NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This is picking up from a RP on another forum related to NS after a last-ditch effort to evacuate folks from a region of space about to be conquered. FYI, Sculptor is a dwarf galaxy 285,000 LYs from Earth within the general vicinity of the Milky Way.

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IC:

It had been hours since the one-way hyperspace jump brought them to Sculptor, their new home.

All that remained of the Imperium of New Haven, driven from their systems by the threat of imminent invasion, was now well outside the galactic boundary of the Milky Way. Their identity was worthless this far out from home, and all they had left were ten shipyards in tow and six million people aboard colony ships. They had no world to settle on, no resources other than that from interstellar gases (and it was meager at best), and no allies. Their old allies from the Milky Way had no idea they were out here.

They were effectively on their own.

"Candidate star system identified several light-years from the dropzone," Captain Watterson called back to his crewmen aboard the Imperial Colony Vessel ICV Rockforge. "Long-range sensors are reading water, methane, oxygen, and carbon dioxide on a planet just passing in front of a star. Looks good."

"We'll spend weeks analysing the planet to make sure its safe," Watterson's Executive Officer, Terrance Smith, said as he began running over the atmospheric data. "Think its worth a probe?"

"Better than going there ourselves and finding out someones home. Launch the probe."

A small FTL probe, carrying just enough power to make the jump to the planet, engaged its hyperspace module and jumped to the nearby system. Only time would tell if anything was there or not.

"Why do we get stuck with all the boonies assignments?" Ensign LeBek groused as they preformed survey duties in system 11004544-C. "why don't they send a scout ship to do this crap."
"Easy LeBek, it was in our way." Lt Commander Preil replied, "Now quit your bellyaching."

The Defiant was presently surveying the planet, when a probe appeared.
"Well well, what do we have here?" Captain Truke said, "I guess someone is interested in this system as well, wonder who they are."

ooc: The Defiant is a corvette(100 m) in length.

The probe began its scans of the planet, reading a very mild overall climate with vast tropical and temperate forests, but no arctic or tundra zones. The planet lay 0.92 AUs from its parent star, a Sol-like G2V-type star. After the probe completed its preliminary scans it picked up the scout craft, scanning it softly with gravitic and EM scanners.

The probe reviewed its database, finding nothing like it on record. It decided on its own to initiate first contact. The probe hailed the scout, sending a simple interactive puzzle of shapes and colors. If the crew could figure it out, the probe would open FTL communications with the fleet and notify them that contact had been confirmed.

"What the," Truke said as he looked at the flashing do-hicky puzzle. "Tria." He called out.
"Yes, got a puzzle for you." She asked

As she looked at the puzzle, she began sliding pieces, and reorganising them into thier appropriate shapes. As she finished, it was returned, completed, to sender.

The probe received the puzzle and immediately analyzed it to make sure it wasn't randomly thrown together by non-sentient forces (interference, background interference, etc.). After it made its split-second analysis, the probe's 4-year old equivalent intelligence realized what was going on and called home. The probe then became a relay, and the fleet hailed the unknown vessels.

"Attention unknown vessels, this is the ICV Rockforge," Watterson hailed, his voice translated into 50 languages used back in the Milky Way and one mathematical representation. "We are new to this region of space and welcome the chance to find friends. To whom are we speaking?"

"Interesting, someone want's to talk." Tria commented

Keying the mike, Truke spoke, and his words were transmitted on the same frequency as the message was sent on.

"This is Captain Truke, of the TINS Defiant, who might I ask is calling?"

"This is Captain Watterson of the Imperial Colony Vessel Rockforge," Watterson replied over the FTL comm. line. "We've come a long way and were scouting this system for possible colonization. If we don't settle down somewhere soon, we might not survive another week on our rations, not with the rest of our population in stasis. Do you claim the world we are currently surveying?"

"No, we were going to strip the system, but if you need it, you can have it." Truke sent back.

"Thank you kindly, Captain Truke. We'll continue our survey before continuing to the system. We'll stay in touch, Watterson out." The reminants of the Imperial Fleet stirred with activity as they prepared to make their FTL jump into the system as soon as the world they were surveying was cleared for habitation. It would only be a matter of hours before the cryogenically suspended inhabitants were allowed to breathe fresh air again.

Truke decided to 'safeguard' the system until it's new, unknown inhabitants arrived. As such, he deployed the only, and salvageable, claim beacons.

As the ship continued doing scanning, and it's crew relaxing, they waited to see who, and what the real owners of the system would be like.

"Fleet, prepare to jump to the planet on my mark. Preliminary scans reveal minor xenobiologicals, nothing good ol' Terran flora and fauna can't replace. Mark." The Rockforge and the rest of the fleet of colony ships and shipyards engaged hyperspace and entered their new Homeworld system. Within seconds, the ships dropped from hyperspace into an equatorial orbit.

"From this point on, we run under a new IFF identifier. Begin searching for any old abandoned alien settlements, minerial deposits, or God forbid one of those "Stargate" things. Last thing we need is an open door into our home."

"Colony vessels are to land immediately and disembark folks," Watterson continued. "Shipyards are to engage their cloaks and maintain geosyncronous orbit. Launch mining drones and begin collecting resources from the nearby asteroid fields."

"Welcome, might we speak with you in person?" Truke sent out, "Also, how do you like your new system as yet?"

Meanwhile the Defiant regathered the claim beacon and awaited the response.

"You may meet us at our settlement site in five hours," Watterson radioed as his ship began to enter the atmosphere of the world. "This world suits our current needs and well within our tolerances. A more fitting word for it would be 'excellent'."

Truke chuckled as he sent back, "And if you'd been a scant few weeks later you'd have found it either a barren hulk, or an asteroid field."

OOC: To remove confusion, Turkimen is not the country involved in this RP. I made a FT puppet, United Slovakia, but the forum name is stuck in hiatus as Jolt plays around with their forums. So in the meantime, I'll be posting my puppets posts on this forum name. This is just to remove undue confusion.

IC:
On basic scanners, another blip is noteable, as a ship comes out of hyperspace without any type of stealth or grace in it's nature.

A cruiser, the USFS Vertigo is, by default a warship, but has been outfitted with more scanners and less cannons for this particular run. As a scout ship for the United Slovakian Federation, it seems to be looking at this general aerospace as well. The Vertigo is a small ship, definitely smaller then a colony ship or any other capitol ship for that matter, but larger then most fighters or even corvettes averaging at about 300-500 meters in length

"Commisar, we've reached the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy and are ready to run through basic diagnostics. This place seems to have a few planets that are safe for habitation, but this one seems to be the best according to our quick calculations."
Commisar Gregarov looked at the viewscreen. A large green planet lay before him, seeming to be about the right calculations for what the Federation had wanted according to his onboard instruments.

Blips formed on the space born instruments as the cruiser honed in on the other two craft.
"Commisar sir, we've picked up two other craft in the area. One appears to be a capitol ship!" A panicked corporal exclaimed suddenly.

"Do we have visual readings?"
"No sir!"
"Establish a contact link with them, send a nuetral request for the confirmation of what they are here for, and their current status. Keep battlements on alert, though I doubt at current strength we could do much more then run off against a capitol ship."
"Yes sir, I'll do that."

The corporal sent out a nuetral beacon, just a series of bleeps that on a normal viewfinder would identify the incoming ship as a nuetral entity with people on board.

ooc: Are you messaging my ship?
I don't think so as it's only 100 m in length, and not a capital ship, but just checking.

Task Force Talon, Destroyer Earned in Blood, Baltic System

Rear Admiral Durchan yawned and pushed some of her green hair our of her eyes and peered at yet another data slate, it bore the same sentance as it did last time she saw it.

TFT Encountering Zero resistence in Balticopolis.

"What can we do but sit and wait?"

"Rear Admiral, Civil Protection and the railway engineers wish to get to the surface to begin their work." Whispered a figure in a long trench coat, monacle and a peaked cap, all in black, the easily identifiable figure of the NAAFDB.

"Mm? Oh, Yes, certainly Harold, you can begin to send them down when you wish."

"Oh, and the Last Hope wishes to know when it can start dumping its cargo across the planet." Harold turned from his console again and spoke in the same unnerving whisper."

Durchan rolled her eyes and started to play with the cuff of her uniform.
"Yes, let them do it whenever they wish." she tutted and looked back at the data slate.

Star Scout Hopeless Conqueror, Sculptor Galaxy

How the feck did I end up here? thought Johnny Vegas as he peered at the star map, the red dot representing him blipped at random intervals.
This...this is not good, however, it is my job to map the stars, n stuff, so... he started pushing knobs and twisting buttons, or was it the other way around? He never could quite remember, and things began to work and scan, and log into the data core of the retro-looking-ship.

ooc to Thaeo: The message itself is to all ships in the area that can pick it up, his remark about the "capitol ship" was a misnomer of the colony ship. They believe it to be a war vessel from the distance their at, or something that may be armed (hence the readiness).

"Why hello." Truke sent back, "We were here to mark the system for optimal salvage and mining, but that fell throught."

*The series of blips was returned back, confirming that it reached it's target, and a split second afterwards Theo's message came through.*

"Greetings to you sir, this is Commisar Gregarov of the USFS Vertigo, we read you, and are here to confirm that we wish to colonize this planet for mining and resources. Is your nation too claiming this planet? Indeed, which ship am I talking too, and are they from the same nation or race? Commisar out."

*The Commisar waited impatiently for a response, curious as to if he could land his vessel, or if he'd have to make the return trip somehow on his already low amount of fuel.*

"We'll you're talking to the Captain Truke of the Defiant. We are the smaller of the ships present. As to claiming this planet, I'm afraid that you'd have talk to the owners of this system, as we don't own it." Was the reply message.

(On the surface)

"Imperatrix, wake up, the sun is shining," a voice said to the young leader of the exiles. The Imperator opened her eyes, noting that the transparent sheath around the cryogenics capsule had been removed and she was resting comfortably inside the pod's comfortable interior.

"Where are we?" The Imperatrix asked the figure standing before her, her eyes adjusting to the light and her body adjusting to her post-cryogenic state.

"We're on a new world in the Sculptor Galaxy, and our people are safe," the figure said. The Imperatrix's eyes finally adjusted properly, revealing the figure to be her aide, an Ensign in the old Imperial Navy named John Stark.

"Damn John, you didn't have to be dramatic about it, you could've just told me we were in Sculptor," the Imperatrix said. "Whats the status of the fleet?"

"We only brought along a Daedalus prototype being tested at Far Haven. The rest of the fleet was scuttled in orbit of the planet before we made the jump to prevent its capture," Stark replied. "We're currently establishing shipyards in orbit and launching mining drones. We've also come across an exploration party..."

"What? From where?"

"We're trying to establish that, but they've been very friendly since our arrival and allowed us to settle here," Stark replied. "We're also currently locating a stargate so we can establish contact with the resistance back in the Milky Way. We won't be able to send people, and with the power output we're capable of, we'll only manage burst communications."

"Better than nothing, I guess," the Imperatrix replied. "How is the resettlement going?"

"Well, we've already begun work on farms and temporary housing until we can mine enough material to begin building small cities. What is your command, your highness?"

"Bring together representatives brought along from the colonies and the Homeworld, we're going to establish a constitution and government before the week is out."

"Yes, Imperatrix."

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(In Orbit)

The Shipyard "Newman's Pride", one of ten massive shipyards made from hollowed out asteroids that made it to Sculptor, settled into its new orbit above the planet. It had received the communication from the incoming ship, and had notified it to "Stand by."

"Acknowledged Captain, and who would the owner of this planet be then?" Said Commisar Gregarov to the Captain of the Defiant over the communications channel, "No matter, we'll send a few envoys down to the surface and find out for ourselves. Be advised, motions off our ship are other ships, and we not firing upon you. We wouldn't want any relations being shot so prematurely. Pun quite intended. Gregarov out."

Gregarov turned to the colonel, "Send Field Officer Garin down in the ambassador craft, and keep a private channel open at all times on him, so we can keep tabs of his side of the conversation."

"Yes sir!"

At that, the only hanger bay on the ship was opened hastily, the sparse amount of oxygen not properly ventilated out of the bay leaving a whitish mist where the doors once were as Garin launched off in the painted white pod.

OOC: haha! Just FYI, this is Turkimen. I'll be using this account to reply to this thread from now on now that I have my stupid account finally working. Again, just to minimize confusion.

"Got it, thought you needn't worry, our scanners can determain between shuttles, fighters and missiles." Truke sent back.

Meanwhile, the Defiant's Begal shuttle dropped down, streaking toward the site of the colony.

"We are not going to build a citadel," The Imperatrix said as she looked at the schematics for their temporary settlement. "We're not going to stay here forever, we are eventually going back to confront the aggressors."

"Your highness, I think its time to face facts," Commodore Preston, CINC of the Special Projects Division of the Imperial Armed Forces, said to the Imperatrix. "If we return to the Milky Way any time soon, we face certain defeat. We may not return in our lifetimes, and we may have to keep our capital here."

"Hyperspace technology is not that forgiving, Commodore," Doctor Jacob Riley replied. "We burnt out a gate entirely back in the Milky Way just getting here. In order to establish a permanent connection to the Milky Way, we'd need a gate 35 times as powerful as the Hermes Gate. Without Bryn Shander or Hallad to assist us, construction of a gate of that magnitude would take decades, maybe even centuries."

"We could reduce the aperture," Doctor Wilma Price said as she brought out a datapad she was able to procure before leaving her office in the University of New Freeport. "A gate with the power of Hermes but an aperture of only five kilometers could do the trick. Problem is, we'd need to either attack immediately or find somewhere to settle permanently until we could reacquire our territory."

"Then we go as turtles," the Imperatrix suggested. "We take our homes with us in "settlement ships", bring everything we need to restart but with a fundamental level of self-sufficiency until we can reestablish ourselves in our systems. These ships will contain a hyperspace module more powerful than any forged before, enough habitable living space for 100 million people, and a copy of the Imperial Library. If we divide our people into tribes, we can further guarantee that our people will survive."

"Four colonies, four tribes," Anthropologist and Historian Gordon Mayfield noted. "New Haven, Asherton, Stanley and Baltic, each tribe made up of the colonies from where they originated from."

"That would ultimately divide us too much and we'd never accomplish anything," Lieutenant Stark said as he drank from a canteen.

"Then the Imperator shall be the thing that links us together," Mayfield replied. "The Imperator or Imperatrix shall have the power to call the tribes together for a common purpose. If its built into a constitution, this should work out well."

"We can work out the culture problems when we return to New Havenic space," the Imperatrix noted. "Very well, out with the old, in with the new." She had barely finished that sentence when engines could be heard in the distance. "What is that?"

"Probably the folks we talked to earlier, we should go greet them now, your highness," Stark said as they walked off to meet with the dilpomats from this new galaxy.

Field Officer Garin landed his craft ackwardly on the a rather marshy bit of grass, stepping out with a view of distaste pretty obvious on his lips. He didn't like his assignment as senior diplomat of his ship. He, indeed, didn't particularly enjoy being a diplomat at all, but he was forced into such roles after a rather odd incident in the military left him out in the cold. Now he was stuck on yet another barely civilized alien planet. Oh Joy.

He walked through the marsh, his boots fortuneatly keeping him from getting too wet as he stepped onto dry ground and looked around. No one. Well what the hell good is a diplomat when their is no one to speak to?!

He finally spotted a party, coming towards him slowly, and waved them in his direction, walking casually towards them as they did him.

"Hello!" He shouted simply in Slovakian, in his anger at his mission he had forgotten to flip his vocal translators on...

The Begal Shuttle landed nearby, but a distance away from the other ship.
LT. Yeor, as well as Crewman Pel disembarked and headed to meet the party that the other group was headed to meet as well.

Yeor adjusted her hair, and brushed a piece of lint off her lapel, as she wished to make the best impression possible. Pel mimicked his superior's action, and made himself as presentable as possible on the walk over.

"Oh hell, this is going to be fun," Stark noted as he heard the alien language. "Someone forgot their translator."

"Yeah, good thing we brought ours, whatever good that'll do us if we haven't met these folks before," the Imperatrix noted as she nodded her head to the diplomat from the USFS Vertigo, momentarilly turning off her translator to present them with a native greeting in its native tongue (based on Latin). "Salve! Welcome to the encampment of the..." The Imperatrix stopped for a second. The old Imperium was almost 300,000 LYs away, their old national name would carry no weight here. "...The Rogue Peoples of Sculptor. We have finally found a home for us to regroup upon and prepare to rejoin our space-faring neighbors amongst the stars. Come, both of you," the Imperatrix continued to the delegate just emerging from their spacecraft. "There is much to discuss."

Yeor and Pel both gestured in a manner that was both salute, and greeting.
"Greetings, I am Lieutenant Yeor, and this is crewmen Pel. We would be most interested in what this discussion will lead to, so, shall we be off?" She asked

Garin winced as he realized his first mistake. Reaching down to his arm he fumbled a bit with an attached translator. He knew latin, and knew what it sounded like, but not much of how to say it, just understand it. And even this he truly didn't understand, it seemed like an awkward offshot of Latin. He groaned as he only made out that they were some type of empire, and that they were the people of Sculptor. He finally found "Latin" in his translator, and said again, something close to what the Imperatrix would understand.

"Greetings! I apologize for the misunderstanding of languages. I understand little Latin myself, but I just want to make myself known as a friendly diplomat looking for negotiations."

Garin noted this as he came closer, no longer having to yell across the marsh as he shook off his boots. He didn't seem to care about his general appearance, still appearing in his old military uniform, he seemed as menacing as his words seemed comforting. Scars etched across his face as his smile seemed trustworthy, not hiding any intentions of evil that you can make out, but dark and foreboding in it's appearance. It didn't help that his mood didn't reflect his message either, though it was replaced slowly by curiousity at who you all truly were.

Perhaps I underestimated my companions world here... refugees they seem like, but of a planet far more powerful then the Federation. I should play my cards wisely, a friendship here could mean the life or death of our people in this galaxy, our home galaxy.

OOC: Sorry for the extended delay, college is a real bitch.

IC:

"Yes, there is much to discuss," The Imperatrix said to both parties. She motioned to the delegations to follow her into a temporary domed structure that stood 30 feet over the countryside, semi-completed with only a few more foam pieces to seal into place.

Inside the structure was a dark oak three-sided table, able to seat eighteen people (six to each side). The Imperatrix moved to the side facing the back of the dome and sat down. "Come and sit down so we may begin our talks."

Yeor and Pel both inclined their heads as they each took one of the offered seats at the table. Yeor folded her hands on the table while Pel had his in his lap.

I notice the gathering and move over towards the building, attempting to get a closer look.

"I wonder what he is doing here", I say to myself. My old lover and submissive is now a diplomat.

"So, what do the gathered delegations wish to discuss," The Imperatrix said as she sat at her end of the table. She never laid her hand out at a diplomatic meeting, it was too easy to allow the other side to get a foothold. Also, she did not wish to part with anything that could not be parted with.

"To begin with, it my help if we knew what casused you to be in the situation you happen to be in." Yeor replied

"Our homeworld and our colonies were overrun with many enemy fleets back in our home galaxy over a trivial incident," The Imperatrix continued. "We defended ourselves from pirates in order to protect a high-profile weapons convoy from being raided. Shortly after the first raid, the colony the weapons were heading to so that the colony could protect itself from such activity was placed under a hostile blockade. When we attempted to go through the blockade, our convoy was again raided and we self-destructed it to prevent the capture of weapons and technology. The blockading fleet and their allies quickly neutralized the orbital colony, which had a population of 10 million strong prior to the incident. The colony surrendered, but we then received intelligence that the pirates were again in the area, so we decided to eliminate the pirates once and for all."

"When we engaged with our combined fleet, the blockader with a massive gathered fleet destroyed the ships as they exited from a tactical FTL shortjump. We hadn't even opened fire, and the fleet's admirals tried to reason with them, but they kept firing. With our combined fleet destroyed, it was only a matter of time before the systems would have been cut off and the planets bombarded. We were damn lucky to have escaped to our backup site many many light years from our homeworld, but we decided that in order to improve our chances of survival, our best hope was to not wait for the enemy to arrive and to jump to Sculptor. The jump burnt out the FTL gate on the Milky Way side, so we are effectively stranded here until we can rebuild our fleets and return to our homes so we may reclaim them."

"I will tell you this," The Imperatrix said as her voice got softer. "There isn't a day when I think about the people we left behind. I left behind a brother and sister and all but 6 million people. If our worlds have truly been annihilated, which I fear they have, we are the last of our people. This does not mean we are weakened by any stretch of the imagination, you probably noted our shipyards in orbit and have taken measure of their potential firepower. We mean no harm to those who would be our friends and potentially our allies in the long term. However, we will not hesitate to defend what little we have left. That is not a threat against the gathered parties, but rather a promise to the band of survivors that has lost so much, yet still breathes free."

"Then what do you feel you need?" Yeor asked

Pel had pulled out a small data-pad and began punching in commands.

"For the mean time, we need our space," The Imperator stated. "We require a buffer zone of at least three light years so that we may better protect ourselves, should our enemies come looking for us. We also ask that if the following IFF signatures or drive signatures..." The Imperator handed over a pad containing a list of enemy IFF and drive signatures. "...come onto your sensor screens that you immediately notify us so that we can take precautionary measures."

"We can provide you with the buffer, thought can not guarantee that others might. We will inform you if any of these drive sigs or transponders come into range of our sensors." Yeor replied