NationStates Jolt Archive

A small metal sphere floated through the vacuum of space, dust particles moving at thousands of kilometers per hour buffeting the smoothly worked shell of the satellite probe. It's thrusters had long burnt out, and it had begun falling towards the star of the solar system. The AI within the probe sent off one last realy before magnetic bands of ionized particles dissolved it.

Perpindicular to the system, 200 kilometers away, a fleet of ships slipped into normal space, the patrols ship flickering back into reality, followed shortly by a larger fleet of heavy cruisers escorting a contigent construction ships and the heart of the fleet, the battleship. The battleship, like all Tradem ships, was unnamed. Names were unimportant to the Tradem; to them it distracted from the truth of the universe.

But as the fleet approached a small, barren planet, it's atmosphere methane rich and the temperatures soaring beyond what any human could sustain, several Tradem officers begun to wonder if knowing the truth was always so good. They're people, so long nomadic and peaceful, had suddenly discovered a secret of their history. And the secret would lead them to secure an entire solar system. Any other fleet who approached it would be engaged without questions, no matter the size or reason.

The fighters on patrol activated their fusion engines and shot off towards the barren planet.

((OOC: I'll just use this to introduce the Tradem to the universe, their history and such gradually revealed. Anyone is allowed to approach the solar system and find the Tradem.))

Five years earlier...

The rows of me and women, eleven in each, sat apart from each other on the cuishoned floors, a row of eleven red and white flowers dividing the rows.

The oldest man in the blank, white room looked at his peers, the other greying and wrinkled men and women who led the nomadic Tradem. Their younger counterparts, the young adults who sat opposite from them, would soon drink the wine of the flowers, would conduct the funeral for deceased leaders, and would assume control of the Tradem. They would become the new Tradem Ling. But there was still a history to teach.

The oldest man, and though he had no name let us call him Ia, carefully arranged the folds of white star-white robes and nodded at the young girl acrowss from him, her hair cut short and her face unblemished, spiritually and physically. "You all," he said, looking up and down the row of the future leaders, "know why we were cast from our home planet to wander the stars and darkness, pausing at planets only for one generation before leaving again, cursed to be the nomadic peoples." The youth nodded but kept their faces impassive. "And you know that if any other nation were to discover, our people would be no more, and we would have no chance to fulfill our atonement." The young girl with black hair gazed at the old man impassively as he continued.

"When you assume control, you will of course continue the traditions of personal fulfillment without genetical abominations of nature, and of resisting the lure of godhood in creating artificial intelligences. But you must also find and protect whatever planet holds our secret. You must always search for it."

The young girl nodded and unfolded her hands from the long white sleeves of her robes. "We will seek, and only when humanity may control the universal workings, will we rest." The other youth nodded and picked up the flowers thay lied in front of them. Carefully removing the blossom, they brought the stems to their lips and felt one droplet of the sweet juice fall into their mouths. The older Ling closed their eyes, and within minutes only eleven living humans remained in the room.