NationStates Jolt Archive

The End of the Beginning

The whirls of colour impinged on her consciousness, a thousand pinpricks of white light disassembled and enlarged. They did indeed whirl, not slowly, but tumbling, merging, sometimes thrashing together.

Life.

The imprint of life was not easily missed. The Great Consciousness heaved a great mental sigh; sadness seeped out, loosed from behind a psionic screen that had held for generations. The last calling approached.

The Great Consciousness bowed her head - not a real, physical head, but the construct of one, inside this, the Simile. This life cycle was at an end.

But there was one last great duty to perform; her keen Eye turned on the whirls of colour again, focusing on one particular light amongst all the rest - it seemed familiar - but not. Numerals fluxed before her, describing the colour in greater detail.

All things were collected. The Great Consciousness eyed the Simile sadly; she was afraid, but the fear did not breach the psionic screen in the manner the earlier sadness had. Instead, it was carefully contained. Her last act was twofold, even as the tears fell: to reach out, beyond the Few, to seek the Many in the void ahead.

And then she died.

The Words Between the Lines

Alhm Su was born between the stars, and none know what from. The Great Consciousness was birthed from the Princess, she who had risen amongst them all, and bound them together as the Few Who Became One. Labouring for innumerable decades - slaving, in fact - they died, and were reborn, and died again. Their numbers decreased, but there were none who were new among them. Their fate was neither to leave Alhm Su, nor to leave the inner prisons of their bodies.

None except the Constructs.

The Constructs were born of the whim of the Great Consciousness, who sought physical strength in the Real. The Simile, wherein the Great Consciousness dwelt, was symmetrical and perfect in all ways. The Real was not, and thus provided far greater sensory input - for all things are symmetrical, when translated to the Simile, else the Great Consciousness would not discern fact from fiction.

The High Priests came to control the flow of information; they were the servants of the Constructs in turn. The Priests, below them all, served the Few. The Few, in turn, governed the Great Consciousness - they, one and all, would vote on the options provided by the Great Consciousness from the information gathered by the High Priests.

The Great Consciousness had one strength beyond all the rest; it could taste the very essence of life, even though it did not and could not understand the meaning of the taste. The High Priests and the Few, then, were those left to interpret. But they did not understand the meaning.

So came the Seers.

The Centre

Princess Alam Tuvar's thoughts, as she awoke from a slumber of countless centuries, were essentially primitive. Her toe itched. She had a faint cramp in her right thigh. And - worst of all - she had broken a nail upon entry into the infernal machine itself.

She did not retain the memories of what came before.

This, in turn, was greeted with the manner in which the Royalty are expected to deal with such things: taciturn irritation. Naturally, the Construct which clothed, fed, washed, and dried her was the recipient of a scowl.

Equally naturally met with a scowl was the blinking red glow which had inserted itself into her peripheral vision. The ONI was transmitting, apparently, and without causing her a headache. She felt a surge of pride that her people had improved themselves in the years between, even if not in the direction hoped for - but still... progress was progress.

She accepted the interface. There was a faint tingling sensation as the optic nerve interface shifted the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation jetting to her eye from the tiny transmitter; she did not exactly lose the capability to see, but reality dimmed considerably. Dimly, she was aware that it was not like Simile.

And just as quickly as the transmission was begun, it was concluded. She remembered the transmission, now.

Quick mental calculations followed; Alhm Su was, her neural webbing informed her, around sixteen light-minutes north from the solar plane. Meanwhile, the translation had brought the vessel into place approximately thirteen light-minutes to the galactic west from the planet with the highest quantity of life.

Neural webbing provided swift answers to her questions. She frowned. This system was particuarly teeming with life - but then, that much life must have developed answers...

She noted with alarm that there were numerous signs of combative activity, both recent and present. Her frown deepened to a scowl.

Promptly, she improved the quality of the psionic screen. The Remnant of the Great Consciousness - now forever known only as the Remnant - acknowledged her request - and she shivered as she activated the ONI again.

This time, the view lasted longer. The star system spread before her, in three dimensional wraparound, clear and bright. The Remnant enhanced the image here and there, ensuring a pleasing view rather than a directly literal one. Here and there, amongst the darkness, the hull of a ship glinted faintly, catching Tuvar's eyes.

"Tough days ahead," she sighed.

* * *

[OOC: After some effort towards translation, anyone paying attention enough to attempt translation of the following widebeam high-power RF signal finally discovers that no translation is necessary: the dimensions of the room the recording was made in was warping the speaking voice in such a way as to mask the fact it was speaking in English.]

IC:

Greetings.

We are the Su. Our arrival is sudden and perhaps disturbing. Therefore, we invite any who are interested to send one vessel apiece to our position, so that we might explain. Despite our... unusual entrance... we do not possess superluminal communications.

We greet you, one and all, warmly.



[OOC: General stuff. When the object revealed to be Alhm Su arrived, it's arrival was signalled by a burst of gamma rays, a -1.8 magnitude burst of white light. Notably, the white light emission sparkled rather more than might be expected to be accountable by dust particles between source and viewer at the Sol-norm, indicating that the object brought quite a cloud of dust with it. Telescopic observation would indeed reveal a halo of material around the object, which is thick enough to interfere with visual observation, and a potential hazard to approaching ships in an expanding sphere approximately 50,000km^3.

Less general stuff. Firstly, I'm well aware that this is a new nation. Therefore, do not equate high-tech with high-wealth, and please please take my word for it that they do not have high-tech super-scary weapons. They really don't. Seriously.

Of course, you don't know that ICly, which is where the fun comes in. ;)

Last, but by no means least, the 'object' appeared in the Sol system. The one with Jupiter. And Earth. Etc.]

Largentian outposts on Charon suddenly detected a disturbance somewhere amongst the Jovian planets. Several technitions scrambled to get a visual on whatever it was that had just made quite an extravegant entrance into the Sol. It seemed though that most of their satellites in the area were down. Possible from whatever just happened.

Puzzled, they ordered several scout ships to go and find out what was going on out there. Soon, however, they discovered a message had been received and translated. They took several moments to listen to it before deciding the situation was safe enough. And, following the recording's instructions, they sent a single ship out to greet the "Su".

ooc: BTW, you are definately a good RPer, especially considering you're new to NS. Nice work.

Ix-Chi had chosen it's name for simplicity. In fact, it's name was a complex array of pheremonal scents, which no Human could ever comprehend in full. Usually they politely refused to notice the odd musky odour that accompanied the Uk-Da - again, chosen for simplicity. In fact, none of the names meant a damned thing.

But that didn't matter.

Ix-Chi clacked mandibles with excitement at the prospect of actual contact with the Outside. It's Progenitors had spoken of this day for many years - but Ix-Chi had never suspected it would live to see it. Perhaps it's own younglings, but not itself.

Ix-Chi was a Chosen. Born to the position by caste alone - although this was the nature of the species, rather than an imposition by the empowered - it was a warrior. Unfortunately, there was no war. As this was the case, there was only one occupation that the Chosen were suited to: ceremonial guarding of the Princess - which Ix-Chi had partaken in on several occasions - or remote piloting.

In this case, Ix-Chi was enjoying the latter. It's neural web relayed information directly into it's decentralized neural structure, which left it's limbs tingling with the sensation of the microfusion-fusion feeder reactor powering the little vessel.

It was an impressive little ship. Ix-Chi's antennae curled cheerfully forwards, briefly rubbing and emitting a high pitched sound similar to Human laughter - although most Human's were unaware of the sound. Unfortunately, it was the only impressive little ship they had, and it had no weapons whatsoever.

A Chosen with no armaments. Ix-Chi found it preposterous still. Even so, the Princess and the Remnant had decided that it would be wise to greet the Outsiders in the coldness of space first. If they were hostile, it would be unwise to allow them close enough to the habitat to attack - although they could well do so from distance. The Uk-Da were no foreigners to stellar warfare - or once had not been. Now, they were like all the others: bewildered at their presence on this place, even after all these years...

It chittered softly, the neural web translating into Human speech instantaneously.

Well, close enough.

Greetings, the high pitched, faintly feminine voice greeted, from the Su. I am Ix-Chi. Please do not approach further than 180,000 kilometres. If you would please identify yourselves and your intent, we will then allow your approach. Be advised that particulate matter in the debris field surrounding Alhm Su may prove hazardous to inadequately protected voidships.

It's antennae drew back, pensively. Uncertainly. I hope I voiced that right, it internalized, anxiously.

* * *

The radio waves did not care where they went. And as the transmission was not encoded, and as it was relatively powerful, it did not stop at the targeted vessel, but swept on for all to hear.

[OOC: Thanks muchly! However, I'm not new to NS. ;) I've been here for a long time. Just a new nation, new concept for me. :)]

[ooc: what was your old nation?]

The scouting ship was at cruising speed passing neptune when it suddenly received a transmition from the same position as earlier. It was a small, defense scout ship with a crew of five and very few arms but it still didn't want to appear agressive. It soon slowed to a halt well beyond the required distance and sent the following transmition:


Greetings from the LSF Esploratore 157. We are a small scouting craft coming out to greet you. We are just beginning to enter the Jovian system. Please give us any instructions we may need to link up and meet and obtain an explination for your presence. We are currently just outside Neptune's orbit and stationary. We also will have adiquate protection to enter the depris field.

Cpt. Kolovos

Back on Charon preperations were being made should a diplomatic meeting be scheduelled. A delegate and accomodations were being prepared while stations continued to monitor communications between the ships.

Somewhere in between Sol and Arisse Fleet Control Group E noticed the transmission of the 'Su'.

The Voltaug's construct bobbed it's metallic head down near Algiers as the translation of the message flicked across the screen. The Voltaug Construct bobbed "There was a single response to the message from a captian of an 'LSF' ship."

Algiers nodded, exhaling a plume of chlorine gas. "Open a line, we will respond as well."

The Construct bobbed and opened a comm channel and Algiers orated:

Greetings to the Su. I am Algiers of the Varangian Guard. Your communication has peaked my interests. I look forward to meeting your representatives.

All Hail Autarch and His Varangian Guard.

Algiers then nodded to the Construct and the Voltaug moved at speed to the Su's position. The Dyan-XD Cruisers followed, but only after putting up their spectral masking, and they maintained a healthy distance behind the Voltaug, but close enough to rush in............just in case.

[OOC: Well, originally the habitat was meant to be appearing near Earth... but Jupiter is more interesting, so I'll run with what you posted. :)

I used to be, and continue to be Ma-tek, which I RP with under the name ICEL. ICEL = Ma-tek, Ma-tek = ICEL. Sortof thing.

And a general sort of note: italic text is translated speech, so therefore italic speech contained like this:

/pain\

represents a semi-failure of the translation, resulting in an overlay of emotional content rather than the actual words. Just to be clear. ;)]

IC:

Ix-Chi chittered with excitement. More replies! The Life Scent that the Remnant had reported was not overstated. This information was immediately relayed back to Alhm Su, via it's neural webbing.

Again, more chittering, but carefully instead - with words. The movement of limbs was not required to enact the transmission - merely a thought was.

Greetings, Algiers. Greetings, Cpt. Kolvos. We the Su extend /warmth friendship gladness\ at you and yours.

Ix-Chi considered carefully a moment, sense-appendage swaying thoughtfully. It's sense-appendage was what a Human would call a 'head' - but it did not contain the Chosen's brain. Neural cells were evenly distributed through it's body - along with the symbiotic bio-implants, known as neural webbing, that all the Su were Gifted with by the Remnant. Thus were they in harmony, thus were they in song, Ix-Chi mused.

The strangers had strange craft.

Ix-Chi's vessel was more similar to what it considered the norm. Like Ix-Chi, the vessel was biological - grown rather than constructed. Even the reactor was a biological creation - although none of the Su could claim any responsibility for the marvel of the design involved, if design it had been. There was uncertainty there: the vessels may well have been yet another species consigned to the long journey through the night aboard Alhm Su by that unknown force that had created the habitat. The Su knew only the medicine of the vessels, how to heal and nurture them, not how to 'create' more - who had no name-equivalent in English, but could be approximated with 'voidfox'. And at any rate, the voidfoxes bred far too quickly - in fact, they had to be given contraception to ensure that the quantity did not outstrip the capacity of the habitat to sustain them.

The voidfox was sentient, with a highly developed intellect. It was, and did, what instinct and limited reasoning told it to; to Love, Serve, Protect.

Although even the Su acknowledged that the notion was somewhat... sappy... they likewise acknowledged the inherant truth. The voidfox loved it's pilot - and the pilot it's voidfox. The Union was accomplished through great ceremony - for only pilot would ever belong to one voidfox, and the other way around. If one died, so too did the other.

Thus Ix-Chi was deeply aware of the voidfox Lucidity's concern. The approaching ships could well be dangerous. Ix-Chi, had it been Human, would have sighed. Instead, it clacked it's mandibles, sense-appendage weaving thoughtfully. A limb extended, manipulators carefully stroking a console. It could have used it's neural webbing to accomplish the task, but that would have been too simple and easy. Sometimes, one simply desired a little extra interest, and challenge.

* * *

There was no challenge. The voidfox responded, as ever, with fluid grace. It gathered it's distortion fields inwards carefully, summoning extra strength - and vaulted towards the nearest ship, surging with ease. A gentle mindstroke signalled an apology - the acceleration had been too harsh, and Ix-Chi Entity had expressed pain.

Lucidity soothed.

* * *

Ix-Chi chattered softly, warbling a low note. It felt the voidfox's relief, and wriggled it's body with pleasure. To please the Partner sometimes felt like all there was in life - a dangerous notion. Ix-Chi suppressed the desire to sink into Lucidity's thoughts, to make Union complete - it needed to concentrate on it's mission. Something it had not been required to do in many lifecycles.

Approach slowly. I, Ix-Chi, am a Chosen. Charged with the defence of my Fellows, I am required to ensure the Protection of the Su. Continuation is All. But the Su still extend /peace frienship\ to you and yours. Expectant of the similar in reverse, you see, are we.

Ix-Chi chittered with amusement. The voidfox had merged, just for a moment, and it's thought-patterns had interfered with Ix-Chi's own. The result was faintly humourous - the seemingly bland, direct logic of a voidfox that served as it's subtleness when dealing with those who were not it's pilot, and the excitement of Ix-Chi itself.

Ix-Chi warbled, pleasurably, amongst excitable chittering, and Merged with it's Partner to seek calm.

The Fleet Control Group slowed as it approched the Su 'vessel' The Dyan-XD Cruisers, still masked, dropped away from the Voltaug and hung back as the Voltaug approached. The Voltaug too was sentient, artificially. The Navigators hated other biological beings and did their very best to seal themselves off from such things, so they built Constructs. Intelligent robots of varying forms, intelligence and purpose. The Voltaug had it's own Construct, not only for maintenance and piloting reasons, but also to monitor the crew of Thilites and the Vranagian Captain, to make sure they retained their loyalty. The Voltaug would act against it's own crew to insure that The Autarch's will was followed.

Algiers smiled as the Su's translation came through, the Voltaug's Construct bobbing it's head near hers "I cannot determine the number of life-forms aboard the alien vessel. The entire ship is showing to my sensors as biological."

Algiers raised an eyebrow "I've heard of such things. The Tyranids for example grow their ships. Determine if you can their offensive and defensive capabilities, that would be the important bit."

The Construct bobbed and began in depth scanning as the Voltaug moved closer to the Su ship. It also began relaying the information it was collecting back to The Autarch's palace.

Algiers stood and took a few steps forward and looked up at the view screen. The Thilite pilots cringed as she approached and put on their repirators, the last two pilots had been suffocated the last time Algiers had exhaled.

"Take us in close, leave shields and weapons offline for now." She said offhandedly to the increasingly nervous pilots. "Let us see how these aliens can be of use to The Autarch."

[]

The Supaship [i]Huge an' Big an' Massiv was in a state of turmoil.

Since the HaBaM was a ship built, operated and owned by the Combined Goblin Collective, this was not unusual, even quite normal. Up in the Control Room Admiral Wottahellizdat Cunningit sat in his Big Captain Chair, drinking Da Medium Stuff from his Big Captain Mug, and looking at the various screens that showed activity in the Sol System.

The HaBaM had been on the outskirts of the Sol System for a while, mostly ignored, and mostly very happy to be ignored - what did King Griptite want with a system full of humans anyway? However, today the Admiral was feeling a bit bored and when the message from the Su turned up, he couldn't resist investigating.

"Lookattit!"

Furst Offisser Lookattit Faztand ambled over to the Admiral.

"Yep?"

"We'z edding off ta Joopiterer, sumfink'z turned up."

"Roito bozz, oi'll ged uz movin'."

So it was that with the use of many large levers, strange buttons and not a few hammers that the Big an' Huge an' Massiv acelerated to SupaSpeed. A moment later it dropped out.

"Uh...Lookattit? Dis ain't Joopiterer..."

"Wot? Yezz it iz!"

"Nub...we'z outside da Galiaxy..."

The Furst Offisser examined his instruments carefully. Then he looked very carefully at the Big Window. They were, quite obviously, outside the galaxy. Definately outside. No possible way that they were inside. The BaHaM went back into SupaSpeed. Then they tried again. And then again. Finally, on the fourth try they managed to get to the right spot, arriving with a "pop" that somehow managed to make itself heard in the soundless expanse of space.

"Wot you fink, Bozz?"

"Eezi...we let dem speek furst...dey look freeky dun' day?"

It should be pointed out here that Admiral Wottahellizdat Cunningit was about four feet tall and a mottled green colour, with long floppy ears and an outrageously coloured military uniform.

"Yup...oi agree, Bozz."

The Largentian vessel put all engines back on line and started towards the Su's position. They announced that they would be coming in to land on the Su vessel to begin discussions. Cpt. Kolvos sat at the controls with his few crew members keeping the ship at a reasonably slow speed as not to worry any other ships in the area.

Suddenly LDS (laser detection system) picked up a tiny disturbance in the area. The captain turned to his crew, "What do ya think? Ships being cloaked?"

"Maybe, but were in the depris feild so it may just be acting up, thats a pretty insignificant reading and these are old systems."

"Still, get ready to put weapon and targeting systems online if we still are picking up signals."

"Roger that captain."

Close to a half hour later they were within two light seconds of the Su vessel and prepared to land on it.