NationStates Jolt Archive

"The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers."

~Joan Didion

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From an unexplored, ignored solar system of the galaxy, a sudden life exploded out in all directions. Arcing out in various radials from the core of the mother planet, objects streaked out at speed, silver bullets leaving a trail of arced plumage in the atmosphere of their launch planet as they followed pre-programmed courses to take them in different directions.

Mission Control at the Space Command Headquarters in Fort Lakenheath was abuz with activity. Banks of sophisticated computer equipment was constantly monitered by technicians and controllers in charge of the mission, each with an important duty to perform in ensuring Operation Hide & Seek's success.

Chief Controller Darren Hextel leant over his console at the top of the layered control room and studied the three-dimensional holographic display projected above them all in the centre of the room. Planet Humanus hung in the air as a green wire mesh with red icons depicting military bases and installations across the main continent. Yellow lines, gradually extending as time passed, depicted the passages of each probe as they left the planet's atmosphere.

Hextel glanced at his watch, and then tapped his headset mic. "Chief Controller to Controllers," he said calmly. "Give me final confirmation for green."

A series of confirmations from each Controller answered over his headphones in protocal sequence, and Hextel nodded to himself. Re-seating himself at his console, Drew reached into his pocket and removed a key, gold and marked with the planet Earth speared by a sword. He swiftly inserted it within a lock on the console and twisted it. On one side of the console, a hatch slid open to reveal a large, red button.

Hextel took a moment to pause. "Operation Hide & Seek is go," he said, "in three...two...one...engage." His finger pushed the button.

In the blink of an eye that it took the transmission, each probe fired its one-way Warp Drives and shot their way into interstellar space for their pre-planned solar systems. They would each reach an individual location and start transmitting details on the coordinates of the Humanus System, the Terran origin of their people, and transmission frequencies for the Imperial Alien Monitoring System.

The Empire of Humanus Universitas reached for the stars and tried to call out.

(Tag for possible participation)

"Warp signature on the outskirts of the system."

The Rhystare system was spartan in its details: a seven-planet formation orbiting a main-sequence yellow star, it was notable for a few mining facilities above gas giants and a single sentry base for sectorial defense. Despite having more than 39 sectors of space, not every system in the Dominion was significant-far from it, in fact. Rhystare was considerably less than that. The biggest formation that could possibly qualify for a settlement would be a mining base on the first planet, a rocky terrestrial planet without an atmosphere. The Class-D world was not even suitable for non-atmospheric life.

But the sentry base with the two patrol vessels at dock had picked up a signature at the fringe of the system-a warp signature. Warp was unusual-not generally used for being far too slow for Dominion likes, hyperspace was far preferred (or more experimental "slipping" methods). It wasn't an unknown commodity, however. It did mean that something had come in via warp, which likely meant that either a) something with warp drives had just entered in-system, or b) something with warp drives had exploded just outside the system.

"Send Fire Wasp to go investigate," the base's commander, Lieutenant-Commander Jaqual Verast instructed.

The patrol vessel shot off towards the probe that had come in-system, looking to see what was up.

The DSNV-8 Wandering Sentinel, a smaller patrol corvette, at roughly 200 meters, was cruising by Mars, when the sensor officer spoke up "Captain, we have multiple FTL signatures, looks like a primitive form of warpdrive, sir."

Rising from his command seat, the Dessarri Captain, with gray skin, pointed ears, and dark silver hair, walked over to the Sensor-ops station "Interesting...Their Origins Sub-lieutenant?" he said with a small smile of curiosity.

"3rd planet, sir, no other info until we get closer."

"Very well, Navigator, take us around the planet, and on about to the 3rd planet"

"Rodger that captain, coming about in orbital swing for the 3rd planet" a third voice chimed in from the forward-most seat on the multilevel bridge, the Navigator appearing to be a white-haired and void-black skinned female of the species, but actually a true hermaphrodite, the sole person onboard with the innate abilities to see into and navigate Jump-space"

Returning to sit in the captains chair, the commander spoke to the captain " what sort of culture do you think we might be dealing with?"

"I don't know, its also possible they still haven't unified their planet yet, and we could end up dealing with several dozen or more separate continental governments, of which one or more could be far from ready for Extra-planetary contact"

Slingshoting across the nightside of Mars, the captain ordered that a high-waveform signal be sent to alert another of their vessels, the DSNV-2 Void Cartographer, of a similar class 2 'newly-FTL capable species' that has been found, since Waveform comms might disrupt earth technology.

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Mere hours later, the Wandering Sentinel settled into a high earth orbit, and went to passive mode in an attempt to look like one of their own primitive artificial satellites, while also monitoring whatever forms of communication chatter could be picked up.

" Sir we just picked up a warp jump in a normally quit secotr of this area. It appears to be first contact probes which entered warp-space." called out a sensors officers as he mentally sent to report to his Captian.

" Can you pin point to origin of take off, or who sent them?" asked back the Captian as he skimmed his mental messages.

" Not quite although, we have isolated the system. We should be able to determine which planet it came from." answered back the officer

The Captain got up and walked his official command station and gave the orders to investigate.

The 3 ship fleet stopped and then turned around and dime jumped to the sector where the warp was detected. As the small fleet arrived to the spot they could just see the trail particales disappear into the void. Soon scans of a planet came back positive for sentient life. The Captain though for a moment before ordering anything.

" I want 6 teams to be rallied and readied to depart. I want to see if we are dealing with a unified planet or a continental governed one. And to determine if they are ready for contact.

The Helms officer nodded and gave to order via mental messaging. Soon in the lower decks 6 recon teams of human origin were assembled and fitted with the nessecary equipment to do their jobs. They where wating transport in the portal room. At which time the protal operator spoke..

" Each will be sent to 6 seperate locations. This portals will remain open as long as they can you have about... 20 days to determine if they are ready for contact."

The teams nodded and walked through....