NationStates Jolt Archive

Office of the Undercommandant of the Colonisation Administration and Planning Corps, Kel Eridhant, Tsaraine: several weeks ago.

For a Corps tasked with so important a task as the alleviation of population pressures here in Tsaraine, Szorya Tukhiryé's office was uncomfortably cramped. Most of that might be due to the madman sitting on the other side of her desk, however; Eirkhanz Sche'daya (one of several hundred million other people sharing that name) might be physically small, but he took up a lot of mental space.

"Esar Sche'daya," Szorya tried again, "That planet has been examined and discarded by this Corps as a potential colony site! Restarting that avenue of investigation would only cost us resources, and in these times I'm sure you agree we need all the resources we can get."

It was as close to a stock reply as she came (and she had to give it to crazies often - the ones advocating colonising the Kuiper Belt, or the seabed, or the sun sprang to mind). This Sche'daya, unlike others, was having none of it.

"In these times, esen Tukhiryé," he replied, "It is all the more important that we explore, and utilise, every possible avenue to alleviating the population pressure!"

Szorya wondered if that included the enforced euthanasia or just plain culling the Corps had thrown up as last-ditch possibilities. With the population approaching Malthusian collapse, it was imperative to get their eggs out of the overladen basket that was Earth, no matter the means - just as Sche'daya was saying, in fact.

"- Yes," the man was continuing, "It does have problems - freezing temperatures, unshielded solar radiation, killer dust - but it also has advantages that make it substantially more suitable than any of the asteroid colonies, and High Stone and Far Stone and Kel Meralkharant are all doing quite well - no? Solutions to some of these problems are one hundred and fifty years old!

"It should be evident, esen, that the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages - in these times, getting even another hundred million off Earth is a great benefit."

Szorya supressed a sigh. Did he have diagrams? Ainra kal Ruki Aestrakhor, yes, he did have diagrams, which he pulled out all too readily to show her.

"I'll talk to the Corps Commandant about it," she promised him. It would get the man out of her hair, at least.

Alpha Alphonsus, Alphonsus Crater, Near Side, Luna

So now half a dozen suited figures bounded up the fifteen-hundred-meter mountain that was Alpha Alphonsus, in the dead center of Alphonsus Crater. The Lunar dust - fine and rough and damnably static - rose with every footfall, clinging to their suits. Already the things were showing reduced capability; clearly there would need to be technological improvements made before a Tsarainese moonbase could become reality (if indeed it ever did).

But they had allies; from Alpha's peak they could see the lights of the Britmattian colony in Ptolemaeus Crater to the North. Aside from a decidedly primitive crashed probe and their own spaceplane on the crater floor, Ptolemaeus was the closest sign of intelligence they'd seen. No signs of life in Alphonsus suited the CA&P Corps just fine.

So up went the flagpoles, flags stiffened with wire to hold them steady in the vacuum; the flags of the Greater Ascendancy and the Star Command now flew above Alphonsus.

OOC: Having been unable to find any evidence towards anyone ever having claimed Alphonsus Crater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonsus_%28crater%29) on the Moon, I am hereby doing so. If you wish to dispute this, please speak now, or forever hold your peace. And provide appropriate documentation.

Alpha Alphonsus, Alphonsus Crater, Near Side, Luna

They had left their brightly-coloured fission-powered and radiation-leaking moonbuggy several minutes ago, walking closer towards this new arrival.

"Foreigners!"

"Bastards!"

"THE UN!"

The bikers on the moon had never been known for their hospitality, and while they weren't exactly what one would usually call 'Organised' (Or 'Sane', come to think of it), they could still be an annoying pest.

"There they are. Roll out the grasers, matey!"

"... Our ship was shot down two weeks ago. The buggy's all we've lef-"

"YARR! Don't disobey thar capt'n!"

"... Yes, capt'n."

The 'Capt'n' made a menacing gesture, watching the group of... Aliens? UN spies? Imperialists? He didn't know. What he did know was that the freedom of the bikers was in jeapardy.

Well, that and he needed some entertainment.

"Our soil, arrr. Prey. Bountyful prey they are. More will come... We will steal their GOLD! YARR!"

"And their oxygen!"

"That, too. Right, we're almost out of it."

OOC: Clearly the Moon is a rather worse neighbourhood than I believed - whatever shall I tell the grandparents? Dratted hooligans. Oh, and documentation please - unless everything is properly signed in triplicate I shan't be inclined to acknowledge a claim.

OOC: Clearly the Moon is a rather worse neighbourhood than I believed - whatever shall I tell the grandparents? Dratted hooligans. Oh, and documentation please - unless everything is properly signed in triplicate I shan't be inclined to acknowledge a claim.

[OOC: If I may, Lunar Rheinland is, IIRC (which I am pretty sure I remember correctly, since the writing style never changes with that guy), none else than Rezo.]

O.O.C : it's the angstian moon colony and placeholder puppet for "Moon" tsa. I think that's got his credentials covered yah? ^_^

OOC: Yes, I'm aware of who Lunar Rheinland is - what I'm not sure about is quite what is being said. LR/Rezo, are you saying you've already got your dust-caked EVA mitts on Alphonsus? Please clarify, I am stupid sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. IC reply to come soon. Ish.

Okay... 1. Egosearch should put out a few IC posts with regards to LR being present on the Moon. Just like the region & name suggest.

2. Bah. I'm to one-sided :(

3. No, LR is not an Angstian colony. It was one, but got independence (Read: was given up) ages ago. I actually made a thread about it, but that one was apparently DEAT a good while ago <.<

4. Naw. LR's kinda... nomadic (Disregarding a few do(o)med cities spread out over $Undefined_Location). They're also ultra... Lunarists, and dislike foreigners. Technically, they claim the entire moon, acknowledging only other regional neighbors as proper lunatics. For all practical purposes, they claim nothing (Due to a lack of power projection, organisation, and the likes), and just drive around in their rad-leaking moonbuggies (Or alternatively, fly around in oxygen-leaking spaceships), looking all menacing and piratish.

Which is pretty much what is happening right now, with the two... Three Lunatics present. With regards to Alphonsus, they do, as such, have nothing there (Well, the occasional moonbuggy wreckage may be visible). Not that this (Or their aforementioned lack of power projection/ organisation) would actually stop them from wanting you gone.

On the plus side, pirates tend to accept bribes. Admittedly, bullets work just as good, and are probably cheaper.

OOC: Yes, I figured that LR was Lunar. I wasn't sure if you were claiming Alphonsus specifically, though - thanks for clarifying that. Differing concepts of land ownership work just fine as a concept (although they tend to clash when they come into contact, as seen in nomad versus settler interactions the world over). Now that's cleared up - onwards and upwards!

Alpha Alphonsus, Alphonsus Crater, Near Side, Luna

"Arin?"

"Yes?"

Seen from Alpha's peak, the Lunar landscape was big. And white. Not much else, truly - at least on visible wavelengths. In IR, Ptolemaeus showed up as a big bright patch - as did the three space-suited figures now kangaroo-hopping up the slope towards them.

"I see them," Arin confirmed. "Not ours, that's for sure - I don't know of anyone using suits like that in this day and age. Locals, maybe - they certainly seem accustomed to the gravity, judging by how they move."

That brought laughter from the other members of the group - Arin's attempts to adjust to the one-sixth Lunar gravity had been particularly amusing, even though the others had fared little better.

"I thought Command said there weren't any locals around here, boss? Isn't that rather the point?"

Arin shrugged, which didn't show up on the outside of her suit. "Maybe they're something small we didn't notice from orbit? Explorers gone native or something. Lunar rednecks - if they're using low enough technology they might not show up from orbit."

"What, inbred Moon-peasants who tahk lahk thahs scratching a living from the dust? In between bouts of racking silicosis coughs? Maybe they've got gun racks on their rovers!"

"The geiger counter's going nuts," someone else reported, "I think they must have nukes on their rovers."

"Okay, inbred, cancer-ridden, mutated-by-solar-radiation, silicosis-afflicted Moon-hicks. Lovely."

"Shut up, you lot, here they come." Like it or not, Arin was the appointed squad leader and impromptu diplomat of the group. Right now, she didn't like it.

Switching her suit's comm frequencies to a wider band, she called up her rusty English (Anglikh, why does everyone have to speak anglikh?) to adress the Lunar ... Lunat ... Moon ... people.

"Citizens of Luna!" she called. "We come in peace!"

It was even mostly true.

Alpha Alphonsus, Alphonsus Crater, Near Side, Luna


The three men (All of them clad in somewhat light clothing. With internal oxygen compartments, metallic or ceramic skin and slightly radioactive powersources underneath said skin (Not to mention crudely manufactured -Or less crudely stolen- microwave band communications in one's skull), there was no need for clumsy space suits, albeit such usually changed once someone shot a hole into one of them) looked somewhat odd. One had a pirate-hat bound to his head, to keep it from falling or floating away, complete with an open vest and very wide (And very full of holes and rips) trousers (Whose material, apparently stolen, or, give the obvious incompetence of the group, nicked from somewhere else, was apparently sufficient to keep some bits of quality even under this harsh conditions), another one wore what was slightly reminiscent of medieval armour, although possibly of somewhat lower quality. The third looked almost normal, if it weren't for the red sash with an oversized eye covering his forehead. All three of them would have rang like a hundred bells, given various pieces of jewelry and depleted uranium covering them in what was supposedly an attempt to look fashionable, had the moon actually had an atmosphere.

"They speak our language! Well, a somewhat odd accent, but..."

"They must be spies!"

"Or they have a dictionary-"

"Shut it! Hrm. Twice as many as us. This may be hard."

"You sure ain't lying. We don't have any bullets."

"Well, we do look menacing. Of sorts."

"Yarr, shut it. We're going to-"

"-Talk to them."

"Yarr... No bullets no fun."

The three men came closer, kind of hopping in the local low-gravity, holding their weapons in a vaguely menacing, yet not particularly aiming way, eventually replying to the initial greeting.

"Yarr. Ye' are on our home turf, foreigners! We being tha Bear Riders! What ye want on our ground?"

Alpha Alphonsus, Alphonsus Crater, Near Side, Luna

On the private band, someone started to laugh, and behind the faceplate of her space suit, Arin grinned in reply; up close, the ... well ... Lunatics seemed to fit exceptionally well - up close, the Lunatics were a ridiculous sight.

They looked something like a less extreme version of the cyborg adaptions borne by the Territorials of Burning Mountain on Io, except that Arin had seen the Territorials and knew that those of them that bothered with clothing would never have such atrocious dress sense.

And they had swords of all things, whereas Territorials would have carried things much more eclectic and horrifying. Unlike Tsarainese klrsukali, their blades seemed more functional than ceremonial. Arin felt comforted by the fact that the guns her little party carried (the model had been designed for the Star Command's asteroid bases) weren't ceremonial at all.

So. First contact with extremely well-adapted, extremely poorly-dressed radioactive Moon pirate cyborg hick bikers. Oh joy.

Arin made sure her DNI was recording all this, both for the CA&P Corps and the various interest groups back home. Doubtless the Moon pirates would find themselves featured in a computer game of some kind within a few months.

"Um," she said, which was hardly an auspicious start. "Honoured Bear Riders of the Moon. I and my fellows are official representatives of the Greater Ascendancy of Tsaraine. We're here because our initial surveys showed no sign of any land use in Alphonsus Crater at all ... as a matter of fact, we want to settle here. I'm sure that with your own surely limited environmental impact we'll be able to coexist peacefully."

And again, it wasn't quite a lie.

The three Lunatics listened, then erupted in an internal discussion involving lots of menacing gestures and grimaces in each others direction, easily overheard by the Tsarainese.

"They want our turf!"

"We must kill them!"

"Fight the earthers!"

"With what?"

"Yarrr... Good point."

The discussion went on for a few minutes, turning out to be a mildly surrealist dominance ritual in local slang, before the apparent leader of the group, the one with the pirate hat, turned towards the Tsarainese, again.

"'Tis our turf! Our blood! Our soul!" What followed was another vaguely menacing, yet urarmed gesture. "If ya' want to be here, ya gotta pay!"

"Like, a little oxygen, and some bounty, perhaps?"

"If ya gonna pay, we protect from other bikers!"

"As if..."

Once again, Arin had to supress a grin; these Lunatics were simultaneously silly as clowns and deadly serious. No doubt the anthropologists would be fascinated.

"That seems reasonable," she said warily. After all, you surely couldn't get the Ascendancy to part with the seemingly barren steppes that formed most of Tsaraine. "What do you want? Oxygen? Metals, perhaps?" Raw currency surely wouldn't be so good for these nomads.

OOC: Ack, horribly short. Sorry 'bout that.

"Arrr, that would' work." The pirate hat (Well, the person under the hat, but his hat was his most defining characteristic) said, now a little more... Friendly. Apparently, this foreigners were potentially useful, and long-term 'tributes' wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea. "Ya' have our blessin', foreigner. But we'll come back!" The last few words once again spoken in a slightly more menacing tone.

"Incidentally..." The almost normal lunatic interrupted. "Would there be a way to acquire... Hard currency?"

"PLUNDER!"

"Yes. Anyway, if we could arrange for monthly tributes, that would be ideal." We have to somehow pay for a new ship and crew. "Of course, in exchange for the tribute, we would be capable of, ah, arranging some things, down here, eventually, ah, helping you as guides."

By now, it was quite clear that 'Tribute' was essnetially a term to inflate the ego of the lunatics, as the effects of the 'tribute' would be along the lines of 'employment'.

"I'm certain that it would make a lot of things easier. The moon can be surprisingly tricky."

"Yarr! Our moon! Remember last time the bear ate tha matey?"

There has to be a smart one, doesn't there?

Unfortunately for the Lunatics, what he'd just suggested was going to be much more complicated - paying currency to non-citizens for nebulous un-defined "services" would mean stacks of paperwork waying more than all of them put together, were you to convert it to hard copy.

"I'll see what I can do," Arin replied, "But people from the Arkhreifiate of the Exterior and the Census Corps and Resource Distribution and all sorts of things will need to talk to you. I don't suppose you have some way they could contact you when they arrive?"

"Sure we h-"

"Yarr! We'll be there! Just ask for tha Capt'n, Capt'n Pillower!"

"Pillager..."

"Pil... WHATEVER! We'll stay here for a-while, after we have tha oxygen-"

Not that we have anywhere to go...

"-tha moon be a nice place for ya'll!"

Well, at least they had some point. Contacting wasn't too hard, given the transceivers in the lunatic's skulls (That it wouldn't be encoded was an entirely different problem, though).

As for the rest... It was somewhat hard to guess how it would go on from there. Well, if one liked surprises, it would probably end up being ok, either way.

OOC: Is that enough first contact for you, or would you like to keep going? I'm amenable to either.

Message To: Open (Radio) Broadcast to Alphonsus Crater and surrounding environs
Message Fr: Colonisation Administration and Planning Corps, Tsaraine
Message Re: Warning!

All persons, vehicles, and equipment that may be present in the Tsarainese territory of Alphonsus Crater are strongly advised to vacate the crater for the next week. Failure to do so will result in probable damage, injury, or death, and the Greater Ascendancy and the CA&PC will accept no liability in damages, injury, or fatalities incurred as a result of persons or polities not heeding this warning.

We really, really mean it.

Sincerely,

~ Szorya Tukhiryé
Undercommandant, Colonisation Administration and Planning Corps


OOC: Heeheehee, I have Plans™!

He-028/Autumn's Fire, Lunar orbit over Alphonsus Crater

"Status of the crater?"

"Quiet as a grave, Squadron-Commandant. If there's anyone there, they're well-hidden. And very stupid."

Vrysannen Khoren-Sech grinned at that added quip. Morale was high across the ten Hecate-class cruisers under his command for this mission - aside from drills, this was the closest most of the Star Command came to real combat. Any opportunity to really stretch one's legs ...

"Status of the Squadron to commence operation?"

"All vessels report clear to proceed."

"Excellent."

Maps and graphs danced across Vrysannen's retinas as he double-checked the solutions produced by the ship's computers; smart programs, but not infallible. He always preferred to double-check the results.

"All Captains-Commandant, this is Squadron-Commandant Khoren-Sech. Ready erasers at two-fifty gigahertz and input firing solutions. Prepare to fire on my mark."

A minute's wait as the other vessels of the Squadron prepared to fire - more time than they needed, but nobody was shooting at them - it paid to allow time for screw-ups if time was avaliable.

"Fire."

The turrets and forward guns of the Hecates spat coherent high-energy microwaves at Earth's satellite.

When the Star Command had first briefed Vrysannen and his fellow Captains-Commandant on the eraser weaponry of the Hecate-class, they'd offered a striking example of the power of microwaves by putting a metal fork in a microwave oven. That had resulted in a lot of sparks, heat, and a busted microwave.

The Moon, as far as Vrysannen understood it, was their fork. Lunar dust - a fine powder, which fouled mechanisms and led to rampant silicosis - had a high iron content, and under the maser beams now sweeping across the surface of Alphonsus Crater, would act as a microwave antenna. Electrons would be excited - in short, heating would occur.

Was occurring, in fact, on the surface below. Iron sparked and fused under the beams, the aggravating dust bonded to itself into sheets and clumps.

From the bridge of the Autumn's Fire, the change was readily visible; as the masers moved, the Lunar regolith was painted iron-black.

OOC: Some quick-and-dirty research suggested that this might be possible, and it's a relitavely quick and easy way to fix the problem of that annoying, colonisation-inhibiting Lunar dust. Not to mention a chance to shoot things. RAWR!

There was a general suspicion, among the personell of Kel Meralkharant and the transient workers of Io, that the long-duration personell of the Tekhat Io (more properly the Tsarainese-Administered NDA Protectorate of Burninatonian Io) were quite insane.

This was generally chalked up to various factors, generally starting with living on the most volcanic planetoid in the Solar system, poised between the Ardans and the Elves, and working down from there to living next door to the Burning Mountaineers, living in the ex-Burninatonian city of Necron II, or working with the Dominion fleets stationed at Io.

The Meralkharantikh in particular liked to ascribe it to the influence of Markhreif Arisaine arViradt, who was either loved or loathed as a sterling example of the sort of autocratic, hot-tempered leader who had made the First Dominion aristocracy great.

Among themselves the long-duration population felt a sort of strange pride in their harsh (geographical and political) environment, in their allies and neighbours, and in their Markhreif. But even they agreed that the Outsiders - the personell whose duties lay outside the dome of Necron II, mantaining the far-flung technological stations and so forth - were quite, quite bizzare.

So if some of them wanted to emigrate to Luna - that most undeveloped and strategically worthless of Tsarainese Solar holdings - well, that was just icing on the cake.

Alphonsus Crater, Near Side, Luna

The throb of machinery was omnipresent through the blackened regolith of Alphonsus, regular and rhythmic as a mechanical heart. Not at all like the volcanic wobbles of Io, where any large vibration more often than not presaged a dangerous upwelling of magma, but unsettling all the same to an Outsider.

Vibration - construction machinery; filter/out [unless] parameter; danger/exceeded, Genai Karazhin told his powered suit, a command as easy as thinking it thanks to the DNI - easier, in fact, given the years over which he'd adapted his thinking to the programs and the programs to his thinking.

On Io the Outsiders ran with very little input unfiltered, since so much of it could be dangerous. Living ones did, at least. But Luna was tectonically dead, it's tidal stresses unnoticeable and unthreatening. From an Outsider's point of view, there was very little to be threatened by on Luna - especially not when wearing powered suits developed for Io.

An Outsider's powered suit was as self-contained an environment as any spacecraft or rover; it fed them, cleansed them, healed them in the event of injury, recycled the air so that they could breathe. The suit was an Outsider's inalienable property; within his suit Genai was independent of all but nominal state control, free to indulge in a hermit's life.

Genai, like most Outsiders, was a loner (although his suit kept a constant check on the few dozen other Outsiders in Alphonsus Crater; all a happily green status/optimal. There were, at present, no Insiders in Alphonsus Territory; when or if the government got around to settling them on Luna, Genai and his associates would probably move on to various extrasolar outposts). It took a certain mindset to become an Outsider, and a more specific one again not to crack out in the Solitude, but for those who had it the job was it's own reward.

In return, the state asked that they waive a few Articled guarantees of service, and mantain what machinery needed mantaining (mostly automated tunellers, here in Alphonsus, carving out some long-term scheme of the CA&P Corps). It was a small price to pay in return for proper peace and quiet.