NationStates Jolt Archive

The sound that echoed from the centre of the city of Crekl could be compared to a lion's roar, but thousands upon thousands of times louder.
It was the sound of half a million xilloids cheering.
The experimental starship White Mothra loomed above the heads of the crowd, its alabaster hull gleaming in the sunlight.
The first image that might come to mind when looking at the White Mothra is of a huge, metal moth, sleek and jet-like.
The thirty-five highly-trained creme de la creme that made up the crew were already positioned inside. They were excited, but not half as excited as the scientists who designed the ship. If this worked, they told themselves, it would take space exploration to a level they had never even dreamed of.
The White Mothra was the first ship in all of Xill that could travel 80% of the speed of light.
The course was carefully plotted, so they wouldn't run into anything.
With a mighty blast of superheated hyrogenate, the White Mothra was launched.

Foretooth Vresh, commander of the White Mothra, stared in wonder at the stars rushing by so quickly that he could barely see them. Inside the ship, it felt like he was scarcely moving at all. He smiled, as only a reptile could.
Like all xilloids, Vresh was covered with green-grey scales. His upper body hunched forward slightly, counterweighted by his long, prehensile tail. He stood on two powerful leg, ending in sharp talons. His head might remind one of a veloceraptor, but longer in the nose and with a slight overbite. His long forelimbs, more capable than any dinosaur's, ended in three-fingered hands and long claws. He wore the black uniform of a Foretooth, complete with epaulettes.
He felt a slight backlash as the ship slowed down to regular speeds. He was in space that no xilloid had ever explored.

OOC: Note: The White Mothra is about the size of an average human city. It isn't a capitol ship, it just so happens that my people are roughly 70 metres tall. Now, before someone screams godmod, please take into account the following things:
1) They're walking targets.
2) They aren't very smart
3) They don't have very good technology
4) THEY'RE WALKING TARGETS!!!

That will be all.

The 'fins were amused at this. They were amused at most things, but hell...the ship was massive, and only going at 0.8c.

"Letsss play with them Captain."
"NO! We must not taunt the disadvantaged."
"Awwww. It'd be such fun."
"Oh very well. But we send them a polite message first."

<Welcome to space, o unkown ones. Our ship may be beneath your notice, but watch what it can do.>

<Oh yeah, we speak for Terror Incognitia, we are of the neo-dolphin crewed ship Streaker.>

The ship began looping around the other vessel at high speed.

"Umm, sir..." ventured Scanner Serrator Grek
Vresh snapeed to attention. "What is is, Serrator?"
"We're registering another ship in the vicinity. It's very small..."
Vresh grinned excitedly "Excellent! First contact!"
"Sir, incoming transmision from the unknown ship." reported Communications Serrator Bnol.
Vresh's grin widened. "What does it say?"
"I don't know, sir. It's in some unknown language."
His face fell. Of ourse. It was stupid of him to assume they would speak Xill.
Grek let out a cry of shock.
"What is it?" Vresh demanded.
"It's... circling us, sir. Going light speed."
Vresh scratched his chin and sat back in his comand chair. So, this alien species with their tiny ships could go extremely fast...
"Comm Serrtor Bnol, transmit language files," he ordered "See if we can get these people talking."

"Umm, we have incoming transmissions. Nothing comprehensible yet, but the translatorsss are working on it."
"Very well Ake. Let me know what the result is. Meanwhile, if we're going to disturb them, time to be where we _can't_ be. Hyperspace engines to 50%, we're going to jump."
"Aye Captain."
"Jump!"
Streaker took a hop of only a few lightseconds...but did it in considerably less time. These people might not have known FTL travel was possible, but they soon would.
Captain Lucky Jim...well, he didn't smile. Dolphins are ALWAYS smiling. But he would have tried.
"Oh, Captain, I think we've got a rough working translation going."
"Send our message again then."

<Welcome to space, o unkown ones. Our ship may be beneath your notice, but watch what it can do.>

<Oh yeah, we speak for Terror Incognitia, we are of the neo-dolphin crewed ship Streaker.>
(This'll probably come through as very broken text, but your people may get the gist.)

Grek physically jumped out of his chair, goggling at his screen in disbelief.
A tall, thin Xilloid in the blue uniform of an Incisor was peering over his shoulder now. He raised an eye-ridge, but made no other expression of surprise.
"Sir, they just... they travelled three light seconds away!" Grek exclaimed.
"Well, didn't you say they could travel at light speed?"
"They did it in less than one second, Foretooth." said the Incisor.
Vresh masaged his forehed for a few seconds "Are you telling me, Science Incisor Iorn..." he said slowly "that they cn travel faster than the speed of light?"
"Evidently, sir."
"But that's-"
Foretooth, there's another transmision. This time, it's in Xill."
Vresh gave a little chuckle. "They learn fast."
Bnol played the message.

<Good you in outside, mysterious units. Ship of us under you eyes, nevertheless, see us doing.

Oh yeah, us converse from Terror Incognita, us ship full of new aquatic mammals Streaker.>

Everyone in the room pondered this message for a few minutes.
"That's still pretty fast," Vresh said, breaking the silence. "Send back a reply: We are the starship White Mothra, from the Republic of Xill. This is a mission of exploration. We are greatly humbled by your impressive isplay of speed."

We are the starship White Mothra, from the Republic of Xill. This is a mission of exploration. We are greatly humbled by your impressive isplay of speed

"Us starship"
"Starship, at 0.8c? Well, not everyone can leap to FTL. Continue."
"White...Mothra...from state Xill. Orders to look around"
"Exploration mission? Ok, not colonisation or conquest."
"And something about humility and speed."
"Good, the hyper-jump got to them. No harm showing who has superiority early. Now the trick is not to rub their noses in it...too far. Send this:
We are ourselves explorers, and our people have not had hyperspace long. We have nothing but good intent to your people, and could trade you hyperspace technology in the right deal."

Vresh pondered the message. He guessed that 'hyperspace' was that aazing speed they had displayed. He didn't have clearance to organise any trade agreements, and they were out of range of the planet. He couldn't promise them anything, but there was no harm in speculting.
"Bnol, send this: I'm sure nothing would give xilloid scientists greater pleasure than your hyperspace technology. Ours must seem primitive in comparison, so there is nothing in that field that could interest you. However, a thought occurs: depending on how many of you are in the Streaker, you must be quite small, so you can't be too efficient at mining minerals. I don't have government authorisation to promise you anything, but it's a thought worth considering."

OOC: Sorry, gotta sleep. Night.

"Guarded approval of trade deals, but it seems they don't have clearance to negotiate anything."
"In that case...ask them whether we can go to their planet where we can negotiate, and assure them that we can make deals. As to that size crack, inform them that we are roughly....ach! Unit conversions! Well, use our standard definitions of metre and second."
"We are approximately two metres long. A metre is the space travelled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second. A second is 9 192 631 770 vibrations of a caesium-133 atom. How large are you?"

OOC: Fair enough, different timezones.

Iorn examined the measurements an did some quick calculations of his handheld computer.
"Ah..." he said in vague surprise "They're tiny."
"Really? How tiny?"
"About one eighth of a grebnak, Foretooth."
Vresh burst out laughing. He supposed it was stupid to assume that every intelligent species was the same size as they were. He just hadn't expected them to be so small.
"How tall are we, by their measurements, Incisor?"
"Roughly..." he did some more calculations "seventy metres tall, and a hundred from head to tail."
"All right, then. Bnol, tell them that as well as: Our planet is... Iorn, how long, in their time, did it take us to get here from Xill?"
"Two hundred and fourteen seconds, sir."
"Our planet is two hundred and fourteen seconds at 80% light speed in the direction we are now pointed. Sidetooth Ntreg, turn the ship around. Oh, don't send that last bit, Bnol."

"WHAT!?"
"Seventy metres sir."
"As if great blue cousins had made starships....wow."
"And the planet is that one there, that we were heading for next."
"Okay, take us there, broadcasting broad-spectrum in their language. Standard patter."

Greetings, this is Terror Incognitia Ship Streaker. We are on a mission of exploration to discover new peoples and planets, and encountered your exploration ship White Mothra just recently. We are interested in your culture, and may be able to trade technology with you.

"Let's see what we get."
"I sure hope they said we were coming."
"Nah, I always wanted to pop a planet's cherry."
"You already did for the whole species, don't get greedy."

Ground Control Front Claw Hragr marvelled over the messages sent by both the White Mothra and the Streaker. First contact with an alien race already... It was a miracle beyond his wildest dreams.

Scnel was less impressed. "We are simply letting these creatures onto our planet?!" he growled "An alien race with technology far greater than our own, and w're inviting them into our very homes! This is insane!"

Hragr shook his head in disbelief. "Please, sir, calm yourself-"

"This 'Streaker' is an imminent threat to the security of Xill, and as the assigned representative of Alpha Xargan, I demand that we-"

"Need I remind you that as the Front Claw of this operation, it is up to me to make the decisions? If you gfeel so strongly, then you may by all means report your concrn to the Alpha. In the meantime, I am going to act as I see fit and open diplomacy with these neo-dolphins."

Scnel snarled, but said no more. Hragr stared at the screens, as noth the ship they had sent out and the new alien vessel came towards their planet.

The ISS Reliant had been busy surveying planets for a new top secret terraforming experiment when the quiet of the bridge was interrupted by the screeching buzzer indicating a new sensor contact.

"Science Officer, go check that out," ordered Captain Terrell.

"Aye Sir," responded the Science Officer in a British accent. "Sir, there appears to be a large energy reading 2 parsecs away."

"Helm, take us out of orbit," ordered Terrell. "Engage warp engines at warp 7."

The Miranda class vessel moved in towards the energy source. Sensors showed it was a large vessel of unknown origin. The communications officer began sending greetings in all known languages on every frequency. The ship was at least 15 km in length.

"My G-d!" uttered the Science Officer as he lifted his head from the blue lit scanner reading. "The ship I have on scanners is about 15 times the size of any ship we have encountered."

"You mean it's bigger than Bolock's ship!" remarked Terrell referring to the Fesarius, the flagship of the "First Federation."

"Yes Sir," responded the Science Officer.

"Put it on viewer," ordered Terrell. "Continue transmitting greetings. Make sure they know we are here in peace."

Ground Control Front Claw Hragr marvelled over the messages sent by both the White Mothra and the Streaker. First contact with an alien race already... It was a miracle beyond his wildest dreams.

Scnel was less impressed. "We are simply letting these creatures onto our planet?!" he growled "An alien race with technology far greater than our own, and w're inviting them into our very homes! This is insane!"

Hragr shook his head in disbelief. "Please, sir, calm yourself-"

"This 'Streaker' is an imminent threat to the security of Xill, and as the assigned representative of Alpha Xargan, I demand that we-"

"Need I remind you that as the Front Claw of this operation, it is up to me to make the decisions? If you gfeel so strongly, then you may by all means report your concrn to the Alpha. In the meantime, I am going to act as I see fit and open diplomacy with these neo-dolphins."

Scnel snarled, but said no more. Hragr stared at the screens, as noth the ship they had sent out and the new alien vessel came towards their planet.

"Where are we going to land? I mean, if we follow their normal procedure, we'll end up about 10 klicks off the edge of the runway."

"I don't know sir. With people as big as buildings, how the hell are we going to communicate properly?"

"With megaphones and a lot of patience."

"Ah. Guess so."

Comunication Serrator Bnol gave a start.
"Sir, we're picking up another transmission."

"From the neo-dolphins?"

"It doesn't appear so, sir, since they're sending us messags in many, many different languages, apparently trying to see if we speak any of them."

"Grek, have you picked them up?"

"Negat- Oh, wait. There they are. Similar size to the Streaker."

"Bnol, send them the same language files and alert ground control abut this new species."

"Sir," said Sidetooth Ntreg "We're about to re-enter atmosphere."

"Hold for a moment. Bnol, ask our old friends if there's any problem with landing."

"Contact."
"Report."
"New vessel. 1.1 Streaker size. Species/nation unknown. Language unknown. They're broadcasting to the Xill ship."
"Send this in plain, cycling if they don't get it. Narrowband."
"Ready sir."
Unknown vessel. This is Terror Incognitia Ship Streaker, engaged in exploratory work. What nation are you from?
More importantly, are you prepared to co-operate with us in dealing with these leviathans, or will we end up each acting to the other's disadvantage?


"Oh, and send to the Xill."
No problems with landing itself, we just need indication of where to put ourselves.

OOC: Roughly what size is the Streaker?

IC: Vresh relayed the message back to Front Claw Hragr, who requested to be put into contact with the aliens.

It is an honour to meet you, represetatives of Terror Icognitia. I am sure we will find somewhere for you to land. What conditions do you require? Will you need water? What length of runway should we provide? What level of gravity are you used to?

Scnel glowered darkly. "So they're landing here, are they? An unknown species who, for all we know, could blow up our entire planet. And what about this second ship? Are we going to invite them over too?"

Hragr chose to ignore him.

We thank you, we are entirely self-sufficient, can land vertically, and will accustom ourselves to whatever level of gravity is customary
"Somebody work me out the local little 'g', ok?"
We merely asked so that we will not cause any problems by landing in an inopportune place.

OOC: The ship is about 500m long.

Zaqar was by far and away the least frightening of all Phyrexian ships. This was, of course, intentional. It was, out of the entire Phyrexian fleet, the only ship to be designed with asthetics in mind. Specifically the asthetics of bipedal humanoid life forms in general, but those seemed to be nearly universal anyway.
The ship was white, with a pleasing design of gold-paint stripes forming interesting and exotic patterns which ran across its surface. The ship itself was round, a perfect sphere. Very easy to look at, very pleasant to most beings visual pallet.
Even on the inside, it was pleasantly decorated, and its crew displayed few of the more grotesque modifications typical of Phyrexians. They looked almost human.

We greet you O newly found star-faring race, in the name of the Hidden One, whose Word we spread. With your permission, we would request to land quickly, our power supply is beggining to wane and we must have your answer quickly.

Vresh was starting to become a bit overwhelmed with all the new species greeting him. He relayed another message from Hragr:

You are all welcome in the Republic of Xill.You may land at this location:

There followed a set of coordinants and a picture of the place.

Coming screeching in at high speed; using the full power of the engines, if only for an instant; and stopping dead, bang on the coordinates given.
It was the sort of landing that would get a pilot in trouble with his superiors - usually.
Now, however, it added a bit of panache to the ordinarily dull proceeding of landing, and for all the Chief Engineer's moans, wouldn't really do any damage to the engines.

Captain Ake gathered a few crewfins, including a guard..for the show of the thing. They couldn't carry weapons that would really harm a 70m tall creature.
Thus gathered, the cargo ramp was lowered, and they left the ship. Not too far away though, they wanted these people to be able to find them...

Gnarj watched the ship land, smiling as only a reptile could. The ship was barely seven times as long as he was, but it was still extremely impressive. The soliders on either side of him puffed their throats nervously, but he didn't care. This was his moment.

They had said that diplomats were useless now that the whole planet was one nation. They had laughed at him when he said he could serve as an ambassador to alien species. Well, who was laughing now?

He strode over to the landing party, bent over and extended his claw to the ankle-height creatures. "Welcome," he said, although he knew they probably couldn't understand Xill "It is truly an honour to meet you."

"Ifni! That thing's huuuuuuge!"
"STEADY! They know we're here in peace, they won't do anything stupid."
"Phew, it stopped. Right, megaphone on."

From the translator, swiftly loaded up with the AI's best guess at Xill, came
"Welcome. Meeting you, truth honour."
One of the guards muttered "Please Ifni say their going to improve on that; working with this piece of shit'll be like teaching a human to swim; amusing, but repetitive and ultimately pretty pointless."
"Shut up, in case you wander close enough the megaphone picks up."

We are glad to be here. We come offering you the trade of your lives - help in achieving faster than light travel, in return for whatever you've got to offer.