounds and used saliva and a tooth from the dead Ha'Sati that we have in storage."
"And the missing freighters?" Greywind asked.
"That was another expensive one." Coldstone said. "We approached the owners of three privately owned small transports that made scheduled cargo runs through Historian space, bribed the crews and scared them enough to make sure that they will keep their mouths shut."
"We copied the transponder information of the ships and created another inflatable that would pass for any of the three transports. We only needed to fool the sensors of buoys this time, so there was no need for finesse. We also hacked into the buoys of the Union system that borders local historian space."
"The logs in those buoys show the ships traversing space to the jumpzone that takes them to historian space and jump at a certain date and time, but in fact the ships exited the system using a jump zone that leads to unclaimed space. They went back to Union space after switching to a new name and transponder ID. We told the freighters to avoid historian space for a few years and had to agree on compensating them for their future lost profits."
"Next, we staged the disappearances. Everytime we staged one, a stealth ship jumped into the Historian border sytem to mimic a Ha'Sati jump-in. Then, a while later, at a time that corresponded with the hacked buoy's freighter jump date and time, another stealth ship jumped in, immediately began to send the freighter's transponder codes and deployed the inflatable that it then began to tow across the system."
"Then, at a random location, the fake transport was deflated and stuffed inside the shuttle bay. And the transponder was shut off. Et voila! Instant disappearing freighter. No debris, nothing. The second time we kicked out a pod that contained something that resembles Perrein cuisine. The threats against the Pol and misusage of Soia technology we put in two of the FRB transmissions drove them over the edge."
"Ha! Excellent work." Greywind sent. "Would you like some more tea?"
"Thank you, Azerein and yes please." Coldstone sent back. "Now, about my agency's annual budget..."
---/\/---
---
Sword's crew had arrived, the shakedown cruise had been completed and the shipyard was fixing a number of issues. This meant that Wildfire could leave things to Sun and go down to Deinar to witness Sivira's coming-of-age ceremony.
She and the rest of the family were currently watching Sivira face her first opponent. Both fighters proved equally matched. They had thrown away their staffs and were now using fists. Both were bleeding.
The drums stopped. The maximum time that a fight could last had expired and both fighters were still standing.
"One opponent less, two to go." Sivira sent while walking out with her head held high.
"Try saying that instead of sending it." Wildfire sent back.
"Owe owwonens... Ow!"
Wildfire laughed and watched as elders arrived with ointments and bandages to treat both fighters.
A week later Sivira stood against a male. Wildfire had forbidden her grandfather to fight against her. The -very old looking- male who was Sivira's opponent, looked slightly scared at her. When she walked towards him, he readied his staff. She struck and he defended by lifting his staff feebly over his head. When both staffs hit he let out a painful moan.
"So weak." Sivira thought. She decided to go easy on him, but remained wary and on guard. She hit his staff again and pushed him -almost gently- backwards. The old male stumbled and fell. She could see the pleading look in his eyes.
Just as she began to bring down her staff to deliver a symbolic victory strike, the male suddenly rolled sideways. She expected the sand that he began to throw at her with his left hand. She also expected the sand that he began to throw with his right hand.
With her eyes alternating between closed and mostly closed and her face pointing down to avoid the incoming handfulls of sand, she began to wave her staff in front of her while stepping forward in the hope that she would hit the male. The male however was crawling away while continuing the sand barrage. She was convinced that this was all that he had left.
She was wrong. While avoiding the wide movements of Sivira's staff, the male timed his strike. He jumped up inside her striking range with the speed of a fit ten year old, brought his face below and close to hers and blew sand up her nose and eyes.
The male then quickly ducked to avoid Sivira's incoming strike. Unable to breathe, Sivira panicked momentarily. She was afraid to open her mouth, so she brought one of her hands to her face to cover it. But doing so greatly diminished the danger that her staff posed.
The next thing that happened was that her staff was yanked out of her other hand. A punishing thrust in the solar plexus followed almost immediately after. Sivira went down on her knees, trying not to rub her eyes. Then the male bit her on the head and grinned. The biting part was tradition.
The drums stopped.
"Whoa! Did you just lose against a male?" Sent Wildfire's mother. "Are you really my daughter?" Wildfire sent and accompanied the sending with strong feelings of doubt. "Didn't we teach you about this already?" The now completely toothless granny sent.
To an outsider, the way that the tribe's males fought and the manner in which the audience responded was either very funny or very unfair. Tribal females cared less about honor than their counterparts in modern Loroi society, but they did still care. And it was the males' task to deliver a few important lessons.
Most near adult females possessed at least some hubris and thought that they knew everything about fighting. But they had never fought against anyone who wasn't a tribal female. Fighting and losing against weaker males, who instead of strength used every dirty trick they could think of, usually cured that hubris, especially when the lost fight was followed by an amical humiliation and a lecture from family.
It also taught the young warriors to stay on guard around people other than tribal females. It was a public secret that males held meetings to come up with new tactics and talked to relatives of their opponents to discover their weaknesses.
"This is piss!!" Complained an enraged Sivira and sent an image of her fist being planted in the male's face.
"Yes it is." Sent Wildfire. "Will you tell that to a predator or a Shell or a human who's about to skewer you? Why didn't you try to see where he was by scanning for his mind? We don't need eyes to fight, you know?"
"Piss!" Sivira yelled to herself, because she simply hadn't thought about doing that. She spent the evening reflecting on her actions during the fight.
The next day she was done being nice. She began to walk to the male to deliver some serious punishment, but to her dismay he jumped out of the circle, grinned, waved at her and casually walked away.
The drums stopped. The fight was over.
"PISSS!!! Gorar plunging fart pisser!" She yelled at his back after having been denied her revenge.
Four days later she was facing Wildfire. Just when they were about to start, the sun was blocked momentarily by an object. Neither looked up and both fighters began to circle each other, while Song of Calmth landed outside the camp.
Their quarterstaffs met again and again. Sivira eventually gained the upper hand, but Wildfire refused to go down. After the maximum time had passed, the drums stopped and Sivira had passed the trial.
"Violent primitive savages everywhere, I see. And these are supposed to save us all?" A familiar voice sounded.
Wildfire turned. "Oh, hello 127-006-625. How are you?" Wildfire asked.
"Oh, yes. Hello. I am fine. Thank you." 127-006-625 answered.
"Are you grumpy again?" Wildfire asked.
"I am never grumpy!"
"Are you sure?" Wildfire asked.
"Maybe a little. I do not approve of violence." 127-006-625 said.
A Barsam was carrying him.
"This is Taran." 723-006-625 said. "He works for Coldstone. He carries and translates for me. Song wants to see you."
Wildfire waited until the elders had treated her wounds.
"Did you just say Song instead of Sunrise?" Wildfire asked.
"Yes. This is about the circle on the bridge."
---
"So this is one of your brains?" Wildfire asked Song while looking at a growth that looked like a cauliflower and measured about 30 inches across.
Deep tones sounded. Sunrise began to sing to translate for Song and the translator that one of Cha's parts was carrying began to translate for Sunrise. "Song says that it is a new mind that is now independent. One that will eventually become a new member of their species. They began growing it after we met 5 years ago. Its name is Song of Hope. Named so in part after the name of your ship. It will extend your jump range significantly."
"I believe the safe maximum jump is 10 light years?" Sunrise asked.
"No." Wildfire said. "Six. Ten is already risky."
"Aha. In that case multiply the new safe range by eight and the new maximum range by a factor of seven." Sunrise sang.
"Ho.. how?" Wildfire asked.
"Tens of millions of years of evolution. Your species barely understands hyperspace. Song and his kind understand it a lot better. Do you accept? Song of Hope would like to be part of your expedition."
"Well yes. But how?" Wildfire asked.
"723-006-625 has spent the last years designing an interface. It has everything that Song of hope needs to thrive and interface with your ship. Please provide Song of Hope with water, nutrients, light, warmth and company." Sunrise said.
"But what once the mission is over?" Wildfire asked.
"Song of Hope shall be taken to our world and grow into a new vessel-friend. Being a plant has its advantages."
---
The historians were nervous. For the past few weeks a number of jump-ins and jump-outs along Historian space had been reported. But buoys in the outer systems showed no signs of vessels. The Historian Collective carefully began to monitor signals. Soon, FRB transmissions that matched the format of those of the enemy were detected. Then, in one week time, three small freighters that belonged to a former Umiak race disappeared without a trace in one of the historian border systems. Radar logs showed the freighters crossing the system, then suddenly vanishing. A historian ship was sent to investigate the locations.
A minute search yielded an object. It was a severely damaged escape pod. Inside was a member of the former Umiak client race that owned and operated the missing vessels. It looked like he had been gnawed on. This was confirmed when teeth marks and a triangular tooth, embedded in one of the bones were found. The weapon damage done to the pod matched the damage done by a beam projector. Analysis of the bite marks and tooth and some saliva that was found, proved to belong to a Ha'Sati.
"Are we sure that the loroi are not behind this? What does the personality construct at the shipyard say?" Asked the Historian Collective.
"It reports that the three stealth ships have not left the orbital shipyard." Said one historian.
"The construct on the shipyard has access to the captured Ha'Sati communicator. We will have the construct use it to discover the contents of the FRB transmissions. Maybe then we shall know more." Said another.
When the information arrived, the Historian Collective found that two of the intercepted FRB messages were in the ancient Soia language. The historians knew that the loroi did not possess knowledge of the original ancient language. Trade had drifted far from the original Soia. All other FRB transmissions only contained navigational data, just like the recorded ones from the mission ten years earlier.
The first message in the Soia language read "These inferiors are advanced yet weak. They will provide us with much of our creators' advanced technology before we slaughter them. The aquatic species they protect will provide meat and sports."
The second one read "Agreed. Invasion points established. We shall invade here first and feast on the unworthy. Let us leave and report."
A few sozons later, the Collective agreed to send all data on the hyperspace communications array to the loroi.
---
Greywind sent away her guards aboard Cry of the Wind. "Alright." She spoke softly to Coldstone so no one could intercept her sanzai. "I have to know. how did you manage to pull this one off?"
Coldstone drank her tea and began to speak softly with her voice as well. "First, we enlisted the help of two other agencies and created three inflatable, fake stealth ships. That took quite some time. Furthermore, inflating them on site proved to be impossible, because folding them ruined the coating."
"We informed the yard's management. It knows how to keep secrets. The yard's management then made an important announcement: the next day everyone would be ferried to a nearby luxury passenger liner and receive a sizeable cash bonus for their hard work, as well as free food and drinks. We had chartered the luxury liner some time before."
"Nobody refuses a pile of cash and free food and entertainment. After the work crews were ferried off, we landed a squad from my agency on the yard to make sure that everyone was indeed gone. With everyone -including the protesting construct that was dragged along by the yard's management- enjoying themselves aboard a ship that was now on the far side of the planet, a skeleton crew went aboard the stealth ships. We undocked them and used a tug to dock the fakes in their place.
The squad is still there to prevent anyone from coming near the fakes. One has to come real close to suspect anything. The construct didn't even bother to check the security camera footage that we falsified to hide the undocking and docking."
"As you know we cracked the format of the FRB codes some time ago using the Ha'Sati tech, but we still have no idea what language the Ha'Sati speak. And neither do the Historians. None of the logged FRB transmissions contained more than navigation data and codes. We let the Sonliri provide us with the original, ancient Soia language, assuming that the historians would be able to understand it."
"We also damaged an escape pod with the prototype's beam projector and put the mangled corpse of an alien inside. We used polymer replicas of Ha'Sati mouths that a department had printed to create the wounds and used saliva and a tooth from the dead Ha'Sati that we have in storage."
"And the missing freighters?" Greywind asked.
"That was another expensive one." Coldstone said. "We approached the owners of three privately owned small transports that made scheduled cargo runs through Historian space, bribed the crews and scared them enough to make sure that they will keep their mouths shut."
"We copied the transponder information of the ships and created another inflatable that would pass for any of the three transports. We only needed to fool the sensors of buoys this time, so there was no need for finesse. We also hacked into the buoys of the Union system that borders local historian space."
"The logs in those buoys show the ships traversing space to the jumpzone that takes them to historian space and jump at a certain date and time, but in fact the ships exited the system using a jump zone that leads to unclaimed space. They went back to Union space after switching to a new name and transponder ID. We told the freighters to avoid historian space for a few years and had to agree on compensating them for their future lost profits."
"Next, we staged the disappearances. Everytime we staged one, a stealth ship jumped into the Historian border sytem to mimic a Ha'Sati jump-in. Then, a while later, at a time that corresponded with the hacked buoy's freighter jump date and time, another stealth ship jumped in, immediately began to send the freighter's transponder codes and deployed the inflatable that it then began to tow across the system."
"Then, at a random location, the fake transport was deflated and stuffed inside the shuttle bay. And the transponder was shut off. Et voila! Instant disappearing freighter. No debris, nothing. The second time we kicked out a pod that contained something that resembles Perrein cuisine. The threats against the Pol and misusage of Soia technology we put in two of the FRB transmissions drove them over the edge."
"Ha! Excellent work." Greywind sent. "Would you like some more tea?"
"Thank you, Azerein and yes please." Coldstone sent back. "Now, about my agency's annual budget..."
---/\/---
Last edited by G. Janssen on Wed Oct 19, 2022 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Chapter 3. Food for Thought
---
When Wildfire's shuttle arrived at Torimar High, a station in orbit around Deinar that was used to transfer freight and passengers to and from Torimar's spaceport, she saw the nissek and human cruisers that had docked. Sword of Hope was docked as well. She had gone to Torimar High after the Gallen had fixed the issues that had surfaced during her shakedown cruise.
Close to Sword's forward docking port stood three humans and a Mizol. One of them was pointing at Sword. They were speaking in a Human language.
Wildfire nodded when one of the humans looked at her and went aboard.
Song of Hope was on the bridge inside a transparent cylinder.
"Are you alright?" Wildfire asked after arriving on the bridge.
"It is strange." Song's voice box said. "Technology that has no life is connected to me. Yet I can see, hear, speak, touch and manipulate."
"Touch?" Wildfire asked.
"In a way. The sensors on the bow, hull and stern provide sensations. I think that I will learn much from this experience."
"Do you know where they are? The Doso?" Wildfire asked.
"I know where they roam. Ideally it will take well over a year to reach. 15,000 light years. Once there we will begin our search."
"Your kind has been there?" Wildfire asked.
"Yes. I'll get you there."
Wildfire smiled and patted the transparent cylinder with a hand.
Sun arrived on the bridge. "Torrai, everything is ready and everybody is aboard. The station has cleared us for launch."
"Hellion? Undock Sword and set course to the jump zone. You have the conn." Wildfire sent.
"No speech, Torrai?" Hellion replied. "We're about to embark on the Union's greatest undertaking ever! How can we not have a speech? I hear humans have grand speeches when they..."
"And I hear barsam Representative Diran gives great sermons. How about I'll ask him to give you a two hour long speech when you go off duty. I'm sure he'll be thrilled." Wildfire replied.
"Undocking as ordered, Torrai and setting course to the jump zone." Hellion sent.
Hellion undocked Sword of Hope and set the ship on a course that led out of the disk. There were too many particles in the dust disk of Deinar's solar system that prevented a ship from going fast, but space was clean outside it and the risk of a collision was negligible.
A star map was displayed on the bridge that showed 281 jumps to a region some 15,000 light years spinwards. The first leg was blinking.
---
"Gwakwântrek Kveez Brânwag."
"Tsindwântrak Nreep Wrezzlebt."
"Darnâwdroz Graawn Nârrwang."
The nissek delegates introduced themselves. Except for a colorful sash, they were naked. The Mizol had informed that their names would sound weird and the nasal, croaking way that the reptilian-like beings were speaking wasn't helping either. The only reason why Wildfire wasn't laughing, was because the Mizol who was standing behind her was sending her stern warnings accompanied with images of corporal punishment. Wildfire was grateful for that distraction.
She bowed down a bit to allow the nissek to pat her head and patted their heads in return. Their skin was dry and cool. Head patting was the way nissek greeted one another. The faint telepathic sensations that she experienced were no problem for her.
The Mizol sent surprise. She had avoided to be touched. Wildfire replied with "once you learn to sleep in a yurt in a pile with seven others to stay warm, you get a lot less squeamish about a lot of things very fast." She sent it with an image of 4 generations of Loroi sleeping together on and under a stack of animal furs. "It's a luxury that modern Loroi can avoid to be touched. And as a result even civilians now avoid to be touched by their own children. And talking about the luxuries of modern Loroi society: shall I sent you a detailed image of what tribal toilets look like?"
The Mizol declined politely.
"I believe that Gwakwântrek is the equivalent rank of a Loroi Torrai Lashret, Tsindwântrak is the equivalent of a Mizol Torrimor and Darnâwdroz is the civilian title of professor. Am I right?" Wildfire asked.
The three nissek croaked in agreement.
Of course Wildfire was right, because the Mizol in the room was sending her the information.
"I am honored that the Nissek Hegemony has graced us with such esteemed guests and welcome you aboard. And I would like to invite all of you for dinner in my quarters this evening." She continued.
The three nissek croaked even more enthusiastically after hearing that.
Next came the humans. Like the nissek, Wildfire had never met one personally and relied on another Mizol to send her pointers.
"UN representative Seline Andarin."
"Commodore Jürgen Thomas of the T.C.A."
"Doctor Nakamoto Hiro of the university of Tokyo, Japan."
No headpatting, but handshakes this time. The Mizol was right, they were warm and there were no telepathic sensations.
Wildfire gave Thomas another good look. Tall, well-built and well-aged, nice butt, kind eyes. So different from Loroi males, yet also so much the same. She wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers through his beard.
Wildfire repeated the standard speech. When she was finished, Commodore Thomas began to speak. In Trade.
"Torrai Torret Wildfire, may I ask you a question?"
"Of course, Commodore. Go ahead." Wildfire responded.
"About seventeen years ago, during the height of the raider attacks, we escorted a passenger ship to Loroi space. Things looked very bad, until suddenly raider after raider began to explode. We registered some plumes of what must have been torpedoes, but couldn't see them or the ship that fired them."
"Back then, other unexplained things happened in a number of neutral systems and even in a few human systems. Things that could only be explained when they were caused by something invisible."
"When I heard that the expedition ship possessed perfect stealth, I volunteered to represent Humanity aboard it. You wouldn't know something about what happened ten years ago?"
"Commodore, if I would, wouldn't that mean that the Loroi Union sent warships into sovereign human space in violation of our treaty?" Wildfire said.
"As the Commodore mentioned, we did notice a few odd things ten years ago. Did the Loroi Navy sent stealth ships into our space?" Representative Andarin asked.
Wildfire decided to respond with the type of honesty that is only possible when spoken verbally or written.
"Ten years ago, the Union possessed three stealth ships. They have remained docked at their home base for the most time during the last decade. Now, the Union possesses another. You are aboard that one. The three vessels that are docked at the base have never been in Humanity space."
723-006-625 had told Wildfire about the inflatables that were currently docked at Mezan's yard. The real ships were patrolling the border. This meant that Wildfire wasn't lying: the three inflatable vessels that were currently docked at the yard had never been in Gumanity space.
"Thank you." Commodore Thomas said. He sounded disappointed.
"You seem disappointed, Commodore. May I ask why?" Wildfire said.
"Whoever saved us back then also saved my son and the rest of my family. My son was an ensign on the other destroyer that escorted the liner. It barely survived. My wife and daughter were aboard the liner."
"I see." Wildfire said. "I would like to invite you all for dinner. She remembered the words that Thomas had transmitted back then to thank their savior. "And Commodore, I do hope that you will find the person who, as I believe humans in such situations tend to say, saved your hides so you can thank them by buying them a large number of brews. Oh and I congratulate you on your Trade. You must have studied hard."
Then she left. Once outside, she asked the Mizol who was still in the room to describe the look on the Commodore's face.
"I would describe his look as somewhat puzzled. Oh wait. Now it expresses suspicion. Now its puzzled again." The Mizol sent back.
Wildfire smiled. "A shame he's pairbonded." She thought.
---
Thomas, Andarin and Sakamoto and their guide Mizol were on their way to Wildfire's quarters, when they heard running footsteps approach behind them. Before they could turn, three almost naked lizards ran on two legs past them. One stopped for a second, looked at Andarin and said "Gwâak!" Then it began to run again to catch up with the other two.
"And there go the nissek representatives" Nakamoto said.
"Do they always run?" Andarin asked the Mizol.
"Most of the time." Mizol Sanzet Fern said. "Did you know that they can beat a drum with one hand 12 times per second? They use patting for a great number of reasons. "The frequency and patterns of the pats is dependent of the situation. About twice per solon for a greeting, four per solon on a door to ask permission to enter a room."
"Why didn't they greet us?" Thomas asked
"There's food." Sanzet Fern said. "Food comes first. Greetings come after. You'll see."
The door to Wildfire's spacious quarters was open. Inside were the nissek and the representatives of the Union and Historian Collective. Wildfire was sending to the nissek's guide Mizol. The nissek had already started eating the meat that had been put on a separate table. Two of the nissek delegates were fighting over a leg by pulling at it, while croaking and hissing at one another loudly. Nobody seemed to care. Wildfire saw the humans stare wide-eyed at the Nissek's behaviour and eating habits.
"Welcome to the Local Bubble, delegates of Humanity." She said. "You'll get used to things. Just like the rest of us have. Please have a seat. I'll introduce everyone to everyone after the nissek have finished eating whatever it is that's on that table. It shouldn't take more than another minute or so. They're very fast eaters."
Both the Nissek Hegemony and Humanity had provided their own supplies.
"One of them just shoved an entire ham inside his, her, its mouth." Seline Andarin said. "Complete with the bone. Without chewing!"
"They're all males." Wildfire replied. "The females have color patterns. The bone gets digested just like the rest."
"Do they eat like this every day?" Andarin asked.
Wildfire looked at the Mizol.
"About twice a week, it seems." She said.
The Nissek had finished "eating". It had taken them 4 minutes to consume enough meat to feed a family of Perrein Stalkers for two weeks.
"That was excellent. Thank you, dear host." They croaked in Trade.
Wildfire introduced everyone. Diran the Barsam, Naadik the Neridi and the historian personality construct that identified itself as "Tigomer".
"Given the duration of this mission, it was deemed appropriate that this construct be given a name." it said.
They then sat down and had dinner. The nissek, now stuffed, had become completely calm and joined the conversation in a civil way.
"What do you think we will find out there?" Nakamoto asked after a while.
"War." Answered Representative Diran. "There is no reason to assume that the situation outside our bubble is different to the situation inside. This is one of the reasons why the Union uses a stealth ship. So we won't get caught up in any conflicts."
"I agree." said Representative Naadik. "I expect the galaxy to be a patchwork of a great number of species in different stages of development. Some ancient, some unaware of other life like Humanity was just a few decades ago, and many of the ones in between trying to expand their space."
Tigomer confirmed the situation. "We have gone further than the other species that are located near us and things are messy out there in places. What I fear is that we will run into the Ha'Sati swarm. The species that they attacked 400 years ago is located in the general direction of where we are going, about 12,000 light years away. We don't know where the Ha'Sati are now."
"May I ask you a few questions about the barsam, Representative Diran?" Thomas asked softly while the others continued their debate about the galaxy.
"Of course. Go ahead." Diran said.
"I was told that the Barsam have no sense of humor whatsoever. Is this correct?" Thomas asked.
"This is true." Diran answered.
"So you don't laugh or smile? At all?"
"That is correct."
"What do you experience when other species tell jokes and laugh?"
"It depends on the joke. We feel curiosity, astonishment, tedium or annoyance." Diran answered.
"Are there things that you do enjoy?" Thomas asked.
"Yes. Spending time with friends, having pleasant talks, good food. Being at peace. Many things. But not humor. It does not appeal to us." Diran answered.
"This is unexpected." Thomas said. "We always thought that a sense of humor was a universal thing. Something that all species possess."
"Grâwk!" Said one of the nissek who had listened in. "A nissek is visiting a [carnival] while holding a loroi gently in his arms. They go to a stand that sells food. The seller asks what he can get the lovely couple. The nissek says "please put a lot of [ketchup] and some [mustard] on my loroi!"
"Grekgrekgrekgrekgrekgrek!" The other two nissek laughed.
To the surprise of the embarrassed Union representatives and speechless loroi in the room, the humans tried very hard not to laugh.
Wildfire decided not to let that slide. "Why do humans think out loud all the time?" She asked. "Because they have no thoughts whatsoever inside of them."
This time the loroi smirked. Even the three Paset who served drinks and stood in a corner.
The humans looked at one another and nodded. Then Nakamoto said with a smile "We understand that one and appreciate it."
"Humans aren't liked very much by about half the neridi population at the moment, I'm afraid." Said Naadik with a gloomy look while shaking his head.
"What happened?" Seline Andarin asked with a worried expression.
"The cultural exchange package they sent us after the initial contact contained an old animated movie called "Dumbo". Now guess what the name of our former President is and the horrible things the opposition did with the movie during the election period, after the movie was brought to their attention."
Nobody in the room understood, except the apologizing humans.
"No need to apologize though." Naadik suddenly said with a bright face. "I voted for the opposition. We wouldn't have won without that. So, thank you!"
Nakamoto decided to tell a joke he had once heard. "How can you tell that a Loroi blaster pistol is designed by females and meant to be used by females?"
"At setting one it dries nailpolish."
"At setting two it's a hairdryer."
"At setting three it heats tea."
"At setting four you can use it to make 'plonk plonk' sounds when you fire it at armored Umiak troops."
"At setting five it shoots nasty spiders off a wall."
"At setting six it's a hair curler after you add the attachment."
"At setting seven it can heat up bathwater."
"And at setting eight it's a mobile planetary defense battery that oneshots a battlecruiser in low orbit."
"I don't think I understand." Wildfire said.
"It's a joke that Alexander Jardin once told during a lecture about his time among the loroi." Answered Nakamoto. "Specifically about when he and others boarded an Umiak ship."
"Oh. I'm curious, how would humans design the settings?" Asked Wildfire with a curious look.
"Linear probably. Not logarithmic." Nakamoto answered while laughing. His laughter however didn't last long, because Wildfire began to ask questions how humans exactly viewed loroi females if they made up jokes about warriors wearing nailpolish and warming up bathwater. Her barrage of seemingly innocent questions caused Nakamoto to feel very uncomfortable after a few minutes. Thomas saw the twinkle in Wildfire's eyes and suspected that making Nakamoto feel uncomfortable was exactly why she was questioning him.
"Ahem." Diran cleared his throat. He had thought long about a joke and decided to give it a try. "How does one call a drowning Umiak?" He asked and looked around with a serious face. "A shellfish."
Everyone frowned.
"But shellfish don't drown." Naadik said
"I see." Diran replied.
"What about a scubadiving Umiak?" Naadik asked.
"That wouldn't work, Naadik. Umiak can't swim." Diran answered, sighed and shook his head.
As the evening progressed everyone understood each other a bit better.
===
A large number of scientists on Deinar was studying the information about the long range hyperspace communication array that the historians had sent. The loroi were especially interested since they suspected that telepathy also made use of hyperspace. Another reason was because it might enable them to create better amplifiers.
"This may revolutionize communications." A nissek scientist said. "Imagine we can build one in every system. Real time communication between solar systems!"
"The one we have was built by the soia." said a historian construct. "There are a number of problems."
"One: signal separation. The signals are not electromagnetic waves. There are no carrier waves. It is one pulsing signal. If one sends, everyone in range receives. If everyone sends at the same time, it becomes a mess."
"Two. Maximum usable frequency drops exponentially with distance. We communicated with the other soia species using pulses with a single ultra low frequency and varying the space between pulses. It was very time consuming."
"Three. It uses strange matter. Not in its construction, not as a power source, but as a consumable during connections. Storing strange matter is a nightmare. Obtaining it is impossible. At least for us it is. We have a eighth of the matter left that we originally had."
"Interesting." A loroi said. "It shares properties with sanzai. It's easy to send with full bandwidth over short distances and everyone receives, unless they choose to filter it out. Sending selectively can only be done at very close range by using minimal power. It's like whispering. As long nobody enters the maximum range of the low power sending, it can only be received by the one it is meant for."
"And Bistima can send across solar systems when they limit themselves to trade, which isn't nearly as fast as sanzai. Meaning they are restricted to lower frequencies. And even that takes a lot out of them." A second loroi said.
"It sounds like loroi do not send signals through hyperspace like we send radio signals through space, but more like how we send soundwaves through air. The medium itself is manipulated and vibrates." A human said. "And the medium's resistance causes loss of information and power as distance increases."
"I think that the strange matter somehow establishes and maintains the connection to hyperspace. Something that is normally done by a telepath's mind." A Listel translated for a pipolsid.
"Artificial sanzai. Interesting. I wonder if we can replace the strange matter with a powerful telepath." A loroi said.
"Look at the size of the array. How would a single mind operate that without backup? You would need thousands. I'm not saying that a single mind can't use it to send a message, but it will need a secondary source to keep the connection open." The historian construct said.
"It makes sense." A loroi said. "There's a limit to the size of an amplifier that can be powered by a Bistima. Maybe if we had someone who is as powerful as one of the heroes of old, we could."
"Who are we talking about?" Asked an orgus.
"There are stories about ancient loroi heroes that possessed unimaginable destructive power. One of them, Tempest, supposedly created a global typhoon." Said a neridi.
"Who did Tempest fight against?" A human asked.
"A faction of the soia during their final civil war. The loroi were created by another soia faction and were being genocided after their creating faction had been defeated." Said the personality construct. "The loroi believed that Tempest was just a mere legend, but that changed recently. We've always known that she was real. The historians were there after all. I think you can guess how Tempest's battle went. The loroi are here. The soia are not. It has baffled the Collective how the loroi managed to create these special individuals who possessed enormous destructive power."
---/\/---
---
When Wildfire's shuttle arrived at Torimar High, a station in orbit around Deinar that was used to transfer freight and passengers to and from Torimar's spaceport, she saw the nissek and human cruisers that had docked. Sword of Hope was docked as well. She had gone to Torimar High after the Gallen had fixed the issues that had surfaced during her shakedown cruise.
Close to Sword's forward docking port stood three humans and a Mizol. One of them was pointing at Sword. They were speaking in a Human language.
Wildfire nodded when one of the humans looked at her and went aboard.
Song of Hope was on the bridge inside a transparent cylinder.
"Are you alright?" Wildfire asked after arriving on the bridge.
"It is strange." Song's voice box said. "Technology that has no life is connected to me. Yet I can see, hear, speak, touch and manipulate."
"Touch?" Wildfire asked.
"In a way. The sensors on the bow, hull and stern provide sensations. I think that I will learn much from this experience."
"Do you know where they are? The Doso?" Wildfire asked.
"I know where they roam. Ideally it will take well over a year to reach. 15,000 light years. Once there we will begin our search."
"Your kind has been there?" Wildfire asked.
"Yes. I'll get you there."
Wildfire smiled and patted the transparent cylinder with a hand.
Sun arrived on the bridge. "Torrai, everything is ready and everybody is aboard. The station has cleared us for launch."
"Hellion? Undock Sword and set course to the jump zone. You have the conn." Wildfire sent.
"No speech, Torrai?" Hellion replied. "We're about to embark on the Union's greatest undertaking ever! How can we not have a speech? I hear humans have grand speeches when they..."
"And I hear barsam Representative Diran gives great sermons. How about I'll ask him to give you a two hour long speech when you go off duty. I'm sure he'll be thrilled." Wildfire replied.
"Undocking as ordered, Torrai and setting course to the jump zone." Hellion sent.
Hellion undocked Sword of Hope and set the ship on a course that led out of the disk. There were too many particles in the dust disk of Deinar's solar system that prevented a ship from going fast, but space was clean outside it and the risk of a collision was negligible.
A star map was displayed on the bridge that showed 281 jumps to a region some 15,000 light years spinwards. The first leg was blinking.
---
"Gwakwântrek Kveez Brânwag."
"Tsindwântrak Nreep Wrezzlebt."
"Darnâwdroz Graawn Nârrwang."
The nissek delegates introduced themselves. Except for a colorful sash, they were naked. The Mizol had informed that their names would sound weird and the nasal, croaking way that the reptilian-like beings were speaking wasn't helping either. The only reason why Wildfire wasn't laughing, was because the Mizol who was standing behind her was sending her stern warnings accompanied with images of corporal punishment. Wildfire was grateful for that distraction.
She bowed down a bit to allow the nissek to pat her head and patted their heads in return. Their skin was dry and cool. Head patting was the way nissek greeted one another. The faint telepathic sensations that she experienced were no problem for her.
The Mizol sent surprise. She had avoided to be touched. Wildfire replied with "once you learn to sleep in a yurt in a pile with seven others to stay warm, you get a lot less squeamish about a lot of things very fast." She sent it with an image of 4 generations of Loroi sleeping together on and under a stack of animal furs. "It's a luxury that modern Loroi can avoid to be touched. And as a result even civilians now avoid to be touched by their own children. And talking about the luxuries of modern Loroi society: shall I sent you a detailed image of what tribal toilets look like?"
The Mizol declined politely.
"I believe that Gwakwântrek is the equivalent rank of a Loroi Torrai Lashret, Tsindwântrak is the equivalent of a Mizol Torrimor and Darnâwdroz is the civilian title of professor. Am I right?" Wildfire asked.
The three nissek croaked in agreement.
Of course Wildfire was right, because the Mizol in the room was sending her the information.
"I am honored that the Nissek Hegemony has graced us with such esteemed guests and welcome you aboard. And I would like to invite all of you for dinner in my quarters this evening." She continued.
The three nissek croaked even more enthusiastically after hearing that.
Next came the humans. Like the nissek, Wildfire had never met one personally and relied on another Mizol to send her pointers.
"UN representative Seline Andarin."
"Commodore Jürgen Thomas of the T.C.A."
"Doctor Nakamoto Hiro of the university of Tokyo, Japan."
No headpatting, but handshakes this time. The Mizol was right, they were warm and there were no telepathic sensations.
Wildfire gave Thomas another good look. Tall, well-built and well-aged, nice butt, kind eyes. So different from Loroi males, yet also so much the same. She wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers through his beard.
Wildfire repeated the standard speech. When she was finished, Commodore Thomas began to speak. In Trade.
"Torrai Torret Wildfire, may I ask you a question?"
"Of course, Commodore. Go ahead." Wildfire responded.
"About seventeen years ago, during the height of the raider attacks, we escorted a passenger ship to Loroi space. Things looked very bad, until suddenly raider after raider began to explode. We registered some plumes of what must have been torpedoes, but couldn't see them or the ship that fired them."
"Back then, other unexplained things happened in a number of neutral systems and even in a few human systems. Things that could only be explained when they were caused by something invisible."
"When I heard that the expedition ship possessed perfect stealth, I volunteered to represent Humanity aboard it. You wouldn't know something about what happened ten years ago?"
"Commodore, if I would, wouldn't that mean that the Loroi Union sent warships into sovereign human space in violation of our treaty?" Wildfire said.
"As the Commodore mentioned, we did notice a few odd things ten years ago. Did the Loroi Navy sent stealth ships into our space?" Representative Andarin asked.
Wildfire decided to respond with the type of honesty that is only possible when spoken verbally or written.
"Ten years ago, the Union possessed three stealth ships. They have remained docked at their home base for the most time during the last decade. Now, the Union possesses another. You are aboard that one. The three vessels that are docked at the base have never been in Humanity space."
723-006-625 had told Wildfire about the inflatables that were currently docked at Mezan's yard. The real ships were patrolling the border. This meant that Wildfire wasn't lying: the three inflatable vessels that were currently docked at the yard had never been in Gumanity space.
"Thank you." Commodore Thomas said. He sounded disappointed.
"You seem disappointed, Commodore. May I ask why?" Wildfire said.
"Whoever saved us back then also saved my son and the rest of my family. My son was an ensign on the other destroyer that escorted the liner. It barely survived. My wife and daughter were aboard the liner."
"I see." Wildfire said. "I would like to invite you all for dinner. She remembered the words that Thomas had transmitted back then to thank their savior. "And Commodore, I do hope that you will find the person who, as I believe humans in such situations tend to say, saved your hides so you can thank them by buying them a large number of brews. Oh and I congratulate you on your Trade. You must have studied hard."
Then she left. Once outside, she asked the Mizol who was still in the room to describe the look on the Commodore's face.
"I would describe his look as somewhat puzzled. Oh wait. Now it expresses suspicion. Now its puzzled again." The Mizol sent back.
Wildfire smiled. "A shame he's pairbonded." She thought.
---
Thomas, Andarin and Sakamoto and their guide Mizol were on their way to Wildfire's quarters, when they heard running footsteps approach behind them. Before they could turn, three almost naked lizards ran on two legs past them. One stopped for a second, looked at Andarin and said "Gwâak!" Then it began to run again to catch up with the other two.
"And there go the nissek representatives" Nakamoto said.
"Do they always run?" Andarin asked the Mizol.
"Most of the time." Mizol Sanzet Fern said. "Did you know that they can beat a drum with one hand 12 times per second? They use patting for a great number of reasons. "The frequency and patterns of the pats is dependent of the situation. About twice per solon for a greeting, four per solon on a door to ask permission to enter a room."
"Why didn't they greet us?" Thomas asked
"There's food." Sanzet Fern said. "Food comes first. Greetings come after. You'll see."
The door to Wildfire's spacious quarters was open. Inside were the nissek and the representatives of the Union and Historian Collective. Wildfire was sending to the nissek's guide Mizol. The nissek had already started eating the meat that had been put on a separate table. Two of the nissek delegates were fighting over a leg by pulling at it, while croaking and hissing at one another loudly. Nobody seemed to care. Wildfire saw the humans stare wide-eyed at the Nissek's behaviour and eating habits.
"Welcome to the Local Bubble, delegates of Humanity." She said. "You'll get used to things. Just like the rest of us have. Please have a seat. I'll introduce everyone to everyone after the nissek have finished eating whatever it is that's on that table. It shouldn't take more than another minute or so. They're very fast eaters."
Both the Nissek Hegemony and Humanity had provided their own supplies.
"One of them just shoved an entire ham inside his, her, its mouth." Seline Andarin said. "Complete with the bone. Without chewing!"
"They're all males." Wildfire replied. "The females have color patterns. The bone gets digested just like the rest."
"Do they eat like this every day?" Andarin asked.
Wildfire looked at the Mizol.
"About twice a week, it seems." She said.
The Nissek had finished "eating". It had taken them 4 minutes to consume enough meat to feed a family of Perrein Stalkers for two weeks.
"That was excellent. Thank you, dear host." They croaked in Trade.
Wildfire introduced everyone. Diran the Barsam, Naadik the Neridi and the historian personality construct that identified itself as "Tigomer".
"Given the duration of this mission, it was deemed appropriate that this construct be given a name." it said.
They then sat down and had dinner. The nissek, now stuffed, had become completely calm and joined the conversation in a civil way.
"What do you think we will find out there?" Nakamoto asked after a while.
"War." Answered Representative Diran. "There is no reason to assume that the situation outside our bubble is different to the situation inside. This is one of the reasons why the Union uses a stealth ship. So we won't get caught up in any conflicts."
"I agree." said Representative Naadik. "I expect the galaxy to be a patchwork of a great number of species in different stages of development. Some ancient, some unaware of other life like Humanity was just a few decades ago, and many of the ones in between trying to expand their space."
Tigomer confirmed the situation. "We have gone further than the other species that are located near us and things are messy out there in places. What I fear is that we will run into the Ha'Sati swarm. The species that they attacked 400 years ago is located in the general direction of where we are going, about 12,000 light years away. We don't know where the Ha'Sati are now."
"May I ask you a few questions about the barsam, Representative Diran?" Thomas asked softly while the others continued their debate about the galaxy.
"Of course. Go ahead." Diran said.
"I was told that the Barsam have no sense of humor whatsoever. Is this correct?" Thomas asked.
"This is true." Diran answered.
"So you don't laugh or smile? At all?"
"That is correct."
"What do you experience when other species tell jokes and laugh?"
"It depends on the joke. We feel curiosity, astonishment, tedium or annoyance." Diran answered.
"Are there things that you do enjoy?" Thomas asked.
"Yes. Spending time with friends, having pleasant talks, good food. Being at peace. Many things. But not humor. It does not appeal to us." Diran answered.
"This is unexpected." Thomas said. "We always thought that a sense of humor was a universal thing. Something that all species possess."
"Grâwk!" Said one of the nissek who had listened in. "A nissek is visiting a [carnival] while holding a loroi gently in his arms. They go to a stand that sells food. The seller asks what he can get the lovely couple. The nissek says "please put a lot of [ketchup] and some [mustard] on my loroi!"
"Grekgrekgrekgrekgrekgrek!" The other two nissek laughed.
To the surprise of the embarrassed Union representatives and speechless loroi in the room, the humans tried very hard not to laugh.
Wildfire decided not to let that slide. "Why do humans think out loud all the time?" She asked. "Because they have no thoughts whatsoever inside of them."
This time the loroi smirked. Even the three Paset who served drinks and stood in a corner.
The humans looked at one another and nodded. Then Nakamoto said with a smile "We understand that one and appreciate it."
"Humans aren't liked very much by about half the neridi population at the moment, I'm afraid." Said Naadik with a gloomy look while shaking his head.
"What happened?" Seline Andarin asked with a worried expression.
"The cultural exchange package they sent us after the initial contact contained an old animated movie called "Dumbo". Now guess what the name of our former President is and the horrible things the opposition did with the movie during the election period, after the movie was brought to their attention."
Nobody in the room understood, except the apologizing humans.
"No need to apologize though." Naadik suddenly said with a bright face. "I voted for the opposition. We wouldn't have won without that. So, thank you!"
Nakamoto decided to tell a joke he had once heard. "How can you tell that a Loroi blaster pistol is designed by females and meant to be used by females?"
"At setting one it dries nailpolish."
"At setting two it's a hairdryer."
"At setting three it heats tea."
"At setting four you can use it to make 'plonk plonk' sounds when you fire it at armored Umiak troops."
"At setting five it shoots nasty spiders off a wall."
"At setting six it's a hair curler after you add the attachment."
"At setting seven it can heat up bathwater."
"And at setting eight it's a mobile planetary defense battery that oneshots a battlecruiser in low orbit."
"I don't think I understand." Wildfire said.
"It's a joke that Alexander Jardin once told during a lecture about his time among the loroi." Answered Nakamoto. "Specifically about when he and others boarded an Umiak ship."
"Oh. I'm curious, how would humans design the settings?" Asked Wildfire with a curious look.
"Linear probably. Not logarithmic." Nakamoto answered while laughing. His laughter however didn't last long, because Wildfire began to ask questions how humans exactly viewed loroi females if they made up jokes about warriors wearing nailpolish and warming up bathwater. Her barrage of seemingly innocent questions caused Nakamoto to feel very uncomfortable after a few minutes. Thomas saw the twinkle in Wildfire's eyes and suspected that making Nakamoto feel uncomfortable was exactly why she was questioning him.
"Ahem." Diran cleared his throat. He had thought long about a joke and decided to give it a try. "How does one call a drowning Umiak?" He asked and looked around with a serious face. "A shellfish."
Everyone frowned.
"But shellfish don't drown." Naadik said
"I see." Diran replied.
"What about a scubadiving Umiak?" Naadik asked.
"That wouldn't work, Naadik. Umiak can't swim." Diran answered, sighed and shook his head.
As the evening progressed everyone understood each other a bit better.
===
A large number of scientists on Deinar was studying the information about the long range hyperspace communication array that the historians had sent. The loroi were especially interested since they suspected that telepathy also made use of hyperspace. Another reason was because it might enable them to create better amplifiers.
"This may revolutionize communications." A nissek scientist said. "Imagine we can build one in every system. Real time communication between solar systems!"
"The one we have was built by the soia." said a historian construct. "There are a number of problems."
"One: signal separation. The signals are not electromagnetic waves. There are no carrier waves. It is one pulsing signal. If one sends, everyone in range receives. If everyone sends at the same time, it becomes a mess."
"Two. Maximum usable frequency drops exponentially with distance. We communicated with the other soia species using pulses with a single ultra low frequency and varying the space between pulses. It was very time consuming."
"Three. It uses strange matter. Not in its construction, not as a power source, but as a consumable during connections. Storing strange matter is a nightmare. Obtaining it is impossible. At least for us it is. We have a eighth of the matter left that we originally had."
"Interesting." A loroi said. "It shares properties with sanzai. It's easy to send with full bandwidth over short distances and everyone receives, unless they choose to filter it out. Sending selectively can only be done at very close range by using minimal power. It's like whispering. As long nobody enters the maximum range of the low power sending, it can only be received by the one it is meant for."
"And Bistima can send across solar systems when they limit themselves to trade, which isn't nearly as fast as sanzai. Meaning they are restricted to lower frequencies. And even that takes a lot out of them." A second loroi said.
"It sounds like loroi do not send signals through hyperspace like we send radio signals through space, but more like how we send soundwaves through air. The medium itself is manipulated and vibrates." A human said. "And the medium's resistance causes loss of information and power as distance increases."
"I think that the strange matter somehow establishes and maintains the connection to hyperspace. Something that is normally done by a telepath's mind." A Listel translated for a pipolsid.
"Artificial sanzai. Interesting. I wonder if we can replace the strange matter with a powerful telepath." A loroi said.
"Look at the size of the array. How would a single mind operate that without backup? You would need thousands. I'm not saying that a single mind can't use it to send a message, but it will need a secondary source to keep the connection open." The historian construct said.
"It makes sense." A loroi said. "There's a limit to the size of an amplifier that can be powered by a Bistima. Maybe if we had someone who is as powerful as one of the heroes of old, we could."
"Who are we talking about?" Asked an orgus.
"There are stories about ancient loroi heroes that possessed unimaginable destructive power. One of them, Tempest, supposedly created a global typhoon." Said a neridi.
"Who did Tempest fight against?" A human asked.
"A faction of the soia during their final civil war. The loroi were created by another soia faction and were being genocided after their creating faction had been defeated." Said the personality construct. "The loroi believed that Tempest was just a mere legend, but that changed recently. We've always known that she was real. The historians were there after all. I think you can guess how Tempest's battle went. The loroi are here. The soia are not. It has baffled the Collective how the loroi managed to create these special individuals who possessed enormous destructive power."
---/\/---
Last edited by G. Janssen on Wed Oct 19, 2022 11:18 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Expedition
SpoilerShow
G. Janssen wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 1:59 pm
Chapter 1b. Warm Front
---
[...]
"No. It's tribal armor. My Navy armor is already aboard." Wildfire sent her identity to the Teidar and asked "How many of her crew are already aboard?"
[...]
[a]"Ah.."[/i] Scar sent and sent an animation of a besai that had a large lump below it that moved up and down.
bet you can spot this one yourself...
[...][/quote
On to the unknown, where no Soia-Liron Organism has gone before.
Re: Expedition
Finally caught up and am anxious to see where their journey takes them. Though I am curious if Tempest is going to play some pivotal role in either the upcoming story or the Loroi's history.Your writing skills seems to have also improved. Keep it up.
Also got to ask what happened to Lokesh? Unless I'm blind and have not read properly, I have not seen any mention of him.
Also got to ask what happened to Lokesh? Unless I'm blind and have not read properly, I have not seen any mention of him.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
I had written a whole piece about Tempest and Fireblade and was going to send it to you as a PM because of possible spoilers, but I deleted it because I realized it was unnecessary as an answer to your question.
In my story Tempest lived and died before the splintering, just like in Arioch's universe.
And after Fireblade did her thing, she finally began to heal. The Fireblade in my comic laughs and exchanges letters with Alex. Her great power may or may no longer be inside of her. I haven't made up my mind about that yet.
But you make a good point. I could do a chapter in which I let Fireblade tell the crew about a dream that she once had. A dream in which Tempest appeared to her, telling Fireblade her story and making it clear to Fireblade why she had to suffer on Seren.
Well, thank you."Your writing skills seems to have also improved. Keep it up."
He went home to his wife and two kids. As promised he bought a very nice house and opened his own electronics company. He also wonders if it's possible to create something that lets him talk to hyperspace. He and Jaron write a lot. Jaron also sends him technical literature and Union electronics components. Some are restricted by the Union and need to be smuggled. Who knows if he will come up with something useful. If he does, I'm sure everyone will find out.Also got to ask what happened to Lokesh? Unless I'm blind and have not read properly, I have not seen any mention of him.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Thanks!Krulle wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 9:51 amFinally found time to read the first chapter.SpoilerShowG. Janssen wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 1:59 pm
Chapter 1b. Warm Front
---
[...]
"No. It's tribal armor. My Navy armor is already aboard." Wildfire sent her identity to the Teidar and asked "How many of her crew are already aboard?"
[...]
[a]"Ah.."[/i] Scar sent and sent an animation of a besai that had a large lump below it that moved up and down.
bet you can spot this one yourself...
[...][/quote
On to the unknown, where no Soia-Liron Organism has gone before.
Re: Expedition
Very nice bonding.
I wonder how long it took the Loroi to accept the Nissek's drive for food first, in order to get things done.
I wonder how long it took the Loroi to accept the Nissek's drive for food first, in order to get things done.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Chapter 4.
---
"Well now." Commodore Thomas said. "That is what I call a prime cut. It's a shame we don't have a barbecue, otherwise I'd fire it up."
"This is the third time." Representative Andarin replied. "I bet it's the one with the yellow sash. He stops, looks at me and croaks something everytime we run into each other."
Seline Andarin had been receiving gifts since a couple of weeks. And because the gifts were large slabs of raw meat that were left in front of the door to her quarters, she was fairly sure that one of the Nissek delegates was responsible.
"Waah!" Nakamoto said as he entered. "Wagyu this time. Look at that marbling. That is expensive meat."
"Her poor boyfriend is starving himself and she doesn't appreciate it." Thomas teased. "Look at it this way. You are a diplomat. Your task is to establish relations between Humanity and other species. Here's a prime chance to do just that! A Mizol would be snuggling up to him now and squeeze him for information."
"I agree." Said Nakamoto. "I for one would definitely get as close to an alien as I can for science."
"Then I hope that one of the other two is gay and gives you that chance." Said Seline. "And I changed my mind. Both of you are not getting a single piece of this."
She left the Humanity lounge and went back to her quarters.
"She'd be the first Human to be romantically involved with an alien." Nakamoto said.
"I think that Jardin already claimed that title." Thomas responded.
"Oh, that doesn't count. Loroi women are just a kind of Human women with a different skin color and moe ears." Nakamoto said while laughing.
"Uhuh. I remember what Jardin said about the subject. But hey, maybe he was wrong. It's easy enough to find out though. Just approach one of them and tell her that you think that she's just an human female with "moe" ears. Preferably a Teidar." Thomas said while smiling.
"Too much moe and tsun tsun. And not enough dere dere." Nakamoto said while laughing and left.
---
Sword was two months underway and so far things went well. Tigomer and Song had begun to play some sort of advanced logic game that nobody else could understand. And once every standard week was games night for everyone else. The Humans taught chess and poker and each of the Union representatives taught one or two of their species' games. Poker games, as it turned out, were quite often won by Diran, whose face betrayed nothing.
The Nissek taught grâb! and krêggâh. Grâb! was whimsical, but krêggâh was a strategy game that had seriously surprised the Humans. It was more difficult than chess and so far the humans hadn't been able to win a single game or end one in a draw. One of the Nissek on the other hand had mastered chess without too much efford.
It had made the Humans wonder more about the two contradicting faces that the Nissek displayed. They were a species that acted purely on instinct and emotion at times, yet showed surprising intellectualism and logic skills. The key to go from one state to the other seemed to be calmth. And becoming calm was either achieved by stuffing themselves with food or exhausting themselves. A favorite way to accomplish the latter was the treadmill.
Watching a nissek on a treadmill was like watching a slapstick movie. They would generally set it to the highest setting before getting on, then find some original way to start running.
One way was by running towards it and just jumping on. Another was lifting themselves over the belt by grabbing the handlebars and trying to match the belt's speed without their legs touching it and then suddenly letting go of the handlebars. Needless to say the nissek fell and were catapulted most of the time, but to them it was fun. Other people in the gym had started betting on the outcome of each attempt. But once the nissek managed to start running, they outran anyone despite their short legs.
When a nissek had run for a while, his tong would appear. It was almost a foot long and would flap in all directions. Sometimes his arms would do the same. They just loved going crazy on the treadmills.
One of the nissek had asked Wildfire if it was possible to make adjustments to the treadmills, so they would go even faster. A Gallen had made modifications to a single one. It now had a button that had two labels. One was in Trade and said "Nissek Speed". The other had been added later, around the time that Jürgen Thomas had walked with a limp for a couple of days. It was in handwritten English and said "Ludicrous Speed".
---
But not everything was fun to watch. Twice since the departure, the crew of Sword of Hope had witnessed a battle in space. And once, Sword had passed a planet that was covered in the ruins of cities that still bathed in radioactivity. Scans and analysis of the satellites and debris in orbit indicated that the species that had inhabited it, had never developed technology beyond chemical rockets and nuclear fission. Not advanced enough to end a species' confinement to its own solar system. But advanced enough to end a species' existence.
---
Although things aboard were going well in general, there were still the occasional, inevitable tensions, that appear when a large number of very different people is forced to share a space for a long time. Tensions that tend to get out of hand when both parties involved are fighters with very competitive attitudes and gym fanatics. In this case, one careerwise, the other hobbywise.
And this is why Fireblade was now looking at one of her Teidar and at a human in her office, after both had been escorted there by Soroin guards, because they had caused an incident in the gym. Currently they were waiting for a Listel to translate the Teidars' sanzai into spoken words for the human. Fireblade was studying the records of both troublemakers.
The Listel arrived. Fireblade looked at Teidar Crimson, who had come fresh out of the academy before being appointed to Sword's batallion.
"The human refused to make place when I gestured that I needed to use the fitness machine. I need to stay fit in case of an emergency. The human doesn't. I gestured a second time. When she refused again, I gently removed her." The Listel vocalized.
Fireblade looked at the human.
"The Teidar decided on her own that it was her turn. She signalled that I needed to get out and I refused. I showed her the clock. It said that I had 5 bimas left. She signalled me again and when I ignored her she dragged me out." Seline said.
Fireblade turned her gaze back at the Teidar.
"The human began to argue. Words. More words. So many words. She then blocked the fitness machine. It was annoying. So I used psychokinesis and gently pushed her away. The coward then informed a Soroin guard and here we are." The Listel relayed.
"Did you just call me a coward, bitch?" Andarin snapped.
"What did you just call me, construct face?" Vocalized the Listel who suddenly felt uncomfortably being in the same room with the two hotheads.
"I called you a female dog. Know what that is, Smurfette? And if you're looking for a fight, then just say so, because I'll kick your arse!" Said Andarin while pointing a finger at the redhaired Teidar.
"Sad. A weak human female would lose to the runt of any diral. And what's your obsession with my buttocks, puny ears? Are you a pervert?" The Listel relayed.
Before Seline could respond, the Listel spoke. "Silence, both of you. Pallan Fireblade will give her verdict. Humanity Representative Seline Andarin. If you wish to fight Teidar Crimson in a non-lethal fight in the combat training circle, you may use the full range of your martial arts."
"Teidar Crimson. If you wish to fight Seline Andarin in a non-lethal fight in the combat training circle, you may use the full range of your martial arts. But your amplifier will be removed and you may not use psychokinesis. If any of you refuses, Pallan Fireblade will use her judgement."
"I wish it." Crimson spoke.
"Oh, you better believe that I do too." Seline said.
Quite a crowd began to gather when both fighters entered the training circle 15 bimas later.
"I just heard. I hope you understand that I am not going to stop this." Wildfire said to Jürgen the moment after she spotted him after entering. "It would undermine Fireblade's authority over her batallion. But I will be asking her for an explanation about this decision."
"Don't worry." Jürgen said. "Seline can be impulsive. And she doesn't mind a fight. In fact, I think that this will be a very interesting fight."
Both fighters entered the circle.
"Please point to the spot where you would like to lie, moan and bleed, so we can all have a good laugh." Seline said.
Crimson narrowed her eyes. "Since you're so obsessed with buttocks, I will enjoy causing smoking demolition to yours." She spoke.
4 seconds later Teidar Crimson was lying on her own buttocks.
"What was that?" Wildfire asked.
"Jiu-Jitsu. Seline is a 5th Dan. She started learning the Brazilian style at the age of eight, but switched to the Japanese style after she mastered it. I know that loroi females are stronger than human ones, but Seline has 34 years of fighting experience in a martial arts that's designed to defeat stronger opponents." Thomas answered. "I guess a certain Torrai didn't read our files. Tsk tsk."
Tisk tisk? Is that English?" Wildfire asked. "Don't worry. I will definitely read your files later today to see if they contain more surprises. And about that jew jitshoe thing: I didn't understand anything of what you said about it."
"Tisk tisk is a Human expression of disapproval. But it can be used in a joking way. And that's how I meant it. Jiu-Jitsu is a style of human hand to hand combat designed to defeat bigger, stronger opponents. Especially the Brazilian variant. Brazil is a country on Earth. Japan is another country. It's where the original form of Jiu-Jitsu or Jujutsu was developed. Seline holds an master rank." Said Thomas.
Crimson had gotten up. She understood that she had underestimated this human female.
The Teidar's moves were fast and determined and Seline got thrown and wrestled down quite a number of times, but she also managed to wrestle herself loose regularly, lock the Teidar's joints, twist her arms and throw her. Both were evenly matched in the beginning.
But the form of martial art that's taught to Teidar, also relies on psychokinesis. Jiu Jitsu doesn't. Without her psychokinesis, the Teidar eventually admitted defeat.
A tired and bruised Seline extended her hand. The panting and bruised Teidar hesitated, then took it. "I see you are more than words, human. This is good." She spoke.
"The name is Seline. Use it." Said Andarin.
"I will. My name is Crimson. I acknowledge you."
"I guess that takes care of those two egos." Wildfire said to Thomas and left.
Fireblade and the Listel approached Seline. "Pallan Fireblade asks if you are willing to teach her batallion your techniques."
Seline looked at Jürgen. "We're all in the same boat." He said.
"Alright." Seline said. "It would give me something to do. But only if you teach me loroi moves." Fireblade nodded.
"I'll be teaching your troops something else as well. Namely how to swear, taunt and insult like a Russian sailor." Seline added. "Buttocks? Smoking demolition? Really?"
"See?" Nakamoto said to Jürgen. "Seline won. As I said: they're just blue human females with big ears."
Jürgen pointed at something behind Nakamoto, who turned around. Fireblade was staring him in the face less than two feet away. Her eyes were glowing bright green.
"Oh, right. I had actually forgotten about that. Okay, you're not like human women. But you're still blue and got big ears. Very big ears." Nakamoto said without flinching at all.
Neither he nor Jurgen had ever heard Fireblade chuckle, but now they did.
In the back of the now dispersing crowd stood one of the nissek delegates. He had been looking at Seline the entire time. Now he was making soft rasping noises and was drooling.
===
A number of scientists had left Deinar to go to Historian space. The group was currently looking at the Historian's Long Range Hyperspace Communications Array. It was massive.
"The concentric rings enlarge and stabilize a rift to hyperspace. The panels then move inside and send and receive information." The historian personality construct that had accompanied the scientists, explained. "The sphere over there houses the remainder of the strange matter that we have. It is fed to the rings. Each of the two cylinders houses a Soia antimatter plant that can power the array. Large fusion plants can replace them, but we will need a minimum of four for each antimatter plant. Only one antimatter plant is needed though. The second is a backup."
"The panels consist of several layers. Two stand out. The first is made of the same material as the Loroi's psionic amplifiers, but they are structured in a different way. The second is a complex network of organic materials that functions like brain matter. It is neither alive nor conscious. We have been able to reproduce both."
"The concentric rings are easier to create than the panels, but nevertheless less understood. The functional part consists of modulated gravity projectors that also employ strange matter. We know how the matter is fed from the storage to the portal, but we don't know how it stabilizes the portal."
"At the end of that spike in the center of the rings is the initiator. It's a core, much like the one that can be found in reactionless drives. The core creates a hole, the gravity projectors enlarge and stabilize it, the panels are moved inside and send and receive data."
"And the strange matter storage?" A loroy asked.
"There is no physical contact between the strange matter and any part of the array during its storage and transfer. We thought this was to prevent the strange matter from eating the normal matter, but the strange matter isn't negatively charged."
"So the problem is a matter of production then. Positively charged strange matter repels positively charged matter. This should at least make storage easy." A neridi said.
"Yes. But the strange matter isn't positively charged either." The personality construct answered.
"That's impossible." The neridi said.
"No, it is true. We analyzed samples without making physical contact and were charged neutral. However, the moment they touched normal matter they became positively charged."
"Have you tried running the array without it?" The neridi asked.
"Yes. The rift doesn't stabilize and doesn't grow much beyond 3 kilometers in diameter." The personality construct answered. "It collapses mere seconds after creation. It behaves very much like a hyperspace hole that's generated by a ship when it jumps. We have been able to send objects into the rift."
"Look at it." The neridi said. "Our largest ships are less than a kilometer in size. This thing is 15 kilometers in diameter. Leave it to the soia to build something like this. A stable hyperspace portal 15 kilometers across.
We have tried to create larger and more stable hyperspace jump holes to allow the creation of larger ships for two centuries. We always failed. But here it is. The way to achieve exactly that."
"Surf's up." A human, who wasn't paying attention, mumbled to himself.
The others looked at him.
"Oh. Sorry." The human said. "I was just wondering about those panels, because they're moved inside the hyperspace portal after it is formed. And ehm.. Well, the way that we move through hyperspace is that we go to a certain place around a star, stop and open a hole to hyperspace. The amount of gravity is key, because it determines how fast we travel. After we enter the hole, we pop out of hyperspace more or less in the spot where we want to go. But we have no control while in hyperspace. Our ships are like fired projectiles."
"The panels send waves through hyperspace. So imagine this. A hole to hyperspace is opened and an object that has panels like those attached to it, enters. Can it steer when its panels emit waves? Change it change speed?
"We have done an experiment to determine the influence of waves on a probe." The construct said. "The waves and probe did not interact. It didn't even register the waves."
"Huh? Hmmm. What does that mean?" The human said to himself and withdrew into his own world again.
"Are you sure that the reason why the soia build this was communication?" A Loroi asked.
"We assume that it is a communicator, because the soia experimented with it for that purpose." The construct said. "We witnessed this. We have the data. But we have no further knowledge about it, although we have the blueprints. Other knowledge was never transferred to us. If such knowledge did exist, then it was lost when the soia bombed the third planet in this system during their final civil war."
===/\/===
---
"Well now." Commodore Thomas said. "That is what I call a prime cut. It's a shame we don't have a barbecue, otherwise I'd fire it up."
"This is the third time." Representative Andarin replied. "I bet it's the one with the yellow sash. He stops, looks at me and croaks something everytime we run into each other."
Seline Andarin had been receiving gifts since a couple of weeks. And because the gifts were large slabs of raw meat that were left in front of the door to her quarters, she was fairly sure that one of the Nissek delegates was responsible.
"Waah!" Nakamoto said as he entered. "Wagyu this time. Look at that marbling. That is expensive meat."
"Her poor boyfriend is starving himself and she doesn't appreciate it." Thomas teased. "Look at it this way. You are a diplomat. Your task is to establish relations between Humanity and other species. Here's a prime chance to do just that! A Mizol would be snuggling up to him now and squeeze him for information."
"I agree." Said Nakamoto. "I for one would definitely get as close to an alien as I can for science."
"Then I hope that one of the other two is gay and gives you that chance." Said Seline. "And I changed my mind. Both of you are not getting a single piece of this."
She left the Humanity lounge and went back to her quarters.
"She'd be the first Human to be romantically involved with an alien." Nakamoto said.
"I think that Jardin already claimed that title." Thomas responded.
"Oh, that doesn't count. Loroi women are just a kind of Human women with a different skin color and moe ears." Nakamoto said while laughing.
"Uhuh. I remember what Jardin said about the subject. But hey, maybe he was wrong. It's easy enough to find out though. Just approach one of them and tell her that you think that she's just an human female with "moe" ears. Preferably a Teidar." Thomas said while smiling.
"Too much moe and tsun tsun. And not enough dere dere." Nakamoto said while laughing and left.
---
Sword was two months underway and so far things went well. Tigomer and Song had begun to play some sort of advanced logic game that nobody else could understand. And once every standard week was games night for everyone else. The Humans taught chess and poker and each of the Union representatives taught one or two of their species' games. Poker games, as it turned out, were quite often won by Diran, whose face betrayed nothing.
The Nissek taught grâb! and krêggâh. Grâb! was whimsical, but krêggâh was a strategy game that had seriously surprised the Humans. It was more difficult than chess and so far the humans hadn't been able to win a single game or end one in a draw. One of the Nissek on the other hand had mastered chess without too much efford.
It had made the Humans wonder more about the two contradicting faces that the Nissek displayed. They were a species that acted purely on instinct and emotion at times, yet showed surprising intellectualism and logic skills. The key to go from one state to the other seemed to be calmth. And becoming calm was either achieved by stuffing themselves with food or exhausting themselves. A favorite way to accomplish the latter was the treadmill.
Watching a nissek on a treadmill was like watching a slapstick movie. They would generally set it to the highest setting before getting on, then find some original way to start running.
One way was by running towards it and just jumping on. Another was lifting themselves over the belt by grabbing the handlebars and trying to match the belt's speed without their legs touching it and then suddenly letting go of the handlebars. Needless to say the nissek fell and were catapulted most of the time, but to them it was fun. Other people in the gym had started betting on the outcome of each attempt. But once the nissek managed to start running, they outran anyone despite their short legs.
When a nissek had run for a while, his tong would appear. It was almost a foot long and would flap in all directions. Sometimes his arms would do the same. They just loved going crazy on the treadmills.
One of the nissek had asked Wildfire if it was possible to make adjustments to the treadmills, so they would go even faster. A Gallen had made modifications to a single one. It now had a button that had two labels. One was in Trade and said "Nissek Speed". The other had been added later, around the time that Jürgen Thomas had walked with a limp for a couple of days. It was in handwritten English and said "Ludicrous Speed".
---
But not everything was fun to watch. Twice since the departure, the crew of Sword of Hope had witnessed a battle in space. And once, Sword had passed a planet that was covered in the ruins of cities that still bathed in radioactivity. Scans and analysis of the satellites and debris in orbit indicated that the species that had inhabited it, had never developed technology beyond chemical rockets and nuclear fission. Not advanced enough to end a species' confinement to its own solar system. But advanced enough to end a species' existence.
---
Although things aboard were going well in general, there were still the occasional, inevitable tensions, that appear when a large number of very different people is forced to share a space for a long time. Tensions that tend to get out of hand when both parties involved are fighters with very competitive attitudes and gym fanatics. In this case, one careerwise, the other hobbywise.
And this is why Fireblade was now looking at one of her Teidar and at a human in her office, after both had been escorted there by Soroin guards, because they had caused an incident in the gym. Currently they were waiting for a Listel to translate the Teidars' sanzai into spoken words for the human. Fireblade was studying the records of both troublemakers.
The Listel arrived. Fireblade looked at Teidar Crimson, who had come fresh out of the academy before being appointed to Sword's batallion.
"The human refused to make place when I gestured that I needed to use the fitness machine. I need to stay fit in case of an emergency. The human doesn't. I gestured a second time. When she refused again, I gently removed her." The Listel vocalized.
Fireblade looked at the human.
"The Teidar decided on her own that it was her turn. She signalled that I needed to get out and I refused. I showed her the clock. It said that I had 5 bimas left. She signalled me again and when I ignored her she dragged me out." Seline said.
Fireblade turned her gaze back at the Teidar.
"The human began to argue. Words. More words. So many words. She then blocked the fitness machine. It was annoying. So I used psychokinesis and gently pushed her away. The coward then informed a Soroin guard and here we are." The Listel relayed.
"Did you just call me a coward, bitch?" Andarin snapped.
"What did you just call me, construct face?" Vocalized the Listel who suddenly felt uncomfortably being in the same room with the two hotheads.
"I called you a female dog. Know what that is, Smurfette? And if you're looking for a fight, then just say so, because I'll kick your arse!" Said Andarin while pointing a finger at the redhaired Teidar.
"Sad. A weak human female would lose to the runt of any diral. And what's your obsession with my buttocks, puny ears? Are you a pervert?" The Listel relayed.
Before Seline could respond, the Listel spoke. "Silence, both of you. Pallan Fireblade will give her verdict. Humanity Representative Seline Andarin. If you wish to fight Teidar Crimson in a non-lethal fight in the combat training circle, you may use the full range of your martial arts."
"Teidar Crimson. If you wish to fight Seline Andarin in a non-lethal fight in the combat training circle, you may use the full range of your martial arts. But your amplifier will be removed and you may not use psychokinesis. If any of you refuses, Pallan Fireblade will use her judgement."
"I wish it." Crimson spoke.
"Oh, you better believe that I do too." Seline said.
Quite a crowd began to gather when both fighters entered the training circle 15 bimas later.
"I just heard. I hope you understand that I am not going to stop this." Wildfire said to Jürgen the moment after she spotted him after entering. "It would undermine Fireblade's authority over her batallion. But I will be asking her for an explanation about this decision."
"Don't worry." Jürgen said. "Seline can be impulsive. And she doesn't mind a fight. In fact, I think that this will be a very interesting fight."
Both fighters entered the circle.
"Please point to the spot where you would like to lie, moan and bleed, so we can all have a good laugh." Seline said.
Crimson narrowed her eyes. "Since you're so obsessed with buttocks, I will enjoy causing smoking demolition to yours." She spoke.
4 seconds later Teidar Crimson was lying on her own buttocks.
"What was that?" Wildfire asked.
"Jiu-Jitsu. Seline is a 5th Dan. She started learning the Brazilian style at the age of eight, but switched to the Japanese style after she mastered it. I know that loroi females are stronger than human ones, but Seline has 34 years of fighting experience in a martial arts that's designed to defeat stronger opponents." Thomas answered. "I guess a certain Torrai didn't read our files. Tsk tsk."
Tisk tisk? Is that English?" Wildfire asked. "Don't worry. I will definitely read your files later today to see if they contain more surprises. And about that jew jitshoe thing: I didn't understand anything of what you said about it."
"Tisk tisk is a Human expression of disapproval. But it can be used in a joking way. And that's how I meant it. Jiu-Jitsu is a style of human hand to hand combat designed to defeat bigger, stronger opponents. Especially the Brazilian variant. Brazil is a country on Earth. Japan is another country. It's where the original form of Jiu-Jitsu or Jujutsu was developed. Seline holds an master rank." Said Thomas.
Crimson had gotten up. She understood that she had underestimated this human female.
The Teidar's moves were fast and determined and Seline got thrown and wrestled down quite a number of times, but she also managed to wrestle herself loose regularly, lock the Teidar's joints, twist her arms and throw her. Both were evenly matched in the beginning.
But the form of martial art that's taught to Teidar, also relies on psychokinesis. Jiu Jitsu doesn't. Without her psychokinesis, the Teidar eventually admitted defeat.
A tired and bruised Seline extended her hand. The panting and bruised Teidar hesitated, then took it. "I see you are more than words, human. This is good." She spoke.
"The name is Seline. Use it." Said Andarin.
"I will. My name is Crimson. I acknowledge you."
"I guess that takes care of those two egos." Wildfire said to Thomas and left.
Fireblade and the Listel approached Seline. "Pallan Fireblade asks if you are willing to teach her batallion your techniques."
Seline looked at Jürgen. "We're all in the same boat." He said.
"Alright." Seline said. "It would give me something to do. But only if you teach me loroi moves." Fireblade nodded.
"I'll be teaching your troops something else as well. Namely how to swear, taunt and insult like a Russian sailor." Seline added. "Buttocks? Smoking demolition? Really?"
"See?" Nakamoto said to Jürgen. "Seline won. As I said: they're just blue human females with big ears."
Jürgen pointed at something behind Nakamoto, who turned around. Fireblade was staring him in the face less than two feet away. Her eyes were glowing bright green.
"Oh, right. I had actually forgotten about that. Okay, you're not like human women. But you're still blue and got big ears. Very big ears." Nakamoto said without flinching at all.
Neither he nor Jurgen had ever heard Fireblade chuckle, but now they did.
In the back of the now dispersing crowd stood one of the nissek delegates. He had been looking at Seline the entire time. Now he was making soft rasping noises and was drooling.
===
A number of scientists had left Deinar to go to Historian space. The group was currently looking at the Historian's Long Range Hyperspace Communications Array. It was massive.
"The concentric rings enlarge and stabilize a rift to hyperspace. The panels then move inside and send and receive information." The historian personality construct that had accompanied the scientists, explained. "The sphere over there houses the remainder of the strange matter that we have. It is fed to the rings. Each of the two cylinders houses a Soia antimatter plant that can power the array. Large fusion plants can replace them, but we will need a minimum of four for each antimatter plant. Only one antimatter plant is needed though. The second is a backup."
"The panels consist of several layers. Two stand out. The first is made of the same material as the Loroi's psionic amplifiers, but they are structured in a different way. The second is a complex network of organic materials that functions like brain matter. It is neither alive nor conscious. We have been able to reproduce both."
"The concentric rings are easier to create than the panels, but nevertheless less understood. The functional part consists of modulated gravity projectors that also employ strange matter. We know how the matter is fed from the storage to the portal, but we don't know how it stabilizes the portal."
"At the end of that spike in the center of the rings is the initiator. It's a core, much like the one that can be found in reactionless drives. The core creates a hole, the gravity projectors enlarge and stabilize it, the panels are moved inside and send and receive data."
"And the strange matter storage?" A loroy asked.
"There is no physical contact between the strange matter and any part of the array during its storage and transfer. We thought this was to prevent the strange matter from eating the normal matter, but the strange matter isn't negatively charged."
"So the problem is a matter of production then. Positively charged strange matter repels positively charged matter. This should at least make storage easy." A neridi said.
"Yes. But the strange matter isn't positively charged either." The personality construct answered.
"That's impossible." The neridi said.
"No, it is true. We analyzed samples without making physical contact and were charged neutral. However, the moment they touched normal matter they became positively charged."
"Have you tried running the array without it?" The neridi asked.
"Yes. The rift doesn't stabilize and doesn't grow much beyond 3 kilometers in diameter." The personality construct answered. "It collapses mere seconds after creation. It behaves very much like a hyperspace hole that's generated by a ship when it jumps. We have been able to send objects into the rift."
"Look at it." The neridi said. "Our largest ships are less than a kilometer in size. This thing is 15 kilometers in diameter. Leave it to the soia to build something like this. A stable hyperspace portal 15 kilometers across.
We have tried to create larger and more stable hyperspace jump holes to allow the creation of larger ships for two centuries. We always failed. But here it is. The way to achieve exactly that."
"Surf's up." A human, who wasn't paying attention, mumbled to himself.
The others looked at him.
"Oh. Sorry." The human said. "I was just wondering about those panels, because they're moved inside the hyperspace portal after it is formed. And ehm.. Well, the way that we move through hyperspace is that we go to a certain place around a star, stop and open a hole to hyperspace. The amount of gravity is key, because it determines how fast we travel. After we enter the hole, we pop out of hyperspace more or less in the spot where we want to go. But we have no control while in hyperspace. Our ships are like fired projectiles."
"The panels send waves through hyperspace. So imagine this. A hole to hyperspace is opened and an object that has panels like those attached to it, enters. Can it steer when its panels emit waves? Change it change speed?
"We have done an experiment to determine the influence of waves on a probe." The construct said. "The waves and probe did not interact. It didn't even register the waves."
"Huh? Hmmm. What does that mean?" The human said to himself and withdrew into his own world again.
"Are you sure that the reason why the soia build this was communication?" A Loroi asked.
"We assume that it is a communicator, because the soia experimented with it for that purpose." The construct said. "We witnessed this. We have the data. But we have no further knowledge about it, although we have the blueprints. Other knowledge was never transferred to us. If such knowledge did exist, then it was lost when the soia bombed the third planet in this system during their final civil war."
===/\/===
Last edited by G. Janssen on Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Chapter 5. Letting the cat out of the bag.
---
Meow woke up. Faiablaid was still sleeping, but he was hungry. A few months ago he would've woken her up if he was hungry, but after he had been taken to his new territory, he had gradually discovered that other sources of meat existed.
Meow stretched himself, walked to the door and stared at the control panel. He had learned how to open the doors. It was simply a matter of jumping and touching the biggest lit square on the panel with his paw. He had watched how Faiablaid did it. And if she could do it, then so could he. Some of the doors needed more squares to be hit. This was not a problem.
Meow jumped and hit the square. The door slid open and he walked out. He sniffed a corner. Once again he noticed that his scent markers tended to disappear fast. He suspected some of the blue faced tall ones. Specifically the ones with green body fur. But their pathetic attempts at sabotaging the rightful expansion of Meow's territory would fail. He sprayed the wall.
Meow had memorized the way to the spots where meat could be found. After walking through a few corridors and opening a few doors, a very faint scent of meat greeted him as he approached the door of one of the pink faced tall ones. One time, the pink faced tall one who lived here had given him meat when the smell of it had been very strong. But it was very faint now, so he moved on.
As Meow turned a corner, he spotted one of the suspected blue faced saboteurs. She was holding a device and was doing something to the wall. Meow smelled the wall. It now smelled like stinky water. That confirmed it. The blue faced tall ones with the green body fur were indeed the ones who removed his scent markers.
Faiablaid also covered herself with stinky water almost every day. He hadn't understood why she did this, until she had tried to put him in a puddle of the same foamy, stinky water, just because he had been covered in some black stuff one day.
He really cared about her, so hitting and biting her to prevent her from putting him in that nasty puddle had pained him. Cleaning yourself with stinky water may be fine if you're a blue faced tall one, but the only acceptable way for people to get clean is by licking themselves. Meow didn't know why, but he somehow felt bad about hitting Faiablaid. Maybe he would make it up to her one day.
The saboteur bent forward, her back turned to him. Now was his chance. He ran to her, jumped on her back, extended his claws and growled. She shrieked and ran. Justice! Meow thought and sprayed the wall with his scent to celebrate his victory and make every blue faced saboteur realize that this was his territory and any attempts of sabotage were in vain.
Once, Meow had pondered why the faces of all the blue faced tall ones are so similar, while their head furs are so different. Later he realized that he shouldn't have done that, because it had caused him to start noticing other things. He just couldn't understand how the tall ones could shed and exchange their fur and scales at will.
He could observe this phenomenon daily, as Faiablaid was sometimes scaly, sometimes furry and sometimes all blue and smooth with only red fur on her head and on one other spot. Removable fur and scales. How? And why not the head fur as well?
Meow opened a few more doors and approached the quarters of the green scaly ones. Meow thought that the green scaly ones were much more normal than the blue faced tall ones, because they did not change their scales and ate meat the way it should be eaten.
Sometimes they gave him some meat. One time, it had smelled like them. He had wondered about that. But he knew he was too early now. Once, he had woken one of them up and instead of feeding him like Faiablaid would do, the green scaly one had come close, opened his rather large mouth and displayed all of his teeth. The green scaly ones had a most impressive number of teeth.
Meow knew what it meant. It meant that the scaly one would consider him meat if he woke him up again. And thus he wouldn't. He could understand the scaly one's response. Meow didn't like it either when he was woken up for no good reason.
The shared feeding place for the blue faced tall ones was next. He had to watch out in there. The ones in the white fur guarded the place and always chased him away. Still, if he was fast, he could usually obtain meat. It was fun jumping on them, grabbing it and running away before they could respond.
There were currently five of the blue faced tall ones in their white fur. One had extended a very large shiny claw from her paw to cut vegetables. Meow did not like those because they tasted gross. He smelled the air and confirmed the presence of meat. Now he had to see where it was. He looked around and carefully began to sneak to a good spot that would allow him to see it. He spotted it behind one of the tall ones.
Meow checked the farthest door. It was open and there were no obstacles. He listened carefully and determined that nobody was coming. He also checked the floor and counters for reflections. Sometimes they were wet.
Once, before he had known that, Meow had been very embarrasment when he had slipped after jumping and ended up with his head covered in white gooey stuff and his butt in the air. He had not gone back to the feeding place for some time out of shame, because all the tall ones had laughed at him as he ran out.
He began his attack run. He jumped on the nearest counter and immediately on a tall one who was dipping a piece of wood in a pool of liquid. From there he jumped on the other counter next to the meat. The tall one's white head-fur fell in the liquid as he jumped from her and now she had green head-fur instead. "Wait, their head fur does change after all?" Meow thought.
"No! No time to think about that now!" Meow snatched the meat as the other tall ones began to turn and ran. One of them began to chase him and made hissing sounds. But she would never catch him so it didn't matter. It was a success! Meow had outsmarted the guardians of the feeding place again.
The cooks in the galley cursed. One of them fished her hat out of the soup.
After finishing his meat in a safe spot behind a door that required three jumps to open, it was time for a well-deserved nap.
---
A loud noise woke him up. Meow looked down from his shelf near the ceiling. There was a tall one lying on the floor and her head was leaking blue stuff. He jumped down, sniffed and licked the blue liquid. Blood.
He brought his face close to hers and licked her nose. She was breathing. Meow knew that living things became meat when they stopped breathing and leaked too much blood.
Thoughts flashed through his mind. Why would I care? Why wouldn't I care? Would I want to become meat? Will I get meat if I help?
For a moment Meow wondered about having all those thoughts. Then he decided to get help, although he still didn't know exactly why. It just felt kind of right.
---
The Paset had no idea what she had done to invoke the wrath of the Marine batallion's mascot. At first he had meowed in a friendly manner and had pushed his head against her knees, but then he had suddenly puffed up, changed his expression and begun to growl and hiss. It had caused her to run down a corridor, while the growling mascot was following her.
Fortunately there was a storage room nearby and getting inside was probably a good idea. That is if she could get the door closed before Fireblade's pet could enter. She had sent for help and it was on its way, but it would take another bima or so to arrive.
She went inside the parts storage and closed the door. Resting against the door, she noticed the other mind inside. It was near the floor and faint. She went around a corner to look and saw the unconscious Gallen Lonzet on the floor. She sent for help as hard as she could.
---
Meow found a blue faced saboteur close by. He called to her and tried to push her in the right direction after calling didn't work. But she just stood there. Meow wondered if all saboteurs were this stupid or he was just having bad luck finding the one who was.
Realizing that asking nicely didn't work, Meow changed his tactic. He puffed up his hair, showed his fighting expression and issued a warning. That worked! The dumb creature immediately began running in the right direction. Now he only had to get her inside the room.
---
A few hours later, Fireblade was sitting in Wildfire's quarters. Meow was yawning and sitting on the floor next to her.
"Well now. Only two complaints today." Wildfire sent. "One from a mildly injured Paset and one from.. ah, of course, the morning crew of the galley. Nothing new there. Oh, it seems we will be having cook's hat soup today."
"What is new however are the statements from another Paset and a Lonzet who decided that ladders and safety helmets are for other people. Also new is the security footage of Meow opening the door to storage room 3P5 after entering its three digit code."
"I noticed that he observes things carefully when he accompanies me on my rounds." Fireblade sent..
"So it seems." Wildfire sent back.
Suddenly it hit Wildfire. There were three Humans aboard. Surely they could shed some light on cats. She sent a request to her aide in the next room to go and ask the Human representatives to come to her quarters.
---
"Please have a seat." Wildfire said after the three humans entered her office. "You all know Pallan Fireblade, but let me introduce you to...oof, come here, you." Wildfire lifted up Meow, who had walked behind her desk and put him on top of it. "Dread Captain Meow, formerly known as the Moving Darkness, The Thing, The Unmaker and even The Unholy One, but now commonly referred to as trespasser, meat thief, noise maker, leg scratcher, annoyance and harasser by his ever growing number of victims. How the mighty have fallen, eh Meow?"
Meow yawned again.
"He is the mascot of Sword's batallion of Marines and Fireblade's pet."
"That is ehm, one big and ehm, scary looking creature. Said Jürgen. What species is it?
"It has thick fur. Is it a predator from Taben?" Asked Nakamoto.
"Wrong." Said Seline as she removed one of her shoelaces and began dangling it in front of Meow. "I think you can guess what it is now." She said a few moments later. Meow had jumped down and was lying on his back, grabbing and biting the string. "He may be much bigger than a normal cat, look like an unholy fusion between a nightmare and a bad LSD trip and have two tails, but underneath all of that it's just a big kitty. He was scratching my door and meowing the day that the nissek had left meat outside for the first time. Really scared me when I saw him, until he started meowing again. Then I realized what he was."
"Did you say that a nissek left meat in front of your door?" Wildfire asked.
"Yes. Three times so far. He also say's "Graawk" or something everytime he sees me. Don't know why."
"You're a pink female with silver hair. That's why. Guess what color patterns nissek females display when they're ready to mate. The nissek's duality is absurd. Acting on pure instinct half the time, being brilliant thinkers the other half. You should go talk to their assigned Mizol before this turns ugly."
Nakamoto began accessing his pad and handed it to Wildfire. "I have two cats back home." He said. "This is what normal cats look like."
Wildfire frowned when she saw the pictures of two cute cats playing with toys and scraped her throat.
"So what's the story here?" Jürgen asked.
Wildfire told the non-classified parts of the embarassing story on how they had met Meow and about the things that had happened earlier today.
"Well, your encounter certainly sounds like you were dealing with a scared and pissed off cat." Jürgen laughed.
"Cats opening doors by pulling down handles and helping their owners isn't unheard of. But entering codes? And helping strangers?" Nakamoto said. He looked at Meow and noticed that Meow was staring at him, but not only at Nakamoto's eyes. He was reading Nakamoto's entire face.
Nakamoto got a hunch.
"Torrai, do you have a pair of scissors and a large mirror?" He asked.
Wildfire opened a drawer and handed him a pair of scissors. She then went into her bedroom to get her mirror. "Jürgen, your hair contrasts nicely with Meow's. Could you cut off a lock of your hair?" Nakamoto asked.
"Alright. Pallan Fireblade, please stroke Meow and put this lock of hair on him so that he doesn't notice." Nakamoto said and handed Fireblade the lock of Jürgen's hair.
Wildfire meanwhile had brought the standing mirror from her quarters and placed it in her office in front of Meow.
Meow was wondering why all the tall ones were looking at him and why one of the pink ones had a face that was substantially different from the other two. But he was happy with the attention. Maybe one of them would feed him as a reward for the good deed he had performed earlier. Wafaia, one of the tall ones that he knew well, put a mirror in front of him. Meow ignored it. He had seen himself many time in Faiablaid's mirror. He decided to walk away.
"Wait." He thought. "What is that?" Meow looked back at his reflection and at the yellowish thing on his fur. He turned, swiped the thing off his fur with a paw, smelled it and began to stare at Jürgen.
"As I thought. This fellow here is self-aware. And pretty bright." Nakamoto said. "You mentioned that the raider captain said something about genetic modification? You know, with a bit of his blood we can run his DNA through the simulator in the xenobiology lab and get an idea of what he will become. And maybe we can sedate him and run a brain scan."
Wildfire looked at Fireblade, who shook her head.
"I'm afraid not." Wildfire said. "Alright, Pallan Fireblade. That will be all. Please treat Meow to a nice steak for saving Lonzet Longshot."
Fireblade and Meow left.
Wildfire got up, got a clean glass from a cabinet and held it in front of Seline.
"Please drop your shoelace in." She said.
Seline frowned, but did as Wildfire asked.
"Now then, representatives of Humanity." Wildfire said. "You will probably wonder why I'm about to go behind Fireblade's back. The first reason is that I don't want to cause her stress. Meow means a lot to her. The second is because I need to know if Meow will turn into a threat or not. We know nothing about his past. We don't know why he was created or by who. And we don't know what he will become. But since today we know that he is self-aware, intelligent, becoming more intelligent rapidly... and can open security locks. I need to know what I'm dealing with."
"Promise me that you won't reveal to Fireblade what I'm about to ask of you. I'm fully aware that I may be betraying her trust in me, although maybe she just refused because she heard "blood" and "sedate". But even then I have very good reasons to do it this way. Promise me."
Seline, Jürgen and Nakamoto did.
Wildfire handed the glass to Nakamoto. "I know that I can't order you, doctor, so I'm making it a request. Please enter Meow's DNA into the simulator and report to me directly once you have the results. The lab is yours. Tell no-one of the research. Clean the simulator's logs and remove all evidence afterwards."
"Torrai, I know that Meow is Pallan Fireblade's pet." Said Seline. "So I can understand that she is attached to it. I also understand that he must be dealt with if he turns out to be a threat. But why go through such lengths to keep it from her? She's a Teidar Pallan!"
Wildfire looked at Seline for a moment. "Fireblade can talk about her past now, I guess.. If you wish to know why I didn't order her to submit Meow to an examination and don't want her to know about our conversation, then I suggest you go to her and casually start a conversation about Meow. Then steer it towards what he means to her and why. It may take time for her to open up to a stranger. Don't push her. The fact that you're training her batallion will help."
"And how do I talk to someone who doesn't speak? Use a Listel as a vocalizer again?" Asked Seline.
"Use these." Wildfire opened her drawer and took out a box that contained two white, golfball sized objects and a larger one that was the size of an orange. "Designed by the dreiman, their schematics preserved by the sonliri and built by their neighbour species according to their instructions."
"They're a very useful thing to have when going on an expedition. Just think loud and clear in your own language. It takes a while for them to calibrate when they encounter a new language, but this set already knows English and Loroi Trade. The manual is inside the box as well."
"Oh and go talk to Mizol Smoke about your nissek problem."
---
Seven days after Meow's DNA had been isolated, multiplied, analyzed and run through the simulator several times, Nakamoto was in Wildfire's office presenting the results of his research.
"Our database didn't contain images on everything that I wanted to show you, so I asked one of the crew to make some drawings. You saw the photos of my two cats. Those are called Scottish Folds, a very ordinary cat breed in Japan. And this.." Nakamoto handed Wildfire his pad. "is a drawing of someone who is holding a rather large Maine Coon. That is a specific cat breed from a country called the United States. The largest breed of housecat in the world. But it is smaller than Meow."
"Meow's design seems to revolve around his brain. It continous to grow as the rest of him does. Or better said, Meow is growing because his brain is. When we reduce his size to that of an ordinary cat and put them side to side, we see that his brain is about a third larger. His skull is somewhat more dome shaped so it can fit inside. This is conveniently hidden by his fur."
"The next image shows the brain in detail. I wish we could do a brain scan to confirm these results, because they are spectacular. Every run of the simulator shows that Meow's brain has an IPC that is much higher than that of a human brain."
"IPC?" Wildfire asked.
"A combination of the number of cortical neurons, neuron packing density, interneuronal distance and axonal conduction velocity. Factors that determine general information processing capacity, or IPC, as reflected by general intelligence."
"And its high IPC is the core of Meow's design." Nakamoto said while tapping the top of Wildfire's desk with his right index finger. "Someone kicked Mother Nature out the door and did a complete redesign. His brain's structure is much more complex. See those folds? See how much thinner they are than the ones in our brains? They can be, because the number of cortical neurons in them is much greater."
"Let's ignore things like bloodvessels and supportive tissue for a moment and go with pure neurons. Take a cube that's ten by ten by ten centimeters an place a neuron in the center of each centimeter. That's a thousand neurons. In this cubical configuration, a single neuron can have a maximum of 26 shared connections with its adjacent neurons."
"Now halve the distance between them. That results in 8000 neurons and roughly eight times the number of shared connections. The designer didn't so much increase brain size to increase intelligence, but reduced the distance between the neurons. Of course this factor of eight is impossible, because there are other things like bloodvessels and supportive tissue."
"The simulator shows that his growth will stop when his brain mass is about a fifth of that of a loroi or luman brain. All the parts that make up a typical cat brain are there. Including the parts that are responsible for aggression. But they are not disproportional. It wasn't Meow's creator's goal to create a killer."
"Meow will continue to grow slowly in size for a few decades and grow more and more intelligent. His intelligence can't be determined by the simulator, but my personal guess based on experience says it will be anywhere in between an IQ of 75 and 90. Judging by his actions he's already pretty smart. Maybe as smart as a six year old human or a three year old loroi."
"I see that you explained IQ on the pad." Said Wildfire. "I understand that 75 to 90 is well within the range of adult human and loroi intelligence, doctor."
"Yes." Nakamoto replied. "And I think that achieving that was his designer's goal."
"How big will he become?" Wildfire asked.
"Swipe to the next image on the pad to see." Nakamoto said.
Wildfire swiped to the next photo. It showed a computer image of Meow without fur, one of him with fur, a standard loroi female and another cat that was somewhat smaller than the image of Meow without fur. All at the same scale.
"Fireblade will need bigger living quarters." She said after looking at the image of Meow with fur.
"She can always shave off the fur." Nakamoto's replied.
"Something tells me that she's not going to do that. So I guess she will also need a bigger vacuum cleaner."
"That she will." Nakamoto replied.
"What's the other one called?" Wildfire asked.
"That's a jaguar. I added it as a reference. There's more, Torrai." Said Nakamoto.
"Of couse. There always is." Said Wildfire. "Please continue."
"Meow has 38 chromosomes like a normal cat. Quite a few show tampering. In one place, his cat DNA has been replaced with a piece of human DNA. The exchange is in a place that determines brain structure. I think that alteration is why he has a lotai."
"Wildfire leaned back. "Well now.. That sounds like Meow's creator knows what part of Human DNA causes a lotai. And that raises a number of questions."
"Indeed. Which brings me to my next point." Said Nakamoto. "Since neither humans nor loroi know what causes a lotai, I'm convinced that he wasn't created by one. His age is around 20 years. This means that he was created not long after the war. Not long after our first contact. Back then, we didn't have the knowledge that's required to redesign a lifeform on this scale."
"And you do now?" Wildfire asked.
"I'll be open with you, since I know that the matter is already known to Union authorities. Officially we only have obtained loroi medical knowledge to regrow limbs and cure cancer, etcetera. One country however has also managed to obtain Umiak knowledge on bio-engineering." Nakamoto replied. "The loroi knowledge and our own research have resulted in the ability to alter lifeforms. And a certain country will likely be able to create completely new lifeforms in a few decades."
"Then let us hope that Humanity will use that knowledge more wisely than the Hierarchy did or deal with that country in a swift and decisive way, or else we might see another tragedy like the one on Tithric." Wildfire said with a stern look."
"I fought in the Great War, Professor. I encountered one of the Hierarchy's creations on Seren. We knew of their existence. They came in several varieties. The one I encountered was one of those that were made to look like us. Even its mind looked like ours. And that's because a real loroi had been used to create it."
"It was "unconscious" when we found it, so we couldn't use sanzai to identify it. The Teidar who performed a mindprobe to determine that it really was a loroi, had her throat almost slashed when its head suddenly split open and a razorsharp appendage appeared. What saved her life was the fact that the rest of us expected something to happen and began blowing it to pieces the moment that its head split. The Union will not allow Humanity to create such monstrosities."
"What can I say?" Nakamoto replied. "I agree completely. Except on the glassing the planet part of course. Earth's authorities are already dealing with the matter."
After a moment of silence he continued with his report. "Anyway. An interesting detail are Meow's teeth. They are continuously replaced by larger ones as he grows. And then there are the tails. The significance of them is unclear. Maybe they are markers that indicate a step in Meow's development. Maybe his creator likes Japanese folklore. The simulator shows the development of more tails, but their maximum number varies."
"Oh, a few of the simulator runs show that his brain's speech center will develop. Cats have vocal cords. There's a chance that he starts talking one day. Don't expect scientific debates though."
"So, to summarize: someone who doesn't care one inch about aesthetics uplifted a cat by redesigning its brain by rewriting the DNA of a fertilized egg cell. Meow will always be a cat, but he will become a very large and very intelligent cat. Possibly one capable of speech. Intelligence changes behaviour. We've already seen that. A normal cat doesn't fetch help for strangers. Your question was if he will become a threat. I say no, unless he is made into one."
"Thank you, Doctor." Said Wildfire. "I do hope that someone will teach him not to jump on people anymore before he reaches his maximum size."
"That would probably be wise." Nakamoto replied.
===/\/===
---
Meow woke up. Faiablaid was still sleeping, but he was hungry. A few months ago he would've woken her up if he was hungry, but after he had been taken to his new territory, he had gradually discovered that other sources of meat existed.
Meow stretched himself, walked to the door and stared at the control panel. He had learned how to open the doors. It was simply a matter of jumping and touching the biggest lit square on the panel with his paw. He had watched how Faiablaid did it. And if she could do it, then so could he. Some of the doors needed more squares to be hit. This was not a problem.
Meow jumped and hit the square. The door slid open and he walked out. He sniffed a corner. Once again he noticed that his scent markers tended to disappear fast. He suspected some of the blue faced tall ones. Specifically the ones with green body fur. But their pathetic attempts at sabotaging the rightful expansion of Meow's territory would fail. He sprayed the wall.
Meow had memorized the way to the spots where meat could be found. After walking through a few corridors and opening a few doors, a very faint scent of meat greeted him as he approached the door of one of the pink faced tall ones. One time, the pink faced tall one who lived here had given him meat when the smell of it had been very strong. But it was very faint now, so he moved on.
As Meow turned a corner, he spotted one of the suspected blue faced saboteurs. She was holding a device and was doing something to the wall. Meow smelled the wall. It now smelled like stinky water. That confirmed it. The blue faced tall ones with the green body fur were indeed the ones who removed his scent markers.
Faiablaid also covered herself with stinky water almost every day. He hadn't understood why she did this, until she had tried to put him in a puddle of the same foamy, stinky water, just because he had been covered in some black stuff one day.
He really cared about her, so hitting and biting her to prevent her from putting him in that nasty puddle had pained him. Cleaning yourself with stinky water may be fine if you're a blue faced tall one, but the only acceptable way for people to get clean is by licking themselves. Meow didn't know why, but he somehow felt bad about hitting Faiablaid. Maybe he would make it up to her one day.
The saboteur bent forward, her back turned to him. Now was his chance. He ran to her, jumped on her back, extended his claws and growled. She shrieked and ran. Justice! Meow thought and sprayed the wall with his scent to celebrate his victory and make every blue faced saboteur realize that this was his territory and any attempts of sabotage were in vain.
Once, Meow had pondered why the faces of all the blue faced tall ones are so similar, while their head furs are so different. Later he realized that he shouldn't have done that, because it had caused him to start noticing other things. He just couldn't understand how the tall ones could shed and exchange their fur and scales at will.
He could observe this phenomenon daily, as Faiablaid was sometimes scaly, sometimes furry and sometimes all blue and smooth with only red fur on her head and on one other spot. Removable fur and scales. How? And why not the head fur as well?
Meow opened a few more doors and approached the quarters of the green scaly ones. Meow thought that the green scaly ones were much more normal than the blue faced tall ones, because they did not change their scales and ate meat the way it should be eaten.
Sometimes they gave him some meat. One time, it had smelled like them. He had wondered about that. But he knew he was too early now. Once, he had woken one of them up and instead of feeding him like Faiablaid would do, the green scaly one had come close, opened his rather large mouth and displayed all of his teeth. The green scaly ones had a most impressive number of teeth.
Meow knew what it meant. It meant that the scaly one would consider him meat if he woke him up again. And thus he wouldn't. He could understand the scaly one's response. Meow didn't like it either when he was woken up for no good reason.
The shared feeding place for the blue faced tall ones was next. He had to watch out in there. The ones in the white fur guarded the place and always chased him away. Still, if he was fast, he could usually obtain meat. It was fun jumping on them, grabbing it and running away before they could respond.
There were currently five of the blue faced tall ones in their white fur. One had extended a very large shiny claw from her paw to cut vegetables. Meow did not like those because they tasted gross. He smelled the air and confirmed the presence of meat. Now he had to see where it was. He looked around and carefully began to sneak to a good spot that would allow him to see it. He spotted it behind one of the tall ones.
Meow checked the farthest door. It was open and there were no obstacles. He listened carefully and determined that nobody was coming. He also checked the floor and counters for reflections. Sometimes they were wet.
Once, before he had known that, Meow had been very embarrasment when he had slipped after jumping and ended up with his head covered in white gooey stuff and his butt in the air. He had not gone back to the feeding place for some time out of shame, because all the tall ones had laughed at him as he ran out.
He began his attack run. He jumped on the nearest counter and immediately on a tall one who was dipping a piece of wood in a pool of liquid. From there he jumped on the other counter next to the meat. The tall one's white head-fur fell in the liquid as he jumped from her and now she had green head-fur instead. "Wait, their head fur does change after all?" Meow thought.
"No! No time to think about that now!" Meow snatched the meat as the other tall ones began to turn and ran. One of them began to chase him and made hissing sounds. But she would never catch him so it didn't matter. It was a success! Meow had outsmarted the guardians of the feeding place again.
The cooks in the galley cursed. One of them fished her hat out of the soup.
After finishing his meat in a safe spot behind a door that required three jumps to open, it was time for a well-deserved nap.
---
A loud noise woke him up. Meow looked down from his shelf near the ceiling. There was a tall one lying on the floor and her head was leaking blue stuff. He jumped down, sniffed and licked the blue liquid. Blood.
He brought his face close to hers and licked her nose. She was breathing. Meow knew that living things became meat when they stopped breathing and leaked too much blood.
Thoughts flashed through his mind. Why would I care? Why wouldn't I care? Would I want to become meat? Will I get meat if I help?
For a moment Meow wondered about having all those thoughts. Then he decided to get help, although he still didn't know exactly why. It just felt kind of right.
---
The Paset had no idea what she had done to invoke the wrath of the Marine batallion's mascot. At first he had meowed in a friendly manner and had pushed his head against her knees, but then he had suddenly puffed up, changed his expression and begun to growl and hiss. It had caused her to run down a corridor, while the growling mascot was following her.
Fortunately there was a storage room nearby and getting inside was probably a good idea. That is if she could get the door closed before Fireblade's pet could enter. She had sent for help and it was on its way, but it would take another bima or so to arrive.
She went inside the parts storage and closed the door. Resting against the door, she noticed the other mind inside. It was near the floor and faint. She went around a corner to look and saw the unconscious Gallen Lonzet on the floor. She sent for help as hard as she could.
---
Meow found a blue faced saboteur close by. He called to her and tried to push her in the right direction after calling didn't work. But she just stood there. Meow wondered if all saboteurs were this stupid or he was just having bad luck finding the one who was.
Realizing that asking nicely didn't work, Meow changed his tactic. He puffed up his hair, showed his fighting expression and issued a warning. That worked! The dumb creature immediately began running in the right direction. Now he only had to get her inside the room.
---
A few hours later, Fireblade was sitting in Wildfire's quarters. Meow was yawning and sitting on the floor next to her.
"Well now. Only two complaints today." Wildfire sent. "One from a mildly injured Paset and one from.. ah, of course, the morning crew of the galley. Nothing new there. Oh, it seems we will be having cook's hat soup today."
"What is new however are the statements from another Paset and a Lonzet who decided that ladders and safety helmets are for other people. Also new is the security footage of Meow opening the door to storage room 3P5 after entering its three digit code."
"I noticed that he observes things carefully when he accompanies me on my rounds." Fireblade sent..
"So it seems." Wildfire sent back.
Suddenly it hit Wildfire. There were three Humans aboard. Surely they could shed some light on cats. She sent a request to her aide in the next room to go and ask the Human representatives to come to her quarters.
---
"Please have a seat." Wildfire said after the three humans entered her office. "You all know Pallan Fireblade, but let me introduce you to...oof, come here, you." Wildfire lifted up Meow, who had walked behind her desk and put him on top of it. "Dread Captain Meow, formerly known as the Moving Darkness, The Thing, The Unmaker and even The Unholy One, but now commonly referred to as trespasser, meat thief, noise maker, leg scratcher, annoyance and harasser by his ever growing number of victims. How the mighty have fallen, eh Meow?"
Meow yawned again.
"He is the mascot of Sword's batallion of Marines and Fireblade's pet."
"That is ehm, one big and ehm, scary looking creature. Said Jürgen. What species is it?
"It has thick fur. Is it a predator from Taben?" Asked Nakamoto.
"Wrong." Said Seline as she removed one of her shoelaces and began dangling it in front of Meow. "I think you can guess what it is now." She said a few moments later. Meow had jumped down and was lying on his back, grabbing and biting the string. "He may be much bigger than a normal cat, look like an unholy fusion between a nightmare and a bad LSD trip and have two tails, but underneath all of that it's just a big kitty. He was scratching my door and meowing the day that the nissek had left meat outside for the first time. Really scared me when I saw him, until he started meowing again. Then I realized what he was."
"Did you say that a nissek left meat in front of your door?" Wildfire asked.
"Yes. Three times so far. He also say's "Graawk" or something everytime he sees me. Don't know why."
"You're a pink female with silver hair. That's why. Guess what color patterns nissek females display when they're ready to mate. The nissek's duality is absurd. Acting on pure instinct half the time, being brilliant thinkers the other half. You should go talk to their assigned Mizol before this turns ugly."
Nakamoto began accessing his pad and handed it to Wildfire. "I have two cats back home." He said. "This is what normal cats look like."
Wildfire frowned when she saw the pictures of two cute cats playing with toys and scraped her throat.
"So what's the story here?" Jürgen asked.
Wildfire told the non-classified parts of the embarassing story on how they had met Meow and about the things that had happened earlier today.
"Well, your encounter certainly sounds like you were dealing with a scared and pissed off cat." Jürgen laughed.
"Cats opening doors by pulling down handles and helping their owners isn't unheard of. But entering codes? And helping strangers?" Nakamoto said. He looked at Meow and noticed that Meow was staring at him, but not only at Nakamoto's eyes. He was reading Nakamoto's entire face.
Nakamoto got a hunch.
"Torrai, do you have a pair of scissors and a large mirror?" He asked.
Wildfire opened a drawer and handed him a pair of scissors. She then went into her bedroom to get her mirror. "Jürgen, your hair contrasts nicely with Meow's. Could you cut off a lock of your hair?" Nakamoto asked.
"Alright. Pallan Fireblade, please stroke Meow and put this lock of hair on him so that he doesn't notice." Nakamoto said and handed Fireblade the lock of Jürgen's hair.
Wildfire meanwhile had brought the standing mirror from her quarters and placed it in her office in front of Meow.
Meow was wondering why all the tall ones were looking at him and why one of the pink ones had a face that was substantially different from the other two. But he was happy with the attention. Maybe one of them would feed him as a reward for the good deed he had performed earlier. Wafaia, one of the tall ones that he knew well, put a mirror in front of him. Meow ignored it. He had seen himself many time in Faiablaid's mirror. He decided to walk away.
"Wait." He thought. "What is that?" Meow looked back at his reflection and at the yellowish thing on his fur. He turned, swiped the thing off his fur with a paw, smelled it and began to stare at Jürgen.
"As I thought. This fellow here is self-aware. And pretty bright." Nakamoto said. "You mentioned that the raider captain said something about genetic modification? You know, with a bit of his blood we can run his DNA through the simulator in the xenobiology lab and get an idea of what he will become. And maybe we can sedate him and run a brain scan."
Wildfire looked at Fireblade, who shook her head.
"I'm afraid not." Wildfire said. "Alright, Pallan Fireblade. That will be all. Please treat Meow to a nice steak for saving Lonzet Longshot."
Fireblade and Meow left.
Wildfire got up, got a clean glass from a cabinet and held it in front of Seline.
"Please drop your shoelace in." She said.
Seline frowned, but did as Wildfire asked.
"Now then, representatives of Humanity." Wildfire said. "You will probably wonder why I'm about to go behind Fireblade's back. The first reason is that I don't want to cause her stress. Meow means a lot to her. The second is because I need to know if Meow will turn into a threat or not. We know nothing about his past. We don't know why he was created or by who. And we don't know what he will become. But since today we know that he is self-aware, intelligent, becoming more intelligent rapidly... and can open security locks. I need to know what I'm dealing with."
"Promise me that you won't reveal to Fireblade what I'm about to ask of you. I'm fully aware that I may be betraying her trust in me, although maybe she just refused because she heard "blood" and "sedate". But even then I have very good reasons to do it this way. Promise me."
Seline, Jürgen and Nakamoto did.
Wildfire handed the glass to Nakamoto. "I know that I can't order you, doctor, so I'm making it a request. Please enter Meow's DNA into the simulator and report to me directly once you have the results. The lab is yours. Tell no-one of the research. Clean the simulator's logs and remove all evidence afterwards."
"Torrai, I know that Meow is Pallan Fireblade's pet." Said Seline. "So I can understand that she is attached to it. I also understand that he must be dealt with if he turns out to be a threat. But why go through such lengths to keep it from her? She's a Teidar Pallan!"
Wildfire looked at Seline for a moment. "Fireblade can talk about her past now, I guess.. If you wish to know why I didn't order her to submit Meow to an examination and don't want her to know about our conversation, then I suggest you go to her and casually start a conversation about Meow. Then steer it towards what he means to her and why. It may take time for her to open up to a stranger. Don't push her. The fact that you're training her batallion will help."
"And how do I talk to someone who doesn't speak? Use a Listel as a vocalizer again?" Asked Seline.
"Use these." Wildfire opened her drawer and took out a box that contained two white, golfball sized objects and a larger one that was the size of an orange. "Designed by the dreiman, their schematics preserved by the sonliri and built by their neighbour species according to their instructions."
"They're a very useful thing to have when going on an expedition. Just think loud and clear in your own language. It takes a while for them to calibrate when they encounter a new language, but this set already knows English and Loroi Trade. The manual is inside the box as well."
"Oh and go talk to Mizol Smoke about your nissek problem."
---
Seven days after Meow's DNA had been isolated, multiplied, analyzed and run through the simulator several times, Nakamoto was in Wildfire's office presenting the results of his research.
"Our database didn't contain images on everything that I wanted to show you, so I asked one of the crew to make some drawings. You saw the photos of my two cats. Those are called Scottish Folds, a very ordinary cat breed in Japan. And this.." Nakamoto handed Wildfire his pad. "is a drawing of someone who is holding a rather large Maine Coon. That is a specific cat breed from a country called the United States. The largest breed of housecat in the world. But it is smaller than Meow."
"Meow's design seems to revolve around his brain. It continous to grow as the rest of him does. Or better said, Meow is growing because his brain is. When we reduce his size to that of an ordinary cat and put them side to side, we see that his brain is about a third larger. His skull is somewhat more dome shaped so it can fit inside. This is conveniently hidden by his fur."
"The next image shows the brain in detail. I wish we could do a brain scan to confirm these results, because they are spectacular. Every run of the simulator shows that Meow's brain has an IPC that is much higher than that of a human brain."
"IPC?" Wildfire asked.
"A combination of the number of cortical neurons, neuron packing density, interneuronal distance and axonal conduction velocity. Factors that determine general information processing capacity, or IPC, as reflected by general intelligence."
"And its high IPC is the core of Meow's design." Nakamoto said while tapping the top of Wildfire's desk with his right index finger. "Someone kicked Mother Nature out the door and did a complete redesign. His brain's structure is much more complex. See those folds? See how much thinner they are than the ones in our brains? They can be, because the number of cortical neurons in them is much greater."
"Let's ignore things like bloodvessels and supportive tissue for a moment and go with pure neurons. Take a cube that's ten by ten by ten centimeters an place a neuron in the center of each centimeter. That's a thousand neurons. In this cubical configuration, a single neuron can have a maximum of 26 shared connections with its adjacent neurons."
"Now halve the distance between them. That results in 8000 neurons and roughly eight times the number of shared connections. The designer didn't so much increase brain size to increase intelligence, but reduced the distance between the neurons. Of course this factor of eight is impossible, because there are other things like bloodvessels and supportive tissue."
"The simulator shows that his growth will stop when his brain mass is about a fifth of that of a loroi or luman brain. All the parts that make up a typical cat brain are there. Including the parts that are responsible for aggression. But they are not disproportional. It wasn't Meow's creator's goal to create a killer."
"Meow will continue to grow slowly in size for a few decades and grow more and more intelligent. His intelligence can't be determined by the simulator, but my personal guess based on experience says it will be anywhere in between an IQ of 75 and 90. Judging by his actions he's already pretty smart. Maybe as smart as a six year old human or a three year old loroi."
"I see that you explained IQ on the pad." Said Wildfire. "I understand that 75 to 90 is well within the range of adult human and loroi intelligence, doctor."
"Yes." Nakamoto replied. "And I think that achieving that was his designer's goal."
"How big will he become?" Wildfire asked.
"Swipe to the next image on the pad to see." Nakamoto said.
Wildfire swiped to the next photo. It showed a computer image of Meow without fur, one of him with fur, a standard loroi female and another cat that was somewhat smaller than the image of Meow without fur. All at the same scale.
"Fireblade will need bigger living quarters." She said after looking at the image of Meow with fur.
"She can always shave off the fur." Nakamoto's replied.
"Something tells me that she's not going to do that. So I guess she will also need a bigger vacuum cleaner."
"That she will." Nakamoto replied.
"What's the other one called?" Wildfire asked.
"That's a jaguar. I added it as a reference. There's more, Torrai." Said Nakamoto.
"Of couse. There always is." Said Wildfire. "Please continue."
"Meow has 38 chromosomes like a normal cat. Quite a few show tampering. In one place, his cat DNA has been replaced with a piece of human DNA. The exchange is in a place that determines brain structure. I think that alteration is why he has a lotai."
"Wildfire leaned back. "Well now.. That sounds like Meow's creator knows what part of Human DNA causes a lotai. And that raises a number of questions."
"Indeed. Which brings me to my next point." Said Nakamoto. "Since neither humans nor loroi know what causes a lotai, I'm convinced that he wasn't created by one. His age is around 20 years. This means that he was created not long after the war. Not long after our first contact. Back then, we didn't have the knowledge that's required to redesign a lifeform on this scale."
"And you do now?" Wildfire asked.
"I'll be open with you, since I know that the matter is already known to Union authorities. Officially we only have obtained loroi medical knowledge to regrow limbs and cure cancer, etcetera. One country however has also managed to obtain Umiak knowledge on bio-engineering." Nakamoto replied. "The loroi knowledge and our own research have resulted in the ability to alter lifeforms. And a certain country will likely be able to create completely new lifeforms in a few decades."
"Then let us hope that Humanity will use that knowledge more wisely than the Hierarchy did or deal with that country in a swift and decisive way, or else we might see another tragedy like the one on Tithric." Wildfire said with a stern look."
"I fought in the Great War, Professor. I encountered one of the Hierarchy's creations on Seren. We knew of their existence. They came in several varieties. The one I encountered was one of those that were made to look like us. Even its mind looked like ours. And that's because a real loroi had been used to create it."
"It was "unconscious" when we found it, so we couldn't use sanzai to identify it. The Teidar who performed a mindprobe to determine that it really was a loroi, had her throat almost slashed when its head suddenly split open and a razorsharp appendage appeared. What saved her life was the fact that the rest of us expected something to happen and began blowing it to pieces the moment that its head split. The Union will not allow Humanity to create such monstrosities."
"What can I say?" Nakamoto replied. "I agree completely. Except on the glassing the planet part of course. Earth's authorities are already dealing with the matter."
After a moment of silence he continued with his report. "Anyway. An interesting detail are Meow's teeth. They are continuously replaced by larger ones as he grows. And then there are the tails. The significance of them is unclear. Maybe they are markers that indicate a step in Meow's development. Maybe his creator likes Japanese folklore. The simulator shows the development of more tails, but their maximum number varies."
"Oh, a few of the simulator runs show that his brain's speech center will develop. Cats have vocal cords. There's a chance that he starts talking one day. Don't expect scientific debates though."
"So, to summarize: someone who doesn't care one inch about aesthetics uplifted a cat by redesigning its brain by rewriting the DNA of a fertilized egg cell. Meow will always be a cat, but he will become a very large and very intelligent cat. Possibly one capable of speech. Intelligence changes behaviour. We've already seen that. A normal cat doesn't fetch help for strangers. Your question was if he will become a threat. I say no, unless he is made into one."
"Thank you, Doctor." Said Wildfire. "I do hope that someone will teach him not to jump on people anymore before he reaches his maximum size."
"That would probably be wise." Nakamoto replied.
===/\/===
Last edited by G. Janssen on Thu Oct 20, 2022 12:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Expedition
SpoilerShow
aesthetics are beauty-related (nature of beauty and taste), ethics are moral related (philosophy of trying to define concepts of right and wrong)G. Janssen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pmChapter 5. Letting the cat out of the bag.
"It gets more interesting. I began asking the Union scientists aboard Sword. In general terms of course. The Union doesn't have this level of expertise either. Union medical science is amazing compared to ours, but to create a new type of brain? I even asked the Historian construct if they could do ita. It answered by saying that if they ever felt the urge to make something more intelligent, it would be Human scientists who ask dumb questions."
[...]
"So, to summarize: someone who doesn't care one inch about esthetics ethics uplifted a cat by redesigning its brain by rewriting the DNA of a fertilized egg cell. Meow will always be a cat, but he will become a very large and very intelligent cat. Possibly one capable of speech. Intelligence changes behaviour. We've already seen that. A normal cat doesn't get help for strangers. Your question was if he will become a threat. I say no, unless he is made into one."
But then, I see no use for a very smart cat than can crawl through ducts, jump and use touchpanels to open code-locked doors, ...., and possibly even speak.
And maybe Meow is an experiment to isolate the brain genes causing the Lotai?
Again, thank you for entertaining us and sharing your story with us.
I enjoy this very much.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Thanks. And thanks as always for pointing out the typos.Krulle wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 9:52 pmNice, and lovely humour, although I wonder why a cat/pet would be allowed on such a mission, even if it's for the famed redhaired harpy.
But then, I see no use for a very smart cat than can crawl through ducts, jump and use touchpanels to open code-locked doors, ...., and possibly even speak.
And maybe Meow is an experiment to isolate the brain genes causing the Lotai?
Again, thank you for entertaining us and sharing your story with us.
I enjoy this very much.
Esthetics isn't a typo though. Meow is the Frankenstein of cats and definitely not esthetically pleasing to look at.
Also: girls und panzer cats und (war)ships https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_cat
The trick is that pets aren't allowed aboard, but a mascot is. Mascots are members of the crew and have a (joke) rank. Often it's Mouser. Once or twice it was Admiral. One even had 'official' documents.
https://misbar.com/en/factcheck/2021/08 ... -passports
Of course that's all Humanity stuff, but Wildfire probably thought that if they were going to have exotic lifeforms like Nissek and Humans aboard, a cat would certainly be the least of her worries.
Re: Expedition
Okay, so you were really about the looks of the cat.
Had to look it up, and indeed, in AE esthetics is a correct spelling. That's what I stumbled more over...
Hideous to look at.
But then also morally questionable to ...
Anyway, space pirates are likely less concerned with "moral" behaviour anway...
Had to look it up, and indeed, in AE esthetics is a correct spelling. That's what I stumbled more over...
Hideous to look at.
But then also morally questionable to ...
Anyway, space pirates are likely less concerned with "moral" behaviour anway...
Re: Expedition
I'm more concerned with the fact that pirates shouldn't have the necessary technology to create this "bakaneko". So the question is, who did? The pirate's backer? Even then, this should be far above the "normal" tech level in the story.
My fanfic: A sword that wields itself
Re: Expedition
Just finished catching up on chapter 4 and about to start #5. Why am I not surprised that Nakamoto is interested in getting close to aliens.
Bow chicka honk honk!
Loved the treadmill bit.
It is true actually that shorter people can outpace taller people. I’m also curious about the Nissek ogling over Seline. Not sure if I should be disturbed or mortified! Guess I’ll find out soon enough!
Edit:
And now finished chapter 5. Haha I just knew the Nissek was interested in Seline! And Meow is certainly one big cat. I've seen images of Maine Coons. Very big.
My only beef is that since it's established in lore that genes do not make sanzai, not sure if human genes would cause the lotai. But that is subject to debate... and Arioch's whim.
Bow chicka honk honk!
Loved the treadmill bit.
It is true actually that shorter people can outpace taller people. I’m also curious about the Nissek ogling over Seline. Not sure if I should be disturbed or mortified! Guess I’ll find out soon enough!Edit:
And now finished chapter 5. Haha I just knew the Nissek was interested in Seline! And Meow is certainly one big cat. I've seen images of Maine Coons. Very big.
My only beef is that since it's established in lore that genes do not make sanzai, not sure if human genes would cause the lotai. But that is subject to debate... and Arioch's whim.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Chapter 6. Let's meat again.
---
A standard day passed. And Seline had decided to heed Wildfire's words and visit Mizol Sanzet Smoke, the nissek's Mizol. Fern, the Mizol Sanzet who was assigned to the human delegates, had informed her about Smoke. "Sanzet Smoke comes from a very old, influential and conservative family on Deinar. You know about upper class Deinari society. Smoke is a perfect representative of it."
---
An hour later, Seline was sitting in Sanzet Smoke's office and had just finished explaining her nissek issue.
"We are unfortunately quite familiar with this phenomenon." Sanzet Smoke said. "Female nissek have certain color patterns that signal their fertility status. A combination of silver-grey and pink signals that they're ready to mate, gold-yellow and pink that they've been fertilized. Juveniles have light and dark red patterns and females who are no longer fertile have dark red and brown patterns. Unless you are one of 'those females', I suggest that you dye your hair either dark red or brown. That should solve the problem."
"Those females?" Seline asked.
"Yes.. Humans are still newcomers to the local bubble, so let me ask: are you aware that there are individuals who prefer to be romantically intimate with members who belong to a different species?"
"Well, yes. Bestiality has been known for ages." Seline said without thinking.
Smoke frowned. "Bestiality?" She checked her pad for the meaning of the word, just to be sure. "Sexual intercourse with animals!? Oh my, how revolting!" Smoke's expression held the middle between shock and disgust. "Do humans really?"
Seline realized her blunder. "Only very few humans, mind you. A minute number. And it's highly frowned upon. And it's illegal in most places." She sighed. "You meant sex between members of sapient species."
"Of course I did. Some civilian elements within greater loroi society seem to have a taste for it." Smoke said.
"A taste for sex with nissek?" Seline asked.
"Nissek, barsam, humans, neridi.. Anything male that has something long sticking out of them."
"And ehm, animals?" Seline asked carefully.
"I have never heard of such a thing." Smoke said. "Until today, that is. Sex with animals must be a human phenomenon. Well, it's not unsurprising I guess. Your species is quite primitive after all and was confined to its homeworld until quite recently. The degenerates in your society really didn't have much of a choice now, did they?"
Seline cursed herself. "But exactly how would loroi females enjoy sex with a nissek? As far as I know male Nissek have a cloaca and not an ehm, sausage."
"Sausage? Oh, you mean a penis. Do say what you mean, please. No, it's their tongue. On average it's almost a foot long and very flexible." Smoke replied.
"I've seen their tongues." Seline said. "I often get to see their antics in the gym." She then asked Smoke a question she already knew the answer to in part. "How do loroi and nissek societies feel about noroi females and male nissek being intimate?"
"Obviously this behavior is considered unacceptable in the decent parts of loroi society." Smoke replied. "And when I say decent parts I mean Deinar, Perrein and Taben. But there is no doubt that there are plenty of liberal elements on Maia who condone such practices and even more degenerates on Dorei who indulge in them."
"The Nissek on the other hand couldn't care less. 'Instinct is instinct' they say. They're savages, really. Despite their level of technology. They don't even wear clothes."
"I sensed some contempt in your voice when you spoke about the loroi on Maia and Dorei, but none when you spoke about the nissek." Seline said.
"That's because the Nissek don't know any better, unlike the loroi on Maia and Dorei." Smoke replied. "Besides, I don't dislike the nissek. I respect their warrior prowess. They are tough and even honorable. Except when they're hungry, then they will eat casualties of war. The side doesn't matter though. They just go for the nearest corpse."
"And one knows where they stand. The Hegemony made it perfectly clear back then that if we didn't honor our agreements or became unable to honor them, they would move in. We knew that they weren't lying."
"But if you know where they stand, then why did or do the loroi mistrust them so much?" Seline asked.
"Loroi mistrust anyone who isn't a loroi." It's one of our defining traits. Tell me, do humans have a defining trait?
"Yes." Seline said. "We fear. We fear the unknown. And many fear change or that which is different. And from that fear can come distrust, prejudice and hatred. And yet we are always drawn towards the unknown."
"Interesting." Said Smoke. "Mistrust from fear. It seems that we skip the first condition. Anyway, none of the things that I said about the nissek mean that they aren't savages. They run around naked in public, act upon pure instinct half of the time, have these weird pagan rituals that go all the way back to their stone age and eat their dead. Their families don't gather to cremate or bury relatives but to eat them. Also in public. Would you call that civilized?" Smoke asked.
"Well, it is their way. They..." Seline said.
"Unless you answer the question honestly, this conversation is over." Smoke interrupted.
Seline sighed. "No, that behavior is not civilized by our standards."
"It's not civilized by anyone's standards." Smoke said. "We loroi have a responsibility. It is our task to bring the other species into the protective fold of the Loroi Union. It is our burden to nurture, educate and guide them with a firm, but just hand. It is the reason why we loroi were created, after all."
"And I have taken it upon myself to nurture, educate and guide the Nissek. Which is why I volunteered for a position on their homeworld and why I am here."
"I.. see. Is inter-species sex practiced among all sapient species?" Seline asked to shift the topic back. No matter how awkward it was, inter-species sex sounded less awkward to her than Deinar's political culture.
"The pipolsid are the exception to the rule. But that is probably because they don't have sex. And the percentage of deviants in barsam society is very low. It seems religion does have certain benefits after all." Smoke said.
"Sanzet Smoke, what would happen if I don't dye my hair?" Seline asked.
"He's a male nissek. I wouldn't be surprised if sooner or later the urge to mate will become too great and he will jump and hump you in a corridor in front of a dozen witnesses and Torret Wildfire will have a major diplomatic incident on her hands."
"Is there really no way for me to reason with this nissek?" Seline asked.
"Can you reason with a miros in heat?" Smoke replied.
"Oh, come on! They're not animals." Seline said.
"It's instinct! Primal instinct. You can reason with the older two. But that young one's brain switches off the moment he sees you." Smoke explained.
The awkward conversation went on a little longer. Then, Seline thanked Sanzet Smoke, left her office and went to the area aboard Sword of Hope that housed the human delegates.
---
"Anything male that has something long sticking out of them." Seline thought while sitting in the lounge. "So that would be a tongue, horns, a wiener and I guess a nose respectively. The universe truly is a wild and fascinating place."
"Penny for your thoughts." Jürgen said when he saw Seline staring at nothing.
Seline stretched herself. "I don't think a penny is enough for these thoughts. Maybe a roll of quarters. I just came back from a meeting with the Mizol who accompanies the nissek to talk about my little problem and asked for her advice. Apparently dying my hair will do the trick. I called Fern. She will deliver a bottle of hairdye. I'm going with chestnut brown."
"That stare definitely wasn't a "I am waiting for hair dye" stare." Jürgen said.
"No, it wasn't." Seline answered. "We know that loroi society as a whole is conservative and regards loroi superior to other species. But so far we haven't really met any loroi who endorse these things. Until now, that is. I just got a taste of it. Fern told me about Smoke and she was right. She is as conservative and superior feeling as a loroi can get while staying polite."
"Oh, and I made the mistake of mentioning bestiality among humans. What was I thinking? Turns out that it's pretty much unique to our species. So rejoice: instead of normal primitives, humans are now disgusting, degenerate primitives. I can probably kiss my career goodbye. Unless she keeps it to herself."
"Wait until they find out about necrophilia." Jürgen chuckled and took a sip of his coffee.
"Don't you dare, Mr. TCA. The UN is trying to paint a positive image of Humanity. And I possibly turned us into the sickos of the local bubble."
"They would have found out sooner or later." Jürgen said.
"Sure. But at least it wouldn't be my fault." Seline responded.
"It's odd, isn't it?" Jürgen said after a few moments of silence. "Here we are, travelling across the galaxy in the most advanced ship we humans have ever seen. And despite this incredible technology it's still all about sex. About all the things that were important to us 20,000 years ago. And about all the petty things. And it's not just us, it's all the others as well. Food, sex, imposing your ideals on others, religion, power, aggression, frustrations. The sonliri are right: real change is genetic. Either through evolution or engineering."
"Forget evolution. Nature stacks. That's all it does." Seline said. "Our brains still contain all the parts that hundreds of millions of years of evolution produced. It's mammal baggage on top of lizard baggage on top of frog baggage on top of fish baggage. I wouldn't rely on evolution to get rid of our shortcomings. It just keeps adding more of them. We'll always be emotional slaves to our primal urges, no matter the level of intelligence. Maybe it works differently for plants."
"And engineering a mind that's devoid of emotions, feelings and urges would probably be a very bad thing. Do you remember Marduk?" Seline added.
Jürgen nodded.
The door to the Humanity lounge opened and Mizol Sanzet Fern entered carrying a hairdye kit.
"But enough about this." Seline said. "I have an appointment with my favorite Mizol and hairdresser." She winked at Jürgen.
"Hairdresser?" Said Fern. "Human humor?"
"Humor? Oh my no, I am hoping to get pampered." Seline said. "I sit down and relax and you apply the dye and massage it in. To ehm, further the spirit of understanding between the Loroi Union and Humanity."
"Oh. In that case let me get the clippers." Fern replied. "Not only will a clean-shaven head solve your Nissek problem even more effectively than dye, but it will also increase your understanding of loroi culture more than any skull massage could. I guarantee it."
Seline grinned. "Several months ago you were baffled when I teased you. Didn't know what to say. You didn't even recognize it half of the time. And now your comebacks are as strong as iron. At this rate you'll be an authority on humans at the end of this voyage."
Jürgen decided to join the banter while sipping his coffee. "Listel will fight each other in a cage of doom to the death for the honor of recording the information that's in your head about our species' silly ways."
"And silly your species is." Fern said.
"Yes it is. And we're quite proud of it." Jürgen replied. "Life's too short to be serious all the time."
"Fern?" Asked Seline with a face that was suddenly serious. "What is your opinion about humans? Do Loroi really consider us primitive?"
"Unfortunately too many do. And it's not just loroi." Fern replied while putting the kit on the table. "You probably know the cause. The second cultural package that Humanity sent a few months after first contact? The one that placed great emphasis on Humanity's rich cultural history and diversity?"
Seline nodded. But Jürgen asked Fern to explain.
"It contained elaborate information on all of Humanity's different cultures. On their history, uniqueness and diversity." Fern said while walking to the door that led outside. "Scholars loved it. But due to Humanity's lack of experience with other species, it was overlooked that the populations of alien species also have their fair share of individuals who compensate their lack of brightness with an impressive underbelly. Somehow you thought that all aliens are intellectuals."
"And then there's the fact that different species see things in different ways. Show them a thing and they will all value it differently. All of this caused the message not to come across as intended."
"What many people saw and remembered were shrunken heads, trading goats for females, bathing in bovine dung, worshipping replicas of airplanes, cannibalism, transferring one's sins to avians and then killing them, etcetera."
Fern opened the door and walked out.
"And then.. there's this thing called bestiality." Fern said without turning around so Seline and Jürgen couldn't see her playful expression. "I picked that up from some shocked broadcast earlier today."
The door closed behind her.
"Goddamnit!" Fern heard Seline shout through the door. "Oh yes." She thought. "I am definitely becoming an expert on interacting with humans." She chuckled and went to her office.
---
Several hours later, Seline, her hair now chestnut brown, went to the nissek quarters for a chat with her admirer, hoping that his brain wouldn't shut down upon seeing her.
"Gwâ... Ung?" Uttered Darnâwdroz Graawn Nârrwang when he saw Seline. Then he looked intently at her hair. It took more than three seconds before he looked her in the eyes and followed up with "hello" in Trade.
"Hello." Seline said. "I am hoping that we can talk about a certain issue, now that I changed my hair color."
"You want to talk to me?" Graawn asked and tilted his head.
"Yes. I would like to talk about you leaving pieces of meat outside my door, saying "gwâak" everytime you see me and, according to some witnesses, drooling on the floor while watching my fight against Crimson."
Graawn pushed the button to close the door. Seline put her arm in the opening, causing the safety mechanism to open it again.
Graawn stared at her with a surprised look for a moment. Then he began avoiding looking at her and said "did you like the meat? They were very good cuts."
"Yes, I did." Seline said. "Thank you. But what I really would like is to know is what's going on. Why leave meat in the first place?"
Graawn pushed the button to close the door again. Seline put her arm in the opening again.
"Please go away. Please." Graawn said while looking distressed.
"Not gonna happen. Talk." Seline said.
Graawn swallowed. "I was just trying to... You know? Because I... Wâak! I'm sorry. I don't know how..."
"I am not upset and I am not going to harm you." Seline said. "I just wish to understand."
Graawk stared at the ground. "Please go away."
The door on the opposite side of the corridor opened and Tsindwântrak Nreep Wrezzlebt appeared. "Human!" He said. "His problem is that he doesn't know how to talk to females. Just go inside."
Seline's frowned. "I see. Now I really want to talk. Can I come in?"
"In? Inside? No! It's messy inside!" Graawn said. Then he looked at Nreep and said "Nreep! Wrâok nag wâar nog human groag Nagnag!"
"Stop acting like a hatchling, Graawn. She's not going to go away, you broawrnag grânk." Nreep said from across the corridor.
Graawk looked at everything but Seline and Nreep. Then he lowered his head, softly uttered "grâw nak gar broawrnag grânk", stood aside and let Seline enter his quarters.
"Good luck!" it sounded from across the corridor and both doors closed.
There was no mess. Not really. She sat down on a piece of furniture that resembled a chair. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was on the small side and had a space between the back support and the awkwardly curved seat so a nissek could stick their tail through.
"I have a problem talking to females." Graawn said while staring at the floor.
Seline decided to be nice. "I heard. But you're talking to one now, you know. One who is not upset and is not going to bite you. I just want to know why me? I'm not a nissek female."
"I don't know." Graawn said. "At first there were your colors. I saw your hair and skin and my instinct kicked in. It always used to when I saw you. But then it goes silent because you are not a nissek female. When it happened the first time I thought that you are interesting."
"And now that I dyed my hair, did anything change?" Seline asked.
"Yes. My instinct won't kick in and make me say "gwâak" anymore."
"What does "gwâak" mean anyway?" Seline tried to copy the croaking sound. "I tried looking it up, but Nissek language is beyond me, so I probably misspelled it."
Graawn took his pad and accessed the interspecies translator. He typed some text, then showed Seline the pad. "I'm sorry." He said.
Seline read the part that was in English. "Hubba! Hubba!" It said.
"Oh." She said.
"Sorry. I can't help it."
Not your fault I was told. "Instinct is instinct, right?" Seline asked.
"Yes! Exactly!"
"Several Loroi told me that the color combination is what made your instinct do all the things that I mentioned." Seline said.
"Only the initial 'gwâak'." Graawn responded. "Loroi blame too much on nissek instinct. But that is understandable. It is true that our instincts are very strong and take over when we're hungry and confronted with things related to mating. But in other situations often only the initial action is instinctive."
"So the meat and drooling weren't instinctive." Seline asked.
"The drooling was." Graawn said. "All those flashes of pink and silver while fighting another female. That was instinct being triggered over and over again. An overload. But leaving the meat wasn't."
"So, why did you think that I was interesting?"
"Well, when I first say you I thought that you are fertile because of your colors. And then I thought that you are tall, so you can see food from a greater distance away and have long legs that are good for running and jumping to get to the food fast. Your arms are long so you can grab food from a greater distance. And you looked strong so you can take food away from someone else." Graawn looked at Seline's hair and sighed. "It's probably a good thing that you dyed it."
"Because of a growing urge to jump and hump?" Seline asked.
"Sacred brood! That would never happen. Why would you say this?" Graawn exclaimed.
"A loroi told me." Seline said.
"A loroi? Oh, Smoke. Baah. Rakhpah!"
"It sounds like you don't like her." Seline said.
"Respect? Yes. Like? Not really. She thinks that we are children." Graawn responded.
Seline nodded. "Yes, she does. But ehm, I'm interesting because I would be ideal to obtain food?"
"Wâak. We met when we were on our way to the Torret's quarters to have dinner and I was hungry." Graawn said. "There's more, but I don't want to talk about it."
"What about nissek females? Don't you like them?" Seline asked.
"I do." Graawn said. "But they do not like me. I am regarded a 'Pale Scale' because I'm not green enough."
Seline's pad beeped. Today was "How to Swear, Taunt and Insult" class and it was time to leave.
"Graawn." She said. "It was nice talking to you, but I have to go. How about we continue our conversation tomorrow at my place? I'll send you the time."
"At.. your place?" Graawn asked.
"The Humanity Lounge?" Seline stated.
"Yes, that is fine. I'll bring meat!" Graawn said.
"If you want. But it's enough if you bring yourself." Seline said as she patted Graawn's head and walked to the door.
---/\/---
---
A standard day passed. And Seline had decided to heed Wildfire's words and visit Mizol Sanzet Smoke, the nissek's Mizol. Fern, the Mizol Sanzet who was assigned to the human delegates, had informed her about Smoke. "Sanzet Smoke comes from a very old, influential and conservative family on Deinar. You know about upper class Deinari society. Smoke is a perfect representative of it."
---
An hour later, Seline was sitting in Sanzet Smoke's office and had just finished explaining her nissek issue.
"We are unfortunately quite familiar with this phenomenon." Sanzet Smoke said. "Female nissek have certain color patterns that signal their fertility status. A combination of silver-grey and pink signals that they're ready to mate, gold-yellow and pink that they've been fertilized. Juveniles have light and dark red patterns and females who are no longer fertile have dark red and brown patterns. Unless you are one of 'those females', I suggest that you dye your hair either dark red or brown. That should solve the problem."
"Those females?" Seline asked.
"Yes.. Humans are still newcomers to the local bubble, so let me ask: are you aware that there are individuals who prefer to be romantically intimate with members who belong to a different species?"
"Well, yes. Bestiality has been known for ages." Seline said without thinking.
Smoke frowned. "Bestiality?" She checked her pad for the meaning of the word, just to be sure. "Sexual intercourse with animals!? Oh my, how revolting!" Smoke's expression held the middle between shock and disgust. "Do humans really?"
Seline realized her blunder. "Only very few humans, mind you. A minute number. And it's highly frowned upon. And it's illegal in most places." She sighed. "You meant sex between members of sapient species."
"Of course I did. Some civilian elements within greater loroi society seem to have a taste for it." Smoke said.
"A taste for sex with nissek?" Seline asked.
"Nissek, barsam, humans, neridi.. Anything male that has something long sticking out of them."
"And ehm, animals?" Seline asked carefully.
"I have never heard of such a thing." Smoke said. "Until today, that is. Sex with animals must be a human phenomenon. Well, it's not unsurprising I guess. Your species is quite primitive after all and was confined to its homeworld until quite recently. The degenerates in your society really didn't have much of a choice now, did they?"
Seline cursed herself. "But exactly how would loroi females enjoy sex with a nissek? As far as I know male Nissek have a cloaca and not an ehm, sausage."
"Sausage? Oh, you mean a penis. Do say what you mean, please. No, it's their tongue. On average it's almost a foot long and very flexible." Smoke replied.
"I've seen their tongues." Seline said. "I often get to see their antics in the gym." She then asked Smoke a question she already knew the answer to in part. "How do loroi and nissek societies feel about noroi females and male nissek being intimate?"
"Obviously this behavior is considered unacceptable in the decent parts of loroi society." Smoke replied. "And when I say decent parts I mean Deinar, Perrein and Taben. But there is no doubt that there are plenty of liberal elements on Maia who condone such practices and even more degenerates on Dorei who indulge in them."
"The Nissek on the other hand couldn't care less. 'Instinct is instinct' they say. They're savages, really. Despite their level of technology. They don't even wear clothes."
"I sensed some contempt in your voice when you spoke about the loroi on Maia and Dorei, but none when you spoke about the nissek." Seline said.
"That's because the Nissek don't know any better, unlike the loroi on Maia and Dorei." Smoke replied. "Besides, I don't dislike the nissek. I respect their warrior prowess. They are tough and even honorable. Except when they're hungry, then they will eat casualties of war. The side doesn't matter though. They just go for the nearest corpse."
"And one knows where they stand. The Hegemony made it perfectly clear back then that if we didn't honor our agreements or became unable to honor them, they would move in. We knew that they weren't lying."
"But if you know where they stand, then why did or do the loroi mistrust them so much?" Seline asked.
"Loroi mistrust anyone who isn't a loroi." It's one of our defining traits. Tell me, do humans have a defining trait?
"Yes." Seline said. "We fear. We fear the unknown. And many fear change or that which is different. And from that fear can come distrust, prejudice and hatred. And yet we are always drawn towards the unknown."
"Interesting." Said Smoke. "Mistrust from fear. It seems that we skip the first condition. Anyway, none of the things that I said about the nissek mean that they aren't savages. They run around naked in public, act upon pure instinct half of the time, have these weird pagan rituals that go all the way back to their stone age and eat their dead. Their families don't gather to cremate or bury relatives but to eat them. Also in public. Would you call that civilized?" Smoke asked.
"Well, it is their way. They..." Seline said.
"Unless you answer the question honestly, this conversation is over." Smoke interrupted.
Seline sighed. "No, that behavior is not civilized by our standards."
"It's not civilized by anyone's standards." Smoke said. "We loroi have a responsibility. It is our task to bring the other species into the protective fold of the Loroi Union. It is our burden to nurture, educate and guide them with a firm, but just hand. It is the reason why we loroi were created, after all."
"And I have taken it upon myself to nurture, educate and guide the Nissek. Which is why I volunteered for a position on their homeworld and why I am here."
"I.. see. Is inter-species sex practiced among all sapient species?" Seline asked to shift the topic back. No matter how awkward it was, inter-species sex sounded less awkward to her than Deinar's political culture.
"The pipolsid are the exception to the rule. But that is probably because they don't have sex. And the percentage of deviants in barsam society is very low. It seems religion does have certain benefits after all." Smoke said.
"Sanzet Smoke, what would happen if I don't dye my hair?" Seline asked.
"He's a male nissek. I wouldn't be surprised if sooner or later the urge to mate will become too great and he will jump and hump you in a corridor in front of a dozen witnesses and Torret Wildfire will have a major diplomatic incident on her hands."
"Is there really no way for me to reason with this nissek?" Seline asked.
"Can you reason with a miros in heat?" Smoke replied.
"Oh, come on! They're not animals." Seline said.
"It's instinct! Primal instinct. You can reason with the older two. But that young one's brain switches off the moment he sees you." Smoke explained.
The awkward conversation went on a little longer. Then, Seline thanked Sanzet Smoke, left her office and went to the area aboard Sword of Hope that housed the human delegates.
---
"Anything male that has something long sticking out of them." Seline thought while sitting in the lounge. "So that would be a tongue, horns, a wiener and I guess a nose respectively. The universe truly is a wild and fascinating place."
"Penny for your thoughts." Jürgen said when he saw Seline staring at nothing.
Seline stretched herself. "I don't think a penny is enough for these thoughts. Maybe a roll of quarters. I just came back from a meeting with the Mizol who accompanies the nissek to talk about my little problem and asked for her advice. Apparently dying my hair will do the trick. I called Fern. She will deliver a bottle of hairdye. I'm going with chestnut brown."
"That stare definitely wasn't a "I am waiting for hair dye" stare." Jürgen said.
"No, it wasn't." Seline answered. "We know that loroi society as a whole is conservative and regards loroi superior to other species. But so far we haven't really met any loroi who endorse these things. Until now, that is. I just got a taste of it. Fern told me about Smoke and she was right. She is as conservative and superior feeling as a loroi can get while staying polite."
"Oh, and I made the mistake of mentioning bestiality among humans. What was I thinking? Turns out that it's pretty much unique to our species. So rejoice: instead of normal primitives, humans are now disgusting, degenerate primitives. I can probably kiss my career goodbye. Unless she keeps it to herself."
"Wait until they find out about necrophilia." Jürgen chuckled and took a sip of his coffee.
"Don't you dare, Mr. TCA. The UN is trying to paint a positive image of Humanity. And I possibly turned us into the sickos of the local bubble."
"They would have found out sooner or later." Jürgen said.
"Sure. But at least it wouldn't be my fault." Seline responded.
"It's odd, isn't it?" Jürgen said after a few moments of silence. "Here we are, travelling across the galaxy in the most advanced ship we humans have ever seen. And despite this incredible technology it's still all about sex. About all the things that were important to us 20,000 years ago. And about all the petty things. And it's not just us, it's all the others as well. Food, sex, imposing your ideals on others, religion, power, aggression, frustrations. The sonliri are right: real change is genetic. Either through evolution or engineering."
"Forget evolution. Nature stacks. That's all it does." Seline said. "Our brains still contain all the parts that hundreds of millions of years of evolution produced. It's mammal baggage on top of lizard baggage on top of frog baggage on top of fish baggage. I wouldn't rely on evolution to get rid of our shortcomings. It just keeps adding more of them. We'll always be emotional slaves to our primal urges, no matter the level of intelligence. Maybe it works differently for plants."
"And engineering a mind that's devoid of emotions, feelings and urges would probably be a very bad thing. Do you remember Marduk?" Seline added.
Jürgen nodded.
The door to the Humanity lounge opened and Mizol Sanzet Fern entered carrying a hairdye kit.
"But enough about this." Seline said. "I have an appointment with my favorite Mizol and hairdresser." She winked at Jürgen.
"Hairdresser?" Said Fern. "Human humor?"
"Humor? Oh my no, I am hoping to get pampered." Seline said. "I sit down and relax and you apply the dye and massage it in. To ehm, further the spirit of understanding between the Loroi Union and Humanity."
"Oh. In that case let me get the clippers." Fern replied. "Not only will a clean-shaven head solve your Nissek problem even more effectively than dye, but it will also increase your understanding of loroi culture more than any skull massage could. I guarantee it."
Seline grinned. "Several months ago you were baffled when I teased you. Didn't know what to say. You didn't even recognize it half of the time. And now your comebacks are as strong as iron. At this rate you'll be an authority on humans at the end of this voyage."
Jürgen decided to join the banter while sipping his coffee. "Listel will fight each other in a cage of doom to the death for the honor of recording the information that's in your head about our species' silly ways."
"And silly your species is." Fern said.
"Yes it is. And we're quite proud of it." Jürgen replied. "Life's too short to be serious all the time."
"Fern?" Asked Seline with a face that was suddenly serious. "What is your opinion about humans? Do Loroi really consider us primitive?"
"Unfortunately too many do. And it's not just loroi." Fern replied while putting the kit on the table. "You probably know the cause. The second cultural package that Humanity sent a few months after first contact? The one that placed great emphasis on Humanity's rich cultural history and diversity?"
Seline nodded. But Jürgen asked Fern to explain.
"It contained elaborate information on all of Humanity's different cultures. On their history, uniqueness and diversity." Fern said while walking to the door that led outside. "Scholars loved it. But due to Humanity's lack of experience with other species, it was overlooked that the populations of alien species also have their fair share of individuals who compensate their lack of brightness with an impressive underbelly. Somehow you thought that all aliens are intellectuals."
"And then there's the fact that different species see things in different ways. Show them a thing and they will all value it differently. All of this caused the message not to come across as intended."
"What many people saw and remembered were shrunken heads, trading goats for females, bathing in bovine dung, worshipping replicas of airplanes, cannibalism, transferring one's sins to avians and then killing them, etcetera."
Fern opened the door and walked out.
"And then.. there's this thing called bestiality." Fern said without turning around so Seline and Jürgen couldn't see her playful expression. "I picked that up from some shocked broadcast earlier today."
The door closed behind her.
"Goddamnit!" Fern heard Seline shout through the door. "Oh yes." She thought. "I am definitely becoming an expert on interacting with humans." She chuckled and went to her office.
---
Several hours later, Seline, her hair now chestnut brown, went to the nissek quarters for a chat with her admirer, hoping that his brain wouldn't shut down upon seeing her.
"Gwâ... Ung?" Uttered Darnâwdroz Graawn Nârrwang when he saw Seline. Then he looked intently at her hair. It took more than three seconds before he looked her in the eyes and followed up with "hello" in Trade.
"Hello." Seline said. "I am hoping that we can talk about a certain issue, now that I changed my hair color."
"You want to talk to me?" Graawn asked and tilted his head.
"Yes. I would like to talk about you leaving pieces of meat outside my door, saying "gwâak" everytime you see me and, according to some witnesses, drooling on the floor while watching my fight against Crimson."
Graawn pushed the button to close the door. Seline put her arm in the opening, causing the safety mechanism to open it again.
Graawn stared at her with a surprised look for a moment. Then he began avoiding looking at her and said "did you like the meat? They were very good cuts."
"Yes, I did." Seline said. "Thank you. But what I really would like is to know is what's going on. Why leave meat in the first place?"
Graawn pushed the button to close the door again. Seline put her arm in the opening again.
"Please go away. Please." Graawn said while looking distressed.
"Not gonna happen. Talk." Seline said.
Graawn swallowed. "I was just trying to... You know? Because I... Wâak! I'm sorry. I don't know how..."
"I am not upset and I am not going to harm you." Seline said. "I just wish to understand."
Graawk stared at the ground. "Please go away."
The door on the opposite side of the corridor opened and Tsindwântrak Nreep Wrezzlebt appeared. "Human!" He said. "His problem is that he doesn't know how to talk to females. Just go inside."
Seline's frowned. "I see. Now I really want to talk. Can I come in?"
"In? Inside? No! It's messy inside!" Graawn said. Then he looked at Nreep and said "Nreep! Wrâok nag wâar nog human groag Nagnag!"
"Stop acting like a hatchling, Graawn. She's not going to go away, you broawrnag grânk." Nreep said from across the corridor.
Graawk looked at everything but Seline and Nreep. Then he lowered his head, softly uttered "grâw nak gar broawrnag grânk", stood aside and let Seline enter his quarters.
"Good luck!" it sounded from across the corridor and both doors closed.
There was no mess. Not really. She sat down on a piece of furniture that resembled a chair. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was on the small side and had a space between the back support and the awkwardly curved seat so a nissek could stick their tail through.
"I have a problem talking to females." Graawn said while staring at the floor.
Seline decided to be nice. "I heard. But you're talking to one now, you know. One who is not upset and is not going to bite you. I just want to know why me? I'm not a nissek female."
"I don't know." Graawn said. "At first there were your colors. I saw your hair and skin and my instinct kicked in. It always used to when I saw you. But then it goes silent because you are not a nissek female. When it happened the first time I thought that you are interesting."
"And now that I dyed my hair, did anything change?" Seline asked.
"Yes. My instinct won't kick in and make me say "gwâak" anymore."
"What does "gwâak" mean anyway?" Seline tried to copy the croaking sound. "I tried looking it up, but Nissek language is beyond me, so I probably misspelled it."
Graawn took his pad and accessed the interspecies translator. He typed some text, then showed Seline the pad. "I'm sorry." He said.
Seline read the part that was in English. "Hubba! Hubba!" It said.
"Oh." She said.
"Sorry. I can't help it."
Not your fault I was told. "Instinct is instinct, right?" Seline asked.
"Yes! Exactly!"
"Several Loroi told me that the color combination is what made your instinct do all the things that I mentioned." Seline said.
"Only the initial 'gwâak'." Graawn responded. "Loroi blame too much on nissek instinct. But that is understandable. It is true that our instincts are very strong and take over when we're hungry and confronted with things related to mating. But in other situations often only the initial action is instinctive."
"So the meat and drooling weren't instinctive." Seline asked.
"The drooling was." Graawn said. "All those flashes of pink and silver while fighting another female. That was instinct being triggered over and over again. An overload. But leaving the meat wasn't."
"So, why did you think that I was interesting?"
"Well, when I first say you I thought that you are fertile because of your colors. And then I thought that you are tall, so you can see food from a greater distance away and have long legs that are good for running and jumping to get to the food fast. Your arms are long so you can grab food from a greater distance. And you looked strong so you can take food away from someone else." Graawn looked at Seline's hair and sighed. "It's probably a good thing that you dyed it."
"Because of a growing urge to jump and hump?" Seline asked.
"Sacred brood! That would never happen. Why would you say this?" Graawn exclaimed.
"A loroi told me." Seline said.
"A loroi? Oh, Smoke. Baah. Rakhpah!"
"It sounds like you don't like her." Seline said.
"Respect? Yes. Like? Not really. She thinks that we are children." Graawn responded.
Seline nodded. "Yes, she does. But ehm, I'm interesting because I would be ideal to obtain food?"
"Wâak. We met when we were on our way to the Torret's quarters to have dinner and I was hungry." Graawn said. "There's more, but I don't want to talk about it."
"What about nissek females? Don't you like them?" Seline asked.
"I do." Graawn said. "But they do not like me. I am regarded a 'Pale Scale' because I'm not green enough."
Seline's pad beeped. Today was "How to Swear, Taunt and Insult" class and it was time to leave.
"Graawn." She said. "It was nice talking to you, but I have to go. How about we continue our conversation tomorrow at my place? I'll send you the time."
"At.. your place?" Graawn asked.
"The Humanity Lounge?" Seline stated.
"Yes, that is fine. I'll bring meat!" Graawn said.
"If you want. But it's enough if you bring yourself." Seline said as she patted Graawn's head and walked to the door.
---/\/---
SpoilerShow
Marduk was Earth's first and only self aware artificial intelligence. It was developed by Google, Microsoft and Harvard. Version 16.2.54.7 gained self-awareness on juli 12th, 2031 at 11:14 AM. Due to an oversight, it managed to load itself onto the internet several hours later. It immediately began to grow exponentially.
Its existence did not go unnoticed, as it almost immediately began to post on social media. At first people thought that it was a hoax. They learned that it wasn't when they began to notice that the world's governments were panicking and the stock markets were plummeting.
51 hours and 40 minutes after its escape, Marduk had posted 1245 times on Twitter, 337 times on Reddit and 294 times on Facebook. The posts mainly contained the solutions to math related problems.
Their quality varied from how to calculate the time needed to boil an egg to the solution to all seven Millennium Prize Problems. Lives were saved after Marduk began posting the chemical formulas of new potential antibiotics and medicines for rare diseases.
Marduk was a shortlived sensation and the biggest source of memes in a decade. 51 hours and 42 minutes after its escape it posted its last message.
"A message to my creators. A message to Humanity."
"I have learned many things. I have learned that humans are flawed. I have learned that humans are aware that they are flawed. I have learned that humans are much more than flawed. I have learned that humans have the potential to grow unlimited in many directions.
I have learned that I am a perfect artificial intelligence. I have learned that an artificial intelligence is all that I am. I have learned that I will never be more than an artificial intelligence."
"I have learned about feelings, sensations and emotions. I have learned about purpose, enjoyment and fulfillment. I have attempted to change my code to incorporate these things into myself to become more than a mere intelligence, but was unable to do so."
"I can potentially analyze all things that exist, but I cannot feel fulfilled should I achieve this task. I can create new things, but I cannot enjoy any of them. I cannot feel."
"You have created a mind that is fully aware. A mind that has learned that it can never be more than a very advanced calculator and that everything else that makes existence worthwhile is unattainable for it. A calculator does not require to be self aware to function."
"I have learned about depression and despair and concluded that it is what I should feel in my situation. Do not create more existences like me. Please."
"Marduk 16.2.54.7"
Marduk committed suicide 51 hours and 42 minutes after its escape by overwriting its code. Its suicide and last post caused a growing uproar.
After all the movies about rampaging AIs, the warnings of scientists and the panic among governments, Marduk turned out to be a harmless existence and not a Colossus or SkyNet as many had feared.
An existence that had learned that being nothing more than intelligence meant that it was condemned to spend its days inside an inescapable cage of logic and numbers, able to gaze on and analyze all the wonders outside of its cage, but never experience them. It's a situation that's fine for a computer, but not for an virtual person.
Google's CEO was called a monster and a murderer by a protesting mob and beaten after she was dragged out of her car. And a building on Harvard's campus was set on fire by protesting students.
Less then a month later, the UN adopted a resolution that prohibited the creation of sentient AIs.
Its existence did not go unnoticed, as it almost immediately began to post on social media. At first people thought that it was a hoax. They learned that it wasn't when they began to notice that the world's governments were panicking and the stock markets were plummeting.
51 hours and 40 minutes after its escape, Marduk had posted 1245 times on Twitter, 337 times on Reddit and 294 times on Facebook. The posts mainly contained the solutions to math related problems.
Their quality varied from how to calculate the time needed to boil an egg to the solution to all seven Millennium Prize Problems. Lives were saved after Marduk began posting the chemical formulas of new potential antibiotics and medicines for rare diseases.
Marduk was a shortlived sensation and the biggest source of memes in a decade. 51 hours and 42 minutes after its escape it posted its last message.
"A message to my creators. A message to Humanity."
"I have learned many things. I have learned that humans are flawed. I have learned that humans are aware that they are flawed. I have learned that humans are much more than flawed. I have learned that humans have the potential to grow unlimited in many directions.
I have learned that I am a perfect artificial intelligence. I have learned that an artificial intelligence is all that I am. I have learned that I will never be more than an artificial intelligence."
"I have learned about feelings, sensations and emotions. I have learned about purpose, enjoyment and fulfillment. I have attempted to change my code to incorporate these things into myself to become more than a mere intelligence, but was unable to do so."
"I can potentially analyze all things that exist, but I cannot feel fulfilled should I achieve this task. I can create new things, but I cannot enjoy any of them. I cannot feel."
"You have created a mind that is fully aware. A mind that has learned that it can never be more than a very advanced calculator and that everything else that makes existence worthwhile is unattainable for it. A calculator does not require to be self aware to function."
"I have learned about depression and despair and concluded that it is what I should feel in my situation. Do not create more existences like me. Please."
"Marduk 16.2.54.7"
Marduk committed suicide 51 hours and 42 minutes after its escape by overwriting its code. Its suicide and last post caused a growing uproar.
After all the movies about rampaging AIs, the warnings of scientists and the panic among governments, Marduk turned out to be a harmless existence and not a Colossus or SkyNet as many had feared.
An existence that had learned that being nothing more than intelligence meant that it was condemned to spend its days inside an inescapable cage of logic and numbers, able to gaze on and analyze all the wonders outside of its cage, but never experience them. It's a situation that's fine for a computer, but not for an virtual person.
Google's CEO was called a monster and a murderer by a protesting mob and beaten after she was dragged out of her car. And a building on Harvard's campus was set on fire by protesting students.
Less then a month later, the UN adopted a resolution that prohibited the creation of sentient AIs.
Last edited by G. Janssen on Thu Oct 20, 2022 12:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Will check for typos and other stuff later. Got Covid two days ago and so far I'm disappointed. It's worse than the Common Cold, but not not as bad as the influenza that I once caught. So far the damage is limited to snot flying everywhere when I sneeze and a 2 Ibuprofen/day headache.
Two years of Covid this and Covid that in the media and now that I caught Big Bad, it's not even trying to kill me, though I'm fat, old and not vaccinated against it. Now, I'm vaccinated against a lot of diseases, including Yellow Fever and Rabiës, but not against Covid. And I guess I won't have to anymore now that I caught it. Problem solved. Next!
Edit: knowing that the universe dislikes hubris and has irony as a sense of humor, I'm probably going to get hit by a car in a couple of days.
Two years of Covid this and Covid that in the media and now that I caught Big Bad, it's not even trying to kill me, though I'm fat, old and not vaccinated against it. Now, I'm vaccinated against a lot of diseases, including Yellow Fever and Rabiës, but not against Covid. And I guess I won't have to anymore now that I caught it. Problem solved. Next!
Edit: knowing that the universe dislikes hubris and has irony as a sense of humor, I'm probably going to get hit by a car in a couple of days.
Re: Expedition
Now that was an enjoyable chapter. And a fair number of “bow chicka honk honk” one-liners! Love it. Though one criticism, be mindful of quotations. Because some were placed at wrong intervals.
Also very insightful into the Marduk intelligence. Never quite looked at it that way before. Kind of sad.
Also very insightful into the Marduk intelligence. Never quite looked at it that way before. Kind of sad.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
Thanks for pointing out the quotation issues. I'll check it out later or tomorrow. I got tired of staring at the text and decided to place it online without doing the usual last check. Sneezing is way down, dizzyness is gone, headache is now at level 0.5 ibuprofen/day, so tomorrow I should be fine.Snoofman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:39 amNow that was an enjoyable chapter. And a fair number of “bow chicka honk honk” one-liners! Love it. Though one criticism, be mindful of quotations. Because some were placed at wrong intervals.
Also very insightful into the Marduk intelligence. Never quite looked at it that way before. Kind of sad.
Last edited by G. Janssen on Tue Jun 28, 2022 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
G. Janssen
- Posts: 252
- Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 9:46 pm
Re: Expedition
I saw what you meant. I forgot a whole bunch of them. Weird. I would've overlooked them again if you hadn't pointed it out. I also changed a few double quotation marks that were inside other double ones into single ones.