NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: For those who know me, yes, it's time for another nation switcheroo. Telros and I have more-or-less stopped playing Tau (though Telros plans to keep part of his nation in existence), and, I hope though that this nation will last a bit longer. No more canonical RPing for me - I'm back to the inventions of my own mind, which makes things significantly more fun.

Anyone who is willing to join may do so - but note that the Clans are fairly strong individually, and united, they're going to be up there with other major powers of the galaxy. So if you want to practice some imperialism, I suggest you don't here. Unless you want to have some new glass export industries founded in your nation.

Incidentally,

IC: "Fenarine Emperor Laine T'velya. How very good to see you."

One man sat on a throne, angrily defiant, fingers tightly gripping a pistol, which was levelled at the other man. The second man was calm, collected - and, at his back, over a hundred men stood, fanning out behind him across the mammoth throneroom. Corpses were scattered on the floor - some in a bright florid red, with two green stripes across the front, others in a mild blue. An even smaller minority wore no uniform at all - cleaners and servants who had got in the way.

"Your little coup will not go unpunished, High Lord. House T'velya-"

"House T'velya is a corrupt remnant of a line of idiotic inbred swine. The Fenarine Chapter of mutant soldiers has been purged. Your fleet has been.. incapacitated in orbit above Shiya. You always were a fool, Laine."

The air seemed to go out of the man on the throne, and his grip on the gun relaxed. "Perhaps. But I have to ask, Juilin. Why did you do this? I always assumed you were the most loyal of my High Lords."

Juilin barked out a laugh. "Hardly, Laine. T'velya was merely a convenient ally. As I could not take the Fenarine Throne myself, I decided to allow you to have it. There are nine Great Houses, Laine. Among those nine, T'velya was the weakest at the time. A bit of flattery convinced you that your grand mutant armies-"

"They are not mutants, Juilin! They are Fenar! Servants to the throne since time immemorial!"

"They are abominations, Laine. Abominations against the fundamental nature of humanity. Mankind remains pure thanks to my actions. We remain strong."

Juilin spat. "They seemed to adore you, Laine. You and all of your twisted mutant-loving servants. No matter what tortures we put them to-"

Laine interrupted, shouting something incoherent. Juilin turned, and spoke to a nearby soldier. "Be a good fellow and silence him, lieutenant. Don't incapacitate him. But he will learn to listen."

The lieutenant walked forward grimly, a beam of coherent particles knocking the gun out of Laine's hand. As the Emperor cowered before the immense soldier, still shouting, the hand of the lieutenant came down on the Emperor's mouth, shattering the Emperor's fragile jawbone.

The room was silence. For seconds, it seemed as if time had stopped. No sound was heard - and then the glorious Fenarine Emperor began to sob.

Juilin walked over to him, and put a hand on his shoulder, grandfatherly. "There. Isn't that better, Laine? Now I can talk without your ridiculous interruptions. Do try to listen, or I'll be forced to make the good lieutenant break something else. Maybe a few of those fragile little ribs?"

Laine sobbed, and nodded.

Juilin's look of contempt grew. "You T'velya. I endured a month in the desert to prove my worthiness to inherit House Makassar's lordship. And then a week under the depredations of a torturer, to ensure my loyalty. In all that time, I did not recant. Perhaps if you people trained as we did, you would not be overthrown so easily."

"Now, Laine. You are Fenarine Emperor. To kill you would be treason."

Juilin chuckled. "Not that it seems to matter. Sabotaging your fleet, torturing your fleet admirals to death, slaughtering your elite soldiers, and throwing your late wife out that window over there-"

He gestured widely at a huge stained-glass window, which was, for the most part, shattered. ", when she would not tell me where you were.. that was also treason. Nevertheless, my alliance with Clan Sanus tells me that I cannot dispose of you out of hand. What to do, what to do.."

Laine looked at him apprehensively. "To leave you on the throne would be dangerous. Although your power is broken, your will to fight, I fear, is not. To send you away, however, would pave the way for a rebellion. And naming myself Fenarine Emperor through right of conquest would no doubt annoy the smaller families, who seem to loathe the Emperor, no matter who he is. Even abdication leaves.. flaws."

Juilin's face broke into a smile as he came up with an idea. In truth, he had formulated the plan months ago. But years of bowing to Laine as a child - enduring the tantrums of the brat, the copious taxes and requests to bring his force to keep the Fenarine Emperor on his throne long since his time should have passed. All for this. All for this one moment, where he would declare his plans, and bring House Makassar into a new, unrivalled age of might and power.

"You will renounce the powers of the Fenarine Emperor. No, no. You will sign a decree. This decree will show how the Fenarine Emperor no longer retains power over the Great Houses. And the lesser Houses, as well, I suppose. The Fenarine Empire will no longer retain legal jurisdiction over any area held by the Houses.. it will be reduced to a ceremonial rule. Oh, and you will disinherit all of your T'velya heirs. There will be no Fenarine Emperor after you. The Empire will die."

Out of everything that could've happened, Laine thought this was the most unexpected. Why dissolve the Empire? Why not take control over the other houses through the post of Emperor?

"Yes, I don't want to be Emperor. You must realise, Laine, that House Makassar is rich enough on its own. I intend to create a new nation under the Makassar name, not continue a dying role that gives permission to create horrors against mankind to retain its power. The other Houses have already signed the Decree. Even if you refuse, the Fenarine Empire will fall. If you accept, you can live out the rest of your life in luxury as a reward for making this easier. I will ensure it myself."

No choice. Laine raised the pen Juilin proffered to him, touched it against his skin, and, when it was aligned with his brainwave patterns, wrote his signature onto the clear sheet, on which the Decree of Dissolution was written.

"Very good, Laine. Very good indeed. Oh, liutenant. Kill him."

"What?!"

The air distorted near the Fenarine Emperor, and he fell dead, slumping back into his seat.

"My lord.", the captain of his forces protested. "You said-"

"Words are not actions, captain. I hardly intended to let him live, and allow him to reverse the decree. He is the Fenarine Emperor, after all. To come this far and let it all slip away because of some peculiar mercy would be idiocy."

The captain saluted sharply. His name was not important. He would not rule, he would not even live out the year. He was a remnant of the old system, and would be swept away. Change had come.

Foreigners would come with it. Perhaps not diplomats, for the Fenarine Empire no longer existed. But the old regime had been held together by a fierce policy of isolation, which had kept the Houses in relative poverty. Now, though, the borders were wide open. Perhaps ambassadors would come, looking for new allies in the powerful Great Houses of the former Empire. Perhaps mercenaries, hiring themselves out to the Great Houses. Merchants and traders would certainly come, hunting for valuable new trade contracts to be signed, with the surpluses and deficincies of the lands of the Fenarine well in mind.

Yet it remained to be seen who would come.

Juilin, well-aware of the consequences of his actions, let out a message to the universe at large.

I am High Lord Juilin of House Makassar, newly-independent. Should any wish to contact us, they may come to the mining world of Kralok to seek relations with the Makassar there. I strongly advise bringing a decent escort, for the Fenarine Empire has been dissolved - and much of what is left is chaos. I rely on your own intelligence to discover the location of Kralok. Consider it a test of your suitability to meet the Makassar.

The Grand Unified Federation was known best for its communications technology. The disentanglement matrix was a new kind of ansible that was popular both for its low power consumption in comparison to similar systems, and its applications in extremely fast computing without an increase in latency or die size.

It so happened that a little scout probe was stationed within reception range of the message, and on a little screen the contents were displayed to a young communications officer, who was assigned to watch the probe. Understanding the importance of it, he relayed it to Diplomatics, who in turn sent it summarily upwards. This reverse filtering of the message continued until it reached Queen Larian of the Federation, the secondary leader of the nation. She eyed it carefully, and then, before a small team of diplomatic officers, said:

"So what do you people want to do?"
"Us, ma'am?" said one of them after a bit of silence.
"Yes, you."
"Well, it would be good to achieve relations with a new ally or at least a neutral entity. Opportunities for economic prosperity with a new, burgeoning nation are boundless. I'm just feeling rather uneasy about how the House came to be...he mentioned chaos following the dissolution of the mother empire, and since that would mean there was some kind of leadership/control void somewhere, I-"
"Your fears are well-founded," Queen Larian began, "but given the nature of the message we'd hardly be intruding on any broken matters, that we'd aggravate some dire situation or even be implicated in the issue. No, this will be good." Larian spoke into the comms. "TactOps. Wake yourselves up, get into my conf room, and turn the star map on."
"Got it, ma'am," came the response.

They arrived about half an hour later, looking into a holographic projection of all known locations in the Perimeter Defense registry. "So," Larian said, "we're looking for a mining world called Kralok. Let's assume that the Registry has it, but we don't know what it is. Trace the communication?"
"Can't trace the communication itself, ma'am, it was a blanked relay." said TactOps V head Jhudiel Larson. "But the recipient server header points in the direction of a solar system right about...here." The holographic projections rushed at them to move focus towards a star and its attached planets. "We couldn't assume that it was this one, so we took a look at neighboring systems."
"What do you think, Larson?"
"The geographical center is this planet, a habitable place known to have metal deposits. Very well-defended too, sat defenses and a local fleet detachment. Fenarine commonality if the records still stand. We'll have to change that-"
"This isn't it," Larian interrupted.
"Excuse me, ma'am?"
"These people are smart. No one smart ever puts a central HQ on a well-defended center; it'll draw too much attention and people will focus firepower on it. No, it'll have to be one of the others. We can even rule out mining world as a descriptor. For all we know it was to put us off the trail."
"Well, we had two other likelies. This one, over here, in the adjacent system. Much less in the way of resource deposits, but it's got spaceports galore and a rapid-response fleet in the vicinity."
"Nope, not that either. The spaceports mean that people had already been visiting. And I've just checked out your other likely; she's not the one at all. No, give me the system...here. Okay, C43, 56, 72, orbital 5... Yes, this one."
"But ma'am, this-"
"I was wrong about the mining world part - we just needed to stop looking at the world itself....those rings."
"Of course, the rings! Records indicate that the rings were formed by a massive meteorite collision near the planet. Shattered into fragments and formed into planet rings. Prescanning using closest probe...rich in valuables, I'd say."
"All right! Send off a move order to a nearby battle group. I won't be coming, but give me the honors of diplomacy via DEComms."
***
The vessel Fortitude was a ship 2 kilometers in length, and was one of the very few to carry two Stringbreaker matrices. These fearsome weapons were known to slice both asteroid and ships in half, and could pierce shields, but carried with them a five second limit of use, and a terrible price would be paid if this limit were to be extended. She was followed by the heavy cruisers Sojourner and Avalon, and in six hours they would be entering orbit around what may very well be Kralok - and if it isn't, then it should be nearby.

OOC: PD, why is it people who can write really well such as yourself have 94 posts? It makes me sad. Also, kudos, and thank you for responding. I was getting the feeling this thread would die alone and unwanted. Incidentally, if you want a bit more information on the Fenarine, my factbook is here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=540106).

IC: Defense systems, and, indeed, fleets in the Fenarine region was a curiosity. Few people could see the point in having a minimal amount of capital ships, and a command so distributed that strategic direction, was at best a dream some of the captains had from day-to-day. The reasoning for this was simple. Putting the power of a supercapital ship in the hands of one man was hardly the way to retain your grip on power. Many High Lords had been unseated because of it. It diluted military power, but kept political power in the hands of one man.

Kralok was a world that represented immense value to House Makassar. Fissile materials were still valuable - although the majority of power was provided by fusion (and in the case of starships, antimatter), the fact remained that fission was, once again, more politically expedient than 'better' forms of power. When a fission plant went up, millions could die. If a fusion plant went up, it could be tens of millions.

So it was that a significant fleet detachment sat at Kralok. Ever since the message, it remained almost a quarter of House Makassar strength. A formidable fleet by most standards, and, if not capable of waging war on a major scale, it was capable of defending Kralok against anything that wasn't.

The simplicity of his call sometimes made High Lord Juilin feel a tad foolish. He had chosen Kralok for two reasons. Firstly, it was an isolated world, on the rim of the region occupied by the Fenar. Inviting diplomats to a world which served as a trading hub, or even a diplomatic post between the Houses would invite other Houses to talk to the newcomers. If he was to ensure his own supremacy in diplomatic matters - and to ensure that Makassar managed to get the most lucrative trade deals, the other Houses would have to be delayed a tad. Of course, the other Houses knew where the meeting was. But Kralok's only real stellar traffic was the constant stream of freighters picking up minerals and leaving - and the occasional supply freighter. If another House attempted to send a diplomatic vessel here, they could force it to leave without much trouble.

The system the Federation ships would find, by comparison, was also a mining system. However, far from being a House Makassar system, it was an outlying House Faralanor mining outpost. Faralanor rarely concentrated their forces, and, for the time being, were working on achieving mineral independence from Makassar. They had been strongly allied with House T'velya, and now the T'velya were virtually powerless, leaving Faralanor open as never before to aggressive Makassar action.

It was with great surprise that the small outpost registered an object almost two kilometres long appearing on their radar. Especially considering the House Makassar flagship, Lordship and Dominion, weighed in at 1.7 klicks - and was the largest warship in the Fenarine.

No distress call was made. The majority of the Faralanor fleet - what little had not been destroyed in the War of Dissolution mere months earlier was concentrated at populated worlds. If the mining outpost was destroyed, it would be a small loss. If were a ploy by another House to draw away the majority of the Faralanor fleet to combat another invasion.. well, a lot more than a single mining outpost stood to be lost.

The Overseer of the outpost decided the easiest thing to do would be send a message. Rather, it was the only thing to do. It was not as if they could run away, or fight back. For the moment, he ordered all defense systems online, and every missile they had available to be readied. Letting raiders do what they would tamely would merely tarnish the already cowardly reputation of the Faralanor.

Greetings, I am Overseer Kenla, manager of this mining outpost. May I enquire as to why you have chosen to enroach on House Faralanor territory?

The unknown message was received by a frontier station on the borders of the Hegemony. The Star Hegemony of Deatharon had been in a state of extreme isolationism do to fear of overexpansion. The Star Hegemony was already overburdened with to very large rebellious population that was constantly seeking independence from the Hegemonic Government seated at Deatharon Prime. The last thing the Hegemony needed was an excuse to expand and try for another great age of conquest when their own worlds were in the brink of open revolt in the outer frontier.

The message was relayed to the throne world of Deatharon Prime to the palace of the Hegemon . The Hegemon was the absolute ruler of the Star Hegemony and like his father before him ruled his vast dominion with an iron fist. The Hegemonic Star Forces had been brutally putting down would be revolts and revolutions across the Hegemony and the Hegemonic Guard made up of countless sentient soldiers had been occupying the restless worlds and brutally suppression the dissidents with threats of vaporizing all would be rebels.

With these thoughts in his mind, The Hegemon quickly decided to send a diplomatic mission to this House Makassar. The idea of a new trading partner could greatly increase the economy of the Hegemony and thus provide more work for the jobless scum that were rebellion to his preordained authority.

The orders came down the Hegemonic Command and eventually after Hegemonic Intelligence made their best guess to were Kralok was via communication tracking and sending several probes in the general direction of the message.

The Hegemonic Dreadnought (http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/Xharnia/ImperialDreadnaught.png)Golden Guardian was sent to initiate first contact with this unknown civilization. The Dreadnought’s Captain Marcus Von Rickten quickly imported the coordinates that Hegemonic Intelligence figured to be the location of this mysterious Kralok mining world. The Dreadnought shot into the artificially generated wormhole and headed towards the unknown location….


Captain Marcus and his men silently prayed that they would ended up in the right location, and not in the middle of some hostile military force….

OOC: For those who know me, yes, it's time for another nation switcheroo.

OOC: *Chuckles* How long do you tend to stick with any single national concept these days? Every time I log in there's an entirely different civilisation at the helm of your account!

OOC: I'm actually required by federal law to change it every few months. At least, that's the excuse I use.

IC: One had to realize that it took time to find such an isolated world as Kralok. Despite the thriving trade within the former Empire, the overwhelming majority had not been with other nations. Although it had dealt great damage to the economy, it had retained the Emperor's power, to some degree. Without the old restraints holding, though, the location of many worlds were open to purchase - or rather, navigational data was, provided one, of course, was already in the Empire.

The Deatharon fleet would manage to come out near Kralok, however. Perhaps by sheer luck, or perhaps by superior intelligence, the dreadnought appeared on the edge of the system.

High Lord Juilin watched the ship enter the system, quietly sitting on the bridge of the Lordship and Dominion, his flagship, and, for the time, diplomatic vessel.

He raised a single finger, causing more than a few on the bridge to focus on him. "Captain, be so good as to send a message to our new friends. Kindly tell them that they will be required to send out a smaller craft once they reach.. lightspeed weapons range. We do not wish to allow any craft with major firepower within range of Kralok."

"It will be done, my lord."

Captain Velyar. A good man, Juilin thought. He was a competent captain - and, more importantly, he was devoted to Juilin.

Within seconds, the message streamed out across the system. It would take minutes to reach the other starship - radio was not the quickest of methods, but faster-than-light communication required huge arrays the size of capital ships themselves to broadcast.

Greetings. I am Captain Velyar, of House Makassar. I welcome you to Kralok. May I ask that once you are within less than a lightsecond's range, that you send out a diplomatic shuttlecraft capable of docking with our ship. The Lordship and Dominion is capable of housing oxygen-breathing humanity, and will provide for your safely easily. Diplomatic negotiations may begin once you are aboard.

OOC: Why, thank you, HT. Two reasons, though, why I don't post often. 1) Few read or post to my threads. 2) I don't write as well as you think, haha. I've been accused of god-modding some twice now, and I'll be very careful with this RP...

"What the hell are they doing?" asked Queen Larian. A holographic projection of her appeared in the Fortitude's bridge. In turn, she was offered a projection of the ship's bridge. While the distance that separated the two entities comprised hundreds of light years, the miracles brought about by a small box of entangled rotating particles were vast and wide in range.
"Ma'am?" asked Jeremiah Land, Communications officer.
"Their weapons are raised," she replied. Her projection walked across the room to a screen. "Energy levels and fingerprints consistent with known weapon signatures."
"With all due respect, ma'am, we're a big ship followed by two just under half our size."
"I'm aware of that, but this...House, it's a new beast, and I'm expecting that it would've prepared a fleet to defend against the 'chaos' that this Juilin guy quite conspicuously proclaimed."
"You never know what to expect from new governments, ma'am," joined in Cassander Stratham, resident Diplops point person.
"I'm know that, Stratham, I've been living with new governments for 4,000 years." Larian was "afflicted" with a rare disease that brought her effective immortality, or indefinite age. "All right, Land, you have an incoming message flashing on your screen and you're not doing anything about it."
"Shi- sorry, ma'am, patching through now."

Greetings, I am Overseer Kenla, manager of this mining outpost. May I enquire as to why you have chosen to enroach on House Faralanor territory?

"Faralanor? Isn't that the empire that was dissolved?"
"You mean Fenarine, Land. But I was expecting something else, too. We were invited by House Makassar. Anyway, let me do this one." Larian switched the comms from disentanglement to radio. Visual stream, also.

"Hello, Overseer Kenla. I'm Queen Larian, leader of the Grand Unified Federation of Perimeter Defense. I'm not on the ship with which you're communicating, though, but through our disentanglement system I'm here with you today. We were invited to this planet by broadcast message from a certain High Lord Juilin of House Makassar, but he was vague about locational details. We were made to trace the invitation and investigate, and came up with this planet, but it appears that we were either misled or are mistaken. Forgive the intrusion, and please lower your weapons, for we mean no harm as can be determined by our own energy status."

This last part was true and honest; not that it would have mattered in a true combat situation, because the Stringbreaker matrix released its energy all at once without signs of gathering. It was powered by flywheels that spun at hundreds to thousands of times the speed of light, and could be used to rapidly restore some shield functionality, or give five seconds of usage of the whiplike weapon. The flywheels did not have any energy buildup in the traditional sense of the term, either, in that it wasn't detectable by most sensors. However, the devastating cost to this was that if the shields around the flywheels were lost, the energy would be released all at once in a kinetic overflow that would probably tear the ship apart. This is why the trick in destroying PD ships with flywheels was to hit that location where they were located. And this is why the trick in designing them was to put no defenses in that area, and cover it with containment shields and armor only sufficient to defend them from collateral damage - put too much emphasis on keeping it alive, and more people would shoot at it. This was similar to how Larian thought when she was looking for Kralok.

"Start scanning adjacent systems; look for planets with parameters similar to the ones we used. Let's stick to this area, though; I'd like to know more about what happened to this Fenarine empire."

The message of High Lord Juilin was noticed by several major powers in the region, as the message spread far and wide throughout space. In the infinite cosmos, a far-reaching message such as this one could be taken in by many empires and weak nations, and taken for either conquest and invasion....or for peace and diplomacy. Fortunately for House Makassar, it was received by the Covenant Empire with the latter in mind.

It managed to reach as far as the sensor stations at Sangheilios, although multiple sensor stations throughout the empire received the message as well and relayed it to the capital, confirming the validity of the message several times over. A message of such import needed to be brough to the Emperor immediately. So it was that the leader of the Special Operations branch of the Covenant, Jvas 'Padumare, found himself kneeling the Sanctum of the Arbiter, two days later. Many decades ago, during the first Emperor's rule, the Emperor had commissioned that the throne room be built as a replica of the Sanctum of the Hierarchs. Although the memory of the San 'Shyuum was detested far and wide, reverence for the Arbiter was immense and it was in that room that the first case was filled, with the Arbiter's body. His long journey from Supreme Commander, through Halo and Earth was over. The Flood denied him the chance to enter the realms of his predecessors, but he could forge a new resting place for future Arbiters. So, visitors to the throne room would be awed at the immense size and scale of the room, with the walls filled with empty caskets, their chambers open and yawning, awaiting their prizes. One, however, was filled; the door closed and the green light showing occupancy. It was in the very middle of the wall of chambers, and brought attention immediately.

One would also notice the throne of the Emperor was seated at the feet of a massive statue of the Arbiter, who was in a combat stance, his sword drawn, ready for battle. It brought home, rather forcefully, the immense respect and devotion the Covenant felt for their Arbiter, who had suffered and fought so much, and helped to save them all.

Currently on the throne, Emperor Koro 'Yavumi put aside the holographic orb he was looking at, which held the message received and the recommendations by his advisors. His mandibles clicked together audibly and his violet clashed shifted, a rasping sound echoing throughout the room as it slithered over his armor when he put away the orb, the flickering light and images vanishing as it deactivated. Turning his dark blue eyes on the Spec Ops commander, he began to speak, his deep and gravelly tone showing he was far older mentally than one would expect.

<"Have you read the message, Jvas?"> The Sangheili nodded.

<"I have not, you Majesty. I was only informed of what we received and what it meant for us, and that you wanted to see me."> The Emperor's clicked and extended sideways a little, the Sangheili version of a smile.

<"Yes...Yes I did call for you. Well, before I explain what I called you here for, you need to know what is going on. Here."> He tossed the orb to Jvas, who caught it, albeit awkwardly as few ever touched the Emperor's personal data orb. <"Go on; I have inserted your DNA so it will not kill you when you activate it."> Jvas visible relaxed and then, finger slightly shaking, he tapped the Forerunner activation symbol. Light flared and bloomed up to show the strange face of the High Lord Juilin.

I am High Lord Juilin of House Makassar, newly-independent. Should any wish to contact us, they may come to the mining world of Kralok to seek relations with the Makassar there. I strongly advise bringing a decent escort, for the Fenarine Empire has been dissolved - and much of what is left is chaos. I rely on your own intelligence to discover the location of Kralok. Consider it a test of your suitability to meet the Makassar.


Jvas listened carefully, replaying the message several times, before shutting down the orb and returning it to the Emperor. 'Yavumi gazed at him, eyes neutral. <"Well, what are your thoughts on this?">

Jvas clenched his mandibles together. <"I am surprised to see another human; I had thought they were all still rebuilding after the war. Even though it has been two hundred years, they have lost much. This human appears to be a leader of some sort, as his arrogance in forcing us to find the location of his planet and how he dares to judge us for our 'suitability'."> The Emperor moved to speak but Jvas held up a hand. <"However, seeing as this is a mining world, I can see why he acts as such. He has a valuable resource on hand; after all, all major empires and nations, like ourselves, have already heavily mined their worlds and their asteroid belts, leaving new deposits much to be desired. And seeing how our economy is structured, we do need the contacts for such industries as this mining world, Kralok. If you want my opinion on what to do, your Majesty, I would suggest sending a CCS battlegroup and a team of diplomats to go and establish contacts, and ensure we get access to those resources. It would greatly expedite our rebuilding efforts here at home.">

The Emperor sat there for several moments, gazing at him, and Jvas suddenly felt a slight foolishness for being so bold, then anger at that feeling. This was a young Sangheili, most of those his age were training at the academies and-H

His thought process was interrupted by the soft laughter of the Emperor. <"Good. Well done, Jvas. I see that my predecessor was right to recommend you to me in his final journal. You managed to see and analyze a situation and give me a proper course of action in less than a minute, when it took the Council the past two days."> Yavumi stood and looked back up at the statue of the Arbiter.

<"Yes, you are totally correct. I have, in fact, already prepared a CCS battlegroup for you.">

Jvas clicked his mandibles questioningly. <"Me?">

The Emperor gazed at him, eyes full of amusement. <"Come now, Jvas, you know how the other races are. Aside from the Lekgolo, they are full of intrigue and political infighting; much of which my race is participating in, I am ashamed to say. I need someone I can trust to send on this mission. While you are immensely overqualified for this, you have something that many others don't."> He walked forward and a laid a hand on Jvas's shoulder.

<"You don't seek to rise above yourself; you work for the good of the Empire. And now, the Empire needs you to do a service for her."> Jvas gazed at the Emperor for moment and then bowed his head in assent.

<"What you need of me, your Majesty, I will do to the best of my ability."> Yavumi nodded.

<"I know. Now, you will pick a team best suited for this task, and in case things go bad, and report to the battlegroup Gentle Serenity for transport."> Jvas started.

<"But, the location of this Kralok-">

<"Come now, Jvas, did you think I would delay a matter such as this? At first word of this, I deployed probes. I know where it is.">

********

In the space around Kralok, blue flashes burst into existence and swirls of purple energy gathered, swelling and growing until they exploded into a kaleidoscope of colors, which revealed the arrival of three CCS class Battlecruisers (http://images.wikia.com/halo/images/thumb/4/40/BattleCruiser.JPG/300px-BattleCruiser.JPG). On board the lead Battlecruiser, Angelic Rose, Ship Master Karaz 'Ilumvee gazed at the planet on the display in front of him, as he gently floated in his anti-gravity chair.

<"Initiate scan. I want to see what we've got here. Maintain distance; we don't want to scare them."> The bridge crew followed his commands and barely two seconds later, the sensor station shouted.

<"Ship Master! We detect a massive fleet of ships around the planet, unknown design, as well as three large ships, unknown design but different from the first.">

He nodded. The probes had revealed that much. <"Open a channel.">

This is Ship Master Karaz 'Ilumvee of the Covenant Empire Battlecruier Angelic Rose. We received your message and wish to open diplomatic contact."

"Juilin, eh? Well, well, well."

Kenla's eyes flickered with avarice. Here was a chance to win Faralanor some wealth. Some power, as well.

"Align the communication arrays for Fai'dan. They'll need to know about this."

A faster-than-light message punctured reality, appearing near Fai'dan almost instantaneously.

We have made contact with a new nation. A "Grand Unified Federation.".
Request a diplomatic craft as soon as possible.

A message would be a bit in forthcoming. In the meantime, she needed to keep these ships in-system. If they left for Kralok, this remarkable piece of good luck would be wasted outright.

House Makassar is a.. rival of ours. The Faralanor are a far-flung trading House, and our wealth is second to none. Juilin no doubt seeks to exploit his newfound military supremacy, and to ensure no other House has any chance to trade productively with the rest of the galaxy. If you would care to listen to me, no doubt I could explain much.

This is Ship Master Karaz 'Ilumvee of the Covenant Empire Battlecruier Angelic Rose. We received your message and wish to open diplomatic contact."

Juilin had expected contact. There were simply too many races in the galaxy, too many independent strands of humanity, to believe otherwise. But his expectations had already been exceeded. Within less than a day, two contacts? His smile widened. This tactic of his, for the present time, seemed to be paying off in spades.

Greetings, Ship Master Karaz 'Iilumvee. I am High Lord Juilin of House Makassar. Should you care to discuss matters of trade and diplomacy with me, kindly slow and stop your ship before you reach a lightsecond away from our own. If you are capable of breathing a human atmosphere, I will gladly welcome you aboard my ship - otherwise, I would ask that send out a shuttlecraft close enough so that radio transmissions will have no delay.

Greetings, Ship Master Karaz 'Iilumvee. I am High Lord Juilin of House Makassar. Should you care to discuss matters of trade and diplomacy with me, kindly slow and stop your ship before you reach a lightsecond away from our own. If you are capable of breathing a human atmosphere, I will gladly welcome you aboard my ship - otherwise, I would ask that send out a shuttlecraft close enough so that radio transmissions will have no delay.

The Ship Master chuckled. It would not be him going to the talks; thank the Forerunner he wasn't. He hated politics. As if the mere mention of him had reached his ears, Jvas entered the bridge, followed by his second-in-command Ktar 'Radumis. <"I was informed we have reached the planet."> Karaz bowed his head.

<"You are correct. I have just contacted the one who sent the message and he has offered to take us aboard his ship. I will have to stop my ships a lightsecond way from his, however. If things go sour, I will only be able to provide long range assistance."> Jvas nodded.

<"It is of no consequence. I will assemble my team immediately. Keep your sensors active and be watchful. Trouble comes from the most unlikely of places."> The Ship Master nodded and Jvas left.

A reply was sent to the High Lord.

I will not be attending, High Lord, but a group of representatives will be sent to your ship by shuttlecraft. We can breathe your atmosphere, so we will be alright.

Within cycles (minutes basically), his team of four Sangheili was on board the Phantom. The battlegroup came to slow stop as they reached the point desired by the High Lord and the Phantom launched from one of the hangars, heading for the High Lord's ship.

On The Bridge of the Golden Guardian……



Captain Marcus Von Richten sat upon his command chair watching the forward screen. The Golden Guardian upon entering the system via artificial wormhole had begun scanning the system and immediately receive images of various star ships that seemed to be patrolling this system..


It was about this time the communications officer received the hail from the Lordship and Dominion:

Greetings. I am Captain Velyar, of House Makassar. I welcome you to Kralok. May I ask that once you are within less than a light second’s range, that you send out a diplomatic shuttlecraft capable of docking with our ship. The Lordship and Dominion is capable of housing oxygen-breathing humanity, and will provide for your safely easily. Diplomatic negotiations may begin once you are aboard.

The Communications Officer immediately relayed the message over to the forward screen for the Captain and the rest bridge crew to read. Captain Marcus thought about this message and decided to play along. The last thing he needed was a confrontation over preliminary disagreements with the host nation’s demands. Captain Marcus quickly ordered a response be sent back to the Lordship and Dominion via the communications array network

The message was sent via tight beam to avoid it being intercepted by any would be rivals seeking to exploit the Hegemony’s position in this new region.


We have received your message and shall comply with your request. The Golden Guardian shall move closer to your position and halt once we reach a light second from your position. We shall then send out a shuttle craft with our diplomat and his retinue to begin negotiations between our Hegemony and your House….


The Golden Guardian powered up her thruster engines and promptly headed in the direction toward the Lordship and Dominion. The mighty Hegemonic Dreadnought kept her energy shields up for obvious reasons but left their weapons offline to show peaceful intent to their hosts. The massive warship upon reaching it’s own weapons range promptly held it’s position and prepared to lower it’s shields to allow the shuttle escape the shuttle bay and head towards the Lordship and Dominion….



The diplomat chosen for this mission was Karl Van Burgeon a member of the true Deatharon stock not one of the incorporated human colonists that had been forcibly integrated into the Hegemony a few years back. This meant that Karl Van Burgeon was a true Deatharon a genetically enhanced human that felt that the old days of empire and conquest were the true path for the Hegemony and this belief would make him a very brash and imperialist diplomat by most peoples standards.

Karl and his two lesser human aides were quickly escorted to a shuttle and his personal guard retinue of two Hegemonic Guardsmen (http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/Xharnia/XharnianDeathKorps.png). The shuttle promptly left the shuttle bay and headed towards the Lordship and Guardian going at half impulse to avoid giving the new power a reason to believe the small vessel was any kind of threat….

House Makassar is a.. rival of ours. The Faralanor are a far-flung trading House, and our wealth is second to none. Juilin no doubt seeks to exploit his newfound military supremacy, and to ensure no other House has any chance to trade productively with the rest of the galaxy. If you would care to listen to me, no doubt I could explain much.

"Oh, boy." Land spoke out of turn, but no one cared. Presumably all were thinking the same goddamn thing.
"That's right, oh boy indeed," Larian said. "We've just got ourselves into a conflict. That's how simple it is, boys and girls; you just have to accept a neutral invitation and suddenly everything gets the potential to go to hell."
"What do we do now?"
"We listen." Larian returned to the communications assembly. "Overseer Kenla, it's Larian again. I can see the nature of the situation, and Juilin himself mentioned a certain rift of chaos within the void left by the dissolution of the original host empire. However, I am willing to listen to anything you have to say about, perhaps, a number of histories concerning the events leading up to, and after the Fenarine's disappearance, and possibly why Juilin would send such an invitation so publicly."

The Fortitude and her two companions motioned closer to the planet, their weapons down but crew always alert.

Meanwhile, a certain Admiral within the Federation was looking closely at communications from the actual Kralok, which he had independently discovered. A large set of channels was open between the planet and unknown destinations. While PD sensors were capable at this range of detecting the transmissions, they could only see that they were there, not actually deciphering contents or figuring out where they were going. This Admiral, surnamed Noorbergen, decided against sending a large ship to visit the planet, but rather sent off a small probe, markings and communications signatures removed, to orbit the planet. Anyone could see that it was there, but no one would know where it came from.

Not even Queen Larian herself. Noorbergen had his own agenda.

OOC: Just a brief note. Consider it basic knowledge that almost everyone in the Fenarine is super-mutantphobic. So if you are a deviant strand of humanity who has been 'improved' in some way, keep it to yourself, eh? Also, the tedium that is introducing people to a ship, roleplaying them walking out of the airlock, and then walking down the corridors to the room that is to be used is going to be a teensy bit bypassed.

IC: The Lordship and Dominion,thankfully, had been designed as to receive many ships. Fighters, shuttlecraft, even smaller frigates, when it came right down to it.

A large markerbeacon lit up on Bays 1 and 5, the first flashing a persistent, but tightbeam signal at the Covenant shuttlecraft. Although it didn't say anything, the intention was clear enough. Land here.

In Bay 5, the markerbeacon flashed the same message at the Deatharon craft. Some messages, hopefully, were simple enough to be understood across the cosmos.

Small teams of guardsmen moved in, just beyond the airlock, to welcome the foreigners to their ship. There was little to be said about letting diplomats on-board. It was a tedious undertaking, except in the rare cases where there was a problem. As such, the diplomats made their way aboard quite easily. The guards were asked to relinquish their weapons - and if they would not, well.. there was an automatic defense system onboard the ship that made any weaponry - or even any foreign attack quite pointless. Naturally, by asking the guards to relinquish their weapons, they did not have to talk about that. Thus, with, or without their weapons, they would be admitted into a large function room, where, at the head of a table, High Lord Juilin was sitting.




Meanwhile, Kenla's smile only grew. Oh, yes. There was a promotion in this one.

The Fenarine Empire has.. sorry, had never been the most stable of entities. The Emperor came from one House or another, however, in the past few centuries, House T'velya has held the throne. The second-to-last T'velya Emperor, and, indeed, the second-last Emperor, began an ambitious program, using gene-enhanced soldiers, in which he brought stability, peace, and a true central authority to the Empire.

There was grumbling aboard the ship. Some of her workers were large Church-followers, she knew.

Laine, the last Emperor, was overthrown only recently. However, as he was young, four of the nine Great Houses levied rebellion against him, chafing at the Emperor's newfound authority. High Lord Juilin took his fleet to the Empire's capital of Fenara, and, wherever he found 'mutants', he destroyed them, virtually depopulating the planet. After this, he launched an attack on the Imperial Palace, and forced Laine to sign a decree, dissolving the Empire, and voiding the powers of the Emperor. To ensure Laine could not reverse it, he killed the boy. Faralanor has far-flung territories, and we were unable to send significant aid in time to protect the capital, as rebel raids had forced us to spread our fleet out. Since then, the loss of our strong T'velya ally has put Makassar in a position of unprecedented military power. It is our belief he hopes to abuse this, and cut as many other Houses out of the trade with other nations as possible.

From the homeworld of Perimeter Defense stemmed two co-existing sentient races - those of the simply designated Tall Race, and another which consisted of standard humans. The Tall Race was not genetically modified in any way, but rather represented a special evolution of the original humans in ways that brought superior lifespans, physical prowess, and intellect, at an expense of a strange susceptibility to local diseases.

Queen Larian (the royalist title was a carryover from the original governmental system) stood seven feet five inches, and while 4000 years old looked not a day over 28. Now this latter was not a feature of the Tall Race - it owed itself to the immortality "disease" - but they still lived for up to 200 or 300 years - a respectable amount by anyone's count - and looked quite young until the last quarter of life.

The life-sized holograph of Larian stood in the bridge, and various directed forcefields enabled it/her to touch or grasp objects just as would a corporeal entity. She paced back and forth, parsing what she'd just heard. She did not want to get into this madness, but at the same time the allure of relations with another civilization was undeniable. At the same time ALSO, there was the image of a faction within this race attacking her ships, preventing them from interacting with House Faralanor, and these ships' origin would be Makassar, ordered by Juilin himself.

She tapped the comm back on. "Overseer, I hope you can understand our unwillingness to involve ourselves with these post-Fenarine internal conflicts, but we maintain our desires of diplomacy, relations, and possibly trade. On our part, Perimeter Defense is accustomed to normalcy in dealings in the midst of crises, but we cannot fire a shot in the wrong direction."

Naturally. It would be.. inadvisable for foreign powers to get militarily involved in the Fenarine region. Although the Empire no longer exists, we are still a fiercely independent people.

The mad laugh rose up in her, barely suppressed by years of training. She was talking with a ruler. And probably more than a mere High Lord. Someone equivalent to the former Emperor. Conducting diplomacy with them as though she were born to it. She silenced her inner doubts.

Unfortunately, it would be best if I did not open into too much conversation with you, as I am in no way a representative of House Faralanor.

Four more of PD's ships soon arrived at the Faralanor outpost. These were supposed to be included in the original visitation fleet, but had some training operations to complete before following through. The New Jared, Visayas, and the Cardinal were all Watchdog-type vessels, and each was 600 meters in length. They carried Stringbreakers also, and were some of the smallest ships to carry the weapon - at least the bigger ones had a chance of surviving if the Stringbreaker matrix was overcharged, or if the flywheels were blown, but in that interesting campaign against an errant terrorist-ridden colony, enemy Watchdogs were known to convert themselves into debris when the flywheel holds were targeted by Federal ships. A spectacle to be seen was found in a Watchdog that pushed its Stringbreaker to an almost record-breaking eleven seconds. It cut apart a Federation ship, but it turned into a beacon of light moments after the 11.3 second mark.

The fourth ship was the Redemption, one of the five PD flagships. An old but nonetheless mammoth and powerful vessel, she had served with PD for the past 43 years, and had seen twelve captains and three full-scale wars. Her hull was battered with blast damage, and a visible tear could be seen on her underside. She'd only been repaired internally, her skin never having been cleaned up; the intention was to showcase the very militaristic nature of Perimeter Defense's core: The nation was founded for its titular purpose, and since the system of governance proved to be efficient even after the "defense of the perimeter" had been completed, the name and administration stuck. Clocking in at a staggering 3.2 kilometers, the Redemption was a representation of all upon which PD was built: They meant business, but always, ALWAYS, only shot back.

"New Jared arrived."
"Visayas has completed transit."
"Cardinal in position."
"This is the Redemption. Queen Larian, command structure is ready for you."
Larian switched the display focus to the four new arrivals. "Thank you, Redemption. And thank you, Fortitude, for accommodating my needs while Redemption was in transit."
"It's been an honor, ma'am."
"Larian to Redemption, transferring control now."

The holograph of Larian flicked from the Fortitude's bridge to the Redemption's. On her part, the change was immediately apparent; the architecture was much older, reminiscent of the old fad of Kajali inspiration, when the Martian aliens were still popular in the public eye. It was also a whole lot bigger.

"That's much better. All right, Redemption, open a channel to the Overseer using these specifications." Larian transferred some info over from the Fortitude.

"Overseer Kenla, forgive me for the delay in response time. I had to coordinate my new arrivals. I understand the rift in command structure; when I was still a low-level member of the Diplomatic Corps, I had to give way for the seniors when people started talking shop." Larian laughed a bit. Characteristic of Perimeter Defense diplomacy was its gravitation towards being quite frank and matter-of-fact; the school of thought was that diplomacy soon wound down to a whole lot of freaking compromises, and why not get down to it as soon as possible with little of the embellishment that others offered? The bare necessities of formality were to be provided, and the rest was information. Not much to be said otherwise, but you could insert friendly banter to personalize the "game."

"Would you care to route me to someone authorized?"

And elsewhere, in high orbit over Kralok, the probe that had long ago probably tripped some kind of sensor array began beaming down very conspicuous scanning signals that would appear as noise on even amateur sweeps. Behind a console almost a thousand light years away, Admiral Noorbergen traced a path for the beams to cross, making sure that the presence of this unaffiliated probe was unknown. Since disentanglement-based communication was primarily effective because it was untraceable unless the enemy knew what to look for, he was mostly playing a little game now.

At some point, his scanner beam hit a major sensor scan, and he felt some feedback in the sensors.....

OOC: I hate to post in this thread just to post an opinion and I will certainly delete this post if deemed inappropriate.

I simply wanted to state what a pleasure it is to see a well written, compelling FT thread alive and kicking. HT has always been a favorite of mine. I have not read any of the others participating here but I must say that I am impressed so far. Keep up the great work

OOC: Yes, it is open to all. Unless there's some sort of qualifier in the first post specifying who the thread is open to, threads marked 'open' are fair game. Thank you, HFT, by the way.

IC: More ships. Wonderful. She had been informed a diplomatic craft would be there within an hour or so. Quite expedient, but, then again, this was a first contact with an unknown. She hadn't even known it was possible to make the trip from Fai'dan to this mining outpost in under a day. That meant they were sending something with awesome sublight acceleration.

Nevertheless, the station couldn't keep in communication with Fai'dan constantly. It didn't have the power output for that.

It wasn't much of a response she could send - only one asking them to wait and be patient. Kenla sighed. Ah, well. She'd dealt with the initial situation well. Given them some background that was true - a tad biased, perhaps, but nonetheless true.

I apologise, but this is a mining outpost - the communication systems do not extend to full voice and video communication with Fai'dan. A diplomatic craft is on its way, however, and will be here in approximately one hour.



In Kralok, meanwhile, Juilan was looking at the report of the probe, slightly worried. What was it? No, that was a foolish thing to ask. Small enough not to register on initial sweeps as a threat, but still conducting active scans. They would've found it eventually, no doubt, but when. That was another question he didn't like to ask. How many probes did the Faralanor and T'velya have around the House Seat, Kalnon? He calmed himself. Kralok was a minor world, relatively speaking. There were no real installations for detecting ships all throughout the system. The other worlds did not suffer from this problem.

"Excuse me a moment.", he whispered, slipping off to the bridge.

"I want that probe taken in."

He cut off the commander's brief complaint. "No, I don't care how long in-system travel will take there and back. I want it. Send out a corvette to retrieve it."

The commander - the man who directed smaller ship operations from the Lordship and Dominion, nodded grudgingly. Whoever went out there.. well, it was not a short journey from one end to the system of the other, and could take some time. Juilin didn't care. He wanted the probe found, investigated, and then traced back to its maker. If the Faralanor were trying to investigate his meeting, he'd make them pay for it.

A large markerbeacon lit up on Bays 1 and 5, the first flashing a persistent, but tightbeam signal at the Covenant shuttlecraft. Although it didn't say anything, the intention was clear enough. Land here.

Small teams of guardsmen moved in, just beyond the airlock, to welcome the foreigners to their ship. There was little to be said about letting diplomats on-board. It was a tedious undertaking, except in the rare cases where there was a problem. As such, the diplomats made their way aboard quite easily. The guards were asked to relinquish their weapons - and if they would not, well.. there was an automatic defense system onboard the ship that made any weaponry - or even any foreign attack quite pointless. Naturally, by asking the guards to relinquish their weapons, they did not have to talk about that. Thus, with, or without their weapons, they would be admitted into a large function room, where, at the head of a table, High Lord Juilin was sitting.

The Phantom locked onto the beacon and, after swiftly entering and landing in the hangar, disgorged its small package of five Sangheili, who had chosen to leave their weapons on the Phantom. They were the most elite soldiers in the Empire; weapons were not a vital part of their vast arsenal in combat. Their hands and feet would suffice for protection. When asked to relinquish weapons, they showed their empty hands and weapons belts, before proceeding to follow the guards into the room where High Lord Juilin was. Upon entering, they all bowed respectfully, and Jvas introduced them, speaking perfect English. "I am Jvas Padumaree, leader of the Spec Ops branch of the military and current temporary ambassador from my nation to yours. Shall we get started?"

The Hegemonic shuttle promptly locked onto their assigned beacon and entered the hanger. The shuttle upon landing promptly beamed out the ambassadors party of two Hegemonic Guardsmen, his two human aides, and the Ambassador himself. The Hegemonic Guardsmen were hesitant to hand over their Disintegrator Rifles. The only reason these massive armored soldiers gave up their weapons was because Ambassador Karl Van Burgeon gave a silent nod to them.

The party proceeded to follow their escorts to the room that High Lord Juilin had designated to meet them. The Ambassador and his aides lead the way flanked by the menacing Hegemonic Guardsmen that followed behind them. The Ambassador smiled upon entering the room and promptly introduced himself and his aides after the Covenant ambassadors finished their opening pleasantries with the High Lord….

OOC: Attempting cheap technobabble for the probe. Silly demonstration of the Stringbreaker follows.

Noorbergen watched on a three-dimensional representation of local space how his probe was being approached by a medium-sized spacecraft. His options were to blow the probe to pieces using its onboard antimatter scuttler, engage the Mobius drive and rocket away in a random direction, or...well, he took this latter option and chose to stay put.

Noorbergen shut off the disentanglement matrix on his part, and started to receive only passive signals from the probe. There was, in fact, a distinction between passive and active with disentanglement - if only one client was to modify the spin/nutation of the entangled particles within the matrix, then it would appear to observers as though it were simply pushing around a few quarks and leptons without an objective in sight. Even if they knew that it was a communications system, they'd never know where the information was going - however, if two machines were to be actively interacting with one another, there would be a clear traceable path between both, resultant of the Fhurio-Lysander Effect describing the correlation between entanglement and corollarily generated localized spatial flux.

Satisfied with what happened, he watched the ship draw closer to his probe, and wondered how things would turn out now. Meanwhile, a holographic screen, resized to a smaller size by him and moved to a corner, displayed the seven ships in orbit over the outpost of House Faralanor...
***
I apologise, but this is a mining outpost - the communication systems do not extend to full voice and video communication with Fai'dan. A diplomatic craft is on its way, however, and will be here in approximately one hour.
"I see. Thank you, Overseer. Queen Larian out."

The Redemption glimmered in the light from the sun that reached it three hours after it began its journey from the photosphere. There the sparkling particles on the her three Stringbreaker dish matrices looked like the little gems of specularity on a water plane directly below a sunset or sunrise. She inched closer to the Watchdog-class formation, and then some sensor warrior discovered an asteroid, almost one hundred meters in length, stuck in the the particle accretion disc of the Cardinal's FTL drive. He relayed this to Engineering aboard the Cardinal, who were mystified as to why it never appeared on sensors. Visually, there was an explanation; the wake trail of the sublight drives optically masked the asteroid, but the internal spectral sensors should have seen it anyway. Regardless of this anomaly, it was imperative that the thing be cleared away; there was no way, however, to get any kind of energy or tractor beam at the asteroid without being blocked by the energy trails - and these energy trails could not be made to disappear without shutting off the ship's Casimir Probability reactor. This was unacceptable; the CP reactor produced unlimited energy (at a current dependent on reactor size) as long as it was on, but once shut off (for maintenance every six weeks), it had to be given an energy jolt to be restarted - said jolt was equivalent to an antimatter explosion within the reactor core. Since no such thing was at hand, that was out of the question.

Then someone proposed using the Stringbreaker. The superweapon of PD ship-to-ship combat was also a notable construction tool in macro-sized design projects such as planetary ring modification or asteroid hollowing. It was resolved, and as soon as the go-ahead was given by Cardinal's skipper, two of three matrices atop the Redemption glowed with an intense light; to an outside observer, it was as though one was staring at a hundred suns flashing all at once. Then the particles from the dishes rose up to form a pair of beams, and in a curious whiplike, waveform fashion, slashed down at the asteroid with blinding speed. They hit it several times over their five seconds of activation, and when it was done they retreated into their dishes, slowly decreasing in luminescence. The asteroid summarily separated into sixteen discrete sections, perfectly smooth as to be reflective where the beams cut, and with no discernible energy outburst from the reaction. It slowly drifted off into space, as food for some black hole later on.

As soon as Larian heard of this, she frowned at not being consulted. It was not precisely a misuse of the weaponry; after all, slicing up asteroids was indeed part of its nonmilitary uses. Neither was it an unnecessary use of energy - if the asteroid blocked the accretion system, it would soon cause a buildup of excess particles that may damage the engine over time. No, the reasoning behind her distasteful emotions was that the trump card, the trophy armament of PD against opposing vessels, had just been used before a first contact party. It was bad practice to show off your special arsenal; what made matters worse was that PD really only had three comparatively good weapons against everybody else. The nation's XASER, gamma-ray LANCER turrets, plasma and various other staple weapon classes were simply on par, if not just a little weaker, than those of everybody else's.

Additionally, the whole thing might have been taken as a show of force of some sort. While this would be a bad interpretation on their part, seeing as Perimeter Defense had everything to gain from relations with the House, and as there was as of yet no need for some kind of display of power, it would still be reasonable as a first impression. What would Larian do to dispel this thought? Apologize for the "misuse of weaponry?" No, my God! That would be no less than making an excuse for pulling out your dick and showing off to the entire universe how long it was. Instead, she would remain silent and nonchalant about the affair - in this way, she would show no attention to what had just happened, and possibly convey the idea that it was a routine thing for a powerful weapon to be deployed for maintenance purposes.

This only went to show how uneasy Larian was about this particular new alien find; everything had the potential to be incredibly unstable, as there was now a clear variability in the balance of power. Who knows if there were other Houses vying for control and conquest? Moreover, she detected some level of contempt within the Overseer's tone of voice whenever she spoke of Makassar and Juilin. Lamentations at the death of the emperor? Unknown still, but since Makassar, newly independent, was already throwing out mass invitations for other nations and races to come and visit, one would wonder if this was an intelligently-designed ploy to form a new alliance against the remainder. Makassar was mentioned to be a military power now, and there was the fear that this power was to be abused by High Lord Juilin. Given the way he caused the rift in Fenarine command structure, this was a very good extrapolation of the events.

Finally, there was the statement of House Faralanor being in defense of the original Fenarine Empire, as were other Houses. Makassar being a dominant power now, with T'velya basically cleared off the board, the new allies that Juilin was acquiring could be offered the enticing pillage and territory that belonged to the weakened old Houses, pursuant to the formation of his own new imperial government. Eventually, with the remainder of the Houses gone thanks to his new friends, and with him having spared few of his own resources, instead turtling back home to form a huge grand armada that spanned systems and clusters and perhaps even a galactic sector, he would be thusly prepared to absorb surrounding nations into his new faction by force. Everyone knows that you're only nice for your sake.

Space erupted in a bright light as the Alversian Dreadnought passed into the area. It was a long, sleek and elegant warship/explorer here to expand on Alversian knowledge of the universe. This Dreadnought was one of the more common and modern classes APS Catalyst.

Aboard was one of Alversia's most experienced Captains. Captain Carson was standing on his bridge surveying the sight before him when one of the many Ensigns on the bridge came alongside him and saluted

Carson turned to face the younger woman "What is it Ensign?"

"Sir. Scanners are picking up a fleet of ships nearby. Our peliminary suggestions are that they are warships"

"Do we know their identification?"

"We have never encountered this species before, Sir. They are refering to each other as the Perimeter Defense"

"I see. And their purpose here?"

"Currantly, there is some kind of local dispute on the planet below. The PD ships are keeping check on the area"

Carson thought for a few moments
"Put the ship on Yellow Alert, shields up and make contact with the PD flagship"

"Yes, Sir!" the Ensign dashed off to carry out the orders

To: PD Flagship Redemption

We are the Alversian warship APS Catalyst, requesting information on
the currant situation

Captain Andrew Carson
APS Catalyst
10102007

>Receiving hail
>Channeling to REDEMPTION_com
>REDEMPTION_com requests relay to Cyvils capital HQ
>New Recipient: 5042-a4 (QUEEN LARIAN SECURE)

To: PD Flagship Redemption

We are the Alversian warship APS Catalyst, requesting information on
the currant situation

Captain Andrew Carson
APS Catalyst
10102007
Larian thought a moment, then responded with:
"Catalyst, this is Redemption, all's clear here, just cleaning up some debris out of our engines." If they'd received a message from Makassar too, well, there'd be no point in being so loud about Faralanor and otherwise.

OOC: Alversia, is your ship in the Kralok system (which is where the invitation originated from, and Juilin is), or in the same system as the PD people (who got there mainly by a navigational mistake - that is, overthinking the instructions, and are now talking to a mining overseer from House Faralanor)? You do say that you see PD ships, but it also seems unlikely two people would turn up with the same mistake.

IC: Juilin nodded respectfully to the ambassador. Perhaps. Perhaps a mutant. No, no. The mouth. He saw the mouth. If it was a deviant strain, it was so far gone from humanity as to show no sign of it. If he found out otherwise, he could act, but for now.. treat them as equals. Nicely.

"I am High Lord Juilin of House Makassar. Now, I am curious. What do you have to offer the Makassar? Know that we are not looking for military support, beyond pacts of non-aggression. But our manufacturing power is significant, and, as evidenced by the world below, we export progidous amounts of metals, radioactives, and rare materials."

Aliens. Who would've thought? Admittedly, they were fairly human aliens, for what could've come out of the stars, but nonetheless. They were not proscribed creatures. There was the occasional piece of sentiment against them, but they did not threaten humanity or its existence. He let his lips curl into a small smile.

The newcomers were stranger. The soldiers were large - but breeding soldiers to become stronger was not forbidden. Nor was armouring them. He made a mental note to tell the computer to collect all scraps of DNA, whether it be skin flakes or tiny hair follicles, so he could see what it was he was facing, on both sides.

Juilin nodded to the Deatharon ambassador. "It is good to see you, ambassador. You have heard what I have said to the Covenant. What precisely do you come seeking? Assurances of neutrality? Alliance? Trade?"

- - - -

Overseer Kenla waited. Truly, she could do little else. A minor expenditure of energy somewhere in the system took her attention. As it was, the act brought much, much more heat and light out than had been seen earlier from the Perimeter Defense vessels.

"Ma'am, that was one hell of.. well, maybe it was an explosion, out there. Waste heat from the PD fleet increased substatinally during what just happened."

"And?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure what it is. I'm advising we ignore it."

"Why?"

"Well.. thing is, they didn't see fit to warn us about what they're doing. So either they're powering up to destroy us, which is ridiculous, as they could've done that at their previous level of waste heat emanations quite easily, or they were shooting at something in their vicinity."

"An asteroid?"

"I think so, ma'am. If only because there's not anything else to shoot at out here. It might just have gotten too close to their hulls."

"So they blew it up."

"Well, yes. Probably to make a little display of strength. Y'know. Just to ensure that we're not bringing in our own fleet to crush them."

She laughed. "Oh, yes. The mighty House Faralanor navy. So, we're ignoring it because they're showing off?"

"Yes, Overseer. Seems like a good idea, in any case. If we ask them what it was, we seem overcautious."

"You cant' be overcautious when you're making first contact with a species in possession of several major capital ships, my little sensor jockey."

"So, should I realign the communi-"

She thought for a second, and interrupted him. "No. Don't worry about it. As you said, we might as well not seem frightened of them. Faralanor doesn't have the finest reputation as it is."

So she sat there, itching to send a message. But waiting. Sitting, and waiting.

"How's the last freighter?"

"Ma'am, it's still loading."

"Tell it to get to what they commonly call the 'sweet spot' in loading the freighter, and then leave. I have a feeling this area will be locked down for any negotiations, and they don't want to stuck here."

OOC: Yeah, I was wondering why Alversia ended up in this system, but I think that the idea was that the ships happened to be passing by. He made no mention anyway as to if he'd received anything at all. In other news, I don't seem to be receiving any more e-mail updates from jolt.........how irritating.

After giving the sternest diplomacy-related chastisement she'd given since First Contact with the Elsani, Queen Larian "sat" back at the chair on the Redemption. She wondered if it would be a good idea to make a personal visit to the fleet and system, and then quickly remembered how unstable the situation was - sending the flagship itself was already a risk. This holographic representation would suffice; there was even a portable emitter that would allow her to leave the ship if necessary.

She crossed her legs and peered at the large planet ahead, gazing at its beautiful rings, composed of resource-rich rocks. These could easily be the source of income for this planet, as TactOps deduced earlier. Noting something, she got back on the communications system.

"Overseer Kenla, are you there? This is Larian. I-" she almost mentioned the Stringbreaker incident, but stopped herself. This would be highly noticeable, though, and she mentally cursed for the aberration. "I'd like to know more about the Fenarine. Would you send us some declassified documentation? Histories, events, the like."

OOC: Sorry if I didn't specify why my ship was in the PD system. They are exploring the area and haven't actually recieved the message...yet.

IC:

"Sir! a reply from the Redemption" the Ensign called from one of the nearby computer consoles.

"Well?" Carson strode from his bridge to the console to see what the reply was

"They claim they are having minor engine difficulties, Sir"

Carson walked back to his seat on the bridge, near which his First Officer, Lt. Commander Ashe was standing. She was staring out at the PD ships as though trying to make a calculation. She turned to Carson as he lowered himself in his chair

"What do you think? Could we take them?"

Carson sighed as he gave the ships a quick glance over "I think we would survive long enough to outrun them but not long enough to defeat them. They're ships are easily a match for our Dreadnought"

"Officer of the Watch!!" another Ensign cried from a control panel

Ashe strode over to the young man as he typed various commands into the console in front of him

"Play it on loudspeaker" Ashe ordered

"Yes Ma'am!"

Juilin's message played throughout the bridge as the crew listened intently. When it was over they turned to Carson. The Captani stood up again and called to one of the Ensigns at the front of the bridge

"Ensign! do we know where Kralok is located?"

The Ensign fiddled with a few buttons before coming up with an answer

"Yes Sir! We have sketchy co-ordinates as none of our ships have ever travelled to the system"

"Then let us be the first! Ensign! Full power to the engines, set a course for the Kralok system!"

The ship began to slowly turn as the engines kicked in and the course was plotted. The Catalyst left a message for the Redemption as it turned away

To: PD Flagship Redemption

We are travelling to locate the source of a diplomatic message relayed via
High Lord Juilin of House Makassar. We were pleased to have made your
aqquintance if even for a short time. Good luck with the engines!

Andrew Carson
APS Catalyst
10102007.4

"Cap'n...."

"Stuff it. I don't want to hear it."

"But Cap'n, it's not about us getting lost and losing communications with all fri—"

"So what is it then? That's all I've been hearing in the last few hours."

"We're receiving some sort of diplomatic invitation from a nearby system."

"So? Since when are we official representatives of anything?!"

"Well, at the Academy they always told us we were Remenith's envoys to the Galaxy...."

A longer pause. "Stuff it. I don't want to hear it."

"You're interested, aren't you, Cap'n."

"Insubordination!"

"I know you. I've served with you for twelve years, Cap'n."

"Er.... exactly what is the message?"

"See?"

"One more word out of you, Leftenant, and you're confined to quarters indefinitely!"

Leftenant Crain Vaal allowed herself a small smile and then pushed open the entrance to Cap'n Jelan's quarters. Jelan blinked his central eye purposefully in her direction, and she spoke. "High Lord of some noble house or other. They're holding some kind of convention or other..... newly independent nation and they want people to come say hi. Here's the kicker, though. We have to find our own way there."

Captain Jelan Gesh of the good ship Tenacity, slightly more powerfully built and with overtones of aquamarine on his flawless wings, blinked all five of his eyes this time. "They don't provide co-ordinates? How interesting. Why not?"

"Something about it being a test. Folks who can't find their way are unworthy to be allied, or something. I've no idea, really."

"I will consider coming to the bridge."

Game over. Lt Crain again smiled at the roof, hopped to the edge of the Cap'n's Quarters, and plunged into space. Spreading her wings, she flew up through the agora towards the bridge. Behind her, she briefly felt the rush of air as the Cap'n took flight as well. In truth, Jelan was in no way averse to the current plight of the Tenacity and its crew. He practically thrived on life-or-death, space-opera, impossible-odds, near-miss situations; he seemed to enjoy saving the Universe, or at least his own ship, and he seemed to equally enjoy getting into trouble. There was no other explanation for why he did it so often.

Alighting on the bridge and dropping his spindly legs into their tripod-like formation, indicating that he was now in a state of relaxation, Jelan's imperious glare suffused the various officers at the bridge, who promptly began scrambling to make it seem as though their actions were entirely innocuous, as usual. Along with being possessed of a roguish and troublemaking personality, Jelan was also plagued by a devil-may-care rules-are-made-to-be-broken crew, four hundred caelis strong and every one of them of sound mind and vehemently opposed to anything the other three hundred ninety-nine might put forth.

"And what," Jelan said, pausing for dramatic effect, "has been going on here?" He hopped to his command console in the best imitation of a human stalk.

"Er, we were just," squeaked a young Ensign.

"Spying on long-range communications, I see? Don't tell me you used a Fischer matrix again. Last time we tried that we lost half the quarters and most of the weapons deck!"

"Er, no sir, we weren't sp.... er, nevermind that." From Jelan's glare it was obvious he did not tolerate liars. "Er, we weren't using a Fischer, we tried the QppRS, and, er, there's no way they could have detected us with that one."

"QppRS?" Jelan sounded confused.

"Quantum positron-photon replacement system, sir. It's the latest technobabble to emerge from Remenyí labs. We're not sure how it works either."

"And why, pray tell, did you spy on communications?" Jelan took a closer look at the map of nearby ships. There were some Alversian registered ships, Telrosians, and so on -- the names meant nothing to Jelan, who held the strong conviction that any nation he hadn't heard of was probably unimportant.

"Well, er, you see sir, we obtained this message." The ensign played back the message.

"On whose authority do you propose to open diplomatic relations?" Jelan Gesh asked meaningfully, his five eyes resting upon each crew member individually. Even then he already knew the answer they would give as long as they were registered to the Tenacity.

"On no authority," Leftenant Vellos Marsh was the one to respond; a slender tawny-wingéd specimen with a strange pattern on his neck fur. He was calm and quiet. "Perhaps more accurately, on our own authority."

Jelan smiled. "That's the Tenacity I'm used to working with. So where is this star system of ours?"

"Well, we traced the initial communication back to a general region of space, but there we dead-ended. So we started looking for ships. There were plenty of them, of course; scattered all over the place. But we looked for ships of widely varying designs and with foreign registrations. Turns out there are two places where the foreigners had arrived; and it took just a quick look with the RS to figure out which one was which...." Vellos delivered this in a single stream of language. "Vaal, you wanna give him the course?"

Leftenant Crain answered him. "Only birth on my left does pass. Only death on my right. My eyes are the light at the end of the tunnel; but my eye does not blink, and my fate is death."

Jelan turned to his helmsman. "You got that, Ensign?"

"Sure did." Like all caelis the ensign had a remarkable propensity for riddles. Within moments the ship was entering the first in its series of jumps.

-----------------

Observers, by now, would have noticed the ship. Not every day does a huge, nearly spherical body one point three kilometres in diametre suddenly grow a hyperdrive engine and start skipping across realspace like a stone across a pond. It was one point three kilometres across because it was hosting flying beings thirty feet tall; to them, of course, the more normal sized space ships were viewed as tiny and cramped. It had no visible weapons, to observers' relief or greater worry; but it could conceivably do a smaller ship damage just by accidentally bumping into it.

Blithely unaware of any stir it might be causing, the massive ship simply continued jumping along its trajectory with planetary nebulas on its left and white dwarfs on its right, each jump further confirming that its target was, indeed, Kralok. (Or perhaps the next system to the left; but that, too, was accounted for in the ship's computers.)

My quantum mechanic is none less than you
Repairing my entangled-up hairdo...

Another one of those 40's songs she hated, but the old movement was gaining so much popularity again. It played on the DE public radio that every PD ship had, military or civilian. God, why the hell did they have to give those people selective disentanglement transceivers? Still, Larian could not help but whistle the catchy song, representing a short-lived era of technobabble in pop songs that was suddenly catching on again.

She looked at the message from the Alversian ship, and then returned a response:

"Thank you for your well-wishing, Catalyst. Godspeed." She supposed that she could send a probe to the other Kralok possibles to test for the real one, but for now she was satisfied with the meeting at Faralanor's outpost.

OOC: Whew. Replies, replies, replies...

IC:
Perimetre Defense
Kenla looked down at the reply.

Of course. Documents regarding the Houses are easy enough to obtain. I will send what little materials we have onboard. You must understand that, in the interest of preserving our information, the majority of what is kept on this station is not even the equal of what is available in libraries on Fai'dan?

(OOC: Assume my factbook is now general knowledge for you.)

- - - - - -
Alversia:
OOC: I'll be honest. I'm tired of expressing surprise about people entering Kralok, asking them to land in a certain docking bay, and then guiding them to High Lord Juilin. Could I ask that you assume you're met cordially, asked to dock with a certain shuttle bay, and then are taken to see the High Lord with the diplomat of your choice? If you're planning on doing something different, fine, but since most First Contact seems to follow that pattern, it makes sense to expedite the process.

- - - - - -
Vojvodina-Nihon:
"Another ship entering the system, High Lord."

"Another? My, my. Well, greet them properly, won't you? I have guests to attend to."

A standard message was sent out to the newcomers, asking them to identify themselves, and, of course, to stop at least one lightsecond away from Kralok. It would not do to have a combat started at this point.

OOC: Short, I know, but I'm tired and busy, and I can't dig out any creativity for something good.

OOC: Yeah, I was going to suggest that you send it by linking Larian to the factbook thread, hehehe.

"Of course, Overseer. I understand. Thank you for the supplementals." Larian sent the gathered information to her personal folder at Cyvils, embedding some of it in the Redemption's library. "On our part, here is some information regarding the Federation's dealings." Larian sent the narrative records of some of the most important events in PD history, each of which also included some supplemental info.

Filenames:PDhist/pub/kajal/VISITATION.sle (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=525723): Kajali Visitation
PDhist/pub/elsani/contact2.sle (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=528892): Elsani contact incident (incomplete records)
PDtech/privmil/weapons/dragoneye/details.sle (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=540539): Black hole gun

OOC: What 'appened 'ere?