NationStates Jolt Archive

The system was a type four planetary system - mostly rocky planetoids, and an asteroid belt without viable resources.

However, of interest was the sixth planet from the sun. The Biosphere was very curious, as the planet was rocked by massive seismic eruptions earlier in its life, creating plateaus and valleys that were extremely deep, sometimes far below sea level, sometimes high above. Curiously, through some advent of the sun and the odd thermal dynamics of the planet, there were jungles, life, burgeoning from every crevice and from all but the highest of the plateaus. Great flying reptiles and their smaller cousins (As near as the biosensors could tell) roamed the air, searching for their ideal food, stalks of monolithic plants that grew at the base of plateaus, and up their sides. However, nothing so dramatic a scenic locale woud be used today...

A sea level valley, river whipping the land into deltas, was chosen. The island was at least 5km long by half that, one of the smaller ones in the Delta, had been cleared by a weed-whacker (as the troops affectionately called the massive orange foresting machine) and the bunkers laid down. The Temmlar Generator and rudimentary supplies had been laid down, and then the preparation craft launched back to the Frigate in orbit. They would return, both of them, to the surface with the Ambassador and troops, as well as the remainder of supplies needed.

Now all that remained was for the Indoan Diplomats to arrive...

The Frigate checked the chronometers. Still within reasonable limits.

They would be here.

Two ships entered the system, exiting a wormhole. They were visually identical, both small, blocky vessels, one hundred and seventy metres in length. The UEC Frigate would recognise them as Vadra-E-class corvettes. These particular corvettes went by the names INV Night Prowler and INV Killing Ground.

The navy would have preferred to send the Smoking Gun or one of the ships from the reinforcement group, but they were too far away, and the Smoking Gun would be unavailable for some months. As it was, they had settled for crossloading the details of the events, including a record of all communications, to the two ships, in the hope that this would suffice.

They flashed an identification transmission to the UEC Frigate as they settled into an orbit around the same planet. They had conducted an extensive scan as they made their way from the wormhole to the planet. Once a subsequent scan of the planet had confirmed the location of the site, the corvettes placed themselves in a high geostationary orbit, which would require adjustments every three hours to maintain it, directly over the site.

On board the Night Prowler, the crew began loading the two MV-13 Assegai battlefield landers that would be used to transfer personnel and equipment between the ships and the surface. As promised, the weapons systems were left empty, and the laser cannons powered down, since the techs refused to dismantle something only to put it together again later.

'Captain. Contact.' Said the Sensors Manager, eyes focused on some distant point, Datalink interface bracelet sparkling in the artificial light. The Relentless was in low orbit, conducting a survey of the biological lifeforms below, curiosity compelling them to take an extensive sensor log.

'Move us into Geostationary orbit and ready the Landers.' He ordered, waving a hand into the hologram. The two ships appeared in high resolution, three dimensional relief. He waved the hologram away to be replaced by real time feed from the myriad sensors all over the ship. There was no 'bridge' per se, the smooth snubnosed frigate's Anti-Capital turrets were the only blemishes, and the sensors were more than adequate.

'Good.' Came the Avatar's voice, as he stepped out of the halflight afforded by the Frigate's crimson lighting. He stepped backwards and left, making nary a whisper.

'Lander 1 - I am on my way.' The Avatar leapt into the teleportal and was suddenly aft of the ship, hardly missing a step as he walked the fifty metres to the hangar.

~~~

'Lander 1 to Relentless ConCom - We are primed.'
'Understood. Safe Journey.' Came the reply, as the launch tube cycled open. From idle 0G to a withering 20G in under ten seconds, the tube propelled the craft from the belly of the Frigate towards the planet below.
The twin sharp nosed Landers suffered no ill effects, despite the high Gs. The inertial compensators incorporated in all UEC ships of the line were second to none.

ETA 5 minutes.

~ Right. There goes their lander. Time to send down the team, decided the Night Prowler's mind. It issued a launch warning to the team, consisting of, in a slight change from the numbers laid out in the comunication, ten Indoan Rangers and four of the naval crew, serving as ambassadors. The reason for this change was so that all the sentients of the Indoan Alliance would be represented: Matrai, Douran, Raishuv-Pyx and AI.

Each of the Assegais had its three-person crew, the two pilots and the loadmaster, but they would not leave the ships. One of the Assegais had no passengers, just cargo, the other carried some cargo in addition to the team.

The two blocky craft drifted out of the Night Prowler's hangar and began their gentle descent through the planet's atmosphere. As they descended, the Killing Ground fired a drone into the atmosphere to check to gas content. It assumed that the UEC had been careful selecting the location, but while two of the Indoan species breathed oxygen, the other breathed nitrogen. In addition, they had to make sure that there were no toxic gases, again the different requirements made it necessary, and that the air was pure enough for Matrai to breathe easily.

((The joys of being a teenager... Sorry about the wait.))

The AI was uplinked directly to the Frigate's Sensors, watching the two landers spiral towards the planet. His gaze was locked on some far away point, possibly one of the giant plateau-forests. His mind was focused on those landers.

'Right. Here they come. Activate the Temmlar and unload the rest of the cargo.' Said the Ambassador, flicking his hair out of his eyes absent mindedly, before finally focusing on a giant reptile, swooping low over the valley in search of the monolith stalks. Flocking to its hide was myriad smaller reptiles - cousins or perhaps young, using the larger avian's slipstream to ease their flight.

'Hmm. I could imagine a resort here...' Mused the AI privately. It was a little off course, but the revenue generated may well support its remoteness. It was peaceful, and he could imagine that the unique terrain would offer some brilliant hypergliding challenges...

Heh, the humans enjoyed the exhileration of being torn about and twisted in giant thermals, ducking, diving, gliding, soaring above. To be honest, he found it quite fun too, adrenaline, synthesized or not by his biotech body, was worth it.

The Mind analysed the results from the sensor drone. Safe for all parties, although possibly not quite pure enough for the Matrai. It sent a message to the Assegai on the subject.
***

"Hey," called the copilot, "The Prowler says you might need a mask, sir. I guess we might want them too, if we're open for too long."

The loadmaster released his seat straps and opened one of the cargo crates, searching for a few seconds, before pulling out four filter masks. He threw one to the Matrai 'ambassador', then went forward and gave the pilots one each. The fourth went around his neck.

He had just reattached his seat harness when the craft slewed violently sideways.

"Sorry about that. Just had to dodge some local wildlife," apologised the pilot. "Landing in thirty."

The craft raised its nose and the pilot activated the AG unit, slowing their descent until it drifted down to the ground. The Assegais did not have landing gear, they rested momentarily on an AG cushion, then dropped gently onto the ground.

The loadmaster released the tail hatch, which slid open and allowed the warm air to rush in, replacing the cool air common to Indoan vessels. The four designated ambassadors released their straps and stood, exiting the craft. A male Matrai, an avatar looking like a female Matrai, a female Douran and a male Raishuv.

'Welcome to GS-1573.' He greeted the Ambassadorial entourage, noting the deployment of naval crew and troops. They looked well equipped. His own troops were conducting drills out further on the delta, near the beach.

'I see you came prepared. Good. Well, I suppose now would be as good a time as any to tour the rather meagre facilities.' He swept his arm around the camp.

'Ceramal Duracrete composite bunkers, the two on your left are the Temmlar Room and TacCom Bunker, respectively. The three to your right - We are sorry for the alteration to the original layout, we had to include ambassadorial rooms - are the Dining room/messhall, Ambassadorial lodgings/Meeting room, and Troop barracks. We are aware that some of the species represented by the Indoans are in actual fact sensitive to these conditions. Accordingly, the lodgings and part of the barracks have been set up to accomodate those sensitivities.' He flicked an errant strand of hair out of his face.

'The local wildlife is harmless, mostly herbivorous avians, but just in case, I would advise you to leave the edge of the base camp only if it's pertinent, and you have armed backup.' He gestured to the irridescent blue ocean and river delta, far beyond, waterfalls and forests mingled into a hazy blue sky. He clapped his hands together, abruptly.

'Now then, you have a choice to make - Would you rather rest and make ready for the next few hours of riveting talks, or dive straight in?'

The Matrai glanced back at the Assegai lander. The Ranger squad had disembarked, their faces hidden by their combat suit helmets, their optic camouflage currently in stand-by.

"We appreciate your efforts. Thank you. Although I would say, none of us are sensitive to the conditions, it's just that my species requires fairly clean air. This is a problem everywhere except Indoan spacecraft and clean labs, so we're used to it," he said. Then he began coughing, and brought the filter mask up over his mouth. "See what I mean?" he said when the coughing stopped.

The grey-green skinned avatar stepped forward.
"May I introduce Colonel Keiran Slater, Captain Ariet Solis and Captain Tandelo Ghul-Joseno," it said, indicating first the Matrai, then the Douran and finally the Raishuv. "And I am ship's avatar Sonichekol, or Sonny. We are well rested, our journey here was pleasent, so we might as well get on with it."

As the ambassadorial team greeted their counterparts, the squad of Indoan Rangers began moving some crates around inside the Assegai. The squad sergeant was by the hatch, watching time pass the camp by.

"Corporal, take someone and go have a look around the area," he ordered.

The Corporal spoke to one of the others, who finished moving the container he was holding at the time, then picked up his rifle.

The Corporal retrieved her own rifle. "Let's go, Haynes," she said. The two Rangers left the craft and began walking around the perimeter of the camp.

BUMPity. Waiting here...

The Ambassador noted the Indoan martial capacity, and advised the comms net to relay the position of their forces as well as the positions of all of the UEC forces on the delta.

'Good. Well, if you would follow me to the briefing room...' He crooked a finger and spun on his booted heel.

'As you possibly know, the UEC has patrols along Sol sector, and various other areas. We are first and foremost a defensive organisation. We have always had the interest of the greater galaxy at heart. Our first duty will always be to ensure security amongst the stars.' He grimaced and looked at them apologetically. 'Whilst we have a large amount of weaponry available, we often find that our allies in our struggle have ulterior motives. Or are far too brash.' He could almost sense the diplomats thinking about the latest attack on their corvette in Sol.

He walked inside and waved a hand over the interlink icons floating in front of his vision. The holoprojection system activated, and the Galaxy appeared in full relief. He serached and found the Quadrant, then the sector, and finally the planet, the projector shrinking it's massive view on the galaxy to an incredibly tiny fraction. The clouds stripped away from the planet, and its neighbours ignored.

'We are here.' He said, rather redundantly. The view grew outwards, to show the galaxy overlaid with a faint and fine gridline, spirical in its formation. Of the grid, and a good half of it was illuminated, the other half lay dark, unknown. Here and there the darkness was suddenly illuminated, or in places, grew darker. The inner rim was dark, as the giant black holes made Underspace travel incredibly difficult. there were, of course, gaps in the knowledge. Long stretches of unknown sectors.

"Now, that's a major difference in our policies," stated Col. Slater. He stood staring at the holographic map. That's a hell of a lot of known territory. "The IN is generally only concerned with defending ourselves. We have a much larger fleet than most might think, but the majority of it has never left the system."

"Yeah. We were all surprised to see that Command actually sent the Whisperer. It must have been because of the battle, if it had just been the reactor failure, there's no way the frigate would have gone," agreed the Douran Captain, Ariet Solis.

The avatar stepped forward to the holographic map. As the map zoomed out to the whole galaxy again, the avatar studied the projection closely. After several seconds of silence, it raised a hand and extended a finger, pointing to a star on the opposite side of the outer rim of the galaxy to Sol, deep in one of the very dark sections.

"This is Indo, our home. As you can see, the Smoking Gun was a long way from home, which is why the reinforcements took so long to arrive," it said softly, lowering its arm.

'I'm guessing your wormhole drives exclude large gravimetric disrubptions. That would explain how you got here without having to navigate around the IRT.' Mused the similarly calculating Avatar.

'The original homeworld of the UEC is in Underspace, heading towards Sol sector again.' He waved his hand, and a crimson blotch of light appeared, roughly twelve lightyears below the Rim and making a beeline for Sol. A ribbon of light flared outwards to snare the Solar system. As an afterthought, a schematic flared to life, an extensive view of the Colonyship A'tuin in Underspace transit.
The ship was overall a startling 350 kilometres in diameter, and was in essence a huge space going colony. Population: 20 million.

'Originally speaking the UEC's ancestors came from Earth - Circa 2080 AD, during the rise of CEGA. They were exiled from Earth due to certain conservative policies and doubts that those smaller nations had over the entire debacle. The Exiles barely survived to make it to the asteroid belt. A'tuin's a third generation colonyship. It's not the largest, and definitely not the best, but it boasts of its roots to Old Earth.' He explained.

'We've been constantly moving from sector to sector, occasionally colonising uninhabited planets and moons, in the hopes of continuing the work.'

He outlined three systems, glowing azure in the halflight, and pointed to the largest one. 'There is High Angel, primary shipyards of the UEC, with conditions similar to Earth. That's possibly our largest colony, a full two hundred million people on the planet, and a further four million in orbit.'

He quickly reviewed tactical comms and brought up the exact population count, positions, and origins.

'Almost three billion Exiles. Most of those in transit aboard Colonyships, serving aboard military, exploration, or defensive vessels. We try to stay mobile. It's Hell on tactical coordination, which is why the Cityships tend to have defense fleets, and the colonies have systemwide defensive countermeasures.'

'At any one time there will always be a Colonyship in Sol. Plus it's contingent of defenses.' The positions disappeared, and the Galaxy remained unblemished.

'We patrol what part of space we can. It's easier to have our allies watch over areas of interest and alert us. Although lately we seem to be stumbling upon all kinds of turmoil.'

"You'd guess right. The wormhole drive just bends space, regardless of gravity. Hell, a couple of times ships have used a wormhole to escape a particularly strong gravity well. Does nasty things to the drive, but it works," confirmed the avatar Sonny.

"Pretty cool," murmered Slater, "I think I'd prefer a planet to live on, but it's certainly interesting."

"Every Indoan settlement is within our system. Eight-point-six billion people on two planets, twelve colonial settlements on other planets and moons, and twenty-three asteroid outposts," reeled off the avatar. "Scattered thoughout the system are enough defence drones to hold off an invasion fleet, and the planetary defences around the homeworlds could hold off another. We have this thing for self-preservation, a fear of being swallowed up by a larger civilisation."

"To that end, a considerable amount of money goes into defence. Our ships are few, and small compared to some we've seen recently, but they pack a serious punch. If the Smoking Gun hadn't lost a reactor, and hadn't had orders to avoid combat, it may not have needed any intervention to survive. It's not guaranteed of course, and we have only read the reports, but that's the general opinion."

Sonny looked abashed. "I'm sorry, I seem to have degenerated into boasting about our military capacity. Although you probably want to know about it, right?" It smiled slyly.

"Before Sonny gets too carried away," broke in Captain Solis, "I'll tell you about our home. From what the mission to Sol discovered, our, that's mine and Colonel Slater's, home planet is very similar to the third one, you called it Earth?" She paused, got a nod, and continued, "Captain Tandelo's home is similar but quite significantly warmer, it's mostly desert."

'I actually haven't ever been to Earth.' Admitted the AI sheepishly, looking at Sonny with curiosity.

'None of the Exiles has actually set foot on earth in over half a millienia.' He shrugged and checked his calculations.

'You've already seen our Dreadnaughts. Heh. What you saw was a Gamma Class. We have two classes that are exponentially larger. The Alpha Class Dreadnaughts aren't allowed near any planet with oceans.'

'The shipyards I talk of aren't some small construction yards... We have had to battle horrors from the Darkness that would make the known galaxy tremble, hence the massive ships, outfitted with exotic and incredibly destructive weapons.'

'We are hardly ones to mind you boasting about your martial capacity.' He smiled beatifically. 'Ours is as great as we make it. The Alphas are always close at hand, typically, near trade hubs.' He exhaled.

'At least we've never had to use them, on their own, without use of ANY of the weaponry aboard, they could cause natural disasters...'

"Oh. Yes of course. You did say you were exiles, there's every chance you haven't been to Earth," Solis corrected herself, staring at her paws, a sure sign of embarressment in any Douran.

"How big are those Dreadnaughts? Strong enough gravitic presence to affect oceans, they must be absolutely massive. Our largest ship is just under two kays, it doesn't affect anything like that," observed Slater, amazed. The comment had piqued his interest, he was always coming up with tidbits of information exactly like the answer to his question, a habit which some of the Prowler's crew found mildly irritating.

"Yes. And we only have one of those," stated Sonny.

Up until this point, Tandelo Ghul-Joseno had remained virtually silent, content to listen to the conversation carrying on around him. Now he had a question,
"Why were your people banished?" he suddenly asked, his deep, rumbling voice resonating slightly in the confined space. The lizard tongue flicked out as he finished speaking.

((Ohhh yeah, I had a sudden spurt of brilliance concerning this bit.))

'The Alpha class Dreadnaught is... Well. It's about the same mass as Earth's moon.' He felt uncomfortable telling people this. It was big. Really big. Big enough to carry an entire civilisation quite comfortably. He felt uncomfortable about that. People got the wrong idea. They either disputed that, or, effectively worried that such large ships would one day appear in orbit.

The Avatar looked at the reptilian diplomat, filing away the insightful nature for later use.
'More than six centuries ago, on Earth, in the early twenty first century, there was a political move for a Global government. They were united under the banner of CEGA. The nations that disputed, small, either conservative or religiously opposing to this move, were annexed, and ignored. As CEGA progressed, these nations looked out for each other, ready for CEGA to finally slip up. For the first few years this worked, until eventually CEGA nations began to encroach on those nations, since there wasn't any way these nations could politically dispute this unfair invasion, they quickly banded together. With the political and martial power CEGA had, there wasn't much chance of these nations surviving subsumption alone.

'Of course, CEGA would never allow this alliance of nations to gain any kind of credence, for fear that what they had done would one day get out. They attacked without mercy.'

'However, long before the alliance was een confirmed, each nation had begun a program to escape as fast as possible - In this case, it seems our differences and our desperation allowed us to pool our resources. Those that had the ability to launch, did a pseudo Noah's Ark - Ah, that's a biblical story of a man, Noah preserving all life on earth by taking two of each animal on board his Ark - the Nations united under one man - Known to CEGA as the Scarecrow (He used to be part of their united forces, a marine captain, apparently, before disputing the armed takeover of what was then Israel. They attempted to silence him, but he escaped to one of the seperatist nations.) He knew the CEGA martial capacity, and subsequently bought us enough time to launch our hodgepodge fleet away from Earth. The ships were pursued, by fledgling warships of the era. The Seperatists managed to escape mostly intact. The Scarcrow fought the intercepting fleet, sacrificing himself, managing to buy time for those vessels that were unarmed to make it out of reach of CEGA. After docking with the neutral Colonies at the Langrange points, resupplying and readying ourselves, the Seperatists renamed themselves the Scarecrows, and colonised the asteroid field, managing to field enough resources to create a partially comfortable lifestyle. I won't couch it - many colonists died, and life was very tough.

'The first Colonyships were practically spinning cylinders in space, with engines at back, housing at least two hundred thousand colonists. The lifestyle was at best, hard. The colonists began to realise they'd need much larger, much more supportive systems. The creation of Asteroid born colonies, and genetic engineering of hyperchlorofylic plants began to open new avenues.

'By the fifty year mark, A'tuin, as a spacefaring colonyship, was born. From Asteroid Colony to New Flagship of the Scarecrows. We subsumed an Asteroid - Known then as Elysium, at first, excavating rudimentary homes and such. Over that fifty year period, Elysium evolved into A'tuin. I won't go into details. It's hard to explain. But it had air, it had an open living space around the size of a good sized city underneath a half kilometre of rock, and could move. It was a city in a rock - Eventually that rock became more artificial and less natural, and mined, and used as the resources for ever more advancement for the Colonyship. A very efficient setup.

'A'tuin still has Relics from the Days of Exile. It spawned a kind of new religion, hailed the salvation of the entire race - They managed to procreate, and overpopulate at one stage, prompting another technological feat - the creation of two new Colonyships. Megaroad and Hiigara. As you can see, not only were they created, but we progressed beyond our ancestor's wildest dreams.

'On a side note, not a year after A'tuin breached the Asteroid Belt and began its journey home, we were listening in - It was bedlam down there. A'tuin stayed in orbit for the next year, wary, but it was unlikely to see any sort of orbital defenses - They were all way too focused on the Global Civil War to really notice their new orbital neighbour.' He smiled and remembered the screenplays he'd seen, over the years, the holomovies, the VR games... 'The A'tuin Museum of National History has the radio transmissions and sensor logs. There's a picture of Annwii Semudra, the Scarecrows first elected president, staring up at the massive holoprojectors, at a nuclear explosion over the land where her parents had escaped... It's part of our heritage, now. Afterwards CEGA fractured and order returned, but not before the A'tuin had left for the Asteroid Belt, leaving no sign of its two year long surveillance.'

Sonny looked up the data from the mission. "In comparable terms, its almost as massive as Reo," it told the Indoans. "That's a moon around one of our system's planets, we have a colony there," it explained to the others.

Slater appeared surprised, then nodded appreciatively. "That's a big hunk of metal."

Tandelo nodded sagely, allowing the information to get through to his brain without distracting it.

"That Noah story sounds a lot like that children's tale," observed Solis to Slater. "You know, the one with the volcano. I forget the title but it sounds virtually identical. They used a cave on the tallest mountain, but its close enough."

Slater looked confused, then nodded as recognition dawned.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right. I'd like to see one of these colony ships, and one of those dreadnaughts too, if possible. The first one must have been a remarkable feat of engineering at the time," he said.

"Why didn't this CEGA allow the other nations to govern themselves independently? How much of a problem could it have been? I mean, we sort of evolved into a global government when we made contact with Captain Tandelo's planet. Before then, our nations were distinctly separate, and there was only a global oversight organisation (OOC: think UN)," inquired Sonny.

'We think, in a time of already tense global relations, would have fractured the fragile CEGA powerbase. Just imagine if word got out that the nations responsible for encroaching on Seperatist soil were allowed free reign, and that the CEGA high command had allowed it because the Seperatists weren't really a political force, and, in the "Big Picture" would account to nothing more than another annexed piece of land for CEGA to use... Once the ball was rolling, it was hard to admit that they had been deliberately brutal to nations unable to defend themselves. To do so would lose them support anf favour in their own power structure.

'Or at least, that's what we've been able to decipher as a possible reason, true records were very sparse and rarely very cohesive.'

He coughed, and looked at the insightful reptilian one.

'What of your planets? Tell me of the culture there...'

Tandelo shifted slightly, his clawed feet clacking against the floor.

"Perhaps I am not the best person to ask that question of. My species form a medium-grade hive mind, individuality is fairly uncommon, although my collegues here would deny it," he said simply. Slater and Solis nodded their agreement.
"This may even be true in my case, but if it is, it probably has something to do with the fact that I am no longer linked to the hive mind. All Raishuv that join the Navy lose their link with the hive mind, since it does not work over any real distance. Instead we have a link with our home vessel's Mind, which can transmit the connection over distance. Regardless, I doubt I am most suited to answer your question."

"I'm not sure what exactly you mean by culture, since most of it probably won't mean anything to you, but I can tell you various things about us," stepped in Slater.
"As Sonny said, we have a system-wide government which came about when our two planets formally became allies, creating the Indoan Alliance. The individual nations and hive-clans retain some independence when it comes to regional decisions, but most of the governing process is done through the Senate.
"We have three languages, one native to each species, although almost everyone speaks the language native to my species, which was the dominant language before we adopted a universal one."

Slater paused, mentally switched off the translator his neural thread was operating, then spoke a few words, the phrase completely unintelligible to the humans. Solis chittered momentarily in her own language, and Tandelo performed the equivalent of a sigh before speaking in his language, a mix of hisses, whistles and growls. Slater switched his translator back on.

"Okay, I'm fairly sure we all said the same thing there, my Ramat's not brilliant, Joseno," he said apologetically to Tandelo. "Anyway, a lot of the Toderan nations, Todera's my home planet, Cap'n Tandelo's is Chaldar, retain a lot of their national identity from before they were united. You know, architecture, music, art, that kind of thing. I'd go into more detail, but it's kind of hard to explain, you'd need to see it to understand exactly what I mean. Sonny can probably tell you far more about it than I can."

'Technically you've heard a brief history leading up to the Progression Years.'

'How about your combined history...?' The AI was only too willing to inform them on the nation's progress right up until this point - Hwoever he would require something in return.

"Our history, eh? I suppose we could condense it into a brief statement. To that end I'll let Cap'n Solis speak, Night Prowler's resident expert on our history," stated Slater.

The diminuative Douran glared at Slater. "Thanks a bunch, sir. Just drop me in it without any chance to prepare," she growled.

"Anyway. It's easier to split the two histories until we make contact, so I'll start with Toderan history. Our recorded history goes back over six thousand of our years. Back then, the greatest civilisation was that of the Sulamarans, they were Matrai, who were frequently at war with both the Douran of the time and another Matrai civilisation called the Wusanese. These wars lasted over two thousand years, after which the Sulamarans had won, but their civilastion fractured and fell into civil war, collapsing completely at the end of these wars."

She started pacing around, pulling the relevant facts from her memory.
"That began the period we call the Black Times, from which no records exist, which lasted only twenty years. Then came the rise of a new civilisation, that of the Krasnovians, who eventually held an empire which spanned most of the planet. They lasted a thousand years, then it broke apart, peacefully, and individual nations began to appear, quite a few of which are still around to this day. During the rule of the Krasnovian Empire, there were numerous small conflicts with the Douran, since we were still enemies."

Solis paused, trying to recall what had happened next.
"About five hundred years later there was a plague, which wiped out a third of the world population. Uh, two hundred years after that the Matrai and Douran decided to stop killing each other, and became a single society. Then followed a period of exploration and development, were nothing really significant happened. I mean there were a few minor wars, but nothing worth looking at."

She paused again, this time for breath.
"Then over a period of five hundred years, some bright spark invented the firearm, the combustion engine and powered flight. This was soon followed by the Toderan World War, during which a group of nations began persecuting Douran, rounding us up and slaughtering us, as well as invading a number of countries. This didn't go down well with a lot of other nations, so they banded together and basically beat the crap out of them, over the course of six years. After the war ended, we invented the jet engine and nuclear fission. About thirty years later we launched a manned spacecraft, ten years later one was sent to Chaldar, and contact was made."

She sighed, then began again,
"Right, now Chaldar. I should point out that there are no written records of Chaldaran history, it's all through the stories and legend, because they had hiveminds, they never needed to write anything down. Anyway, at the earliest known point, there were... Agh, I can never remember this. Joseno, how many clans were there?"

"Nine," replied Tandelo, "And forty-three at greatest extent."

"Thanks. Right, there were nine Raishuv clans, and since they were possessive and aggressive creatures, they had Clan Wars. These continued on and off for five thousand years, believe it or not. During this time, the nine original clans split into various others, until, as Joseno said, there were forty-three. This doesn't mean there were only forty-three clans, since clans were always being wiped out and popping up, so most experts reckon there were about ninety-four clans throughout Raishuv history. There are only seven clans today, the others all died or joined the larger ones. When we made contact, they suddenly stopped the wars, briefly focused on us, then agreed to exist peacefully with us."

"After we contacted each other, we built a permanent shuttle service between the two planets, and from there on, we have existed in peace. We created AI, nuclear fusion, gravity manipulation, interplanetary spacecraft, explored our system, set up various colonies and outposts. Then, about four hundred years ago, some alien spacecraft appeared in our system, through a wormhole. We recovered it, examined it, there was nobody on it and it was mostly broken, and began to adapt the wormhole drive to our own spacecraft. It took three attempts to get it right, although you must understand that there were fifteen year gaps between each of these tests, since brave volunteers died each time it failed. Then we left our system, explored our section of the galaxy, and eventually made interstellar contact and we are currently exploring the rest of the galaxy."

"That's about all I can think of." She stopped. "I just droned on for ages, didn't I?"

"Yep. You tend to do that when you talk about history. Although it would be hard to get it shorter and still keep everything there," mused Slater.

'Oh, don't worry, that was about as concise as my version of the story. By the by, it's mainly assumption, considering the multiple languages utilised by the nations at large, we really don't have the best of translations. Stories, incredible accounts of derring-do. The usual.' He waved his hand in a noncommittal way, sparking the hologram to life again.

'Ah. Okay. Here we are.'

'After the creation of a primitive Underspace drive (Similar to your wormhole drives, if you're looking for a comparison.) the A'tuin and sister ship Megaroad were busy establishing rudimentary traderoutes from Sol's Colony cylinders to the asteroid field, and by that, stage, a small Mars consortium. Within ten years the Scarecrows rose to become one of the more influential powers in Sol sector, deterring pirates across the tradelanes and occasionally giving political situations a little push in the right direction.

'Of course, within a few years, the FTL capability of Earth and its cousins began develop. Within sixty years, they had the ability to jump in system without the need for tradelanes - although that version of the drive made many many a trader infertile, and as such, different FTL Drives were developed, not as 'fast' but nonetheless reliable. That's possibly the best reason I can give for why the nations of Earth have such odd and differing FTL capability.

'Anyway, whilst Earth took up the reins of power in Sol, The Scarecrows had leapt beyond the perimetre, and were now manufacturing other ships for protection. Noone would explore without a fleet capable of defending the Cityships.

'A'tuin and Megaroad were Earthborne ships. Hiigara, Brigand and Soren were created using asteroids and resources mined from the myriad uninhabitable systems on the fringe of known space.
Soon we had a veritable fleet of rudimentary fleets, armed with primitive massdrivers, lasers, and Antimunitions systems. They served us well, but all eventually were replaced with a frigate sized vessel with a versatile frame - everything from a highly advanced Anti-fighter vessel, to a ship capable of firing a witheringly powerful Ion Lance, which could cut a ship in half. (Of course, the Ion Lance was so powerhungry it meant stripping back any antimunitions and other offensive capabilities - As you no doubt guess, these were flanked at all times by more versatile frigates as they did their dirty work.)

'But we didn't stop at frigates. We have differing classes of Destroyers, and carriers, and of course, the multiple classes of Dreadnoughts, as you've no doubt seen.

'Although those Dreadnoughts started off as a destroyer sized craft given a massive mission profile, so the engineers kept designing and tacking on features and incorporating different power sources... What began as a mere 900 metre vessel became the prototype vessel for the Agamemnon - Although it was significantly larger, bulkier, and had some design faults. The [Vengeance however, could project a cloaking field, fire nineteen Ion lances, without drain, had up to thirty Phalanx class heavy massdrivers, a set of twelve torpedo launchers, and a well rounded AMS. Its flaws - Slow engines, lack of fighter cover, and a poor aft coverage - were quickly made up for by the fact it could arrive in system and totally rape a planet. If it had enough Anti-fighter coverage and escorts, there wasn't much that could stop it.

'Of course, I should stop talking about an obsolete design.' He joked.

'Around a hundred years after A'tuin set off for the Galaxy at large, we encountered the Beast.

'To our knowledge, the Beast is no longer present in the Galaxy.' He waved his hands over the system. A flare of a ship, obviously a UEC Frigate, but strangely covered in hundreds of tiny red pastules, and almost warped. In real time, if one had watched closely enough, those pastules would pulse, and if threatened by mass drivers, erupt into tiny clouds of sticky, oozing chaff, which would capture the bullet stream and literally slow it down before hitting the ship's hull.

'At first we thought is was a subversion program, something our enemies had laid in our computers to take over the ships. But within minutes, the Beast leapt from the computers to the people, infecting them, and transforming them into organic machines to control the myriad systems it had infected. The Hull was next, those red pastules are a type of biomechanical construct. Like a parasite that had taken over its host, the Beast would be capable of complete control, and those inside were considered dead. To our horror, upon studying the Beast further, we discovered that they were still alive, in a sort of twisted immortality as part of the body of the ship, which was now a singular organism.

'Any attempt of communication with the Beast failed. It wanted to consume everything, in the entire Galaxy.

'Its main way of dispersing itself was via a plasma charged beam, which carried billions of tiny biomachines in electromagnetic bubbles within the beam, which then attached themselves to the ship the beam was directed at.
A way around was to polarize the hull plating and literally strip the bubbles from the vulnerable biomachines. You can guess what happened then. A small amount of hull damage was incurred, but in comparison to what the beam could actually do to the ship without... Well, we deemed it necessary.

'That stopped the administration of the Beast. But there were multiple space born nations that had no such way of stopping the Beast. We drew the line in high orbit over an unnamed planet, the site of the Beast's greatest weapon - The Naggarok - a ship over nine kilometres long with a simply gigantic weapons array. A Phased Disassembly Array. The PDA could consume our ships at an atomic level and use those atoms to create entirely new structures upon itself.

'And it also had a fleet of ships of gargantuan proportions. A hodgepodge fleet of UEC, and other alien ships, consumed by the Beast.

'However, we had one trick that they did not.

'The Planar Lance.

'Whilst toying around with dimensional gates in an attempt to find a place where the UEC could retreat if all went to Hell, we discovered a weapon with incredible potential.

'Creating a small tear in the planes of the universe, we could encapsulate it in an electromagnetic field and launch it at high speed towards our enemies. The field would destabilize upon impact, or eventually dissolve past a certain point. 'Matter versus antimatter, on a scale unlike any we've encountered yet. The planar matter reacted extremely violently, creating a vortex of destruction nearly four hundred kilometres in diametre. almost perfectly spherical, it would consume all matter and spit it out as disassociated atoms. Everything.' A very sparing schematic of the Planar Lance appeared, showing stats and expressing test values.

'We fired the first prototype Lance (Strapped to the hull of the BeastMaster (As its captain renamed it), a Beta class Dreadnought) at the Naggarok, and whilst it managed to maneuver away just in time, its fleet was annihilated before it had a chance to retaliate. The Naggarok was highly maneuverable for its size, suggesting it had some kind of mass negation and inertialess drive system - sadly, we never salvaged much, the BeastMaster's captain was very thorough... In any case, we wiped out the Beast in this Galaxy.'

'What they did recover was biocircuitry, inert, but enough to revolutionise computer systems within UEC vessels everywhere.' He smiled and looked at them critically.

'From their research into the Beast's seemingly omniscient hivemind, I was born, an AI not quite existing in the same plane of reality as the rest of me. I am speaking to you through an Avatar, of countless hundreds of them. I am known throughout the UEC as Djehuty, after an Egyptian God also known as Thoth. God and guardian of all knowledge.' He shrugged, and looked a little sheepish.

'As much as the pompous title doesn't fit, technically I am the leader of the UEC, unofficially. Officially I am the Vice-President of the United Exiled Colonies.' He smiled.

'During my first hundred years of creation I revised and revolutionised the computer systems, I engineered certain processes which allowed us to create the first Alpha class Dreanought, and I created spinoffs of the PDA for construction. I also developed a ship to mind interface and interlinks. It's unusual for a child to be born without my nanotech devices, allowing them a full healthy lifestyle. There are no disabled children, the damage done during development is repaired in vitro. A joint project also has biotech in mind, we are fully capable of growing synthetic limbs and other bodyparts with whomever we want in mind. All it takes is a drop of blood and ten hours.

'There is something else. The security team have an interesting acronym. GI. General Infantry? No. General Issue Humanoid. GIs for short. Androids with human style brain patterns, totally indistinguishable from normal humanity, except they are, in lower models, less esoterically intelligent, which is why the ones out there are model fifties. Highest model around, Intelligent, understanding, and have the initiative to do what they like. Yes, we give them full options to leave and pursue a normal lifestyle outside of the security forces and UEC. They aren't slaves. And they're totally dependable.' He waved the Captain in. He'd been linked up through Djehuty's eyes and had watched with amusement, and then had decided to join the party.

'Hello everyone. I'm Captain Bren Adams, GI, head of security here. I will outline anything you wish to know about GI anatomy to your security details, and brief them on our weaponry. Also, if any of you need anything, just address the room. The AI systems will notify anyone here without hesitance.

'If you have any further questions regarding the UEC, The Scarecrows, or the worlds we know of, I will be on site for the next two hours. Erstwhile, Lunch has been served. If you wish to remain, and abstain from eating, we will understand all too well. I hate working on a full stomach.' He smiled at the group, and then turned to Djehuty's Avatar.

You, are the biggest pompous git I've ever seen.
The Avatar recoiled, and turned with an amused smile to the GI.
I didn't mean to be, I actually like these people. Culture always intrigues me. The sound of sheepish admittance to a fact bled through into his words.

"Wow! The Vice-President?" said Slater in amazement. "And here we are, three lowly mid-level naval officers. Kinda puts us to shame."

"I'm glad we haven't run into anything like that Beast-thing," declared Solis thankfully. "I'm not sure we'd do very well, we're only set up for defence."

"We have some implants, neural interfaces that allow for all sorts of things, including communication and data access, but not everyone has them. All military personnel do, but that's to improve performance and communication. We have prosthetics, and medical nanomites, but there is the odd person who is resistant to both, so there are a few disabled individuals around," said Sonny, comparing the two technological levels.

"Your GIs sound very similar to myself. Fully artificial construction, yet natural appearance, well generally, since you can see that my skin is most definitely pale green, not the natural white (OOC: real white, not caucasian 'white'). How intelligent are they? I am an AI, so I, much as my collegues may deny, have a far superior intellect and reaction rate. We are also regarded as full citizens, that occured just two years after they created AI." Sonny continued.

"I suspect that our Rangers will be more interested in seeing your weaponry than we will, but the Colonel might want to see it as well," Sonny finished.

"Right," agreed Slater. "I wanna see if it's better than ours. Probably is..." The last sentence fragment was half-muttered, as if he was unhappy to accept the fact. "However, I'm hungry. I don't know what you eat, but I'm willing to try it. Hell, the worst it can do is kill me, right?"

'For all the important things, GIs tend to be at the fore. However, since there relegated to roles such as combat ninety percent of the time, they don't express them out of such a situation.' Griped the GI.

'We can go anywhere, do what we like, within reason.' Said the Ambassador.

'Ah, excellent. Perhaps later we could provide better accomodation - Soren's hotels are as a rule 4 star or higher.'

The three organic Indoans left the room in search of the food, although each wondered how they would like it, since they had different preferences when it came to food.
As they left, Slater told the GI Captain, "I'll bring Sergeant Raines and his squad over to see you after I've eaten."

Sonny stayed in the room, willing to utilise the chance to talk without interference from the others, who, while they meant well, could sometimes get in the way of important issues.

'Sonny, correct?' Djehuty regarded the AI with a measure of curiosity and collected patience. 'Is there something you wish to talk about?'

The green-skinned avatar looked thoughtful for a moment.
"Yes. Since the purpose of this meeting was to set up an alliance, we might as well go over the basics of that now, while they are occupied elsewhere," it said.

"I am in contact with the Night Prowler's Mind, which in turn can be in contact with Indoan Naval Command, which can link through to the new diplomatic department, all in near real time. Therefore, with you being leader of the UEC, we have the perfect opportunity to discuss things at the highest level, without interruption."

"If of course, you would prefer to learn more about us first, I can help there too."

'I'll outline the terms of the alliance, it'll make everything much clearer. One thing: The Alliance is more than negotiable - Any terms you would like to change, I am more than happy to negotiate upon it.' He waved his hands and a holographic representation of the Terms of Alliance appeared.

The Terms of Alliance with the United Exiled Colonies

1. The members of the alliance will render any services necessary to each member.

2. Tradelanes will be activated between nations.

3. The ability to enter High Angel Shipyards and use of the Shipyards will be given to alliance members.

4. An embassy will be built in the Capital of each member nation. (i.e. A'tuin)

5. Technology will be distributed between nations. This can be as gradual as liked. Weapon technology will be questionable, however Temmlar generator units will be allowed as soon as possible.

6. All members are aware of the locations of respective fleets if the need ever arises. This includes status and location of major flagships.

7. If either member is under attack from foreign forces, or a civil war breaks out, the other members are to support in any way possible.

8. Citizens from either are subject to the laws of their respective nations - Diplomatic Immunity applies.

'Of course, there are gaping holes in this alliance - Technically this is the first time we've ever had a chance to ally ourselves with anyone. Our old policy was 'Root for the underdog'' Said the AI wryly.

'In anycase... If you have any questions, or want to supply terms or conditions, feel free.'

Sonny quickly ran through the terms, voicing comments as it did so. The voice had changed slightly, now the avatar was under direct control of the Night Prowler which was linked to the diplomatic department back on Todera. It technically wasn't Sonny at the moment, but that was a minor point.

"One: That's fine, it's a logical one."

"Two: Not sure what we might have that you would want, but I see no problems with it."

"Three: That's good to know, we offer the use of our probably rather meagre shipyards in return."

"Four: Okay. You might want two embassies, one on each planet. Similarly, we may want one on each of your ships."

"Five: That's probably not necessary, but probably perfectly acceptable. You'll have difficulty persuading the defence contractors to part with their secrets, so weapons will definitely need further discussion. We don't really need power generators, we've had enhanced fusion reactors only slightly larger than a briefcase for a while, they're in our fighters."

"Six: There's a slight possibility that Naval Command will object to that, but it can be worked out. Chances are all the major vessels will be sitting in our home system anyway."

"Seven: A civil war poses problems, for which side do you support? Otherwise, that's about what we expected."

"Eight: Is that diplomatic immunity applies to all citizens, or just those given it?"

"We would ask that you refrain from giving any information about us to any civilisations not allied with us, which is currently all of them. This would especially apply to the locations and capabilities of military vessels and defence units."

"It is also required that any vessel attempting to enter our system contact us prior to arrival for entry codes, since entering Indo is a tricky business at best. The military takes our defence very seriously."

"Other than that, I can't see anything worth adding to it, or any major flaws." The avatar finished speaking and folded its arms across its chest.

The Avatar quickly replied in kind.

'Four: Absolutely agreed. For utilisation of Eight, it will be required.

Five: Our own defence contractors will understand entirely, and the Temmlar here is about the size of the ones we use to power the cloaking fields on board... They're glorified Niling D-sinks.

Six: Might I include that this would also point to the locations of the Alphas. We don't intend to use this for tactical purposes. Military vessels opposed to this, can simply give their last known location. And any new vessels on either side will added to a register, as normal. We don't intend to disclose this to anyone other than those that truly require the information, such as traders or picket vessels.

Seven: It depends on the political structure which would prove the most profitable to the nation in question.

Eight: Citizens of either side are subject to the law of their home nations. However they can be extridited for charges against either side.

On those notes: We wouldn't anyway. We respect the privacy of all races. Solemn promise. And if you were monitoring the communications between me and Dauntless from the Agamemnon, pertaining to the [i]Golden Glow[]/i], the pirate ship that was to attack your corvette in Sol... I don't take my promises lightly.

As with any of our colonies, we would require your entrance codes, in standard format like the other tradeships. We understand the need for security across your system.'

Sonny smiled.
"You haven't seen a proper system defence network until you're highlighted by at least thirty weapons systems of five different types within thirteen seconds of your arrival. The closer you get to the main planets, the more systems there are, until you get well over nine-hundred weapons locks on the craft."

"Those clarifications seem adequate. Our freighters can continually update their location, and the military vessels will give general locations, switching to last known if they deem it necessary. I believe the Navy is expanding its capabilities, with another cruiser on the cards."

It quickly ran over the other comments. "I suppose the contractors would have no objections to sharing some of the older weapons designs, since they're not making much profit from it now."

"I remember the transcript of those transmissions in the report, you do take things seriously. We can transmit the system entry codes through a secure link in the embassies. It is possible to enter without codes, but it takes far longer, with weapons pointed at you and fingers on triggers. We do require exact manifests and crew lists before we allow entry, even the our own military vessels have to comply with that. Obviously, we can provide the same when approaching your colonies if you require."

"Right, I think that's almost it."

BUMP for response.

'I'm sure they'll accept that.' Conceded the AI.

'Now, that should be all. However, I'm sure your naval officer will be at least interested in the man - portable weaponry. And please, at least try the food on offer.'

'I'm assured that it's delicious. Even GIs eat.' He grinned and turned off the holosuite.

"Well, in it's current form, this is fully acceptable to our government and I have authorisation to ratify it on their behalf," said Sonny. The avatar smiled. "I'm sure the Colonel will be very interested in your infantry weapons, as will the Ranger squad that accompanied us. If it is superior to the equipment they have, they may want us to obtain stocks from you to equip our troops."
"As for the food, I am a synthetic entity, I do not eat, and should not eat. I probably could, but I would experience no taste, nor gain any sustenance from it. Therefore there is little point in the exercise. But my comrades will be, and probably are, eating it, unless they determine it is not compatible with our physiology."

The avatar uncrossed its arms and let them hang loose by its sides, waiting for the other avatar to exit the room first.