NationStates Jolt Archive

A large, faintly red glowing flattened spheroid drifted away from Tripolis station in the Main Belt and steadily accelerated on the solar wind to the Outer System. Unusually, this particular craft was on a course that would take it nowhere near Jupiter, and was of a type most unsuitable for the depths of Kuiper's Belt or the Comet Cloud. After several weeks the craft released its coccoon of ionized neon gas and began a brachistochrone deceleration (on centigee neon ion engines) that would take it into a high orbit of Saturn.

One week out, the autopilot began broadcasting in the direction of Saturn on the 42 cm band.
Guild Ship Kronokleios calling the Triumvirate of Yut. We are on a peaceful mission to establish diplomatic contact. Our republic has had previous relations with the entity known as Angelus. Please advise if our current course puts us on an unnacceptable final orbit assuming engine cutoff in 168 hours, zero minutes, zero seconds.
The message looped continuously, always updating the time.

TYCS defense coordination stations scattered in various orbits around Saturn receive the message and forward it to Central Control for analysis. Subsentient dog-brain computers automatically give the contact a standardized designation and allocate 'sufficient' resources from the VDA to track it, all as per standard operating procedure whilst the actual brains in Central do the bookwork to confirm their story. With arrival at given acceleration and velocity being around a week, they have the time to be careful with it and sate their paranoia before, finally, giving the green light.

Return reply, same band:

"Kronokleios, Saturn Defense Central Command. Authorization granted to enter Saturnspace and enter currently predicted orbit assuming drive cutoff at time previously specified; your orbit will be cleared of interference and a safety zone established around it by the time you arrive. Your diplomatic contact requests will be forwarded to Triumvirate states and embassies in Saturnspace; a Diplomatic Officer to represent the Triumvirate as a whole has been assigned and is standing by for your arrival. SDCC out."

Upon reciept of the SDCC confirmation, the looping message cut out and was replaced by two repetitions of the following:
SDCC message recieved. Proceeding as planned. Crew will be online at t-minus six hours from engine cutoff.
The ship consisted of a central hollow cylinder surrounded by eight rings of twelve bright white spherical fuel tanks, grouped in sets of four where the spheres of adjacent rings were rotated by fifteen degrees so as to make them mesh together. At the center, the groups of four were separated by two adjacent rings which were unrotated, leaving twelve gaps between the tanks from which extended a docking tower, two radio antennae (one short range, on long range), three Hall-effect thruster clusters, and three sensor booms carrying cameras, magnetometers, comm lasers, dosimeters, and numerous other foil-covered packages. The flight-forward end was capped by an annular cylinder the radius of the fuel tank rings, containing a ring of neon-fueled ion engines.

Within the craft, in the living space sandwiched between the innermost hollow cylinder and the fuel tank rings, automatic mechanisms began pumping hydrogen sulphide and nitrous oxide out of the air, replacing it with a low-pressure oxygen/neon mix, while steadily raising the temperature from just below freezing to a comfortable twenty degrees centigrade. As the chemical metabolic suppressants were removed and the temperature raised, the three crewmen aboard quickly rose out of hibernation, the high glucose levels in their blood left over from the freezing process powering the quick re-establishment of their normal core body temperature.

At the specified six hours before cutoff, a new transmission was sent out-
Guild Ship Kronokleios calling SDCC, mission commander Doron of Tiryns speaking. As you know, we should be completing orbital injection in just under six hours, and me and my crew are quite anxious to meet you people. Ah, just a reminder in case nobody bothered to tell you all before, it would be very much appreciated if shipboard acceleration were kept below Selenian gravity when we're around, if that's not too much trouble. Doron over, keeping the comm line open.

"Kronokleios, SDCC. Understood. Will have a Scarab rendezvous along your orbital path ten minutes after injection. We'll try to keep things under point-one-six gravities for you. Over."

Thank you, SDCC. We'll be retracting our radio booms shortly in preparation for docking. Kronokleia over and out.

After flicking two switches on the bridge control board to retract the radio booms, he flipped the security switch to unlock the airlock controls and floated back through the sleeping quarters on the way to the docking tower.

"Hey, Neritos, airlock, pressurization, 20 minutes."
Niko stared at Doron's back as he continued out of the sleeping quarters.
"He could at least notice me, you'd think."
"Eh, it's nothing personal. At least we're related, or you might go completely ignored."
"Don't remind me."

Neritos zipped up his small duffel bag and kicked off to float out after Doron, leaving Niko rummaging through her cubicle trying to decide what items would really be absolutely necessary in a mostly-unknown environment. An exoskeleton, unfortunately, would be too bulky to pack, so she would just have to depend on the Kronians to keep the gravity bearable. As an afterthought, she threw in a large bottle of wide-spectrum immunosuppressants and a couple of rebreather masks, zipped up her bag, and followed the two men to the docking tower.

Doron was just working the controls to extend the docking tower to full length when she arrived. Neritos swung open the access hatch and the trio crawled along the 150cm wide tunnel to the airlock at the end. When they were all three in the pre-lock at the end, Doron dogged the hatch and opened the valves to slowly jack the pressure up to 1000 millibars. While the typical Spacer would handle rapid depressurization with ease, it would take quite some time to let their lungs adapt to the higher pressure expected aboard the Scarab. The three Mykenaens sat pretty much silent in the pre-lock for the next five hours and change, occasionally rearranging themselves when the tiny acceleration of the ship's ion engines got them bunched up against one wall, gradually progressing to relatively rapid, shallow breaths. As the rendez-vous time approached, Doron opened up the airlock control panel and almost began swinging the outer door perpedicular to the tower until he remembered that, according to the little prior experience had with the Triumvirate, their ships would probably dock side by side rather than skew. All three Spacers felt the slight jolt as the engines cutoff, marking ten minutes till rendez-vous. Doron pressurized the outer airlock chamber and Neritos and Niko went in, while Doron remained temporarily in the pre-lock to fine-tune the approach via the airlock remote bridge controls.

Doron called the approaching Scarab to coordinate the docking, and carefully jiggled the airlock thruster controls to bring the end of the docking tower straight in towards the Scarab's docking port.
Ten meters, closing at one meter per second. Extending drone. Firing prograde thrusters. Closing at point-five meters per second. Drone captured. Firing prograde thrusters. Relative velocity zero meters per second. Retracting drone, we have a lock. Doron out, we're coming over!

Doron climbed into the outer lock with Neritos and Niko and dogged the hatch behind him. Niko unsealed the outer hatch, and the three Mykenaens waited, floating just behind it, for the Saturnians to open their door. Each one carried a small black duffel bag inprinted with the Guilder Dodecahedron over a background of the constellation Taurus.

All three were relatively short, only about 160cm from head to foot, with almost Indian skin, although slightly silvered if one looked closely. Only Neritos had any hair, and it was short-cropped and jet black. Their feet were short and their toes long and prehensile, their fingers equally so. Their chests were larger than the average human's, but not abnormally so, but they're eyes were noticeably large, slanted, almost almond-shaped, and dark grey.

Niko wore essentially a single nearly-translucent trapezoidal sheet of light green cloth with a small slit on the long base, wrapped around her right side and bound with golden clasps on each shoulder, over her left hip, and between her legs. The mens' clothing was two-peice. Each wore a loose shirt formed by a single band of cloth wrapped in an X-pattern and bound with a simple knot across the chest, plus loose-fitting short-shorts held on by elastic. Niko wore small silver earrings, and Doron a copper bracelet inscribed in Koine on each fore-arm, but Neritos was unadorned. Thus they met the Saturnians who had come to dock with them.

Said Saturnians are something of an anachronism... sort of. While the Spacers' clothing fits their simple needs and the conditions of their lifestyle, the Triumvirate D.O.'s uniform comes with a lot of tradition attached to it in the form of long sleeves, long trousers, combat boots polished to a brilliant shine, insignia, shoulderboards, and all sorts of other things that are absolutely useless in the low-accel no-weather environment of a spacecraft. In their defense, however, the uniforms do make a bit of sense on a planetary surface, which is of course what they are 'optimized' for.

Along with the Diplomatic Officer in blue-and-black Class A's are two other people, one male and the other female, in far more useful green fatigues with smoke-cloud digitized camouflage patterns printed on them. While the camouflage is counterproductive aboard a ship, the large number of pockets the fatigues boast aren't. All three look pretty close to average for baseline humans, of differing ethnicities but all clearly grew up inside of gravity accelerations arbitrarily near Terrestrial standard. Foreigners often wonder how they manage this on Titan; the answer concerns, in part, having an excess of both time and energy. The Diplomatic Officer not only shows a full head of well-maintained ruddy hair but also an equally trimmed beard; the two people with him are instead clean-shaven and very nearly bald, even the female. No need for long hair on a starship, after all.

"Hello, I'm Diplomatic Officer Robert Kiwallis," the red-haired man introduces himself in an enthusiastic voice with a Treznorian accent, "and these are Spacemen First Class Kwon and Seetharaman. How was your trip?"

Thoughtfully, and conveniently, all three Mykenaens had oriented themselves in the same direction to greet the Saturnians.

Doron, for a moment, is somewhat surprised at Kiwallis's enthusiasm, but quickly brings his reactions under control. Niko, of course, notices, and while avoiding a chickle, her smile betrays something beyond just having gotten out of a tiny ship.

After a miniscule pause in which Doron's emotional confusion was taking place, he smiled and said "Kalimera! I am Doron of Tiryns, captain of our ship, Kronokleios- an apt, name don't you think?- and this is Neritos of Kos, a great friend and our official envoy." He waved to Neritos on his right side.
Neritos nudged Doron to the side a bit and indicated Niko himself. "And this is Niko of Kos, my sister."
Niko simply continued to smile and said "Giasou Robert. Kwon, Setharaman," nodding at each in turn.
"Our trip," said Neritos, "was... ah, long. Quite long. But fortunately, we spacers can hibernate, so, um, rather routine really. Until now."

Had any of the three Mykenaens come from Arêtê or Nausikaa, things would have been much easier. As is, it was simply a good thing that none of the crew that had contacted Angelus were around, or their expectations would have been quite off. Seeing Ur Humans in the flesh just was not sufficiently prepared for by looking at pictures and reading things written by Arêtans and Nausikaans, especially when the reference was for quite a different culture, and the slight disorientation of extreme culture shock would surely show through the men's facades for a while before they got use to it all. Niko, on the other hand, really didn't seem to notice or care that the Saturnians were so strangely proportioned and, if she noted their clothes at all, would have been impressed at the inventory of pockets.

Finally she spoke up: "May I ask, is this vessel where we intend to do all o our meeting and talking and so forth, or are we travelling elsewhere? In either case, I do not wish to impose upon your hospitality, but perhaps we should see what accomodations are available to us? Of course, there is much to disucss, but I fear my companions may require a bit of time to adjust to new surroundings before we can really get started." Concluding, she gave her head what some might call a 'cute' tilt to one side, in the general direction of the female Spaceman First Class.

(OOC: 1/6, or micro-g currently? I wish to not write much more description until I know whether my characters are in neutral position and free to use all four limbs or standing and leaning against the wall. ;] )

S1C Kwon, the female, takes up the response as she holds onto the handrail running around the perimeter of the shuttle's airlock to steady her in the apparent null-gravity. "This is just a transfer shuttle we sent; we weren't sure what kind of issues we'd have docking something larger to your ship so we sent something decently small. We'll transfer you over to an OrbPlat where any requisite negotiation can go on and where the accomodations are."

"While we're on the way," Kiwallis says as he moves to the side to let the Spacers pass, "I guess we can get over the very basics. What makes you all interested in diplomatic contact with the Triumvirate?"

"Ah. Very good, a sensible thing to do," says Niko. "We're actually used to docking with some very large things, took off directly from Tripolis, actually, but then we too have been taking some probably unnecessary precautions just due to our ignorance of you. Well, unless we're going to spend the whole trip right here, then, lead on!"

As the Spacers move, their alignment quickly brakes up and the illusion of any preferred up-and-down direction completely vanishes. Of course, as he is 'official', Niko lets Neritos field the question from Officer Kiwallis.

"Well," says Neritos, "we have a large number of projects, in things such as technical research and construction, mostly related to our population growth, which we have been wanting to undertake for some time but have not had either the resources, trained manpower, or international political environment to actually realize. For some time, Phoenicia has been trying to lift people from Earth to help us, but this has been a very slow process with no really great returns in the foreseeable future, and so Tripolis decided it would be best to try to contact someone already established in space as we are. There were, of course, other options, but we have had dealings with some of your member nations before, and certain parties were wary about attempting to align ourselves with the Order of the Seraphim after our last encounter.

"That is, though, only the basic instigation for having our mission approved. We've got really a rather wide assortment of things to discuss some of which really don't relate to our national projects at all and some of which are rather specific to certain political groups but which we have nevertheless been instructed to bring up by public referendum.

"About our crew, here, there's really nothing remarkable about it, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on whether you give more weight to presenting a well-balanced of the average spacer or fielding someone with lots of diplomatic experience. Of course, they choose the cheapest most efficient ship for the job, which happened to be Mykenaen, so the crew had to be Mykenaen, and we three just happened to be available, in the right place at the right time. I'm only our official diplomat because I've got experience trading with Knossosi and Skherians.

The inside of the Scarab is just as utilitarian as the outside, perhaps even moreso. The seats and g-harnesses are simple affairs that take little time to get prepared; once everyone is settled, the flight crew disengages from Kronokleios with a slight bump and programs in a transfer course at one-sixth gravity constant acceleration. There are faster ways to go about it, but time is not necessarily considered to be of the essence at the moment.

Kiwallis nods simply at Neritos' explanation. "Fair enough. The Order has practically fallen apart anyway, so that much at least was a good call." He doesn't bring up the diametric opposition which makes it an even better call in the eyes of the Triumvirate. "As for experience and whatnot, it looks like both parties sent out what they had so there's no concern there. What's the most pressing matter you'd like to bring up first, and I'll see how we can help along that way?"

Whether it was noticeable or not, only the Saturnians would know, and the spacers themselves gave it no thought- isn't this the way it is everywhere?- but the spacers were completely unfazed by the dedication shown to utilitarianism. Considering, on the other hand, the attention given to surreptitiously examining the differences in architecture between this and their own civilization (none were all that concerned about maintaining conversational eye contact, but Niko's eyes in particular roved the walls trying to identify the materials and examining seams), it probably would have presented a very noticeable inconvenience to the Saturnians if there had been any significant decoration beyond their uniforms.

Seats and harnesses, now, were something that presented no problem with culture shock at all. Guilders were familiar with all manner of bodily restraints- acceleration couches, work station anchors, sleeping harnesses, excersize chairs, et cetera, and the purpose of these was immediately obvious. Neritos in particular took a great interest in examining the design of the seats and harnesses and filing the information away for comparison with the many other designs he had seen in Minoan rockhoppers, Phoenician torchships, and Mykenaen and Phaiakian freighters. But this minor mental effort did not, of course, interfere in any way with his ability to converse.

"Yes, we are aware of recent problems in the Order. They did have some measure of influence in Mercurian space, however. Fortunately, we did our homework and discovered that the Caloris Basin has recently entered your alliance, so deep relations with the Order are not necessary after all."
Neritos sighed and pulled a small roll of paper from somewhere among the folds of his shirt. Under 1/6 gravity, his arms moved apparently without trouble, although the other spacers knew that, while not difficult, it was a noticeable effort- they could even fairly comfortably stand under this acceleration, but walking would be most out of the question.
"My list of topics that I'm supposed to not forget to bring up. Ah, the most important I don't think you could really help much with along the way, it involves assistance to and the uplifting of a promising Tellurian nation. Schultaria Prime, it's called. Then there's some stuff about getting in with Caloris Basin on Mercury and Menelmacar on Kytherea. Nothing really for Mars." He looked up for a moment. "We've got a good thing going with Mangala already, actually. Got a very nice orbital mirror array from them. Anyway, ah... how do you feel about personnel exchange? We need a lot of physical therapists and engineers trained in mining and construction on planetary surfaces, and there's something of a large demand for training in the martial arts lately. We were kind of hoping that maybe you could lend us some soldiers for that purpose. Although, it sounds kinda silly now that I actually say it, especially considering that you'd probably have to totally re-invent your own fighting styles to work in null-g. But that really ties in to what were going to offer in return, which is training in deep space flight and null-gravity living. So, basically, I guess the deal would be that you send cadets to us for a few-month full-immersion course from the experts in living without gravity, and they pay for the privelege by helping us develop our own martial arts. And that still sounds really stupid. It sounded like a much better idea talking about it in a breifing room back in Tripolis... well, what do you think? Anyway, we would still want to negotiate to get some of your engineers to help us out with our colonies on Selene."

Senior Spaceman Kwon politely interjects. Although she speaks with quiet enthusiasm, she has the proper lack of extraneous movement that a spacer should have. "Just because we tend to live in gravity wells for various reasons doesn't mean we don't know how to operate in null-g. We have to live in it too sometimes, y'know. The Mobile Infantry and the Fleet are generally trained in microgravity brawling--both Seetharaman and I are qualified in it--but actually structured, styled martial arts... Hm." She thinks for a moment, glancing over to the man in green camouflage fatigues.

"A lot of M.I. take it as an option, so I've heard." Seetharaman helps out. "I've also read somewhere that the Scolopendran special forces are trained in it."

"So yes," Officer Kiwallis says with a wry smile, glancing at the Fleet 'delegation' with something between thanks and annoyance, "we actually can help you with that. It's not foolish at all." He waves one hand dismissively. Definitely the flatlander of the bunch. "I'm sure we can arrange something mutually equitable nonetheless. The core of the issue is personnel exchange, and we can arrange for that quite gladly.

"Concerning Schultaria Prime... what kind of 'uplifting' are we talking about?"

"Oh. Oh, well, good. I suppose we'll have to work out the details later, then. Of course, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't know how operate in null gravity- I mean, here we are, on your spaceship. Just that people who have lived in it from birth ought to be better at it than any non-native. I'm probably putting my figurative foot in my mouth, aren't I? Never mind."

Niko broke in during Neritos's pause. "Oh! I know, I bet you don't have much dance designed for null gravity! Those ought to be some interesting skills we can give back. We may not know how to fight worth a slug, but dancing is something else entirely."

"Er, yes. Thank you, Niko. About Schultaria, mostly technological, economic, and literal, bringing them out of Earth's gravity well. They're quite independent people. We've known them since they launched their first satelite, and they were quite gracious towards us, and we've set up some quite beneficial trade deals, but they pretty much refused any significant technological help. They've gotten all the way to orbital spaceplanes on their own since then. But recently, natural disasters have all but destroyed their food supply and economic base."

Robert stifles the urge to raise an eyebrow and chuckles instead. Although he excelled in his DiploCorps training for the Triumvirate, he's still a former citizen of the Empire of Treznor (a citizenship that will be returned if he chooses it after he gets out of the Trium federal system) and grew up a flatlander... a flatlander under the Empire's less than... ah... professionally critical attitude towards new and experimental things if Amateur's Night is any indicator. Still, Sakkran opera was surprisingly good, and I'm here to represent the Trium... so... "Dance works and..."

The idealism of the organization has rubbed off a bit on him. "The Triumvirate will gladly assist in disaster aid--as soon as we get to the orbital platform, we can forward the need to the TYCS and member aid organizations."

"Well. Good, then. I suppose we'll just... sit quietly, then, until we get there." Neritos slipped his paper back into his shirt. "Unless you wanted to talk about something. I'm sure you've probably got lots of questions about us. 'Small talk', or what not. You know you're the first Ur-Humans we've ever seen, in person? So...."

"Of course--questions and answers are something of what I'm trained for, no?" Kiwallis smiles and glances over at the politely quiet spacemen--both undercase visitors and capitalized servicemen--before pausing for a moment. "Ur-Humans. That bit's rather interesting. I know Ur was an ancient Sumerian city... I also recognized some Greek names when you mentioned your Spacer... ah... habitats? I'm guessing there's some sort of connection there--maybe a chronological order relating ancient settlements to your own adaptation to your environment?"

He almost called it divergent evolution. Almost, but not quite.

"You do not know the term Ur-Human?" Neritos raised his brows. "Oh, but of course you would not. You are simply 'human' to yourselves, I suppose. And we are 'post-human', you would say, yes? That is an interesting back-derivation. I had never before considered the origin of the term 'Ur', in this usage meaning simply original, prototypical, ah, perhaps 'archaic'. I am familiar with the history of civilization however, and it would make sense for it to come from the name of the city Ur of the Chaldees, it being among the oldest of cities and the largest of Shinar. A prototypical form of city civilization, yes?
"We have never used Babylonian or Sumerian names for ourselves or our various habitats, that I know of. Perhaps it would be appropriate for some of the great ports, or the colonies near Tellus. The Greek is simply in keeping with the motif of our Guild. We Mykenaens name our City-stations and City-ships for the isles and cities of the ancient Mykenaen empire. Tiryns is our capital, as it was theirs. Kos is simply a minor city on an asteroid, named after another minor city of the ancient empire. The Phoenicians have Sidon, Tyre, Mogador, etc. The Phaikians have Skheria. The Knossosi have Minoa, Akroteria, Kato Zakros. Our personal names all happen to be Greek in origin, as well, but that is simply because we all had nostalgic parents. There is also significant influence in our culture from the Rus, the Het Ka Ptahns, the Norse, the Mexica, and I'm sure if you looked you could find an colony somewhere for almost every ancient group.
"It is simply because of the Treaty of Tripolis that Greek influence dominates. It seemed appropriate back then to equate the three major Guilds with the three great maritime empires. Phaikia kept up the Greek motif, but choose their name to match their forte- they are the best shipbuilders. But recently, there has been talk of creating a new Guild, and one of the names circulating is 'Pochtlan'. That would certainly break the pattern."

Robert brushes off the unintentional slight in being described as 'archaic.' While it is in some senses accurate in that the 'traditional' form of H. sapiens sapiens is no where near adapted to the environment of low-acceleration spaceflight, it is still somewhat disconcerting to hear. "I'm not an expert or even a dilettante on ancient cultures by any sense of the terms," the diplomatic officer replies, hands up slightly in a gesture of joking surrender, "I just recognized it and wanted to know more. So you really don't know who came up with it? Just a tradition?

"Well, tradition comes from history, usually." Kiwallis grins in a traditionally Earther way, which elicit very mild (yet still noticable to the keen observer) twitch-responses from the two Fleet spacemen, like someone mildly surprised or startled. "Please, tell me about yourselves; who you are, where you came from. Personally or socially, whichever you're comfortable with, although I'm definitely curious about both."

"I really don't know who came up with it. It's just another word in our dialect. About ourselves... well, Niko and I were born on Kos. That's a Mars-crossing city, incidentally. I lived there for fourteen Tellurian years studying flight, psychology, architecture, trade, and history as a hobby, then moved to Tiryns where I worked as an asteroid miner and extravehicular construction worker for seven Tellurian years. Our parents are both still on Kos, I think. I met Doron on a mining job when he was working as a rockhopper pilot. We spent three months together, with a crew of eight, on an excursion to another main belt asteroid and back to Tiryns. Anyway, after those seven years, Doron and I bought our own rockhopper, re-built it into a makeshift dormitory and cargo boat, and left for Tripolis. We made two runs to the inner system, transporting construction materials to the sub-Mercurian Sunminers and the Skherian shipyards, until Niko caught up with us at Tripolis. Doron got a good contract with the Phaiakians, then, and took off on his own, while I kept our ship and Niko and I used the contacts I'd already made in Tripolis to start up a freelance cargo hauling and trade operation. Really, you shouldn't have less than three people on a ship like that, but it's not easy to find other crewmembers for a mixed ship. That was, what, eleven Tellurian years, I think? And then, on our last return to Tripolis, they were looking for a crew for this mission, and there we were. So, that's me, in a nutshell."
"That's right," said Niko. "I was on Kos for thirteen Tellurian years before Neritos left, then stayed around working in the gardens for another three years. I left Kos when I took a job as a life support specialist on a private ship headed for Miletos. I spent four years on Miletos, met a lot of guys, and none who made me want to stick around. I found a ship going to Palekastro for who knows what reason, just based on reputation I guess, and took an extendedvacation studying art and molecular biology. My funds ran out pretty quickly and I ended up having to sign as crew working on life support for a ship going to Tripolis. Of course, having no prior acquaintences there, I spent two rather despondent weeks in a hotel trying to find a new job when I saw an ad for Doron and Neritos's trade services and hooked back up with him. You know the rest. Doron?"
"Eh, what?" Doron had quite obviously not been paying any attention for the last several minutes- after all, talking was Neritos's job.
"Doron, we're relating our backgrounds. Tell the Saturnians where you come from and stuff."
"Oh. OK, well, I spent my first twenty-three Tellurian years based out of Tiryns. Starting learning to pilot a rockhopper at ten, studied mining a long with that, and took up general flight at sixteen. I met Neritos at eighteen when we served together on a survey and mining run. Anyway, like I said, I spent twenty-three years based out of Tiryns, and after that Neritos and I bought a rockhopper off of my employer and got a good deal on some surplus off-the-shelf modules to expand it. Basically built a whole new ship, and headed to Tripolis hoping to set up as freelance transporters. It was rough starting out, and we pretty much exhausted all of our capital on living expenses and maintenance, but we managed to get a contract with a scrap and refining company supplying the Skherians and the Sunminers. After two runs, though, I got a deal I couldn't pass up as a rockhopper pilot operating directly out of Tripolis, and then Niko showed up, so I sold my share of our ship to her. Of course, with me out, our contract was null, but having been there for a while we'd made some good contact which Neritos used to set up that freelance transporter business we'd been hoping for at the beginning. They went off all over the system, and we kept in touch, me providing them with tips on new jobs whenever they came back at the same time as me. And then, last time we were all back on Tripolis, they needed a crew for this mission, so here we are."

Aftera bit of a pause, Niko spoke up again.
"OK! So, that does it for personal stuff, I guess. Now, culturally... Well, I'm not sure any of us are really qualified to tell you everything there is about our culture. I can try to give you a bit of an overview, though. Well, a really brief history of the origin of the Guilds goes something like this. Way back when, a bunch of early spacefaring nations sent out colonies to Selene, and the Asteroid Belt, and the Galillean moons and whatnot. After a while, most of the people who lived on those colonies found that they couldn't return to Earth. A little while later, they realised that they were all so far away that there was really nothing that Earth could do to enforce its laws, and so a lot of the mostly self-sufficient ones just stopped listening to Earth entirely and went off on their own. Most of the original colonists, of course, were pan-Humans. Now, since it's very hard to be entirely self-sufficient indefinitely, and because people just like to be around other people, bunches of these stateless colonists got together and buitl bigger and bigger stations and bigger and bigger ships, and set up centralized communications and trade ports tor oute messages and hold meeting at and whatnot, and eventually a bunch of people got together at a port called Tripolis, and decided to take these networks and turn them into official states. Of course, the terms of the Treaty of Tripolis turned out to be impossible to fulfill, but it was the spirit of the thing that counts.
"We're pretty much capitalistic, but the government makes sure that everybody at least has food and a place to live, seeing as how it's a direct democracy on the lowest levels and the people who otherwise wouldn't have food and a place to live always vote to get it. The U.N. claims that we have a crippling crime rate, but really its an enabling crime rate. It's a lot lower than it would be if you instituted all of our laws on a population of Tellurians, but as it is it's higher than most Tellurian nations simply because there are a lot more possible crimes to commit- mostly related to safety procedures. For example, it's technically a misdemeanor to not close all switch covers in a spacecraft cockpit when the relevant controls are not in use, but almost nobody actually gets caught for that. Anyway, like I say, it's enabling, as prison labor lets us do a lot of things cheaply that would otherwise be expensive due to labor costs, and get in prisoner rehabilitation at the same time. In fact, most of the guards at the high-security facilities are minor criminals serving their sentence by doing guard duty. Anyway, on that note, we don't keep public crime records, as if someone commits a major crime, they probably won't be getting out of prison to make it an issue, and if it's a minor crime, there's really no reason to mess up someone's later life by sticking what was probably just a stupid mistake on them.
"Our education system is pretty unique, I understand. There's very little in the way of an official public school system- mostly, the government just provides a series of aptitude tests in various subjects at various levels, as do a lot of commercial employers. Sometimes the government pays teachers, as well, but really anybody who can get other people to listen to them can be a teacher. Most mid-range habitats, and all large habitats, have some areas dedicated to education, where teachers can go to lecture. Students just show up to whatever classes they're interested in, sometimes a groups of students will get together to pay a private professor, but actually nobody has to go to any lectures or classes if they don't want to- the only 'official' thing is the aptitude tests, and if you feel you've sufficiently educated yourself in any particular subject, you go take the relevant tests, and if you pass, they give you a certificate for it.
"That's about all I have off the top of my head. Any specific questions?"

"Different way of doing things, but I suppose it's necessary given that you aren't exactly localized in terms of space... forgive the unintentional pun." Kiwallis smiles diplomatically. "Still, one would think that your Guilds would have the same trouble as Earth did when you left; all the places that you seem to congregate at are long distances from each other--"

"--and at impressive delta-vees from each other," Spaceman Seetharaman offers.

"--in terms of length, time, and fuel. Not my area of expertise, but with extended transit times between all of them, one would think the usual cycle of colonial fracturization as evidenced on Earth would take place. Maybe fast communications allowed for enough sharing to prevent it, or something else; either way, you are who you are so you're to be commended as a people for getting past that."

The D.O. smiles again, thinking for a moment before continuing. "I suppose the only question I have is whether or not you have any particular questions concerning us. I never meant this to become the interrogation that it has, but you are different and therefore interesting. Honestly, meeting new people and getting to know them is why I signed up for being a D.O.."

"Oh, make no mistake about that," said Niko. "We /do/ have most of the troubles that Earth did with its first colonies. That's why the Treaty of Tripolis was impossible to uphold. Going between Guilds, and sometimes even between station clusters, is almost like going to a foreign country I would imagine. Of course, I can't say that for sure, seeing as how this is the first foreign country I've been in. But we stick together partly because we all need to use the same resources and infrastructure, like laser launchers or rotovators to take care of those impressive delta-v differences, or communications relays, partly because everybody mostly gets to govern themselves, except on Republic-wide coordination issues, and partly because we can all share in being smug over not being Tellurian." The last bit was said with an involuntary smile, and a voluntary attempt to make sure the correct joking tone got into her voice.

"And, of course, the fast and efficient communications that relays like Tripolis, Tiryns, and Knossos provide is a big part of keeping our culture somewhat uniform," said Neritos. "Well, no questions come immediately to mind. My curiosity is more about Ur-Humans in general than any particular culture. Doron, do you have any questions?"
"Eh, what?"
"Nevermind. I suppose I should ask, what makes you all stay on your planets and moons, and why do the locals invariably object to the suggestion of having their world dismantled? I'd think they'd want the extra surface area just as much as we want the core metals."

"That would make sense if what we were interested in was the surface area," Kiwallis replies in the even, diplomatic tone that trained professionals take when they are somewhat bewildered by the direction their current situation has suddenly taken without asking them. "However, ah, disassembling planets would make the individual chunks have lower gravities, and we do like our gravity wells. I suppose part of it comes from an irrational desire to have things fall down when we toss them up, from years and years of evolution that way, but reasonably it has its benefits as well. It makes one hardier in a physical sense; someone who is adapted biologically to a higher-gravity planet can move to lower gravities freely, but those adapted to lower gravities are distinctly threatened by higher accelerations."

"But, really, is it energy efficient to do that?" Seetharaman asks after thinking about the problem for a few moments. "Core materials are available elsewhere inside smaller gravity wells. To 'disassemble' a planet would require intensive effort as well as the expenditure of energy to break something that large into pieces where gravity won't just pull them back together and defeat the purpose. Minimum sustainable-orbit velocity increases with proximity to any barycenter so if one broke up a planet into chunks where the surface area would still be useful one would also either have those chunks moved a distance or sped up, both with excessive delta-vee, so they could mutually orbit their barycenter. Seems more trouble than it's worth."

"You built your Ring for surface area, and it has the high acceleration you prefer," said Niko.

A pause.

"Yes, well," said Neritos. "You don't really need to be concerned with hardiness if there are no high-g environments. But, regardless, your own Ring and innumerable spinning habitats prove that you don't need a deep gravity well to get that acceleration. Anyway, whether it's efficient or not depends on your parameters for efficiency. It would take a lot of energy to deconstruct a planet, but less than it would take to generate new mass directly from energy, and not more than we are capable of providing to do it. We have lots of energy available. A significant portion of the required energy could even come from the body's internal heat if it were large enough to begin with. And we don't necesarrily want the chunks to orbit their barycenter- we'd want to completely unbind them, lift everything out of the original gravity well so that it's available for exploitation, although we might want to keep it grouped into conveniently-sized clusters. Eventually, we're going to run out of asteroids, those wonderful chunks of free core material in shallow gravity wells, but the core of Mercury alone would provide more material than the enitre Main Belt. Just think what sorts of things we could build with that! Enough livable volume and solar collection area to support five, ten times the current population of the solar system!"

"An interesting debate in theoretical engineering," Kiwallis says with a politely jovial tone whose sincerity is contradicted only by the intent behind it, "but unlikely to come to pass given that a lot of people are already living on these things and like them the way they are. Perhaps in some other system where no one is living yet, no one would complain if a planet or two got cracked open, but here... politically unviable. I should know." He chuckles softly.

"We should be approaching the orbital platform soon enough," the Diplomatic Officer continues, "and I know they've already set up accomodations for you in the null-gee central core. Is there a particular agenda you'd like to follow or people you need to see so I can alert the stationmasters to set their schedules accordingly?"

"We know, but... I'll just never understand those people. Planet's are so inefficient." It was almost dramatic as Neritos and Niko sighed in unison.

"I'm pretty flexible on agenda, and I think Niko and Doron are too. We'd really like to work out some personell transfer things first, most importantly getting engineers and physical therapists for our colonies on Selene, then maybe move on to some of the major engineering projects we had in mind that could be made mutually beneficial, and that would probably involve getting in contact with someones representing Kytheria and Mercury. And, after that, I guess we'll just wing it until I get through everything on my list. With breaks for eating, sleeping, and using the watercloset at appropriate intervals throughout, of course."

"I would like to see our accomodations first," said Niko. "Just to drop off our luggage, at least, before we meet anybody else. I don't think I'll have much use for wide-spectrum immunosuppressants, extra rebreathers, or multiple tunics while just talking to people."

(OOC: Sorry for the delay. Little bit of a writer's block and senior design has been... interesting so far.)

When the Guild delegation arrives at their accomodations they will find two invitations waiting for them from the Mangalan Embassy. John Chase, Ambassador plenipotentiary to the Triumvirate of Yut, sends a brief note of greeting and an invitation to dinner at the Embassy. The second note is from a Dr. Joyce Walton, of the local MNN office, and is a request for a meeting with a Guild representative concerning some business matters.

[OOC: Arg! Forum ate my post. I shall do my best to reconstruct it, although the reconstruction will probably be much worse than the original. Oh well, if Scolo doesn't mind me skipping ahead a bit and playing with the environment, then...]

"Nice place they've got here," said Neritos. "I guess we'll just wait around and relax here for a while until somebody comes to collect us. Mind tossing me one of those immunosuppressants?"
"No problem." The pill floated slowly across the room, and Neritos easily caught it and popped it in his mouth. Niko, floating near the middle of the room, rummaged absent-mindedly through the contents of her bag. "I ought to wear something with pockets or a belt."
"I don't know what you'd be carrying, but OK. What you've got on is probably fine from a social standpoint, or someone would've said something already."
Niko undid the clasps that held her tunic together, wadded it up, and stuffed it into her bag. "I forgot to bring a smaller bag, so I definitely need something with pockets or a belt."
"Hey, look at this," said Neritos. He picked up a peice of paper that was stuck to the door. "Looks like the Mangalan Embassy has invited us to dinner. And there's another note about a business meeting. I wonder how we respond to these."
"That's nice of them. We can figure it out later." Niko started to pull a blue strip of fabric out of her bag. "How's this?"
"It's fine."
"Good." She slung the fabric between her legs, fastened the clasps over her shoulders, and tightened a wide green nylon almost-utility belt around her middle. "I wonder what Doron's doing in his room."
"No idea," said Neritos, and he curled up to take a nap.

[OOC: To be edited pending the possible revelation that those messages should have been electronic and/or the use of communication equipment was already explained to the characters.]

"So, have our guests settled in?" Administrator, Second-Tier al-Hassid glances over the e-legalpad clipped on his databoard, brown eyes settling down on the next item on the list before flipping back the previous sheet out of a mild compulsion.

The civil servant that is basically the civilian opposite numer of the spacemen back on the shuttle nods. A numbered OrbPlat is a Federal installation; the government runs it as it would any port. "Yep. I put the notes from the Mangalan where they could see them and hopefully they can figure out the communications nook themselves."

"If not, then we'll send someone down around Fajr--" he looks at the chronometer on the wall, its red LED numbers contentedly ticking away in the Saturnspace equivalent of Zulu time "--and wake them up. Probably one of the D.O.s we have on retainer from the IntRelate."

Knowing that his boss is going to go on like this for a while, the blue-shirted civil servant decides to make a quiet exit in order to find something to do that's more productive than stand around waiting for acknowledgement while the administrator is talking aloud. Just another small moment, another simple task in a day full of 'em...

If no progress is made with the communications device--and even if it is--after 0600 the next day, just after the quiet drone of the muezzin dies out on the public address system--yes, it's most certainly a primarily Scolopendran orbital platform--Diplomatic Officer Kiwallis returns with a polite knock on the door and, once the door is opened, a cordial smile, one unpracticed hand steadying him with a grip on a convenient handhold bar. "So, did everyone rest well?"

Niko opened the door and said, "Ah, giasou, Kiwallis. Quite well. I was just reading something." She tossed the LCD tablet she was holding behind her. "Neritos, Kiwallis is here."
"Ow." Neritos, floating in neutral position, opened his eyes and straightened out for a moment before relaxing again and catching the tablet which had bounced off of him. "Kalimera, Kiwallis. Are we going somewhere, then?"
"Do be nice and toss that back to me, would you, Neritos?"
"Sure. Here." Niko caught the tablet and clipped it to her belt.
"Before we do anything else, we've got these notes from the Mangalan Embassy. I'm pretty sure we've got some communication devices over there, but we didn't want to mess around with anything, so if you could just inform us of how to take care of responding to these?"

"Oh, that?" Robert smiles, glancing over the nondescript terminal nestled in its nook in one side of the room. "I had trouble with those when I first had to deal with one of them. It's not connected to anything vital, so there's no harm in fiddling with it. First you turn it on with that switch there, and pick a language from the first menu--touchscreen, trackball, or keypress, whatever input you like. After that it's just a matter of navigating the onscreen menus." His explanation is punctuated by the occasional pointed finger or conversational gesture, each movement and change in angular or linear momentum having a Newtonian response on his body, although he keeps it in check with his hand on the rail and his boot on whichever end of the doorframe will help. Cleary capable of operating in the environment; certainly not habitually adapted to it.

"I think the internal mail client is still denoted by a picture of an envelope, although I'm not exactly sure why, knowing the Scolopendrans. Should be on the lower right-hand side of the screen there."