Alkesh Naranek
04-02-2007, 19:22
Ilkail, Within Vorlon Space...
Missiles impacted the hill, along with bursts of PPG style weapons fire and concentrated beams of searing yellow brightness. The fortifications left over there by the last group to attack the island disintegrated at their corner, rubble and molten mush rolling down the hill. Hovering, Gravitic ‘Shriek’ (an alien name of no commonality with the English word) tanks and personnel carriers surged forwards, some of the latter dropping out smaller, man-sized assault platforms.
They weren’t actually attacking anyone; the whole area was deserted but for the attackers; The closest the various groups on the planet got to live-fire warfare was in occasionally blowing up things left behind by the others in these unoccupied areas.
While the Vorlons strongly disapproved of war, such activities served both as a pressure valve for the inhabitants of Ilkail, whole populations of younger races occupying the surface of the planet, which had been broken up into thousands of islands and even more sub-surface caverns; though people didn’t go there often.
The place served four purposes; firstly grounding and evidence for use in Vorlon religious intercessions (hence, some of the most rarely visited caverns in the planet’s dead core were even decked out as various races’ imaginings of hell), second a place to study the societal development of Young Races in a gigantic, planet sized fish tank and watch interactions between cultures and sub-cultures. Third, Ilkail was part of a long running Vorlon project to establish a baseline state by which environments of all worlds could be adjusted to a state of equilibrium with their sapient inhabitants (whom, on Ilkail, did not age, this too was to eventually be distributed throughout the galaxy), an ultimate refutation, or rather, negation of the role of evolution. Finally, it also served as a store of genetically viable communities from every race the Vorlons had encountered – this was ostensibly to be able to ensure the survival of all races despite predation by the Enemy, or each other, but cynics might say it also gave the Vorlons justification in being able to act with impunity and destroy the main populations of Young Races without truly committing genocide.
For the most part, the agents the Vorlons used elsewhere were not selected from the inhabitants of Ilkail. Its existence was a rather guarded secret.
Travel was restricted on Ilkail to match the same degree of difficulty as each culture would have travelling to the territories of other races in the galaxy at large. Meaning that the Vorlons discouraged too many visitors to others’ territories (although the numerous stations dotting the planet’s orbital pathways were another story, and socialisation was free there) and even took violent action against those attempting to invade, annex, or travel beyond reasonable limits – the last time such had happened, when a Narn area had attempted to annex a Centauri island, those involved were stopped by an attack on their transports and the offenders’ island punished with sixteen days of continuous rainfall. Of course, the many vaults beneath the surface, which were not part of the planetary homeostasis experiment, were exempt from this; but most often, the inhabitants of Ilkail only went there to retrieve things that had been archived in such vast spaces; often including their own kind, who frequently, every few centuries, disappeared into stasis with a given set of ‘wake up conditions.’
Another area with relatively unrestricted travel were numerous competitive zones such as this one. The Vorlons had distaste for unrestricted competition of any kind. Even this dry assault was faintly disgusting to the Vorlon watching it, but in more structured efforts, it was quite acceptable; even orderly.
Ulkesh watched the Minbari Warriors sprint from their moulded, low profile vehicles, the remnants of the quasi-trench fortifications that were simultaneously dug back into the hill and jutting forth were kept under continuous fire, the forward section enfiladed by cunningly established positions tangential to its corners. He found it relaxing, after a fashion, to watch these activities. It reminded him of his identity.
An identity born, after a fashion, in similar circumstances, once, not long ago by the reckoning of many Vorlons, Ulkesh had been highly enthusiastic about the Younger Races. Devoted, generous, extroverted loving – by the standards of Vorlons, at least. That had changed many thousands of years ago.
He’d been burnt.
Quite literally.
The ‘body’ of a Vorlon was a mix of what could be called organic and technological parts. Crystalline auxiliary memory with a total storage capacity of 2¹°° bits capable of holding billions of years of memory (planning ahead, essential for an immortal race), quasi-fluid processing gel, smaller crystalline main (short term) memory units distributed throughout it. Nanoscale ‘skin’ sense web capable of interfacing with organic minds or computer systems, and feeling the minute imperfections in a glass surface or the tiny fluctuations of heat left by the friction of an ant’s limbs or a bacteria’s respiration. This skin was laced with Effector grids capable of detecting electromagnetic radiation on any wavelength, and inducing remote effects in brain matter or computers alike, sensing a current of one ampere from an unbelievable distance.
Despite this, or rather, because of it, the Vorlons were capable of adjusting their sensory capacity, to avoid feeling the sensory overload that would qualify as pain. When they were expecting it.
He’d been caught off guard. The planet in question was forgotten now; to all but Ulkesh. It had been a failure; they had moved too openly there. Energy weapons. Fusion bombs. Telepaths.
Atrocities, that the Vorlons had colluded with, or been unaware of, or simply deemed necessary. False religion, a means of control that some had argued against.
They had been ready to go to the stars. Aboard a Vorlon vessel, the first group of leaders and thinkers were to have a demonstration of interplanetary flight. They had bided their time, nursing a hatred the Vorlons had been too respecting to discover. Ulkesh was one of the lucky ones on that occasion; such weapons had little lasting effect on Vorlons, and he had merely been burnt and wounded, outside his protective encounter suit. But as one would expect; the sensory overload – pain – had been staggering.
When he and a few of the others aboard escaped the wreckage, they had been attacked with those same energy weapons. He was the only survivor. The race in question had been punished – almost destroyed completely by the bombardment – for it, but Ulkesh had no forgiveness in his personality. A fanatic by nature, he had simply changed his beliefs; what wrong could the Vorlons do? There was only the Enemy and the failure of disobedient lessers, never Vorlon error.
A ribbed Minbari vehicle swept overhead; perhaps intending to impress the Vorlon, and indeed, he looked up. He merely thought that its deep sea-blue hull was a giant collection of shot traps, even though that was a mostly redundant phrase on the battlefield it had been designed for. Then he realised that it was parking next to him. He turned; absentmindedly-brushing dust kicked up by the transport from the hems the Centauri Imperial Purple robes that hung from his suit with a telekinetic impulse, looking at the Minbari vehicle.
It was with a degree of irritation almost below that he observed his erstwhile competitor disembark from the crude – by his standards – craft. He and the other Vorlon, known to the younger races of Ilkail as Alkesh, were essentially the two assigned to tasks that took them into direct and overt contact with the ‘younger races.’
The other Vorlon spoke, in the incomprehensible speech-song of the Vorlons. It could not be rendered precisely into English. Merely a shadow of its light:
You have a request?
You are required. You have not answered.
I have been introspecting. What is the request?
You are needed to contact this race/hive/hegemonic swarm <Data transfer>
I doubt this will work.
I do too. All do. But it is nevertheless to be tried.
That was the cliff notes version, of course. The reasoning and lines of inquiry were… irritating. Nevertheless, disobedience was unthinkable. The collective will of Vorlon would be obeyed. He drifted over to the personnel carrier, and they both boarded again. From there, it would take them to a flyer, and from there to the station in orbit where dozens of transports, including their own, sat in bays attended by acolytes of a strange cult that had grown up around the starships of the Vorlons.
Alkesh would go to Fiacra, another world in the empire, to prepare a new ship for Ulkesh, who had an errand on the homeworld before he departed.
The landing deck was wide, almost two hundred and fifty meters so, and long; the best part of a kilometer long. It was one of the lowest decks on the large Minbari station that orbited Ilkail, and reserved entirely for Vorlon transports. There were always four there at least; Ilkail had three Vorlon supervisors and its orbital space one, and there was a higher transitory population of Vorlons; often taking the numbers up to ten or twelve ships. They settled down into sculpted, padded docks when they landed, each one with its own thick doorway, guidance lights, and flock of worshippers.
They didn’t really worship the ships, but it was a fairly popular activity to occasionally come down and have a look at the alien ships. They were marvels, and one could easily become entranced studying the constantly changing mottling of their hulls, an outward projection of electromagnetic jamming stealth technologies. Those who spent long enough around the ships tended to hear them in dreams, and eventually, even be allowed near the vessels without triggering their numerous defensive systems.
The doors opened, and the two squid-formed vessels shot from the station, and out to the strictly controlled jump gate that orbited with it, disappearing into the blue flux that appeared.
Alkesh’s ship didn’t remain in hyperspace for more than a few minutes though, carefully diverting itself off the tenuous beacons provided within the Empire, and reemerging near one of the system’s outer planets. Dozens like it zoomed past, apparently oblivious to the new arrival. And why shouldn’t they be; they were out as far as the eye could see around this world, which they used as a place to produce more of themselves, a factory, of a sort. These ships weren’t jump capable; they remained in the Ilkail system at all times; theoretically, they could be used to make a titanic war, but they were mostly left alone. The Vorlons didn’t truly trust these constructs, and so they were more like living defenses than true ships.
Each one was built around, instead of a jump engine, a knot of energy storage cells. From birth, the vessels charged themselves up, giving them a higher capacitance than any other ship save the greatest motherships. When activated simultaneously, these could create a titanic explosion.
That said, like all Vorlon constructs, the swarm fleets did obey. Alkesh contacted one of the vessels, almost at random, (though being who he was, he did make something of an intelligent selection anyway) and put it on a course for the jump point, bringing it alongside his own ship.
Ulkesh’s vessel was a deep red, which was a rare sign of individuality among Vorlons. It blended with the background of hyperspace as it journeyed to its own destination; the homeworld. There, it would land, and Ulkesh would merge with devices there. It would take almost a month of introspection while linked with such a machine, before his self was completely transcribed; a redundancy measure required in order to assure he would not truly die on such an ill-concieved mission.
In the same manner, he would not risk his usual ship on the voyage to meet these Borg…
The planet Alkesh brought the new ship to was a vast conglomoration of ‘islands’ linked to one another by thick cords, in theory, each was detachable, powered by a hyperspatial tap and capable of incredible industry. Jump gates and hyperspace folds and funnels dotted the world of Fiachra, and fleets of ships were docked. Despite this, Fiachra was idle at the moment, most of the rebuilding that was necessary had been done; and so its folds contained fleets of vessels of every size.
Fighter-craft met the ships as they approached Fiachra, not because attack was anticipated, but to act as tugs and guide the other ships deep into Fiachra’s chasms. Passing inactive jump gates miles wide, and slipping past spars and pylons that crackled with bio-electric power that seemed to serve no discernable purpose the ships came to a docking spar, and Alkesh’s ship stopped, pressing to it, and delivering the Vorlon to the chambers controlling this active ‘island.’
Fiachra had once been a massive terrestrial world, with an almost obscene wealth of materials. The Vorlons had chosen it to be a mining colony. It had grown, as their industry had sunk, to become the industrial heartland of the Vorlon Empire. Changing, dying, and being born in a wholly new and glorious way, Fiachra was quite possibly the strangest, most engineered and technological world in the galaxy.
Alkesh spoke with the controllers of the world, to have modifications made to the swarm ship. It wasn’t possible to turn it into a standard transport without removing its explosive ability, instead, a compact jump point generator replaced some of the cargo space; capable of creating one large enough for the transport only about ten times per day before it would damage itself.
Though, being the same entities that thought up their grandiose Ilkail scheme, the Vorlon engineers had another surprise too; it was almost a month before Ulkesh would be ready, so they decided to alter it a little further, too, adding a few other features.
They met again in the fringes of Fiachra, Ulkesh took his new ship, and prepared to leave. The jump points of the planet were strange; some lead directly into axial corridors, and were attached to systems that could impel a ship powerfully. They cut into travel time significantly if one was headed in vaguely the right direction. The new transport aligned itself, and strong gravitic hands caught it. The jump gate flared, and it disappeared.
It would take some time to make contact…
Missiles impacted the hill, along with bursts of PPG style weapons fire and concentrated beams of searing yellow brightness. The fortifications left over there by the last group to attack the island disintegrated at their corner, rubble and molten mush rolling down the hill. Hovering, Gravitic ‘Shriek’ (an alien name of no commonality with the English word) tanks and personnel carriers surged forwards, some of the latter dropping out smaller, man-sized assault platforms.
They weren’t actually attacking anyone; the whole area was deserted but for the attackers; The closest the various groups on the planet got to live-fire warfare was in occasionally blowing up things left behind by the others in these unoccupied areas.
While the Vorlons strongly disapproved of war, such activities served both as a pressure valve for the inhabitants of Ilkail, whole populations of younger races occupying the surface of the planet, which had been broken up into thousands of islands and even more sub-surface caverns; though people didn’t go there often.
The place served four purposes; firstly grounding and evidence for use in Vorlon religious intercessions (hence, some of the most rarely visited caverns in the planet’s dead core were even decked out as various races’ imaginings of hell), second a place to study the societal development of Young Races in a gigantic, planet sized fish tank and watch interactions between cultures and sub-cultures. Third, Ilkail was part of a long running Vorlon project to establish a baseline state by which environments of all worlds could be adjusted to a state of equilibrium with their sapient inhabitants (whom, on Ilkail, did not age, this too was to eventually be distributed throughout the galaxy), an ultimate refutation, or rather, negation of the role of evolution. Finally, it also served as a store of genetically viable communities from every race the Vorlons had encountered – this was ostensibly to be able to ensure the survival of all races despite predation by the Enemy, or each other, but cynics might say it also gave the Vorlons justification in being able to act with impunity and destroy the main populations of Young Races without truly committing genocide.
For the most part, the agents the Vorlons used elsewhere were not selected from the inhabitants of Ilkail. Its existence was a rather guarded secret.
Travel was restricted on Ilkail to match the same degree of difficulty as each culture would have travelling to the territories of other races in the galaxy at large. Meaning that the Vorlons discouraged too many visitors to others’ territories (although the numerous stations dotting the planet’s orbital pathways were another story, and socialisation was free there) and even took violent action against those attempting to invade, annex, or travel beyond reasonable limits – the last time such had happened, when a Narn area had attempted to annex a Centauri island, those involved were stopped by an attack on their transports and the offenders’ island punished with sixteen days of continuous rainfall. Of course, the many vaults beneath the surface, which were not part of the planetary homeostasis experiment, were exempt from this; but most often, the inhabitants of Ilkail only went there to retrieve things that had been archived in such vast spaces; often including their own kind, who frequently, every few centuries, disappeared into stasis with a given set of ‘wake up conditions.’
Another area with relatively unrestricted travel were numerous competitive zones such as this one. The Vorlons had distaste for unrestricted competition of any kind. Even this dry assault was faintly disgusting to the Vorlon watching it, but in more structured efforts, it was quite acceptable; even orderly.
Ulkesh watched the Minbari Warriors sprint from their moulded, low profile vehicles, the remnants of the quasi-trench fortifications that were simultaneously dug back into the hill and jutting forth were kept under continuous fire, the forward section enfiladed by cunningly established positions tangential to its corners. He found it relaxing, after a fashion, to watch these activities. It reminded him of his identity.
An identity born, after a fashion, in similar circumstances, once, not long ago by the reckoning of many Vorlons, Ulkesh had been highly enthusiastic about the Younger Races. Devoted, generous, extroverted loving – by the standards of Vorlons, at least. That had changed many thousands of years ago.
He’d been burnt.
Quite literally.
The ‘body’ of a Vorlon was a mix of what could be called organic and technological parts. Crystalline auxiliary memory with a total storage capacity of 2¹°° bits capable of holding billions of years of memory (planning ahead, essential for an immortal race), quasi-fluid processing gel, smaller crystalline main (short term) memory units distributed throughout it. Nanoscale ‘skin’ sense web capable of interfacing with organic minds or computer systems, and feeling the minute imperfections in a glass surface or the tiny fluctuations of heat left by the friction of an ant’s limbs or a bacteria’s respiration. This skin was laced with Effector grids capable of detecting electromagnetic radiation on any wavelength, and inducing remote effects in brain matter or computers alike, sensing a current of one ampere from an unbelievable distance.
Despite this, or rather, because of it, the Vorlons were capable of adjusting their sensory capacity, to avoid feeling the sensory overload that would qualify as pain. When they were expecting it.
He’d been caught off guard. The planet in question was forgotten now; to all but Ulkesh. It had been a failure; they had moved too openly there. Energy weapons. Fusion bombs. Telepaths.
Atrocities, that the Vorlons had colluded with, or been unaware of, or simply deemed necessary. False religion, a means of control that some had argued against.
They had been ready to go to the stars. Aboard a Vorlon vessel, the first group of leaders and thinkers were to have a demonstration of interplanetary flight. They had bided their time, nursing a hatred the Vorlons had been too respecting to discover. Ulkesh was one of the lucky ones on that occasion; such weapons had little lasting effect on Vorlons, and he had merely been burnt and wounded, outside his protective encounter suit. But as one would expect; the sensory overload – pain – had been staggering.
When he and a few of the others aboard escaped the wreckage, they had been attacked with those same energy weapons. He was the only survivor. The race in question had been punished – almost destroyed completely by the bombardment – for it, but Ulkesh had no forgiveness in his personality. A fanatic by nature, he had simply changed his beliefs; what wrong could the Vorlons do? There was only the Enemy and the failure of disobedient lessers, never Vorlon error.
A ribbed Minbari vehicle swept overhead; perhaps intending to impress the Vorlon, and indeed, he looked up. He merely thought that its deep sea-blue hull was a giant collection of shot traps, even though that was a mostly redundant phrase on the battlefield it had been designed for. Then he realised that it was parking next to him. He turned; absentmindedly-brushing dust kicked up by the transport from the hems the Centauri Imperial Purple robes that hung from his suit with a telekinetic impulse, looking at the Minbari vehicle.
It was with a degree of irritation almost below that he observed his erstwhile competitor disembark from the crude – by his standards – craft. He and the other Vorlon, known to the younger races of Ilkail as Alkesh, were essentially the two assigned to tasks that took them into direct and overt contact with the ‘younger races.’
The other Vorlon spoke, in the incomprehensible speech-song of the Vorlons. It could not be rendered precisely into English. Merely a shadow of its light:
You have a request?
You are required. You have not answered.
I have been introspecting. What is the request?
You are needed to contact this race/hive/hegemonic swarm <Data transfer>
I doubt this will work.
I do too. All do. But it is nevertheless to be tried.
That was the cliff notes version, of course. The reasoning and lines of inquiry were… irritating. Nevertheless, disobedience was unthinkable. The collective will of Vorlon would be obeyed. He drifted over to the personnel carrier, and they both boarded again. From there, it would take them to a flyer, and from there to the station in orbit where dozens of transports, including their own, sat in bays attended by acolytes of a strange cult that had grown up around the starships of the Vorlons.
Alkesh would go to Fiacra, another world in the empire, to prepare a new ship for Ulkesh, who had an errand on the homeworld before he departed.
The landing deck was wide, almost two hundred and fifty meters so, and long; the best part of a kilometer long. It was one of the lowest decks on the large Minbari station that orbited Ilkail, and reserved entirely for Vorlon transports. There were always four there at least; Ilkail had three Vorlon supervisors and its orbital space one, and there was a higher transitory population of Vorlons; often taking the numbers up to ten or twelve ships. They settled down into sculpted, padded docks when they landed, each one with its own thick doorway, guidance lights, and flock of worshippers.
They didn’t really worship the ships, but it was a fairly popular activity to occasionally come down and have a look at the alien ships. They were marvels, and one could easily become entranced studying the constantly changing mottling of their hulls, an outward projection of electromagnetic jamming stealth technologies. Those who spent long enough around the ships tended to hear them in dreams, and eventually, even be allowed near the vessels without triggering their numerous defensive systems.
The doors opened, and the two squid-formed vessels shot from the station, and out to the strictly controlled jump gate that orbited with it, disappearing into the blue flux that appeared.
Alkesh’s ship didn’t remain in hyperspace for more than a few minutes though, carefully diverting itself off the tenuous beacons provided within the Empire, and reemerging near one of the system’s outer planets. Dozens like it zoomed past, apparently oblivious to the new arrival. And why shouldn’t they be; they were out as far as the eye could see around this world, which they used as a place to produce more of themselves, a factory, of a sort. These ships weren’t jump capable; they remained in the Ilkail system at all times; theoretically, they could be used to make a titanic war, but they were mostly left alone. The Vorlons didn’t truly trust these constructs, and so they were more like living defenses than true ships.
Each one was built around, instead of a jump engine, a knot of energy storage cells. From birth, the vessels charged themselves up, giving them a higher capacitance than any other ship save the greatest motherships. When activated simultaneously, these could create a titanic explosion.
That said, like all Vorlon constructs, the swarm fleets did obey. Alkesh contacted one of the vessels, almost at random, (though being who he was, he did make something of an intelligent selection anyway) and put it on a course for the jump point, bringing it alongside his own ship.
Ulkesh’s vessel was a deep red, which was a rare sign of individuality among Vorlons. It blended with the background of hyperspace as it journeyed to its own destination; the homeworld. There, it would land, and Ulkesh would merge with devices there. It would take almost a month of introspection while linked with such a machine, before his self was completely transcribed; a redundancy measure required in order to assure he would not truly die on such an ill-concieved mission.
In the same manner, he would not risk his usual ship on the voyage to meet these Borg…
The planet Alkesh brought the new ship to was a vast conglomoration of ‘islands’ linked to one another by thick cords, in theory, each was detachable, powered by a hyperspatial tap and capable of incredible industry. Jump gates and hyperspace folds and funnels dotted the world of Fiachra, and fleets of ships were docked. Despite this, Fiachra was idle at the moment, most of the rebuilding that was necessary had been done; and so its folds contained fleets of vessels of every size.
Fighter-craft met the ships as they approached Fiachra, not because attack was anticipated, but to act as tugs and guide the other ships deep into Fiachra’s chasms. Passing inactive jump gates miles wide, and slipping past spars and pylons that crackled with bio-electric power that seemed to serve no discernable purpose the ships came to a docking spar, and Alkesh’s ship stopped, pressing to it, and delivering the Vorlon to the chambers controlling this active ‘island.’
Fiachra had once been a massive terrestrial world, with an almost obscene wealth of materials. The Vorlons had chosen it to be a mining colony. It had grown, as their industry had sunk, to become the industrial heartland of the Vorlon Empire. Changing, dying, and being born in a wholly new and glorious way, Fiachra was quite possibly the strangest, most engineered and technological world in the galaxy.
Alkesh spoke with the controllers of the world, to have modifications made to the swarm ship. It wasn’t possible to turn it into a standard transport without removing its explosive ability, instead, a compact jump point generator replaced some of the cargo space; capable of creating one large enough for the transport only about ten times per day before it would damage itself.
Though, being the same entities that thought up their grandiose Ilkail scheme, the Vorlon engineers had another surprise too; it was almost a month before Ulkesh would be ready, so they decided to alter it a little further, too, adding a few other features.
They met again in the fringes of Fiachra, Ulkesh took his new ship, and prepared to leave. The jump points of the planet were strange; some lead directly into axial corridors, and were attached to systems that could impel a ship powerfully. They cut into travel time significantly if one was headed in vaguely the right direction. The new transport aligned itself, and strong gravitic hands caught it. The jump gate flared, and it disappeared.
It would take some time to make contact…