NationStates Jolt Archive

Erahere Mornfinnel adjusted the shuttle’s pitch a little as he coasted down towards the place known as Pilon. It wasn’t a very nice place, in his opinion, resembling from the air, nothing so much as a gigantic bog covering the face of mars. Quite depressing, he had to admit.

But then, if the Pilonese wanted to live that way, who was he to stop them? It was far more interesting and profitable to exploit them, which was of course, why he was there. One of the more scientifically minded representatives of the International Labour Company, a leading conglomerate of older migrant labour agencies in Menelmacar, and later in the C’tan.

Not of course, that such ‘exploitation’ would necessarily be a bad thing. The Pilonese, as a nation, could be easily examined from even the notoriously unreliable United Nations reports to have a stunning rich-poor divide. And Erahere was there to, after a fashion, set up a means of improving the quality of the lives of the poor of Pilon. Which was to say, that he was aiming to negotiate with one or both of the two major companies in Pilon to arrange for workers from that nation to join the strictly regulated pool of labour used by the C’tan for jobs that the economy wanted done, but few people wanted to do. Such things as domestic service, waste disposal, and other jobs considered ‘demeaning.

Part of the economic effects of widespread space travel combined with a lack of robotic slave labour for jobs interacting with humans, was a resource base that far outstripped the labour market. Thus, the Necrontyr and Menelmacari looked outwards for those who were sufficiently disadvantaged to find the prospect highly appealing.

And Erahere thought he’d found a perfect place here on Martian soil. Landing the light craft in the most appropriate place he could find, he briefly checked his appearance, wiping crumbs from a snack in flight from his grey jacket, and adjusted the Nehru style collar of his teal shirt, picking up a small case of useful gadgets, and of course, checking the slender pistol he carried, a concession to the reputation of the Pilonese.

As the Necrotyr ship approached the Capitol Arcology of Transhumana it was given clearance to land on one of the floating landing platforms. Upon settling on the platform a bubble surrounded the ship and the platform sank beneath the waves, heading towards the Pilonese landing bay.

The Arcology towered above them as they descended into the sea, the Eco-Jungle was alive with motion as the vibrant eco-system went about its activities.

Finally they approached the landing bay, a door opened and the platform drifted up through the door into the massive bay.

Inside they were surrounded by the life of the arcology, which was only marginally slower than the activity outside in the Eco-Jungle. About the landing bay were several dozen other landing platforms with various types of ships on them from all over Mars and beyond. Roughly half the ships were Pilonese, looking very elegant in the glistening sunlight shining from the artificial light source near the top of the bay.

Around them lay the translucent edge of the Arcology, and beyond the faint swirling blue-green shapes of the Eco-Jungle.

Within the Landing bay hundreds of Pilonese laborers, mostly Genetically Augmented for optimum lifting and carrying activities, went about their work, loading and unloading cargo. In one corner of the bay one of the new Pilonese Warships fed upon a several small animals, its massive form dwarfing most of the other ships in the bay.

Everywhere there seemed to be life, and movement, on the ground scurrying through the soil were small animals, going about their buisness, the air was full of birds and other flying creatures, including a few sentients who seemed intent on eating some of the local life. Whenever an opportunity arose the buildings themselves would reach out with their tendrils and snag a nearby animal, especially the birds, for consumption.

The air smelled mostly of a sweet fragrance, reminiscent of various fruits and flowers, though there was also an underlying smell of rotted vegetation. Though they had been working to remove the natural smell of the bog in areas populated by foreigners, the Pilonese Gengineers had not perfected it yet, though it was a vast improvement over what it once was.

As Erahere Mornfinnel got out of the ship he was greeted by Elwyn195, who informed him that she had been sent to escort him to the negotation chambers where representatives from both PPC and Genesis Corp were waiting. Like about 90% of the other Pilonese in the bay she was completely naked, as was custom in Pilon. The elf turned and motioned for him to follow then began heading towards one of the walls at the far end of the bay.

Erahere watched the naked elf representative with a sort of disinterest – he’d been warned what to expect. Stepping off the door of the P20 utility transport he punched a control that caused the door to fold back together and lock itself shut. The P20 was a common design, and not at all what Erahere was used to. The P20’s selling points were its cheapness a few hundred to a thousand credits, and split interior that allowed it to work in various differential atmospheres by doubling the rear compartment, which had a separate cargo door, up to operate as an airlock.

However, the P20, one of the leading shuttles used by Sentinel Two’s notoriously tight-fisted entrepreneurs, was ideal for blending in with the Martain traffic. P20s could be found doing everything from delivering oranges to maintaining satellites or even making cheap charter flights to Earth or Venus, if you didn’t mind spending half the day inside it.

Instead he turned his attention to the bulk of the Pilonese warship, wondering about the insanity behind it. The thing seemed to subsist by actually eating organic life forms. He suspected that this had to one of the most inefficient fuelling systems he’d ever imagined.

He glanced up at the buildings as he followed his guide and wondered aloud why the wildlife hadn’t learnt to just stay away from them…

The Elwyn took little notice of the baffled look on his face, instead she continued to walk toward the wall.

When they both reached the far wall it parted revealing a hallway behind it.

The hallway split into 4 different directions, of which one went down, curving as it went. The hall was lit by a faint blue bio-luminesence that eminated from the walls.

Off in the shadows the forms of various creatures could be seen, mostly humanoid in shape.

Elwyn continued on down that spiraling hallway. She eventually stopped along the way and faced the right wall and it opened revealing 8 Pilonese, 4 on either side of a table, who were lined up and glaring at each. It seems that an argument had just ended between the two parties.

Elwyn walked to the far side and motioned for Erahere to sit down at the molding chair before him. "I would like you to meet my employers for this evening, the representatives from Pilon People's Corp, and Genesis Corp" she motioned to each as she mentioned their name.

"Before we begin I wish to thank you for coming, we are honored by your visit and most interested in the proposal you laid out before my clients. If you would be so kind as to do a brief overlay of the proposal again we can get started, as my clients are eager to get this underway."

Erahere smiled at the representatives. The selection of aggressive and adversarial looks they exchanged proved that getting them to meet together was at least a suitable means of exacerbating their annoyance and rivalry with one another. Which was of course, the joy of competition. As the cloned elf finished he smiled and bowed his head a little, opening his case, and dropping a small holoprojector onto the table. This projected a holoslide, a two dimensional display like a screen.

Stepping to the side he began to recap the proposal both parties had been sent. “Now, as you’re all aware, there is a particularly large range of wealth in Pilon.” The display sprung to life with a graph of income disparity. “As a well as a not insignificant unemployed portion of the population,” the area under the graph, largely at the lower end, displayed a red shading in the lower-income area. “Now, our proposal is to offer ‘overseas’ to use an antique term, work to a large portion of the underclass of Pilon,” the display changed again, “in doing this, we would, at the present rate of pay in our own domestic-service and menial labour sectors, be able to offer a substantial pay increase to this portion of the population,” the display changed, “While also routing a certain amount of cost covering resources and profit to local bodies, which are of course, yourselves.

“What we require you to do, essentially, is arrange for recruitment of workers within Pilon itself. You obviously have far greater expertise in both logistics and marketing in this environment than we do. As well as this, we anticipate that this would create a greater market for pilonese exports to the Necronttyr empire,” he paused, waiting for questions.

The two groups listened to the proposal with great interest. As he continued to outline the plan the two eyed their opposition then returned their gazes to the presentation. Almost as soon as the presentation was done the head PPC representative spoke up.

"Obviously as the largest employer in Pilon you were right to choose us, and would be willing to sign an exclusive deal with you for labor services. PPC controls approximately 65% of the population, and with the numbers you're talking abut we could provide you with as many as 3 Billion workers."

The Genesis Corp representatives looked more and more agitated as PPC went on. Finally one of them spoke up. "Your figures are skewed, and while we tolerate your bloated figures within the confines of Pilon, where everyone knows the truth and that you are a relic of a past age we will not tolerate your lies in front of international buisness interests."
She then turned to address Erahere.

"What PPC tells you about their numbers is completely untrue. PPC still counts affiliate co-ops that have ceased their buisness with PPC in their numbers, including all of Genesis Corp and independant Co-ops that freelance for us or the other megacorps. Like those ancient Earth religions of the past they seem to think that once you are a member, its for life and have become completely lost with the realities of modern day Pilon.
Now, if you will take a look at these figures."

She motioned and a 3d graph appeared in front of them.

"These are the figures for the number of terrorist and other destructive acts against PPC over the last couple of decades. As you can see the numbers have steadily risen to the point that are now, with as much as 1/3rd of all buisness transactions through PPC having some sort of sabortage or scandal involved. Do you really want to do buisness with someone who has such bad management of their buisness contracts? With Genesis corp you won't have these kinds of problems. We are a smaller buisness but we can offer you buisness that will be uninterrupted and of the same quality as PPC's. I'm sure they were going to get to this but I think that since they would not even acknowledge us as legitimate competitors they would also likely fail to mention that we can offer the same services they can. As the two largest corps in Pilon, together I think we can offer you somewhere around 2 - 2.5 billion workers total. In addition we will offer you custom designed prospects, have a particular race, set of physical features, sex, or even longevity in mind? We can custom mod our workers to meet your needs. In addition, if you provide us with details of your requirements our social conditioning will help shape their personalities to be best suited for your needs."

Finally the Genesis Corp Rep stopped, the smirked at the PPC reps who looked both stunned and angry. After several seconds the PPC reps spoke up again.

"If you feel a need to choose us both as your buisness partners and do not desire to show favortism that may cause problems with the Pilonese populace then PPC would be willing to accept a non-exclusive contract with you. We do dispute the claims of Genesis corp, especially in regards to our unreliability, but this is neither the place nor the time to argue over economics, this is the time to make deals that will benefit all involved parties."

Erahere found the backbiting of the two pilonese companies most amusing. It would be interesting to find out how much of this corporate sabotage was created by Genesis Corp. “Very interesting,” he said, “I’m certain that such sabotage would be a problem if we were to deal exclusively. However, if we were to have separate contracts with both of you, I’d have to have certain assurances that the overall incidences of such attacks are reduced overall.

“Our backers are concerned with ethics, and wouldn’t be too keen on our getting anyone killed by such a contract. Thus, if there’s too many such incidents in either contract, we might be forced to reconsider both of them,” he said. It was of course, a barb to keep both of them from savaging each other like wild dogs as soon as they weren’t being supervised.

“I must say, the Genesis Corporation offer intrigues me,” he added, looking at the Pilon Peoples Corporation representative as he sat down in the body-conforming chair, “would you be able to offer a matching ‘service?’

He wasn’t exactly disgusted or repelled by the Pilonese willingness to alter their own population to meet external demands. Firstly, he was all for genetic engineering, being a product of it himself, but secondly, he was a particularly cavalier and even ‘racist’ individual, even amongst the necrontyr, who were known for a certain degree of species discrimination, something that worked two ways, in that most necrontyr trusted their own species and nationalities implicitly, and almost universally viewed outsiders as either flat out inferior or unworthy of trust.

The Pilonese definitely fell into the ‘flat out inferior’ category, thus, to Erahere’s mind, modifying them to be more pliant was simply a matter of convinience.

The PPC rep smiled contentedly. "I am sure we can work together with our friends in Genesis Corp to reduce the number of incidents related to our contract here. It seems that at certain times in the past, when the proper effort was applied such incidents were dramatically reduced."

He eyed the Genesis corp reps with a smirk on his face, but they seemed to ignore the comments.

"Like my esteemed PPC friend there said, I'm sure something can be arranged to reduce the number of incidents related to this deal. We do after all value our good relations with you."

Then the PPC rep spoke up again. "In answer to your question about our ability to offer the same types of services as Genesis corp. Yes, indeed we can offer the same range of services, quite likely at a lower cost, though I'm sure Genesis corp would argue against that point. Just exactly how many workers were you looking at contracting out through us anyways?"

The necrontyr contemplated briefly, “Let’s say we want as many as we can get,” he said, quite truthfully, “So potentially two point five or three billion in the long run, depending on who I believe,” he grinned “As for characteristics we’d like, well, the preferred species would be those who fit into the roles we’re after. Humans and elves,” he noted that the Pilonese elf-species were somewhat different from those, “will probably be the most suitable.

“Our customers will probably want a heavy gender bias towards females, tall and slender are considered most attractive. In the short term, longevity isn’t an issue, I doubt many workers would be interested in staying in their roles indefinitely. If however, you plan to breed workers especially, then maximal longevity is required. I’ll see about forwarding more detailed specifications in a few days time. We’ll need to conduct some market research on the issue.

“Which brings me to my next point. I am told that the ‘nodelink’ your nation uses would presently function intermittently on Duat, as besides a significant time lag. I think it would be most convenient for our uses to set up our own compatible server system that would also allow us to monitor data flow. I suspect that many of our customers would far prefer the ability to monitor what data their workers are transmitting,” he added.

The Two groups of reps grew silent, seeming to rapidly exchange glances with one another like they were in deep conversations, then the PPC Rep spoke up.
"We have conferred with our superiors back home, as has Genesis"
The Genesis Reps nodded.
"The Those specifications shouldn't be too hard to achieve. Initially our output will be a little slow, but with a year or so we should be able provide you with an optimum number of workers. Within 5 years we could reach our maximum output there, probably close to 2.5 Billion at that time, and from then on we should be able to maintain that number for as long as your are interested, though the rate of increase beyond that would be severely limited.

Regarding the nodelink and your security concerns, we would be willing to provide you access to a node access port, when combined with a FTL gate, either provided by us or yourselves, whichever you prefer they would be able to access the gate through the node access port, which you could monitor. Would this be acceptable?"

Erahere nodded a little, “I suspect we’d be far more comfortable routing the data through our own communications systems, to a hub in Sentinel Two,” he said, “rather than a dedicated FTL gate. They’re much the same thing though, using our existing systems. I’m sure we can work out the details,” he concluded.

“And yes, Five years sounds good, though we’d be prepared to understand considerable delays, we weren’t anticipating such welcome efficiency in the first place. And now, if you don’t mind, I shall have to confer with my own superiors about the market research for future breeds of employees. What’s the practical upper limit on lifespan you can provide, at present by the way?”

Again the Pilonese looked at each other, as if they were in deep discussion with one another, exchanging glances and facial expressions changing as discussion was rapidly exchanged between them, then they turned their attention to their guest again.

"The Pilonese pride themselves on efficiency. Especially when it comes to our buisness interests or the exchange of information. As far as expected lifespan is concerned, we have pharmaceuticals that will extend their lifespan indefinately as long as they continue treatment. The big killer among us is disease, usually those who survive that will continue on as long as they wish to."

With that they raised their hands into the air, palms facing Erahere.

"We thank you for this opportunity to meet with you, may your travels bring you great prosperity, and let your life be bountiful."

Elwyn then offered to escort him back to his ship.

To: Personnel Managers, PPC & Genesis Corp
From: ILC and Associates
Subject: Amendment of orders for the financial years IY 319 through 323

It has come to our attention that the current employment of Osages in the Necrontyr Empire is considered by many to be undesirable, reflecting poorly on both our own business and on the programme under which we operate. As well as this, due to the reputation of Osages as troublemakers, their labour is currently less desirable than that of competitors. As such, we currently find the Osage complement of our continuing arrangement with you to be unprofitable.

As such, we are giving notice of the cessation of Osage contracts over the coming four years. While our interactions with both PPC and Genesis Corp have been productive and indeed, pleasant, we cannot conscience continued interaction with Osages in the current business environment.

In other news, though I have no doubt you know it already, I am pleased by the recent announcement of the number of Pilonese citizens employed under our programme reaching three billion, a testament to a long-standing and productive working relationship which I can only hope continues far into the future.

Yours Faithfully,
Erahere Mornfinnel