NationStates Jolt Archive

Arteme was the one Confederal holding not located on the surface of the Earth. Classified as part of the Confederal Sovereign Territory and thus governed by the Confederal Assembly rather than any Member legislature, Arteme primarily served as the home of the Confederal Deep Space Agency. When the land had been initially purchased from Menelmacar, which still bordered Arteme in all four directions, it had been intended as a jumping off point for further expansion into space. Since the Shattering and consequent reorientation of the nation, however, it had come to be seen more as a watchtower guarding an essentially terrestrial nation.

Arteme was now devoted almost entirely to the CDSA and to those sections of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Defense which specialized in dealings with space powers. The city’s once vibrant civilian community had diminished greatly since it had become apparent that there would be no expansion outward and when Arteme had thus become not the hub of a space-faring civilization but the isolated outpost of a terrestrial nation.

This did not mean, of course, that there were not some who proudly called Arteme home. They largely catered to the men and women stationed in the city by the CDSA and the Departments of Defense and Foreign Affairs and, when the city grew too provincial for them, they grabbed their passports and headed over to Menelmacari Luna where they could enjoy more cosmopolitan entertainments and the Menelmacari could make the profits associated with tourists from near and far.

It was on the outskirts of Arteme that the Order of the Falcon maintained their headquarters. It was located in a tower built into the base of the city’s walls and extending upward past where the wall curved away into the transparent dome which held in the city’s essentially manufactured atmosphere. From the observation deck of the tower, one could see out directly over the Lunar surface or over the city below from above the dome. The tower also possessed its own airlocks so that one could enter the tower directly from the Lunar surface or exit the tower without going through the city.

These airlocks, however, were not to be used today. It was at the other entrance to the tower from Arteme proper that Sir Baegseg Bakken and Princess Damia waited for their Sakkran guests. Sir Baegseg was a Troll. He stood well over seven feet in height and had blue skin and bulging muscles. Other than that, he was essentially humanoid. He wore black boots, black trousers and a black t-shirt. Damia, on the other hand, was dressed in the colorful if somewhat revealing costume she had adopted as the Champion. Sometimes she thought it was a little tacky but it worked with her muscular and well-formed figure.

The Sakkrans had expressed a certain interest in what the Confederals knew about the paranormal at a recent function and President Kairis had, in turn, arranged for Sakkrans to meet with the Order of Steel and the Order of the Falcon. That meeting had been set up to take place in the tower.

Something happened on Sslaa IV. An entire civilization ha dbeen nearly wiped out in a flash. Once this watery world was home to the Trilarians, an aquatic race with common history with Sakkra before the reptiles found themselves on Earth millenia ago. Sakkran records had numerous holes in it at that time, and it was hoped the trilarians, despite their reticence to the Sakkrans, would help fill in the gaps. But they vanished in what was assumed was a farctal-reality-inversion, or in other words a dimensional implosion. As such, it was officially written off and left alone. Unofficially, a new branch had been formed to investigate and deal with supernormal events such as this.

As such, this new group with the monicker of S.Oc.I.T. (Supernormal Occult Investigation Teams. Sounds like socket), was present at Sslaa IV. The only indicator they even existed was the unique ships meant solely for their use. With the branding of Paniluris (http://www.5amfunnies.com/sakkra/space/shell.JPG), these were go-anywhere, do-anything crafts. The one present at the time was called Daigu in honor of the crafter-monk who made the protective runes now covering the ship possible.

The ship was mostly manned by the psi-sensitive Grass-Walkers, and the tough and hardy Deep Ones. At present several of the Deep Ones were swimming about in the ruins of an ex-Trilarian city. the domes and base skeletons of the habi-structures were still in one piece and serviceable, but there was nothing else. No computers, power supply lines or even any form of technology or life at all. They took all the readings they could, gathered whatever data was avaiable and returned to their ship.

The commander of this ship was Medium Theela, a smallish Grass Walker female at 6'4". Her jewel-like eyes looked over the data on the pad she held. Having no true speech organs, she relied on ambient telepathic communication. "So little information to go on. I'm getting ambient impressions in the area, but nothing stays in my mind. We can do nothing here until we learn more of what we're looking for."

Exorcist Grruh, a Deep One covered from head to toe with sigils of amplification on his 9' tall frame, tapped a part of the display showing the date and time. His mouthplates gnashed as he reminded the Medium "Appointment to keep." She affects a touch of absent-mindedness. "Ah, of course. Let us go. Helmsman, lay in our course. Daigu...."

"Yes, Medium?" The voice of Daigu had the sound of an eager youngster going on his first trip into unknown lands. "Take us into orbit and prep us for sub-spatial insertion. Fastest speed to meet with the Order of the Falcon and the Order of Steel." With little time wasted, the craft exited Sslaa IV, and seemed to just slip into a hole in space.

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It didn't take long for the Daigu to arrive in Arteme's sphere of control. The ship toned down its ambient shielding, made its queries regarding coordinates, docking protocols and other behaviors meant to ensure a safe docking. Of the 1,800 crewmembers stationed aboard the Daigu only two were going out. Medium Theela and Exorcist Grruh. Theela in a long slit dress made black leather, with matching elbow-length fingerless gloves, and Grruh wearing the traditional sash across his chest.

The mental speech comes from the Grass-Walker, and is of an ambient nature. "Good cycle to you both, Sirrah Bakken and Princess Damia. I am Medium Theela and this gentle creature with me is Exorcist Grruh." An arm indicates the Deep One behind and to the left of her. Grruh bows slightly.

The Sakkrans encountered no difficulties in landing or in making their way through the city. Soon they were before the entrance to the tower. Princess Damia and Sir Baegseg both bowed. Damia spoke first. "We are most pleased to meet you. We hope that we might be of help in your inquiries into the paranormal."

Theela bowed her head slowly. Every move she made seemed slow, graceful and methodical. Her eyes blinked as she raised her head again, and the mental speech came through once more. "The thanks are ours to give to you. We have not much experience in dealing with the paranormal, thaumaturgical or metaphysical. Any and all tutelage would be graciously accepted."

Grruh's voice, in contrast, is as rough and abrasive as #2 sandpaper scraping down the side of a five o'clock shadow. "In attending, hoped that better understanding will help dealings with things happening close to home. We are in your care." The pair bow once again. It seems to be a running theme for them.

Damia inclined her head. "Come with us please." The two led their Sakkran guests into the tower and to a lift which took them up to the observation deck on the highest level. A wide variety of beings were gathered there. There was a stocky man with thick, bushy eyebrows. There was a woman who looked like a human of Arabic extraction except for her pointed ears. There was a man with gnarled bones and strange black swirling patterns on his white skin. Another creature seemed to have tail and ears of a wallaby and the body of a young woman. A more monstrous looking thing had grey skin, dull, yellow teeth and bolts driven into its flesh in numerous places. Another woman, this one a little older, seemed to have the legs and horns of a goat. She wore no clothing. A pale creature dressed entirely in black seemed almost entirely shrouded in the shadows of one corner of the room. A towering Trolless stood at attention. There was a short man with the fur of an otter, a gigantic creature made of rock, a woman who seemed to be a lovely human of Amerindian descent except that she was only two feet in height, a man with the tail of a beaver, a man who looked like an Amerindian human of five feet, a woman with long toes and fingers and glowing eyes, a small green woman, a man who looked like a kachina doll, a solidly built woman with pleasant eyes, a rather feminine looking man with webbed fingers and toes, an eerily tall old man with only one arm, a man with ivory inset into his chin, a plump woman in traditional Polynesian garb, a man with eyes that shine like the stars, a Polynesian woman with a perfect physique, a short redheaded man, a short woman with pale skin and pointed ears, a green man wearing only vines and leaves, a woman with features of a seal, a man with dark legs covered in octopus suction cups, an uncannily woman with shiny fish scales on her legs, an animate plastic figure, a humanoid stone creature, a misty looking air entity, a flame-based humanoid form, a woman made of wood and a number of creatures appearing to be humans of Asian extraction. The occupants of the room began to drift forward, looking at one another and at the Sakkrans. Damia looked around the room and then back towards her guests. "The most difficult question, to be frank, is just where to begin."

After ascending to the observation deck, Theela and grruh take a moment to look around at the myriad of life before them. "One would assume one begins at the neginning. But that might not hold true in this case. If it is on your end of things, begin wherever feels comfortable. If it's on our end, we could give a synopsis of why we desired to come. Theela's only vocalization comes in the form of a slightly trill whistling once in a while.

"There is not exactly a beginning." Damia said. "Or at least there is not a single beginning."

Sir Baegseg nodded to this. "But perhaps we can begin with the heart of the matter. In this nation, because most of the population are baseline humans with what, from our perspective, constitutes a contemporary technological base, the category of the paranormal is often considered much broader than it must be for the Sakkrans and both of our Orders are largely dedicated to protecting our people from what are referred to sometimes as "Special Threats" involving what, from our perspective, is futuristic technology, magic, the special abilities of certain types of sentients and what are known as fractal phenomena. We have tried to narrow this field towards those phenomena which we gather you are most interested in, those which are often referred to, somewhat inaccurately, as magic. In this nation, most of our experience with what might be turned magic comes from Fae like me. Our abilities in this area stem from our very nature. We are created not through normal biological processes but from the energies of the dreams, hopes and imagination of other creatures."

At the mentioning of the fractal phenomena, Grruh's claws seem to clack in a staccato rhythm as his head lifts up. Theela looks at him with ine eye, as the other keeps her surroundings in view. She returns her focus towards Sir Baegseg. "The fractal phenomena you speak of, as the good Exorcist here has signified, is a paramount concern for us right now. A planet in our system was colonized by a race that shared an ancient history with us. The civilization, for the most part, has completely disappeared except for some structural skeleton-work of their habitats. I have the visual records of our investigation there on datachit." She motions to Grruh, who reaches into his sash with his manipulators and produces a small black disc.

This is handed to Theela, who in turn hands it to Damia. "I do not know what you may be able to glean from this, but perhaps it would help designate a place to start."

Princess Damia frowned slightly as she took the disc. She walked over to a console and inserted it. Some of the others started to crowd around, trying to look over her shoulder and examine the contents. "I'll put it on the network." Damia said.

The next few minutes were spent retrieving laptops and other portable devices and sitting around looking at the contents of the disc. The woman made of wood frowned deeply as her stick-like fingers moved about on the console. "It is as in Akaton."

"Akaton?" Damia asked.

"Akaton was a nation once located in the Isles of Mists which has since vanished. However, in the case of Akaton, even the more precise memories of its existence have faded. No one knows exactly where it was, for example, even though it was within swimming distance of some of our territory. Our peoples were very close and the Empress of Akaton was of Danaan birth." the wood woman said.

"It is much the same. As you can see by the footage, we have done extensive surveying of the areas of habitation with no real findings. We have also sent communications to the Trilarian homesystem, but they always seem to find no recievers. Recon craft had been dispatched some time ago, and we've heard nothing from them yet except daily log-ins."

Grruh clacks his claws as his translator kicks in. "Sslaa is concerned. Happened close by, and no wind of it recorded. Just simply 'was' and then 'was not'."

"That is the nature of these fractal events as far as we understand them." Damia said. "They reflect basic changes to the nature of reality itself. It is likely that your neighbors simply are not now or at least not in this universe. What seems remarkable to us is that you are able to view fractal phenomena so clearly. In this country, our experience tends to be that our own memories and perspectives are affected along with physical reality so that we are usually not even aware that any change has occurred and can only pick up on it through indirect references. For example, during the fifteen years of the problems in Marlund, one finds references in some foreign newspapers to a few months of troubles and in others to only one or two years. One even finds references in legitimate foreign accounts giving the names of the different Danaan Principalities differently or assigning the nation to a different geographical location over in the Indian Ocean. All of this seems to us to be simple non-sense. We certainly don't remember anything like that ever having been different or any oddities in the movement of time. And yet there is the evidence."

"Perhaps it is our methods of thought that allow us to view these occurences differently. It is our findings that the majority of the known species think in a linear, two-dimensional manner, while we, and a few other species, think more in a three-dimensional way. This is only a theory, though." Theela lets a short chirp escape her mouth.

Grruh comes in as Theela composes her thoughts. "Interest is this. Have any fractal events had harbingers. Is it avoidable. Is there set chain of events leading to fractal event. Many questions, few answers for us."

"I don't know of any Harbringers." Damia said. "I don't see how they could have them. What has to be accepted rather than understood is that these events simply are not contained in reality properly understood."

"I see." Theela places a svelte claw on her chin. " I wonder if there are any records involving events similar to this, but perhaps named differently or described in a different way." She seems to pace a bit in thought. "Is there anything about the demise of civilizations attributed to some unknown deity or demonic force, or any other naming along those lines?"