NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC- I am very new to FT tech; in fact, this is my first time trying it out. I'm very clearly using Mass Effect tech, and have pulled the Krogan right out of it. If there are any questions, let me know.

The Nodacrux seemed to be sitting still. It's engines were offline. Within, it's crew seemed awestruck. Stopping and shifting their eyes from place to place at each windowed corridor they moved through. The light of the energetic blue star Herschel seemed ever present, even at this distance, out at the edge of the belt of asteroids in the outer solar system. Outside, sitting in space, anchored to a particularily massive asteroid called "Relay" (in honor of what was anchored to it) was a massive space station. It was a mass relay. It was the stepping stone of the Krogan's interstellar search in the stars. It was aimed at a warm, main stage star confirmed to hold a colonizable planet.

The Krogan would have salvation.


Tuchanka, Palace of the Warlords

Overlord Inamorda listened to his compatriot Warlords bicker with one another over the governing of land on Tuchanka and within the Herschel system for some time. He was not one to lose his patience. He was well aware of the implications of insulting a fellow Warlord, even if they were subordinate to him in practice. His eyes shifted to his left where he could see the neverending city that was Tuchanka stretch out for miles. Fourty billion Krogan lived here, another ten billion on Tuchanka's moons. The Krogan population was maddeningly explosive once they had freed themselves from the shackles of their own godforsaken ecosystem and tribal ways of life.

Tuchanka was once a barren land, void of resources and ripe with predators that would make a tyrannasaurus rex cry for it's mother. To any other species, the Krogan would seem a well suited predator species; razor sharp teeth and claws, impenetrable skin, multiple copies of organs, a hump which stored excess food and water, and a reproductive and maturity rate that was astonishingly high. But upon closer inspection, it became clear that they were not; their wideset eyes were more capable of tracking predators than catching prey.

Still, they had escaped that; they had won out because of their developed brains. Almost immediatly, the population had gone from a handfull to a globally dominating species. In the lower levels of the worldwide city, the Krogan's predators still creeped, ready to kill any Krogan that decided it would visit the world's floors. It had taken centuries of struggle to get to this point. Cities were built from resources offworld, as Tuchanka was worthless in that sense. Food was grown en masse, often cloned or artificially stimulated, on the moons of the gas giant Moros. It had become clear that the population problem had to be solved. There was nowhere left to expand in the Herschel system; even the dangerously close and radiated planet Metgos was being populated.

Inamorda's mind snapped back to the present as his name was called,"Overlord, you said you had something important to tell the Warlords. Here we are."

Inamorda's deep, throaty voice filled the room,"Yes, I do. The Mass Relay was completed with what little resources we could muster out of the asteroid fields. In theory, we should be able to create a massless corridor for instantaneous travel to any location we choose."

One of the twenty Warlords looked puzzled,"Anywhere? I assume theres a catch."

"There is. It can only go to one place; one way. In order to get back, we'd have to create a second Relay on the other side. If our intel is wrong, and the system we are aimed for does not have a habitable world, we'll lose a lot of people and a lot of resources on this project.

"And if we're right, we'll solve our population problems for the immediate future, and possibly test our theory for faster-than-light travel once we get to the target star," Inamorda finished. The Warlords looked at each other, nodded one by one.

The Warlord Vertus finally spoke,"We think it's worth the risk. With habitable planets, the resources will have been well spent, and if those theories on faster than light travel are correct, we'll be capable of reaching nearer stars and more planets to spread to. Our population problems will be fixed."

"Good. I'll send the word for them to get the operation underway."


Relay 1
A massive fleet, much of which was for protection in case the Krogan were met with an enemy spacefaring species, approached the Mass Relay. Massive droves of civilian ships and colony ships lined up. Just recently, a probe had been sent through without problem, and was searching the new system already. One by one, the Krogan ships, including the battleship 'Nodacrux', shot through the relay.

Once on the other side, the ships aimed directly for the target planet, which was deemed 'habitable'. It's atmosphere was breathable, to an extent, and it had liquid water. That was all the Krogan cared to know. The fact that this was the first time a Krogan had ever been to another system was rather overlooked; they were too worried about their population problems. The Federation of Warlords was more worried about getting as many people to migrate to the new planets as possible than celebrating milestones.

As the process went on, the Krogan ignored the fact that other species in the galaxy might exist. They had long since come to the conclusion that they were the only sentient species to develope, mainly because they could not imagine a world not vicious like their own.

Who knew what was observing the situation?

OOC-Figured I'd bump. For reference, this is a Krogan:
http://www.gamer.nl/images/content/trennas/200706/1181829275_0_3.jpg

OOC-Bump. Just realized the 10 post thing.

Rebecca held the isolinear optical chip delicately in her fingers, gazing at it blankly in the same manner she had been doing for the last half an hour or so since her last duty shift ended. Sat at her desk in her quarters, she should have been relaxing in anticipation of another busy shift tomorrow, but instead she sat tense and uneasy in her uniform pants and turtle-neck shirt, her duty jacket long-since removed and messily tossed in a heap onto her bunk. Held up to the light of her desktop lamp, the translucent casing of the optical chip offered a glimpse of the complex arrays of nano processors and holographic data storage systems that were contained within the hardy plastic shell. As the light passed through it, the dull brownish chip refracted the light and cast a surprising rainbow of colours down onto her face. As she twiddled the wafer-thin chip between her fingers thoughtfully, feeling its smooth, cool plastic shell rub against her delicate fingers she knew that its slick appearance belied the barbed files that were contained within.

The optical chip contained a message from home; New Eden, the capital world of the Federation that was sometimes referred to as New Earth informally. Being as it was over two and a half thousand lightyears away from their present location, real-time communication was not possible and subspace messages took roughly eighteen hours to reach them, and they were likewise constricted when it came to sending anything back. She already knew what the message contained, for she had known that it was going to arrive for a long time now - subspace relationships rarely worked even when the individuals involved were within range of real-time communication. But so far away from home for so long, collapse was inevitable. All she had to do was work up the courage to slot the chip into her personal monitor and watch her predictions come true.

After a deep breath, she clutched the chip between her fingers and slowly reached forwards, aiming for the reader slot on her terminal. Just as the chip slotted neatly into place, the computer chirping happily in acknowledgement, she sighed as she heard the soft digitized chimes of the ships tannoy system, followed by the irritatingly neutral female tone of the computer's voice.

"Now hear this, now hear this: all officers to the bridge. Unknown starships have been detected. All officers to the bridge."

"Figures," she grumbled. Hurriedly she reached across to her bunk and grabbed her duty jacket, scruffily throwing it over her white turtleneck as she jogged through the sliding door of her quarters.

***

Stepping out through the blue-grey turbolift doors, Rebecca still appeared to be getting dressed, as she fastened the flap of her burgandy tunic closed with a white strip of fabric that went over her right shoulder. No matter how many times she stepped out of that turbolift she always felt a touch of pride as she was engulfed with the sights and sounds of the busy bridge. The recurring dull bleeps and irregular whines and whistles were symbols of safety and stability that always soothed her, and the master systems display on the aft-most wall was always a beautiful sight - provided everything it displayed was OK, of course. As her crew busily milled around between stations, the touch of pride returned as she watched them go about their duties professionally.

"Captain on the bridge!" an enthusiastic ensign called out before her foot even touched the deck. She paused briefly and put on an uncomfortable smile, having hoped that after several years of deep space exploration that they would have fallen out of such annoyingly formal habits, but apparently not.

"As you were," she said dismissively, struggling to mask a yawn that had managed to creep out. Quickly she hopped down to the sunken central area of the bridge and took her seat in the plush blue command chair, her black boots clomping against the metal deck all the way. As she stretched out in the command chair with a tired groan, she eagerly accepted a mug of steaming black coffee that was handed to her by one of her junior officers. "Thank you Yeoman. Commander, please tell me, why am I out of bed at zero-one-hundred hours?"

Commander John Derek, first officer and tactical officer all rolled into one, was seated on the slightly raised area of the bridge that surrounded the central command area, eagerly tapping away at the controls of the main sensor station. On the monitors around him were various scanned images of alien ships, which had wireframes superimposed across their general shapes as the computer tried to assess their composition and configuration, and attempt match them with anything it had in its database. As all of the wireframes flashed red simultaneously a brief moment later, it became fairly clear that the computer had failed in the latter task - these ships were unknown to them.

"Sorry sir, but we detected a large spatial disturbance roughly ten lightyears from our present position," Derek informed her. "A number of large vessels of an unknown configuration became visible shortly thereafter. They seem to be... landing? I'm attempting to analyse them now but the computer is unable to match them against our database. There are a lot of them though... could be a convoy, invasion fleet, or a colonial effort of some kind?"

"Is there any sign that they have detected us?" the Captain asked.

"I'm not detecting any active sensor scans," Derek said with a slight shrug. "They're either using scans we can't detect, have shorter scanning ranges than we do, or they're simply not bothering to look around. Whichever it is, they don't appear to be paying any attention to us."

Rebecca sighed. "I suppose we should take a look. We've got a long journey home, and I doubt this diversion will add much time to our trip."

"Plus you'd probably get a court martial for ignoring it," Derek said with a smile.

"That too. OK Su'vak, adjust our course to intercept, warp seven," Rebecca said, as she carefully placed her china cup down on the small, white, hexagonal pedestal in front of her chair. Lieutenant Su'vak, who sat at the helm controls at the front of the bridge, appeared to be a Romulan, though the history behind such a feat of sociological tolerance being possible was long and arduous. Nevertheless, he always seemed to wear his uniform with pride, and the Captain had never had cause to question his skill or loyalty.

"Aye sir, adjusting to heading three-zero-one mark two-five, warp seven confirmed," Su'vak confirmed.

"In the meantime, Phil, see if you can establish contact with those ships," Rebecca said thoughtfully, leaning forward in her chair and gazing at the streaking stars on the viewscreen.

"Aye sir, opening a channel," Lieutenant Commander Philip Cobbs nodded. He fiddled with the small earpiece he wore and began to operate his controls. "This is the Federation Starship USS Vincennes, hailing unknown vessels in the nearby star system. We mean you no harm, please respond. Repeat, this is the..."

The Captain leaned back in her chair again in quiet contemplation as the Vincennes raced towards the unknown yet again. Sometimes she wished that their mission wasn't to 'seek out new life and new civilisations', because at times like this it just made her apprehensive. Who could know what those ships were doing, and how they would respond...?

OOC-After a little bit, if you want, I'll get into detail on the culture and life of my people, in case you want a better understanding.

Battleship Nodacrux, "Urdnot" System
Warlord Zuka, the chosen leader of the colonization effort into the so called "Urdnot" system, strapped his heavy armor onto his back. His massive hump, something that showed him to be a superior predator, made him looke massive. His decorative armor showed his authority well; it's silver breast, leg, and arm plates and the large, pointed hump plating shined in the lights that the Warlord walked under. This was his family's armor, passed down through twenty generations and now to him. It was actually an old piece of crap, but it looked cool.

Walking through the door to the bridge, nodding at a Krogan soldier in dark red armor, he took in the beeps and whirs of machinary and the sight of several hundred Krogan working controls of every sort. This battleship was massive, the largest in the fleet. The view from the bridge showed the entire ship in front of it. The Warlord did not know how his people had pulled the resources for this ship out of their ass, but here it was. What the point of it was, he didn't know. There obviously wasn't another intelligent species in the galaxy to challenge their authority.

Taking his place in the massive throne-like seat that overlooked the bridge, he looked around. He was sure that before he had walked in, some of the men had probably been goofing off. If they had been, they sure as hell weren't now. Even a slip-up could lead to a crewman's immediate execution. Though it was resented by the crew, the government paid no mind simply because there was always someone to replace the dead.

"Status," the Warlord croaked as he fell heavily into his chair. The Krogan to his immediate left, his bridge officer, answered instinctively.

"Exodus is an hour out. We're cruising ahead of schedule. The probe we sent in earlier in the week has already picked up on the world's potential. It's unlike anything we've ever seen. It's a pleasant surprise, Warlord."

"How so?"

"The life is confirmed to be rather docile, and the it is rich in badly needed resources," the Officer answered, feeling a bit of anxiousness to see such a world.

"Indeed? Then we're in luck."

"Yes. We believe, as well, that the asteroid belt deeper into the system might have valuable resources as we-"

"Warlord! We're recieving a message!" the communications officer directly behind the Warlord's seat was terrified. There was no possible way for a message to have arrived from Tuchanka already, and the language the message was in ruled out anything from the fleet. This was alien. The officer stated clearly, noting the confused face the Warlord was giving him as he approached the communications relay,"You'll want to hear this."

The message played,"This is the Federation Starship USS Vincennes, hailing unknown vessels in the nearby star system. We mean you no harm, please respond."

"The hell is this crap? I don't understand a thing they're saying," the Warlord had come to the same conclusion that the communcations officer had,"Damn. If they're hostile, we'll have a war on our hands. If they aren't.. well, how the hell do we know if they aren't?" he was walking about the bridge now, speaking to himself and partly to the bridge officer still trailing him,"If we attack them we'll have a war on our hands, but then it might be that they weren't hostile and it'll have been for nothing."

"Perhaps we should simply watch them. Wait to see what they do. If they attack us first, we'll be defending ourselves and we can simply overwhelm them," the bridge officer suggested, rather quietly.

"Yes, that's what we'll do," the Warlord had come back to the communications relay,"Send a message to them. They might have some technology to figure out what the hell we're saying. I sure as hell don't know what they want. Tell them we're here to colonize and do not want a war. Tell them we'll meet on neutral grounds if they want to speak with us. Tell them, also, that if they do indeed wish to initiate combat with us, that we will hunt every one of them down without mercy," walking to the side of the bridge that was in charge of combat operations, the Warlord began relaying orders,"Power up the shields and prepare the mass accelarator cannons. If these aliens want a war, we'll give them a war. However, I don't want any of you little shits to get trigger happy. I swear by the Overlord that if a shot is fired without cause, this entire damned bridge will be executed!"

The bridge's crew shouted in affirmative. This mission had just gotten a lot more complicated.

[OOC: Sure, I've never played Mass Effect myself so it'll be interesting. If we get past the initial linguistic problems without killing each other (or, more likely, killing me :) ) we could find a way to integrate it into the RP if you like.]

The Vincennes dropped out of warp on the outskirts of the system, her creamy white hull gleaming with an almost blinding light as it briefly caught a glimpse of the distant central star. Almost immediately after slowing to sublight, her impulse engines glowed a fierce red as they powered up, propelling the ship deeper into the uncharted star system at high speed. As she progressed, her sensors actively touched every stray molecule they could find, learning all that she could about her surroundings on the way to her ultimate destination - the alien ships that had appeared here.

Within the bridge itself a pensive silence reigned supreme as it often did in these circumstances. Aside from the mumblings of the ship herself, as her systems hummed and bleeped away in a reassuringly consistent manner, not a sound could be heard. More than two thousand lightyears away from Federation territory, the Vincennes was very much alone, and if anything were to go wrong reinforcements - or even rescue - would not be possible. Such a fact, always at the forefront of their minds at times like these, made any potentially dangerous situation all the more crucial. Crew members sat at their duty stations with a determination that masked their combined mood of curiosity and apprehension, and many of them could be seen glancing towards the view screen occasionally. It didn't help much, for aside from an uninhabitable planet they passed by rather closely, the screen showed nothing but stars.

Minutes felt like hours, and after only ten of those highly exaggerated hours had passed, Cobbs suddenly turned around on his chair to look over at the Captain curiously.

"Captain," he called out. Rebecca seemed to be even further away from home than the ship was for a moment, for it took a cough from the Lieutenant Commander to snap her out of her contemplative daze - one inspired partly by fatigue, and partly by apprehension.

"Yes, Commander, sorry," she said, shaken to her feet. She stepped up to Cobbs' console, once more stiffling a yawn.

"Captain, we have just received an odd communication from one of those alien starships," Cobbs told her. As though trying to prove his point he removed his earpiece and played the message on the speakers. An alien voice emerged, speaking for quite a while and apparently making several distinct points before closing the channel.

"Phil that didn't make any sense to me," Rebecca shook her head.

"I know, sir," he nodded with a slight smile. "I find it utterly shocking that every alien race in the galaxy doesn't speak English."

"Quite so," she said, returning the smile and putting her hand on his shoulder jovially. "You did send our message in linguacode? And ran their response through the UT?"

"Aye, sir, I've been doing this for quite a while now," Cobbs said. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms. "It's just not a recognised language. They probably feel the same way 'bout ours. Which ain't a great surprise if we've no record of these guys in our database. But I've got the computer analysing everything they sent us now anyway, so hopefully it can come up with something. If... we could get a few more words out of them, it might help the computer come up with a more comprehensive translation matrix?"

Rebecca nodded and headed for the centre of the bridge again, putting her arms behind her back firmly. "Su'vak, drop us to one-half impulse power. I don't want to alarm them by approaching too fast. Once we're at a distance of three million kilometres from that fleet bring us to a full stop - not too close, not too far away. Phil, open a..."

"Captain," Derek interrupted. "Sensors have confirmed charged defensive systems on those ships. They went up just a moment ago. Should I raise shields and ready our own weapons sir?"

Rebecca looked down at the tactical station thoughtfully and shook her head. "No Commander... I don't want to appear to be provocative - this is their party, not ours. Besides, we're not going to fight our way through an entire fleet of starships. But, take us to condition yellow just in case they intend to use those weapons."

"Aye," Derek nodded, tapping some prominent icons on his screen immediately.

As idle monitors across the ship flicked over to the flashing yellow alert graphic, and the computer advised general quarters to all crew members, the Vincennes herself took some limited steps to protect herself from harm - emergency forcefields were established around critical areas of the ship, such as the bridge and the engineering sections, and power to her structural integrity field was increased so that she might withstand greater stresses than usual. Still, she didn't raise main deflector screens nor charge any of her weapons, and seemed quite eager to give off the impression that she didn't want to fight anybody unless she had to.

"Su'vak, lay in an emergency escape course at maximum warp speed; be ready to engage on my mark," Rebecca warned the helmsman. "Keep those engines hot. Now, where was I? Lieutenant Commander Cobbs, ready a channel please."

"Channel ready sir," Cobbs announced. "Broadcasting on all frequencies, in all known languages. We're transmitting visual, but... I don't know if they can receive it. I've also incorporated the matrix that the computer has so far - they might get a couple of words outta it, but not a lot."

Rebecca nodded at him and cleared her throat. Standing in the dead centre of the bridge, she hurriedly closed the flap on her burgundy duty jacket and checked her ponytail before slipping her arms behind her back. Another nod to Cobbs, and he began broadcasting.

"I'm Captain Hughes, commander of the starship USS Vincennes," she said clearly and loudly. As she spoke, she made an effort to soften her voice and maintain a gentle tone, hoping to appear as amicable as possible to the aliens - after all, diffusing potentially volatile situations was hard enough when both parties could understand each other, let alone when they couldn't. Assuming they were watching, she also placed a hand on her chest when she spoke her own name, and then gestured all around her when she mentioned the ship's name, hoping it added a greater level of understanding. "We come from a space-faring nation known as the United Federation of Interstellar Planets, located several thousand lightyears away from here. We are peaceful explorers, and mean you no harm. Please, if you have difficulty in understanding what I am saying to you, send us a response anyway so that our computer can continue to analyse your language."

A slashing gesture with her hand notified Cobbs that she wanted the channel muted, and he complied quickly, before noting with amusement, "that last part seemed a little redundant, sir."

"Yes I know," she sighed. "Can you think of any way of symbolising to them that more messages may help us to understand each other?"

"Well..." Cobbs said thoughtfully. "I could begin randomly sending them excerpts from our library computer. Passages from Shakespeare, bits of Romulan opera... anything. It might confuse the heck out of 'em, but it's the only way I can think of to show them what we need."

"And if they have translation systems of their own it might help them too," Rebecca nodded and smiled. "Right then, you may harass them at your discretion, Mr. Cobbs."

"With pleasure, sir," he nodded, and programmed the computer to randomly send small audio files from their non-secure database to the aliens every twenty seconds. "I hope they like literature..."

Hopefully they'd get the message before they got irritated.

Deep Space Substation 36X Quatra

Country music blared out of the sound outputs aboard Quatra (as the crew liked to call it) as the moderate-sized substation orbited the largest gas giant in the system. Quatra was by no means a tiny station for listening, mining, and various other pursuits - it had a civilian and military population as a deep space outpost line station - but against the chronoton particles being emitted from the gas giant, the substation was but a sensor speck in the shadow of the planetary behemoth. Even sensor sweeps by Dominion ships that had come for resupply a week earlier had been hard-pressed to find the station, even equipped with its complement of two corvettes as station security. They weren't tough by any means - just enough to deter the occassional hostile raiding party by pirates. That wasn't hard.

As station commander for 1000 crew and over four thousand civilians, Captain Veerkin Thath, a human, was tasked with the responsibility of keeping lots of people in line and around. It didn't help that he had a very diverse crew - though humans made up a majority (barely) in the Dominion, all races of the Dominion were represented on the station, particularly the humanlike Chymerons and arachnid Helots. Thath pursued much of his time in the command chamber of the station, a five-room habitat located in the heart of the Control Nexus. He liked his preferences - as the music that only he could enjoy now exemplified.

Quatra itself was a decent station, for being a deep space substation. It was well-armed with an assortment of multi-array turrets - emplacements holding numerous munition types - and a full complement of fighters and gunships to go along with the two light capital ships. Even so, there was no way the station would be able to defend against a full-fledged military onslaught without some secondary help, even though the two capital craft were strong enough to hold their own against ships twice their size. Roughly 1400 meters in radius, its golden hull was lost amidst the swirling oranges of the gas giant below, the mining locale (a secondary mining hub, considerably smaller and with only droids as permanent residents) for more than five hundred civilians. Rings of the gas giant, smallish yet still radiant, capped off the surreal scene of the giant planet.

Thath was lounging in his office on the quiet day - no idiot civilian had stuck his or her hand in a power conduit yet - when the sensor notification began to ping. The station AI that controlled most systems, Kelta (all Amazonian AIs were designed as female humans - perhaps due to the human male-dominated command positions of the military) popped up on a holoimager, her dark green, streaming body jumping up into 3D form.

"Message on all bands inbound from the system, commander," Kelta said, sticking a holographic hand on one hip. For holotechnology, AI avatars were quite...human. "We have the origin."

"Do you want to give that to me, or carry it around like a new boyfriend?" Thath asked, his deep voice echoing around the empty walls of his designated room of the Command Chamber.

Though messing with his crew was great - Thath had a very good working relationship for maintaining a desolate station way out here - he and the AI had actually been through quite a lot. Both were veteransof numerous wars aboard the same starship that Thath had once commanded, the ADV Slippoint of an older outdated cruiser class. He had voluntarily taken this frontier job, in what wasn't even Dominion space. He made it Dominion space.

Kelta gave an odd smirk, though she was the only AI aboard the station (each corvette had its own AI). "You'd know about that. No, it's from a ship passing through the system."

"That it?"

"Of course. Not. I picked up another formation of ships an hour ago, but I've been watching them. They appear to be a bit wary, perhaps first entry into the system. They sent back a message, but even our translation matrices couldn't decipher it. I'm working on pattern recognitions to attempt to decode their language."

"How long 'til you got it?"

"I'd say maybe an hour..."

"Sounds good," AIs were adept at all sorts of tasks, and finding patterns in languages was considerably easier than attempting to program multi-spectral hyperspace coordinates - a job that was done daily by a starship AI even in Core space. "What was the message from the single ship?"

"They have a variant of Galactic Standard for language, it went through our matrices without incident. They claim to be of some 'United Federation of Planets,' a ship called the Vincennes. Claim to be explorers. They seem to be wary of the unknown vessels, the message is cautious at best."

"Good," Thath wiped his dark hands together, standing from his command chair in the empty room. He could easily contact anyone from the console at his desk, but would rather have the AI do the work. Easier on the organics. "Did you get any more?"

"Negative sir. It was a bit fragmented due to the chronoton radiation."

"Send a hail back, use our universal translation matrices so that they can understand it. The last thing I want to do is have to explain why we pulped some exploration ship out on the frontier. Meanwhile, mobilize Raptor and Silence," - Thath referenced the station's two corvettes, the Raptor and the Silence of Foreboding - "Have them go to green alert with potential for red alert should weapons signatures be trained. Put them into basic defense formation around the station. Tell essential crews to get to posts and prepare shield emitters."

"Would you like a tossed salad, as well?"

"Y'know, healthy food just ain't for me, Kelta."

The AI chuckled as she slipped back into the station's network, out of sight once more. Thath relaxed as the duties of the station began to simultaneously be carried out by the efficient intelligence.

In the halls of security, the station's security chief, a burly Skrawl named Veeryn, and defense commander, an aggressive Chymeron named Kolak, were sitting with virutally nothing to do when Kelta popped up for the both of them. Neither was particularly as happy as Thath.

"Tak! Warn of your presence, hologram," Kolak barked out, awakened by the AI. He, like many Chymerons, frequently slipped into native Chyma tongue.

"I'm sorry, I guess I'll call off your birthday, commander," Kelta mocked. As if Chymerons even held birthdays.

"What do you need, AI?" inquired Veeryn. The Skrawl absolutely dwarfed the 7'1" near-human, standing a full 16'2" in height when fully undulated - and a "mere" 10'1" when in their relaxed "casual" form. Skrawl were an interesting race - a genetic hybrid by a now-extinct ancient race that was a combination of primates and insectoids. They ended up with the best traits of both into a lethal - and short-tempered - combination.

"Security and weapons to yellow," Kelta replied to the Skrawl's request, not willing to spend particularly much time with the two militant aliens.

"Are we under attack? Glorious day to fight!" revelled the Chymeron, grabbing a blade weapon.

"Actually, we have an exploration ship in-system...but another formation of ships as well, unknown."

"Temper yourself," Veeryn spat at Kolak, three of the brute's six arm appendages lengthening to punch in commands to the security calls.

"Glad you understand," Kelta smiled, quickly retracting in-system before either could ask another question. It wasn't worth it.

The AI snaked through the network of the ship, slicing into the communications systems in roughly .003 seconds from leaving security command. Though the group of unknown ships were unable to be reached...yet...the "Vincennes," whatever that was, was understanable.

"Starship Vincennes," Kelta rattled off on the station's communications module as the two corvettes detached from the station, "this is Deep Space Substation 36X Quatra of the Amazonian Dominion. State your status, please, your former message was fragmented in the radiation of the gas giant."

Kelta sent the message with the algorithms from the universal translator matrix, reinforcing the communications conduits with radiation shielding to provide a more secure and straightforward line of talk. The Amazonians had been spacefaring for quite a long time - by now, they had this process down pretty well.

Undeterred by the silence, the crew sat patiently in anticipation of some kind of contact. Of course, it seemed unlikely that the aliens would be any more comprehensible than the last time they had spoken with them, but that didn't dull the sense of curiosity they all felt.

"Thank you, Yeoman," Rebecca said with a meek smile as the subordinate handed her the third cup of strong coffee she had consumed since stepping onto the bridge. Having had a sleepless night the last time she had slept, and being kept from her bed by the current dilemma, the commanding officer of the Vincennes found herself locked in an epic battle with her eyelids, and she was afraid that she would lose. Derek had discretely offered to take the conn while she tried to catch forty winks, but of course she had to refuse. Aside from the unsightly blot that would surely appear on her record for going to bed during a situation like this, she simply couldn't sit on the sidelines while a discovery like this was made.

Over the course of their four year expedition, they had encountered fifteen different sentient species that were previously unknown to them. Six of those were pre-industrial, and could only be observed from afar, and two of them were inexplicably hostile towards the benign exploratory craft, but the rest turned out to be fairly rational-minded, faster-than-light-capable species, and each encounter had proven to be as rewarding as the last. Rebecca found that no matter how many new species they encountered, she always found the process as exciting as the first time. One never knew what sort of unique cultures each civilisation would hold, and seeing the reaction of the aliens was always interesting too. For this reason, she couldn't just go to bed and miss it all, and she knew that there was little chance of her falling asleep either.

Despite all that, though, she could have sworn that she heard those soft, warm bedsheets calling to her from deck three...

"Captain," Cobbs called out. Once more distracted from her dazed stupor, Rebecca placed the mug down on the pedestal in front of her chair and rose to her feet. Though they were all united by the common goal of exploration, each crew member had their own personal issues to distract them, but detecting any kind of deeper personality within Lt. Commander Cobbs had proven difficult, despite the time they had spent together. He kept to himself, always seemed to be alert, was never even a second late for his duty shifts, and rarely spoke about his personal life. Aside from a slightly cheeky sense of humour that might have gotten him into trouble on any other starship, by all accounts he was the model officer. Generic, some might say. Presumably he was starting to wonder why she was staring at him blankly, so she thought it prudent to answer him.

"What have you got Phil?" she asked. "Have they responded?"

"No sir, not quite," Cobbs shook his head. He pointed at one of the monitors, on which a wavelength was being analysed by the computer. Having only taken basic courses in subspace radiography and communications operations at the Academy, the image meant very little to Rebecca, but to Cobbs it appeared had some significance. She shrugged, and he elaborated. "This signal has a different signature than the one sent by that fleet of ships ahead. Moreover, they're speaking our language."

"Oh?" Rebecca said curiously. "Put it onscreen."

"It's audio-only from what I can tell," Cobbs shrugged. Nevertheless he put it through the speakers.

"Starship Vincennes, this is Deep Space Substation 36X Quatra of the Amazonian Dominion. State your status, please, your former message was fragmented in the radiation of the gas giant."

"Well, they know who we are apparently," Rebecca said, leaning in to look at the wavelength analysis as though it meant anything. "Amazonian Dominion? I've never heard of such a civilisation."

"Aren't Amazons... y'know...?" Cobbs began, with a sly grin.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up Mr. Cobbs," Rebecca said with a frown. "Who are these people? Commander Derek, you didn't detect any space stations in your scans, did you?"

"Negative sir," the Commander shook his head. "Just the ships ahead. Our scans are having difficulty penetrating the outer atmosphere of the gas giant in this system though, it could be in there somewhere. We could always send a probe...?"

"No, no. Well this could be complicated," Rebecca sighed, stepping down to the centre of the bridge and assuming her formal stance once more. "Those aliens seem to be colonising that M-class planet for themselves, and if this system is already part of somebody's territory... hmm."

"Maybe a chance for some of Starfleet's vaunted neutrality to finally come in handy, sir?" Derek opined.

"Maybe, John," she said thoughtfully. "Phil, open a channel, direct it at the gas giant - boost power to the subspace transceiver to compensate for the interference they mentioned."

"Aye sir, channel is open," Cobbs said after a brief pause. "Seems clear enough."

"I'm Captain Hughes, commander of the starship USS Vincennes," she announced, almost out of habit. "It's a pleasure to speak with you. I am a representative of the United Federation of Interstellar Planets, a federated alliance of worlds some two and a half thousand lightyears distance from here. Obviously we aren't really from around here, and understandably I'm not entirely familiar with your Dominion, so I apologise if we are intruding in your territory. We are explorers by nature and mission, and the Vincennes was passing through a sector near here on our way home when we detected a fleet of alien ships apparently colonising the habitable world of this system. We altered course to investigate, and we are presently attempting to establish formal contact with what appears to be their flagship."

She paused for a moment, unsure of how to phrase her next question. Ordinarily she opted for succinct introductions and felt as though she was waffling by this point, but this was not an ordinary situation. A two-pronged first contact situation in the same system, where neither of the contacts were apparently aware of each other. Without knowledge of either civilisation at this point, there was no telling how one would react to the presence of the other.

"Your deep space station is somewhat... difficult to detect," she continued, aware that she was probably informing them of something they had likely done deliberately, but wishing to highlight the point anyway. "If we didn't spot it, then I have to doubt whether these aliens have yet either. Are we about to be witness to some manner of territorial dispute...? We were hoping to invite the aliens aboard our starship for discussions as soon as we overcame the language barrier between us, but we'd be happy to host your own representatives at the same time. You have my assurances that the Federation does not interfere with the affairs of other nations, and I doubt that another Federation starship will be in this area for quite some time, so the Vincennes could be the closest thing to neutral ground that we have here. And of course, we would welcome the chance to learn more about your own people as well, if such is acceptable to you."

As always, there was a burst of radiation, and then nothing. The ship that emerged was some 5 kilometers long, thick and broad. The Andermani had arrived.

Bridge, Light Cruiser Declaration:

<The Amazonians are here. We are familiar with their markings and emissions. Two unknowns are also present. Cataloged as Sierra 13 Ajax and 13 Beltas respectively. Threat level deemed low, Sierra Beltas seems unarmed or very lightly armed. Colonists or traders. Sierra Ajax appears armed. Class three energy readings, possibly powered down.>

<An apt summary. Take us in, one quarter maximum acceleration. Try and remain unseen and unheard.>

<Aye sir, one quarter maximum and silent running.>

The ship turned in system, and accelerated at a stately 1,000 gravities, low for a vessel of its class, but enough where they believed they would remain undetected. Its sensors listened and watched for anything that might be of interest, data, a communication, anything that could tell them more about the unknowns they now observed.

Battleship Nodacrux, "Urdnot" System
Time went by, and the fleet continued towards "Exodus" regardless of the aliens. If nothing else, it was important to get the civilians ground-side as quickly as possible. The holographic panel directly in front of the Warlord's seat, generally used to communicate between ships, suddenly lit up. Onscreen was a creature that Warlord Zuka had never seen before. It was small, though Kroganoid, but humpless. It's claws were small, and it's voice was high. It had stringy crap coming off the top of it's relatively small head, and it seemed rather weak. Where did it fit all of it's extra organs?

"I'm Captain Hughes, commander of the starship USS Vincennes. We come from a space-faring nation known as the United Federation of Interstellar Planets, located several thousand lightyears away from here. We are peaceful explorers, and mean you no harm. Please, if you have difficulty in understanding what I am saying to you, send us a response anyway so that our computer can continue to analyse your language."

Crewmen were gathering around the Warlord, though at a distance so as not to incur some sort of wrath. He didn't care, this was incredible. He still had no idea what they were saying, however, and quite quickly, random data files came pouring into the communication relay. The Communication's Officers were attempting to understand them, but what could they do?

The Warlord pondered for a moment, then gestured towards the Bridge Officer,"Officer Moros, I'm going to send a video message back to them. I don't know what they want, but it seems like they aren't hostile."

"Unless," Moros began,"waving around and motioning towards yourself is a sign of anger in their society."

"Don't push it. Alright maggots, get to station!" Warlord Zuka staightened up in his chair, Bridge Officer Moros standing beside him. The dark colors and menacing appearance of the Krogan could offset the aliens, but the Krogan paid no mind, as this didn't seem bad to them.

"This is Warlord Zuka, commander of Urdnot Colonization Fleet 1. We do not know what you want with us, but again, we are here for peaceful matters. The Federation of the Warlords of Tuchanka claim this system, hereby known as the Urdnot System, as it's territory. The planet Exodus shall serve as our main colony here. If you wish a peaceful talk with us, we are willing, but be warned; if any species wishes to challenge our claim over this system, we will not be willing to back down. The Krogan badly need land and resources for reasons beyond our control. As we said before, we are willing to meet on neutral grounds."

The transmission closed, and the Warlord stood up. Those around him stood at attention, expecting some sort of speech. He ignored them and exited the bridge. The Warlords back on Tuchanka, and Overlord Inamorda, would have to hear of this. Moving through the bridge corridor and onto an elevator, he was passed by several crewmen discussing the news about 'aliens'. Obviously, someone on the bridge had leaked information about the encounter prematurely. If it weren't for the importance of the situation, he'd go back and have the one responsible executed. Stepping out of the elevator on the Officer's Level, he passed several men lounging about on break, who stood at attention as he passed. A video panel was playing an old Krogan classic called "The Varren* Infestation", which would likely be accidently transmitted to the alien ship. He lamented the idea of a volatile situation being interrupted by images of Varren eating helpless Krogan.
*Varren are species -quick-breeding omnivorous packhunters known for adapting to just about ever situation- on Tuchanka which are well known for infesting just about everything they come into contact with.

He stepped loudly into the Transmission Relay Station, an area meant for extremely high speed messages across vast distances, generally used to send messages quickly from one end of a solar system to another. It would take hours to reach Tuchanka, but it was better than conventional transmissions.

Speaking loudly and affirmatively,"Overlord Inamorda and fellow Warlords, this is Warlord Zuka speaking. Though the operation is going as planned, we have come across an unforeseen problem. An alien race has contacted us. We do not currently know their motives, and we do not understand their language. They would stand no chance against our fleet, but a war could be triggered if we disposed of them. They look weak, but I know nothing of them. At the moment, I am attempting a peaceful process with them. Please respond as soon as possible to this message with your opinion on the matter. Along with this message I'll be sending all the data we've recieved from them and a report. Warlord Zuka out."

All he could do was hope these aliens weren't hostile.

OOC-My people still aren't aware of the Amazonians, just so you know.

Centuries ago, the Empire had sent out thousands of probes from their territories. Now, since their Empire was unlike any other known because the systems were not clumped together but spread out throughout at least three known galaxies, it meant there were possibly probes wandering almost anywhere, including through the Hershel system, or at least near enough to notice the peculiar events and reporting them back over the Kython Link to The Fist .

Across the galaxy, The Fist drifted in all its glory. The 45 kilometer station was the seat for the Fallen Empire and the largest construct that remained of the now nomadic peoples. The Warlord used the station, more a Battlefortress with its huge four guns large enough to dock battleships within the barrel openings and the massive armament reputed to be contained within the ebon hull, as the seat of power for the Fallen Empire. Nhur-Galladu had relinquished the title Emperor and taken Warlord when The Balrogga Empire had fallen years ago and the Ta’Nar abandoned their systems, becoming nomadic.

Within the obsidian halls of The Fist, the message of unusual emissions that seemed to tear normal physics apart at the seams was received from the distant probe. The Command Officer in the Command Center decided to contact the highest ranking Ta’Nar remaining and relayed the information to The Heart.

Aboard The Heart, the research station of Balrogga, Grand Admiral Ga’Ton was busy pursuing his greatest passion, creating new devices. While most Ta’Nar were content with the acquisition of Knowledge, Ga’Ton HAD to use it, usually creating something for Nhur-Galladu to add to his nation’s armory. Unless he was called out into the field, the Father of the Kythons could be found here at almost any moment of the day or night.

There was a beep at the door and Ga’Ton looked up from the holoscreen his attention was centered upon. There were several video feeds of an experiment being fed from within the lab next door. Ga’Ton was monitoring the data directly while watching the video from the test of the prototype of the new drive system he was working on. If he was successful, FTLi would not affect the drive, rendering the overused defense irrelevant.

“What do you want Shipmind, can’t you see I’m in the middle of something,” he shouted seemingly to the walls themselves.

Shipmind knew Ga’Ton was busy but it had no recourse but to interrupt its creator. Shipmind hated to disturb him but there really was no other choice.

Father, I have received a message from The Fist addressed for you. It seems important.

Ga’Ton sighed and diverted some of his attention away from the data modules, the test wasn’t ready to actually begin for several minutes due to last minute checks so he took the time to attend to the interruption. He contacted Shipmind directly and sent histhoughts to the vessel.

Send me the message.

Yes Father.

The data from the Link streamed directly into Ga’Ton’s consciousness. He experienced the events the distant probe had as it drifted through the area appearing as if it was just flotsam. The appearance of the colonization fleet meant the outward expansion of a new race, one not yet encountered by anyone the Ta’Nar knew for their vessels were not identifiable in the ship database, one made using both the extensive libraries of both the ESUS and the GE as well as their own. That meant there would be unique technologies possible as well as First Contact events between the new species and the Ta’Nar.

Shipmind, what ships are closest to these events?

The Navigator under Captain Foster is close. The Forlorn and her two escorts are also near there but in the opposite direction.

Ga’Ton accessed the two ships and reviewed their records as well as their commanders.

Direct The Navigator to proceed there to act as our first contact but also instruct The Forlorn to back them up but to remain in T-Space. I don’t even want Foster to know they are there until they have arrived and obtained enough info to assist him.

Yes Father, the orders are relayed. Is there anything else you wish?

Yes. Let me get back to work.

With that, Ga’Ton returned his attention to the test as it was about to begin.

Captain Hughes and Commander Derek were having an impromptu meeting, standing closely together beside the master systems display at the aft of the bridge, talking quietly to each other. It always made the crew nervous when they did so but at the same time, sometimes the decision process needed to be somewhat opaque. Rebecca occasionally frowned at her XO, whilst John seemed to be passionately putting across a point. No doubt they were discussing the situation presented before them, and possible reactions should anything explode in their faces. Two different sets of aliens in the same system, plus unconfirmed readings of a possible third contact several minutes ago, complicated their initial exploratory mission considerably.

Meanwhile, Commander Adelbor, an aged Andorian who had spent most of his time below deck fine-tuning their lateral sensor pallets since this situation began, had now returned to the bridge and was thoroughly monitoring all passive sensor readings. A sudden localised burst in radiation, which they believed to be the arrival of a ship making significant efforts to remain stealthy, had generated some concern. If these new aliens, if indeed there were any, wished to remain unseen that was their prerogative, and in respect of that no active sensors were directed towards the disturbance. But that was no reason to be careless, and carefully monitoring passive sensor readings might detect something without arousing suspicion.

Cobbs, on the other hand, was gently pressing his earpiece against his ear as he diligently scanned every subspace and even radio frequency that the Vincennes was able to detect. If they had somehow missed one, possibly two alien presences in this system previously, there was no telling how many more there might be skulking around out there. He was determined not to miss any others, and was thoroughly combing through all the background static he could in the hopes of hearing something else. So intense was his concentration that he almost jumped out of his seat when they received a direct hail.

"Captain, the 'first' aliens are hailing us, visual transmission," Cobbs announced after he regained his composure.

"Onscreen, Mr. Cobbs," Rebecca said, immediately breaking up their discreet meeting and stepping down to the central area.

The screen image changed from that of a starfield, to... something. She could not recall seeing any species like it before; its frog-like face topped a large, bulky body, and a large hump seemed to rise above its head from behind. The alien spoke in a guttural voice, which wasn't particularly surprising considering its appearance, but still nothing it said made any sense.

"Loud creatures, are they not?" Su'vak commented after a momentary pause, receiving a perturbed nudge from Commander Derek for his trouble.

"Oh yes..." Cobbs exclaimed. He sat on the edge of his seat as he frantically manipulated his screens, generating all sorts of wavelength diagrams and assorted other screens that made little sense to anybody but him.

"You have something?" Derek asked.

"This is exactly what the computer wanted sir," he said with a smile, frowning a little in surprise when he saw the image on the viewscreen but saying nothing. "Keep talking my friend, keep talking..."

The alien finished whatever it was saying and the screen flicked over to yet another image. As they took in what they saw, every soul on the bridge leaned backwards in response as they found themselves somewhat surprised. It almost looked as though the crew of the ship were being... eaten?

"Woah!" Cobbs exclaimed, looking briefly at the viewscreen just as a reptilian creature began to devour one of the aliens that had spoken to them just a moment ago. While the rest of the bridge officers turned away, Cobbs kept looking back over his shoulder periodically with an ever-widening smile on his face. "This is excellent."

"Lieutenant Commander Cobbs, you have the most vile taste of any man I've ever met," Commander Derek commented. "What is this?"

"I 'believe' it's a movie or documentary or something like that," Cobbs said thoughtfully. "Whatever it is, it's just a recording. Makes sense - we spammed them with our literature, they must have got the message and returned the favour. But it's excellent; every word they utter goes into the translation matrix I'm building. Combined with the other messages we've received so far..."

He suddenly cancelled the somewhat grotesque imagery they were receiving, and the screen chirruped as he replayed the previous transmission from their files. Although it might be phrased slightly differently than the aliens had intended, it was actually comprehensible.

"This is Warlord Zuka, commander of Urdnot Colonization Fleet 1. We do not know what you want with us, but again, we are here for peaceful matters. The Federation of the Warlords of Tuchanka claim this system, hereby known as the Urdnot System, as it's territory. The planet Exodus shall serve as our main colony here. If you wish a peaceful talk with us, we are willing, but be warned; if any species wishes to challenge our claim over this system, we will not be willing to back down. The Krogan badly need land and resources for reasons beyond our control. As we said before, we are willing to meet on neutral grounds."

Rebecca nodded with a smile - some progress at last. "God bless the universal translator, that's all I can say. And yourself, Mr. Cobbs."

"Thanks sir. Hopefully the UT can translate English into... that," Cobbs told her, his lack of confidence not really inspiring much confidence in anybody else.

"Hopefully?"

"It's one thing to understand what they're saying sir, another to make them understand what we're saying," Cobbs told her. "They should at least get the gist though. Well, we'll find out won't we?"

"Very well," she said, taking her spot with her arms behind her back as though it were a ritual by now. "Open a channel."

"You're on, sir," Cobbs nodded.

"I am Captain Hughes, commander of the starship USS Vincennes," she said clearly and loudly, for the second time. Once again she made an effort to soften her voice and maintain a gentle tone, but this time around she hoped her words would suffice. "It is my pleasure to finally speak to you directly, Warlord Zuka, and I extend our formal greetings to you, and to the entire Krogan people.

"My communications officer has, we hope, managed to establish a computer translation protocol so that we might communicate with each other. I hope that you are able to understand what I am saying this time. As I attempted to tell you earlier, we come from an alliance of worlds known as the United Federation of Interstellar Planets, located several thousand lightyears away from here. We are explorers, with peaceful intentions and we mean you absolutely no harm. It is for that reason alone that we have made an effort to talk to you - our primary mission is to seek out new civilisations and to make contact with them.

"If you would consent to do so, I would like to invite your representatives to be our guests aboard this starship, so that we might learn more about your people, and perhaps offer you assistance with your colonisation efforts. I am not sure if you would consider our starship to be 'neutral ground', as such, however as a sign of good faith we shall be disabling the defensive forcefields protecting certain sections of our ship. You will also have my personal assurances that no harm will come to your people while they are aboard this ship, and we shall extend to them full diplomatic courtesies."

With that, she nodded to her first officer, who frowned with concern at what she was requesting of him. Whether these Krogan attacked them was academic, as there were at least one, possibly two other alien species hanging around somewhere nearby who presumably also had weaponry of some sort. A couple of seconds of glaring from his tired commanding officer ultimately forced him to submit begrudgingly, however, and he tapped on the panels in front of him.

In the background, the computer's cold female voice could be heard, "now hear this, now hear this, condition yellow alert status has been cancelled, all hands please return to normal duty assignments." Simultaneously, the emergency forcefields that had been erected around several areas of the Vincennes' were deactivated, and the structural integrity field returned to normal power levels. Once these actions were confirmed to her, the Captain looked back up at the viewscreen, giving a smile (but desperately trying not to reveal any of her teeth in the process, in case such was taken in a manner other than it was intended - a hard learned lesson from previous missions, to be sure).

"As you can see, our defences are now powered down," she informed the alien. For a moment she had considered informing them of the existence of another alien space station in the system, but she felt it may be more prudent to do so in person, preferably whilst the other aliens themselves were in attendance. Assuming, of course, either party agreed to come to their soiree in the first place. If such a thing happened, she was unsure of how the peace would be maintained, although a quick glance at the helm revealed that the escape course was still plotted and ready to engage if necessary.

Battleship Nodacrux, "Urdnot" System
Warlord Zuka's return to the bridge was almost immediately greeted with a new message being recieved from the species that had been attempting contact with them for several hours now. However, this time, when the strange alien began speaking, he could vaguely understand them. Somehow, these people had managed to translate their language.

We'll need technology like that if we expect to survive any more encounters with aliens, Zuka though, listening to the alien. When it had finished, he took a deep breath. They meant peace. This was good news. All it took was a motion towards Moros for him to open up yet another video transmission.

Once again speaking with authority, the massive Krogan addressed the aliens directly for the first time,"Greetings, captain of the Vincennes, if what you say is true, and you do indeed wish to speak with us on peaceful terms, we will be more than willing. I warn you however; if you plan to assassinate me or the men I bring with me, you will be in deep regret afterwards. With permission, I will disembark for your vessel immedietly."

Normally, a Krogan would not be nearly as nice as Zuka was being. They were generally rather blunt and rude, but at the moment he was more worried about keeping the Krogan out of a war, especially over first contact. The communications link was closed and Zuka stood up.

"Ready a vessel to disembark for their ship once they send coordinates. When I'm gone, Bridge Officer Moros will be acting in my place," the Warlord was partly talking to Moros and partly addressing the crew, but he wasn't really paying any attention to their reactions. He was fascinated by these people. They didn't look suited for a harsh world. Exodus wasn't harsh. These people weren't harsh. Was Tuchanka an abnormality?

Regardless, he motioned towards one of the soldiers at the entrance of the bridge to gather a squad to follow him as protection. It might cause a buzz with the aliens to see a group of heavily armed, bulky lizard people walking onto their ship for diplomatic negotiations, but he wasn't about to let himself, a Warlord of Tuchanka, fall victim to some silly aliens that looked smaller than a Krogan child. Thinking of Krogan children caused him to wonder about that damn Varren documentary. Thinking of Varren caused him to think of..

"Oh and soldier; make sure there are no damned Varren on that vessel we're leaving in. I can't afford to infest their damned ship with those stupid animals."

He damn well didn't need Varren spreading into alien systems.

OOC- http://masseffect.bioware.com/_commonext/images/me/screenshots/2007/masseffect_08_172x129.jpg
Thats a Varren. You can understand why they'd be a problem.

The Intrepid left folded space with a sudden, yet all too familiar shudder, Captain Ardennes looked towards the viewscreen at the new system, possibly colonizable. What a treat it would be.

"Captain! Sensor scans show multiple ships near the Class 9 planet."

"Hmm..." Ardennes mused to himself, "Get me a view, let's see these new species." The long range view appeared on screen. There were two distinct styles of ship. One was definately Human made, Ardennes had seen those types of ship before, some through a targeting reticle. But the other one was puzzling. A quick scan through the Confederacy Archives showed it matching no known ship types. But it looked to be a colonizing fleet. How unfortunate.

"Captain, we're detecting communications between the two alien species."

"Intercept and decode. If we can let's get some information on this new species. Maintain location in the Oort clound, let's not make a confrontation yet."

"Aye Sir!" The Brhams Device began it's difficult process of intercepting and decoding these transmitted messages, it seemed that the Humans had already managed to decode the unidentified species language. How enjoyable, if the alien's language was easy enough for the humans to crack then the translator would be ready in no time.

OOC: Andermani, your ship is 5km long and cloaked...that's a pretty big gravitational dent it'll be creating. Question: Are you phased out of this dimension, or still in it? Wondering if I should pick you up or not, though my race doesn't respect hiding behind cloaks and whatnot...if you're phased out of the dimension, than I'll not pick you up on gravity sensors. I usually cut my detection with picking up everything that is physically "in" this space (since every bit of mass creates gravity wells...and a 5km ship would have more mass than my station, likely. Big target for sensitive readings).

IC:

Quatra Station

Kelta fished through the recording by the Federation people, analyzing it in less than a second and determining several possible scenarios. It was possible they were telling the truth, indeed. It was equally possible that they were conquerors trying to exploit the AI's demeanor. Or, it was possible they had no clue what they were doing, apart from several other scenarios. Overall, it was a bit of a proposition to determine what to do, so Kelta decided to run it by Thath first.

"Commander," Kelta zipped up on Thath's holoprojector once more, her female human body glowing a holographic green. "I've made contact with the first race and picked up partial on the second. The first is human from what I infer, the second doesn't seem so, unless they choose to have bizarre voices and strange names."

Kelta could easily pick up communications as they shot through space and remain undetected; sensors, after all, didn't require an interception, just a detection. She hadn't, however, picked up the Intrepid, the sensors still too obscured by the gas giant.

"Very good, Kelta," Thath replied in his dark voice after he had heard the AI out, slouching over his desk. "Patch me back through with the ship's commander on visual feed, translator matrix on."

"As you wish, sir."

Thath sat up somewhat as the imager sequence shot on, the projection pinging towards the Vincennes.

"This is Captain Veerkin Thath of the Dominion station Quatra. I am the local authority of the Dominion in this system - though it is not under our restriction. My artificial intelligence unit," - Kelta perked up a bit on the feed as Thath said that; she had remained in her visual form - "has informed me that your people wish to hold a...conference of sorts aboard your vessel. As your ship is far more neutral than this station, no doubt, I'll dispatch a diplomatic team immediately to rendevous with your vessel. Thath out."

The feed ended, Kelta instantaneously sending off the message while awaiting others from Vincennes.

~~~

Thath's diplomatic team, as it turned out to be, was a mix of diplomacy and force. Thath himself and Kelta both went along - the AI was considered another person by the station crew - as well as the station's chief counsilor, a lithe Tondani named Selaas. However, just in case things got hairy, he decided to also bring along his security commander, the massive Skrawl, Veeryn. If nothing else, if it came to blows aboard the ship, Veeryn could probaly simply drive one of his six thick arm appendages - nearly as thick as Thath himself - through an assailant...or through a wall, or a fusion reactor...

As it was, the motely crew of four (including Kelta) came out aboard the Raptor, escorted by a fighter and gunship phalanx, as Silence stuck at a midpoint between the station and the identified Federation ship, along with more fighters and the station's patrol craft. It would be ensured that three of the most valuable people to the station didn't get in trouble here...though even if they did, Kolak was more than an ample enough man - or alien - to bail them out in the other corvette, albeit aggressively.

"Hail them, Kelta."

The AI moved into the communications system of the corvette as it swung through space leisurely in space, shields up but weapons on standby. It was a precautionary measure, though weapons could come online instantly if needed, with the AI taking the weapons control to level any vessel stupid enough to try and challenge the Raptor. Despite being smaller than many Dominion vessels, the attack corvettes were far more lethal and deadly.

"This is the Dominion vessel to the Vincennes. We're on a rendevous course with your vessel for your proposed meeting - we'll send over a shuttle to link up with your starship when in range."

"Captain!" The voice from a young ensign startled him out of his thoughts, "We've detected three small ships that have emerged from the Class 0 gas giant. They don't match either of the other two designs."

"Really? Well, isn't this just the inter-species hub. Is that translator system done yet?"

"Yes sir. It just finished now. It can be used at any time."

"Good. I think it's time we announced ourselves. Besides, we can't let these humans have all the fun. Ahead half, let's get to within 3.1 million miles."

"Aye Sir." The Ion Engines smoothly pushed the Yetsub Class Destroyer forward out of the oort cloud. It would only be an hour before they reached their goal. They'd have to make contact just before that.

“Captain, we are getting a message from Command.”

Foster relaxed in his quarters reading an old book. He was not actually reading a book because paper publishing had been rendered obsolete centuries ago but the ship had an extensive library of every known publishment for the enrichment of the crew. He was part way through an old paper from when the Solar Station had been first experimenting with the KK drives that began their climb to the stars. The mistakes made back then during the experimenting were rather frankly very stupid.

The first test craft was completed at the Solar Station and when they wound up the gravity drive, the close proximity to the gravitational well of the star caused the drive field to invert, resulting in the collapsing or rather implosion of the test vehicle. The remains of that ship still exist, a one centimeter metal shard that weights over 200 metric tons. The drive field basically crushed the vessel into a tiny replica of itself. The mass stayed the same since everything was just imploded into itself. It was a good thing most of the scientists had been safely away and luckily only thirty crewmembers had been too close and had their bodies turned into a national memorial safely stored away on The Fist as a reminder of what not to do when testing prototypes.

“Captain”

Foster looked up at the screen showing the face of a young blond. He could not tell if it was Crysta or her sister Crystal. The twins were his second in command of The Navigator. While some may think it strange to have two Seconds, they would change their minds once they realized the two Ta’Nar were almost essentially the same being.

“What is it that seems to have gotten you so riled up?”

“We got orders to attend a possible First Contact. It’s been a few months so this will be so exciting.”

“Calm down. Relay the orders to me and set course for their system.”

“Course set and wormhole requested. Arrival in ten minutes.”




OOC:

I'll arive in about ten minutes ICly. I edited my origional post to be the initial detection of these events. I don't know anything about the others here yet.

OOC: Andermani, your ship is 5km long and cloaked...that's a pretty big gravitational dent it'll be creating. Question: Are you phased out of this dimension, or still in it? Wondering if I should pick you up or not, though my race doesn't respect hiding behind cloaks and whatnot...if you're phased out of the dimension, than I'll not pick you up on gravity sensors. I usually cut my detection with picking up everything that is physically "in" this space (since every bit of mass creates gravity wells...and a 5km ship would have more mass than my station, likely. Big target for sensitive readings).

IC:

Quatra Station

Kelta fished through the recording by the Federation people, analyzing it in less than a second and determining several possible scenarios. It was possible they were telling the truth, indeed. It was equally possible that they were conquerors trying to exploit the AI's demeanor. Or, it was possible they had no clue what they were doing, apart from several other scenarios. Overall, it was a bit of a proposition to determine what to do, so Kelta decided to run it by Thath first.

"Commander," Kelta zipped up on Thath's holoprojector once more, her female human body glowing a holographic green. "I've made contact with the first race and picked up partial on the second. The first is human from what I infer, the second doesn't seem so, unless they choose to have bizarre voices and strange names."

Kelta could easily pick up communications as they shot through space and remain undetected; sensors, after all, didn't require an interception, just a detection. She hadn't, however, picked up the Intrepid, the sensors still too obscured by the gas giant.

"Very good, Kelta," Thath replied in his dark voice after he had heard the AI out, slouching over his desk. "Patch me back through with the ship's commander on visual feed, translator matrix on."

"As you wish, sir."

Thath sat up somewhat as the imager sequence shot on, the projection pinging towards the Vincennes.

"This is Captain Veerkin Thath of the Dominion station Quatra. I am the local authority of the Dominion in this system - though it is not under our restriction. My artificial intelligence unit," - Kelta perked up a bit on the feed as Thath said that; she had remained in her visual form - "has informed me that your people wish to hold a...conference of sorts aboard your vessel. As your ship is far more neutral than this station, no doubt, I'll dispatch a diplomatic team immediately to rendevous with your vessel. Thath out."

The feed ended, Kelta instantaneously sending off the message while awaiting others from Vincennes.

~~~

Thath's diplomatic team, as it turned out to be, was a mix of diplomacy and force. Thath himself and Kelta both went along - the AI was considered another person by the station crew - as well as the station's chief counsilor, a lithe Tondani named Selaas. However, just in case things got hairy, he decided to also bring along his security commander, the massive Skrawl, Veeryn. If nothing else, if it came to blows aboard the ship, Veeryn could probaly simply drive one of his six thick arm appendages - nearly as thick as Thath himself - through an assailant...or through a wall, or a fusion reactor...

As it was, the motely crew of four (including Kelta) came out aboard the Raptor, escorted by a fighter and gunship phalanx, as Silence stuck at a midpoint between the station and the identified Federation ship, along with more fighters and the station's patrol craft. It would be ensured that three of the most valuable people to the station didn't get in trouble here...though even if they did, Kolak was more than an ample enough man - or alien - to bail them out in the other corvette, albeit aggressively.

"Hail them, Kelta."

The AI moved into the communications system of the corvette as it swung through space leisurely in space, shields up but weapons on standby. It was a precautionary measure, though weapons could come online instantly if needed, with the AI taking the weapons control to level any vessel stupid enough to try and challenge the Raptor. Despite being smaller than many Dominion vessels, the attack corvettes were far more lethal and deadly.

"This is the Dominion vessel to the Vincennes. We're on a rendevous course with your vessel for your proposed meeting - we'll send over a shuttle to link up with your starship when in range."

OOC: I'm not cloaked, I'm just utilizing emcon, and reducing my signature. Yes, I'll be a gravity dent, but I'll register more like a large battleship(1-3km) rather than my actual 5km.

IC:

<So many ships. You are recording data on all vessels seen, yes?>

<Yes Shipmaster. We have added Sierra 13 Capson to our list, they are different once more from the remainder of the other vessels. No vessel so far detected registers above a class three threat estimation. However, when taken in total, the threat estimation of the combined vessels reaches class six. That is more than we are likely able to successfully engage.>

<I am aware of that second. Reduce acceleration by one quarter, this many vessels it is possible we will be detected no matter how we strive to avoid it, but until we are I would like to remain out of sight.>

<Aye shipmaster, reducing to 750 gravities acceleration. ETA now 17.5 minutes for a zero/zero intercept with the planet.>

"I am pleased to hear this, Warlord," the Captain smiled as the Krogan spoke. "As I said, you have my personal assurances that no harm shall come to you while you are here. If you would approve, for the sake of expediency, we can transport you and your entourage aboard our vessel remotely, without the need for a lengthy ship journey. The process is completely safe, and takes but a moment to complete. Of course, if you are unwilling to do so, we always have a shuttle bay waiting for you."

Taking the opportunity to relax for a moment once the channel was closed, she sighed and sat down in her chair. She was acutely aware of the approaching 'Amazonian' vessels, and wished to keep the two from bumping into each other and leaving the unshielded Vincennes in the midst of a firefight. At least if she could convince the Krogan party to beam across, there was some chance of keeping them separate until they were able to meet properly under calmer conditions. Besides, with ever-more aliens mysteriously appearing from nowhere, even she wouldn't be willing to make the journey by shuttle - who knows what they intended.

"Captain," Derek spoke in a cautious voice. "The Dominion ship is approaching off the starboard bow."

"I don't suppose we can hide it in our shuttle bay?" Rebecca asked optimistically.

"It's a small capital class of starship," Derek shook his head. "It wouldn't fit."

"Figures," she sighed.

"They're hailing us Captain," Cobbs announced. "Audio-only."

"On speakers, Mr. Cobbs."

"This is the Dominion vessel to the Vincennes," the alien ship informed them. "We're on a rendevous course with your vessel for your proposed meeting - we'll send over a shuttle to link up with your starship when in range."

"Acknowledged, Dominion vessel," Rebecca confirmed. "We shall be pleased to host your party. Vincennes' shuttlebay is ready to receive you - please approach to one hundred metres and allow the tractor beam to guide your shuttle in safely. My executive officer will greet you once you arrive"

With an irritated - but unsurprised - grunt, Commander Derek took that to be an indirect order for him to go down to the hangar, and promptly lifted himself to his feet and paced across the bridge towards the turbolift. His station was filled almost immediately by an Ensign as he disappeared behind the doors.

"Ordinarily I would greet you personally, but I am still in contact with the colonial aliens," she explained apologetically. "I shall be pleased to meet you personally as soon as I am able. Until then, welcome aboard. Vincennes out."

She slumped down into her chair, looking over at the Andorian science officer.

"Commander, please keep an eye on the alien ships that have arrived recently," she told him. "Passive sensors only. I'm sure these Dominion fellows are aware of them by now too."

"Aye, Captain," Adelbor said coldly, not talking his eyes away from his scanners.

[OOC: Apologies; I would have posted much earlier - but I fell asleep! Ah the wondrous joys of being off work...]

Battleship Nodacrux, "Urdnot" System
Before all was said and done, the alien reopened the transmission and informed them that they could come over to their ship.. remotely? What exactly was this about? Well, if it was quicker than a shuttle, he was all for it. Assuming it wasn't going to rip him to shreds or something. At least it mediated the problem of bringing a Varren across to the alien ship.

"Remotely, you say? How is this possible?" crews back at home had always said that the laws of physics wouldn't allow for instant transportation without elimenating all mass between them and the destination, which is what they had done with the mass relay. Had these aliens perfected that technology, as well? Or was there something that the krogan scientists had overlooked? Regardless, if he was killed off by these aliens, it would cause a war. He was sure that these small creatures weren't willing to strike a war with the Krogan.

"Well, I'm all for it," he said promptly. Oddly enough, it was just as the squad of soldiers he was bringing with him reported to his side.

Lets see what these aliens have to offer..

OOC-Sorry for the length. I can't very well respond to other species popping into the system, as my people weren't even prepared to come into contact with any aliens, let alone several at once. Interstellar Planets, you can just beam Zuka and his men over in your next post.

"I am pleased that you trust us enough to agree to this, Warlord," the Captain smiled. "If you and your entourage can remain fairly close together, I shall be happy to see you in person momentarily. Vincennes out."

With that the channel was closed. Breathing a sigh of relief as the Dominion ship came ever closer towards them, she shook off her fatigue and glanced around the bridge at her officers. It was time to make formal contact.

"Commander Adelbor; Lieutenant Commander Cobbs, Lieutenant Su'vak," she called out to her remaining senior staff in turn. "Please accompany me to the transporter room. Bridge to engineering."

"Brady here," a grating female voice responded.

"Commander, please join us in transporter room one," Rebecca said. "Make sure your uniform is clean."

"Aye, Captain," the disembodied voice responded irritably.

"Well then," the Captain said, clasping her hands together. "Shall we?"

Relieving their stations to subordinate officers, the bridge officers rose to their feet and filed into the turbolift one at a time. Last to enter, Rebecca glanced behind her at her officers, feeling much shorter than she actually was when she stood near them - especially the bulky, seven foot Romulan - and shook her head with a smile.

"Lieutenant Hicks, you have the bridge," she said, just as the turbolift doors hissed shut.

***

The transporter room was more active than it had been for weeks. Several enlisted crewmen stood to attention as the ship's senior staff - with the notable exception of Commander Derek, who awaited the arrival of another group of aliens in the shuttlebay - paced into the room uniformly. Their boots clanged down against the metal decking as they filed themselves into a line around the transporter pad, each of them nervously tugging at their uniform tunics to ensure they were straight and in order.

Rebecca was the last to enter yet again, having been accosted by a crewman on the way and forced to sign a duty roster, and she took up a position slightly ahead of her officers, in the middle of the line. She briefly looked over at Cobbs, who always got nervous in the transporter room, and grinned a little.

"Stop sweating, Lieutenant Commander," she said mockingly.

"I can't help it sir," the man said, thrutching every now and then. "If these things are so safe, why the hell do the transporter chiefs stand behind that protective booth?!"

He glanced behind him at the transporter operators, who both looked down and smiled respectfully at the nervous officer.

"It's so that they can't be harmed by anything we beam in," Rebecca told him, as she had a thousand times before. "It's nothing to do with the transporter themselves."

"You keep telling yourself that sir," Cobbs shook his head, tugging his jacket straight. "But if I end up infertile I'm blaming Starfleet."

Rebecca sighed, looking ahead again and putting her arms behind her back. This long day just kept on getting longer, and she only hoped that these aliens couldn't tell what fatigue looked like on a human face.

They all stood silently, apprehensively, awaiting the arrival of a security detail who promptly burst into the small room from the left corridor. Donning typical Starfleet armoured chestguards which covered up their red turtlenecks, their heads were protected by helmets emblazoned with the Starfleet diamond arrowhead and sleek black phaser pistols were securely strapped into their holsters. It was a formality the Captain preferred to avoid, but she admitted that the regulation was sound - beaming an unknown alien race into a room where the entire senior staff resided without some manner of protection was foolhardy afterall. Still, the two security officers stood well back, on either side of the main transporter control booth.

"Is everybody ready?" Rebecca asked.

"This should be interesting," Su'vak commented. "One only hopes they do not smell as bad as they look."

"Lieutenant, if you say anything like that to our guests I'll give them the diplomatic courtesy of kicking you around the room," Rebecca said with a grin. She was used to his somewhat dark sense of humour by now, and knew he wasn't sincere; but for those who didn't know him as well... it would be best for him to remain quiet. She checked her hair one last time, before giving the order.

"Energise."

At that, the transporter chief nodded and his controls made an acknowledging whine. The transporter pad glowed to life, illuminating the room around them as sparkling blue light began to appear above them. The hum was loud and made the decks vibrate, but all eyes remained firmly focused ahead as the Krogan party began to materialise in the midst of the sparkling blue pillars of energy. An enlisted crewman standing to attention beside the pad, in his red and beige jumpsuit, placed a boatswain's whistle to his lips and the electronic device sounded off in respect of their newly arrived guests.

After what seemed like an eternity of anticipation, the Krogans were fully materialised and the transporter pad dimmed and went silent, returning to its dormant position. The enlisted crewman took the whistle away from his lips and stood to attention, trying not to look at the unusual aliens from the corner of his eye.

The senior officers had no such restrictions. While certainly unusual on the viewscreen, the Krogan were much more impressive in person. Towering above even Su'vak, their unusual features were intimidating and fascinating all at the same time, and their bulky bodies seemed to completely fill the transporter alcove. Both security guards took note of the armed members of the alien party, but made no movements. After a few moments of silence, the Captain quickly snapped herself out of her sense of awe and stepped forwards.

"Greetings, Warlord Zuka," she said, smiling and resisting the urge to hold out her hand. "It's my pleasure to welcome aboard the starship Vincennes. On behalf of my crew and the United Federation of Interstellar Planets it is an honour to finally meet you in person, and I hope that we can maintain these peaceful circumstances for the foreseeable future."

"I am Captain Rebecca Hughes, as you know, and these are my senior staff." She stepped to one side, and began to gesture to each of her bridge officers in turn, who each bowed their heads respectfully as their names were mentioned.

"This is Commander Adelbor, chief science officer. Lieutenant Commander Phillip Cobbs, the communications officer responsible for facilitating our ability to communicate. Lieutenant Su'vak, helmsman. And Commander Jeanette Brady, our chief engineering officer."

Ardennes watched with a look of mild amusement on his face at the main viewscreen, the Human ship was centered on view, with that arrogantly white hull showing like some sort of ungraceful duck trying to be a swan. Figures that Humans would try to mess things up. The 'peaceloving' Humans it seemed were holding a peace conferance aboard their ship. This could get out of hand.

"Captain, the ship that came out of the Class 0 Giant has just reached the Human vessel. What are the orders?"

"Its strange that they haven't hailed us yet. We're already past the gas giant, they should have picked us up hours ago. How strange... Well, since their holding peace conferences on their ship, shouldn't all races in the area be present?" Ardennes said almost conversationally to his ensign.

"Aye sir, they should," said the ensign with a grin.

"Well then, shouldn't the Grand Confederacy of Scaveutland be represented? It seemes a terrible shame that we've been excluded from the Human's little get together. Perhaps we should put out a hail."

"Aye sir, hailing Human vessel now."

"Good," Ardennes looked towards the Vessel situated in the middle of the viewscreen and cleared his throats, "Go. Attention Human vessel. This is the GCS Intrepid, I am Captain Ardennes. We have become aware of peace talks that are being held aboard your vessel. This is most fortunate! Considering that this is indeed a gathering of multiple interstellar races and alliances, we were wondering, where, oh where did you leave our invitation? It would be a shame if these conferences did not involve all of the races that are currently present in this area. Please be advised, we have no reason to be angered, but seeing as this is a rare opportunity to congratulate a new, space-faring race into the galactic rat race, we wish to be present at these talks. As you Humans say, Thank you. Captain Ardennes out."

"Excellent speech sir." Said the ensign after he turned off the comm..

"Indeed, let's leave the ball in the human's court now. Their ship doesn't pose any military threat so depending on how smart their captain is, we can see if there'll be another war between the Scaveutii and the Humans or not. Either way... Wait for their response ensign. Contact me when they do."

"Aye sir."

Kovak had already picked up the inbound vessel, though had waited on its motives. Waiting wasn't the Chymeron's strategy, so after the vessel had made decent progress, the alien eventually gave up waiting altogether and decided on communication with the new inbound race. The explorer humans aboard their non-war craft weren't pleasing him particularly - Kovak wanted battle - but he would likely have to wait. The Dominion did incorporate humans, after all, and his superior was a human. He'd have to go by what Thath said.

"Alien vessel!" Kovak announced over the comms, this time in visual for the Intrepid. He was brash, as usual for the Chymeron race. "This is commander Kovak of the station Quatra! State your business in the system."

He neglected, naturally, to tell of the conference aboard the Federation vessel.

~~~

A single assault shuttle zipped out of Raptor's hanger towards the Federation vessel, shields being raised and weapon-tipped wings extending outward into flight position. Two interceptors moved into escort, flanking the assault shuttle and burning at half impulse for the speey fighters. The flight was leisurely, more than anything - things could still happen, but the two attack corvettes were providing ample security now. Kovak had reported in the presence of a new interloper, but Kelta would leave it to the Chymeron to deal with. She was, on the other hand, contacting the Federation ship for final approach.

"This is the Dominion shuttle," she commed, latching into the comms system as a Chymeron pilot drove the warcraft, loaded with the tough human commander, lithe and intelligent Tondani counselor, and aggressively brutal Skrawl security chief towards the Federation vessel. "We're on final approach to your vessel. Requesting your tractor beam now."

Kelta was aware for funny business here - she had directed shields double-front just as she had zipped into the comms system, ensuring that a directed burst against the assault shuttle, a tough little craft, would not be a one-hit fatal kill, unless some sort of massive weapon was employed. The explorers didn't seem the type for giant weapons emplacements like the Dominion was.

"Captain! We're being adressed from a station inside of the Class 0 Giant."

"Bring up the transmission, let's hear what they have to say."

Alien vessel! This is commander Kovak of the station Quatra! State your business in the system.

"Well, don't they seem rather self important. Send a hail back. Ahem, this is Captain Ardennes of the GCS Intrepid. We are on a mission of discovery in attempts to find colonizable worlds. Please do not be offended if we are intruding on your territory, it was not our intention. As of now we are waiting for a reply from the Human vessel located approx. 3.5 million miles, hubward from our current position. Thank you."

Well this would prove to be an interesting day, Ardennes mused to himself. The Intrepid could destroy the puny Human vessel with ease, and possibly even the unidentified alien vessel as well, but an entire station, let alone one inside of a planet, would prove a challenge even for them. Yet it had been simple, courtesy was always the best option when one was outgunned, though Ardennes hated it, it was the only option for now. It would depend on the Humans, the self important, arrogant, rash, Humans... What a pity...

Lieutenant Hicks was busy admiring the blush blue command chair with his backside, a chair he only usually got to sit in during the swing shift. It certainly had the chair in his quarters beat, to say nothing of the rocky excuse for a chair that he had the pleasure of using on his normal duty station. The bridge was certainly a much quieter place with the senior staff gone, and the subordinates they had left in their stead were so concerned with making a good impression that they were dedicated to their duties to the point of silence. All with the exception of a sarcastic male Bajoran Ensign, whose name escaped Hicks, who had taken over the communications station in the absence of Lieutenant Commander Cobbs. Whoever he was, he seemed positively thrilled when he received a communications signal.

"Sir! We are being hailed," the Ensign said. "By one of the unidentified alien ships. Should I put it through to the wardroom?"

"Nah Ensign, I think I can handle it," Hicks said confidently, glancing at the digital clock near the viewscreen. "I don't think the Captain wishes to be disturbed, and I doubt they're in the wardroom yet anyway."

"Aye sir, on speakers," the Ensign confirmed.

"Attention Human vessel," the aliens announced. "This is the GCS Intrepid, I am Captain Ardennes. We have become aware of peace talks that are being held aboard your vessel. This is most fortunate! Considering that this is indeed a gathering of multiple interstellar races and alliances, we were wondering, where, oh where did you leave our invitation? It would be a shame if these conferences did not involve all of the races that are currently present in this area. Please be advised, we have no reason to be angered, but seeing as this is a rare opportunity to congratulate a new, space-faring race into the galactic rat race, we wish to be present at these talks. As you Humans say, Thank you. Captain Ardennes out."

"'Human' vessel?" the Bajoran Ensign remarked, seemingly perturbed by the insinuation.

"Easy, tiger," Hicks warned mockingly. "I don't know how they expected to receive an invite to my birthday party, let alone a conference, if they didn't bother to idenfity themselves earlier."

"Maybe you should tell them that," the Ensign remarked.

"I think you should probably leave the interspecies diplomacy to me, Ensign," Hicks grinned. "You're liable to start wars. Open a channel to that ship, Ensign. I'll deal with this."

"Channel open sir," the Ensign said, after hitting some buttons. Hicks rose to his feet, taking the same spot the Captain seemed to favour whenever she communicated with other ships, though he clasped his hands firmly in front of him.

"This is Lieutenant Hicks, of the Federation starship Vincennes," he said, loud and clear. "Captain Ardennes, we are pleased to finally speak with you. Our commanding officer is presently conducting an attempt to resolve a potential territorial dispute, between one civilisation attempting to colonise a planet in this system, and another which already has a space station here. We had also hoped to establish formal first contact with both in the process. I am certain that you would be welcome to attend this function if that's what you want. I will make arrangements for you to be beamed aboard whenever you are ready, or you may come over by shuttle if you wish."

***

As the Dominion shuttle approached the hangar, the large space doors slowly began to open up, revealing a buzzing blue forcefield that maintained atmospheric integrity inside. Numerous personnel shuttles could be seen dormant on either side of the main landing strips, of which there were several, and at the far end of the room was a sealed control room raised high up near the ceiling, through the windows of which several officers looked out at the incoming craft.

"Dominion shuttle, this is Vincennes shuttlebay control," a raspy voice responded across the transmission signal. "Request acknowledged. Please cut your engines, tractor beam is engaging now. Welcome to the Vincennes, shuttlebay control out."

With that, from somewhere within the shuttlebay itself an invisible tractor beam latched on to the small craft, and gently began to pull it into the hangar. Though it was larger than standard Federation shuttlecraft, the Dominion shuttle seemed to be accommodated adequately by the central landing strip, which was where the tractor beam gently deposited it. Once the shuttle was aboard, the massive hangar doors began to whirr deafeningly as they slowly closed up, and the forcefield flickered off again.

Double-doors on the far side of the room hissed open, and various enlisted crew members in red and beige jumpsuits immediately rushed through them to perform some manner of maintenance nearby. Once they were clear, another man, clearly an officer judging by his uniform, and the gold insignia on the strip of white fabric on his white chest, stepped through much more calmly. He was followed by two security officers, donning body armour, who took up positions on either side of the doorway and stood to attention.

The Commander stood with his arms behind his back just ahead of the alien shuttle as the doors opened and they began to alight.

"Greetings," he called out, not quite able to see them yet. "I am Commander John Derek, executive officer of the USS Vincennes. Welcome aboard."

"This is Lieutenant Hicks, of the Federation starship Vincennes. Captain Ardennes, we are pleased to finally speak with you. Our commanding officer is presently conducting an attempt to resolve a potential territorial dispute, between one civilisation attempting to colonise a planet in this system, and another which already has a space station here. We had also hoped to establish formal first contact with both in the process. I am certain that you would be welcome to attend this function if that's what you want. I will make arrangements for you to be beamed aboard whenever you are ready, or you may come over by shuttle if you wish."

Ardennes finished listening to the transmission with a bemused smile on his features. So, that's the reason for the peace conferences. No wonder only a lowly Lieutenant could speak with them. It was a shame really. To think that this entire system could go up in flames...

"Ensign, send out a comm., We appreciate your offer of allowing us to be beamed aboard, but your Federation's transporters have a nasty tendancy of 'malnfunctioning' at the most inopportune times. If you would be so kind as to give the coordinates of pehaps the docking bay, or one of the transporter rooms, we will gladly transport ourselves, thank you for your offer, it has been dualy noted. As for attending the peace conferences, we would be overjoyed with the allowance of the Federation to set foot on their glorious vessel. If it is allowed, I would like to send a team of 5, including myself to attend. Please send over the coordinates. Thank you," Ardennes sat back down in his command chair and sighed.

"What a load of rubbish..."

"Captain?"

"Having to communicate with Humans and their ilk in such a subservient manner. Despicable creatures, the lot of them. It was much better when we were chasing them around the Opious constellation with their tails between their legs, just like the filth they are. I can't wait till this is over."

"Aye captain."

"Get Officers, Greb, and Darbrook in here. As well as two guards. We'll be going aboard the Hu- no, Federation vessel."

"Aye Captain."

Somewhere in the asteroid belt in the system nominally known as 'Urdnot' a unit of four innocuous, barely noticeable MOSTAR (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9761077&postcount=16) mining constructs chomped happily away at asteroids, testing them for what The Guild of Merchants liked most, iron ore, silica and iridium.

Suddenly the arrival of so many ships in the area and the back and forth communications between them and all the whirling activity caused the MOSTAR constructs to do something quite different, as they mined and tested for profitable minerals, they now began watching, recording and sending encrypted information back to Merchant Guild headquarters.

The Commonwealth, being so far out on the Outer Rim was always on the look out for new contact. The weak could be conquered and the strong could be very good for business. Of course the ideal, the weak fighting the strong, meant weapons sales. This whole system was suddenly very interesting to The Merchants Guild and possibly to the Commonwealth.

Though, much more watching must be done before any of the cautious Navigators decided to make contact or a visit, but it was all very interesting.

OOC-I'm starting to get a little irritated with random people claiming to have already been in this system. One was enough, I don't want two now. And please, for christ's sake, give me reasons for your ships just randomly popping into this system. I want detailed posts, not "lol i pop in and get involved for no reazonz"

USS Vincennes, "Urdnot" System
The feeling of materializing in a completely different place was very knew to Warlord Zuka and his men. There seemed to be no transition. They simply appeared in a new place. Before them stood the aliens, including the one he had been speaking with. He had no idea how small they really were until now.

He spoke, his voice deep and likely louder than the aliens would have expected,"Greetings to you, as well, captain. I am sure that the Warlords and, especially, the Overlord would like to hear of this whole encounter," a grunt and the Krogan soldiers (http://masseffect.bioware.com/_commonext/images/me/screenshots/2007/masseffect_35_745x440.jpg), the seven of them, moved to his flanks. He was paranoid, though rightfully so. What would people think if they found out a Warlord was tricked and murdered by a group of small creatures like this? It would be worse than getting eaten by Varren. ...Varren..

"You wished to speak with me, right? Where are we to speak, and what of, specifically? Our colonization effort is extremely important," it was true, he remembered, that the Krogan were on the verge of collapse because of their own population growth.

Tuchanka, Palace of the Warlords
He wants my opinion? Overlord Inamorda took a moment to process this. Warlord Zuka had been approached by an alien species, and he wanted an opinion? If anything, he should figure it out himself and finish the mission with no problems. If it was really neccesary for the Overlord to discuss it with him, wouldn't it be more of an order than an opinion? Regardless, the Warlords would want to know about this. It was bad enough that the mission was delayed for several hours; but aliens? That wasn't expected.

Inamorda's massive body and large, rounded, healthy hump dwarfed even the average Krogan. His family's armor was powerful and expensive even to maintain. It's kinetic shield modulators, medical modules, and combat exoskeleton were one of a kind. The shielding produced by it was powerful enough to overload even a Warlord's armor. Inamorda's face and armor both showed signs of damage, however. He was four-hundred and seventy years old (it was common for Krogan to live for centuries; a by-product of their copies of major organs and regenerated spinal fluids) and right fromt he beginning he had been adventurous. In his youth he fough an Alpha Varren, a massive Varren which lead Varren colonies. It had carved a massive scar across his chest and had broken it's front claw off in his headplate. Chunks of it still remained, and a massive, gaping gash ran across his 'forehead'. His armor had born the battles of ten generations of his family.

Busting into the Palace meeting room, a large room comparable to an old Greek theatre, he was eyeballed by the other Warlords. They knew of the aliens and Zuka's current dilema. Almost immediately, Warlord Jarrod stood up and spoke, even as Inamorda still approached his Overlord's Throne,"We should have the fool's head for not simply ignoring the aliens and progressing with colonization! Is it not bad enough that the colonies around the system are strained to the breaking point with producing enough food for Tuchanka and it's people? Is it not bad enough that we are incapable of manufacturing without mining in the Oort Cloud!?"

Taking his seat, Inamorda's black eyes, an uncommon feature in the Krogan, focused upon Jarrod's. The Krogan felt as if Inamorda's stare bore right through him, something that Inamorda was known to do,"I'm aware," Inamorda's voice was lower and sounded more violent than most Krogan,"that the colonies are stressed. We're all stressed. Even emplacing restrictions on breeding has not stopped our people from overpopulating our planet. However, Zuka is not at fault for doing what he has done. These aliens could be beneficial to us. If they can show us where we can find land and resources, then we can exploit those opportunities. Indeed, if there is one alien species, there might be more. These creatures can inform us of what else lies out there."

"What, you think we'll be forced into some sort of war with aliens?" Warlord Vertus chimed in. It wasn't a sarcastic or rude question, by Krogan standards.

"Yes. It is inevitable. Much as is our calapse if we do not find new land. We have been cursed with a lack of resources and an abundance of hostility. It is only natural to assume that we shall be also cursed with a lack of friendship and an abundance of enemies," such was the common outlook among Krogan.

"Then why, might I ask, is Zuka boarding an alien ship!" Jarrod once more came in to question Inamorda. He did this a lot.

"Because we can exploit their knowledge!" Inamorda's temper flared, filling the room and vibrating in every Warlord's ears,"Question my judgement once more, and I might just-"

"You might just what, Overlord? Be reminded that you are no better than us without the tradition of the Overlord in place," Warlord Vertus once more spoke,"traditions can be broken, and they will be if you wrong a Warlord because of your own anger. Even over Jarrod's prodding."

"What do you mean even?" Jarrod hopped to his feet now, causing the Warlords nearby to look at each other and mumble.

"Both of you shut the fuck up or I'll have both your heads!" Inamorda once more filled the room, causing both to stop and watch him closely,"I command the obediance and loyalty of every Warlord in this room but yours," he motioned at Jarrod and Vertus,"I will not have this Federation broken up over two petty upstarts and the discovery of an alien species! Now, I came in here to inform you that despite the delay, we have ordered acting commander Moros to proceed with the colonization while Zuka is speaking with the aliens. I have covered the bases, and you two are arguing over nonsense!"

The two sat down. Inamorda hadn't forgotten anything, as always.

"That is all. You can discuss the events and address them in front of me in a day," the Overlord stood up and left, leaving the Warlords in silence. The arguement, over something so small, had almost splintered them and caused Inamorda to kill two Warlords.

It was clear that the Krogan needed some good news. Fast.

OOC: For reference, Tuchanka, nearly every system in the primary NS galaxy has some sort of people in it already (hell, they did back in '05...). For kicks, much of this is benign mining, manufacturing, or of little consequence - ie, my little station in the gas giant is simply a defended mining colony and spatial outpost that are deposited around the galaxy. I'm not going to attempt to hinder your colonization - not worth my civilization's resources, considering the massive swath we hold currently - so you're free from any sort of rival claims to the system (from me, at least).

IC:

The assault shuttle touched down on the metal floor of the Federation ship as several crewmembers, adorned in red and yellow uniforms, ran about in the hanger bay. It was somewhat hectic - Dominion hangers were orderly, frequently controlled by droids and accompanied by organized flights and rows of fighters and gunships. Part of it likely was that the Dominion hangers were substantially biggerto accomodate large amounts of support craft, as well. The Federation hanger was somewhat small, enough for several shuttles - all which were smaller than the assault shuttle, which wasn't even as big as the common Dominion gunship or carrier shuttle.

The shuttle shot out gas and vented exhaust as the landing struts clicked into place against the floor, the two blue engine ducts cooling down as the energy couplings ceased to fire out fumes. The Chymeron pilot, clad in white and yellow piloting armor, gave the thumbs-up back to the passenger compartment as two quick-access doors - designed for aerial insertion and transport around battlefields, though they could work in diplomatic settings as well - folded upwards to the shuttle's top rocket tubes. The obvious ball energy turrets folded back against the shuttle structure as the side hatches slid back into the craft's frame.

Veeryn jumped down from the assault shuttle first, his two massive clawed feet slamming into the metal floor from his 540 lb main body - fairly light for a Skrawl, but considerably more than any human. He unfurled into his full 16' frame, more as a power play than anything - the Skrawl security chief believed first impressions were important, if nothing else. He held no weapon in any of his six lethal-looking (and acting) arm appendages, but a MIBA beam weapon sat across his back. The chief would likely be able to take any threat posed here by himself without the weapon, anyway, but he was always a one for taking the safe side on matters - even aggression. The weapon was slight overkill, though...it was unlikely the diplomatic force would need to be wiping out armored buildings and heavy assault tanks while at a conference. A lethal gravity hammer hung from his large military belt - generally a large and brutish (and messy) weapon by human standards, it was simply a one-handed melee device for Veeryn.

Selaas was off next, the lithe counselor, weaker-looking than a human even standing at an 8' height, giving off an aura of fairness and warmth to the security chief's image of brutality and death. She carried no weapon - the Tondani weren't well versed in individual weapons, anyway, as the weakest and smartest race of the Dominion - but carried her body with a dignity and poise the burly Skrawl certainly lacked. Two contrasting figures indeed had come off first, but perhaps the most bizarre creature was still to come.

Bizarre certainly described a human, and Thath was all human. The average Amazonian human male, modified with various genetic markers signified after generations of continued enhancement, stood at 7'4", and Thath was a little undersized at 7'2". He was ribbed with plenty of dark muscle and skin, though, and a face that showed all game and seriousness. Thath carried an LS-105 needler from his belt, though lacked any weapon of significant damage besides killing people. The needler did that well in case they ran into trouble - it would slice up just about anybody with energy-coated delayed-explosion slivers.

A small silver globe sat upon Thath's belt, opposite from the violet and blue needler. The globe, equipped with its own hull-enhancing energy emitter and a repulsive magnetic field, contained Kelta, the AI. She was perhaps the most important part of the crew, though for first introductions she wouldn't be anywhere as neccessary. She was a good compliment to the serious, decisive Thath - Kelta was able to think out decisions thoroughly, taking advantage of all angles possible - and do it all in less than a microsecond.

"Greetings, commander," Thath said, stepping forward from the other two with an air of confidence. It was all he needed to say - maybe it was first contact for a new civilization, but it was a routine thing to do these for the Dominion. Thath himself had participated in three in his younger days. This was simply by the book and standard...assuming Veeryn didn't let his temperment get the better of him.

...

Still overcome and somewhat unnerved by the size of the aliens, their voices seemed to dominate the room even more than their bulky forms, and the Andorian in particular seemed taken aback by their volume the first time they spoke. Rebecca remained undaunted, despite the size of the creatures presented to her, and the sense of fatigue that continually dogged at her mind, and simply refused to wipe the cheerful smile from her face.

"Yes," she said. "For starters we are explorers, it is part of our mission to learn about the civilisations we encounter - not your technology or national secrets or anything of the like, but your culture and traditions. We are simply... curious about your people. But the specifics of our discussions can wait. I was hoping that we could gather in the wardroom, and perhaps dine together while we discuss some matters. If you have any dishes you particularly wish to eat, I am sure that if you provide our ship's purser with the exact ingredients of your preferred food he will be able to replicate a fair approximation. Otherwise you are welcome to sample our own cuisine, if you are feeling adventurous."

She looked over her shoulder and nodded to the security officers, who nodded in return and stepped out of the room.

"If you would kindly follow me, I shall escort you to the wardroom immediately," she said, hesitating when she looked between the Krogan and the doorway to the right. "I'm... afraid that you may have to stoop a little on the way. Our ship designers never anticipated someone of your... impressive stature, it would seem. Please, this way."

After gesturing towards the doors on the right, she took point and led the Krogan party out of the transporter room. They were led through a network of corridors, all curved gently as they followed the shape of the ship's hull. They were sparsely decorated with light grey metal bulkheads and the occasional creamy-white panel, interspersed between structural supports which frequently had soft white lights mounted on them. Many of the walls had signs and warnings affixed onto them, in a language that was no doubt incomprehensible to the aliens but the symbols were fairly self-explanatory, and they sometimes passed faint red doors which were similarly labelled. Crewmen unfortunate enough to be encountered along their route looked up in surprise as the aliens passed them by, promptly jumping to one side to let them pass and trying not to stare.

Trailing behind, the senior staff followed the unusual group, keeping a fair distance from the alien delegation - it was unclear if it was out of respect or caution, or perhaps both. Either way, Cobbs and Su'vak seemed determined to explain the situation to every single alarmed crewman they passed, which caused them both to lag behind even further.

Following a brief walk around the curved corridor network, they reached a large set of double doors, which hissed open smoothly to allow the Captain and those who followed her to enter. Inside was a large, curved room, dominated by a long curved table that was placed in the centre and curved to match the slight bend of the room itself. The surface of the table was completely illuminated from within by a soft white light, and directly above the table a set of strange, sculptured plastic sheets were hung, which appeared to be artistic lights that glowed with a dull beige aura.

An assortment of fine silver cutlery had been positioned at each place of the table, of which there were a sufficient number to seat not only the Starfleet personnel and their Krogan guests, but numerous other individuals if it proved to be necessary. Occupying several points along the centre of the table were bowls of fruit and vases of flowers, serving as elegant and minimalist centrepieces. As though seeking to prove that this room was intended for more formal occasions, numerous paintings in elaborate wooden frames had been hung all along the dark grey wall of the right side of the wall, whilst the right side of the room was dominated by several large windows that offered a vista of stars.

"Please, take a seat," Rebecca offered as she walked around to the far end of the table, joined by her officers. Once the Krogan delegation had chosen their seats, assisted by stewards, she and her senior staff sat down as well. Rebecca was sure that the Krogan looked a little uncomfortable in their seats, but unfortunately there was little she could do for now.

"I am sorry if you are uncomfortable," Rebecca said. "I can have some larger lounge chairs brought in if you wish.

"Now, I'm sure you're busy," she continued. "So I shall get down to business, as we say. Our main hopes for this meeting are to discuss your colonisation efforts, and to offer any help we can to aid them. I understand that the colonisation of this planet is important to your people, and as a sign of goodwill between our peoples I would like to help in any way that we can. Our other goal is to work out some manner of cultural exchange, and to determine the long-term status of Tuchanka-Federation relations."

She cleared her throat a little at this point and leaned forwards against the table.

"However, we do have a more immediate concern that must be addressed before we can continue, I'm afraid," she said with more intent. "Shortly after the Vincennes arrived in this star system, we were contacted by another party, a group of people from a nation called the Amazonian Dominion. On speaking with them it appears that they have a space station here, tucked away in the gas giant of this system."

Sensing the increased tension of the Krogan delegate she licked her lips and pressed on with her point before he could interrupt.

"Before you grow too concerned, I have taken the liberty of speaking with the commander of this Dominion space station," she told the Warlord, in the most reassuring voice that she could and adding in a polite smile for good measure. "They have agreed to meet with you, aboard the USS Vincennes, to discuss the situation peacefully. Now, I am unsure of the nature of their claim to this system, and it may turn out to be nothing to be worried about, but in any case it is my sincerest hope that we can work out some kind of accommodation that will satisfy both parties, without the need for any violence - or interruption to your colonising efforts."

That moment one of the stewards stepped to her side and whispered something into her ear. She whispered something back to him and he nodded, shrugging at the Captain. She sighed and nodded in return, dismissing him.

"And it seems that we have been contacted by a third alien species, who have requested to sit in on these proceedings," Rebecca told the Warlord after a momentary pause. "They haven't said why, explicitly, but I imagine it is probably just to make contact with your people for the first time. If you do not wish to meet with these other aliens, that is your prerogative of course, but my officer was reluctant to turn them down. Anyway, I have just been informed that the Dominion delegation has just arrived, and shall be escorted to the wardroom soon."

***

...

"Ah..." Commander Derek said quietly to himself, as the enormous creature splayed out in front of him. The hangar deck was the perfect place for something of its stature, with its high ceiling and wide bulkheads, but it may find more difficulties when trying to traverse the narrower corridors of the ship - to say nothing of the turbolift journey they would need to take.

Meanwhile the security guards were itching to reach for their phaser pistols, but the Commander looked back over his shoulder and discretely shook his head at them. The Vincennes was unshielded at present, had these aliens wished to attack them they had already had the best opportunity they were going to get. This was clearly a display for their benefit, designed to intimidate them. While not particularly indicative of positive future relations, nor especially diplomatic, the Commander had met more aggressive species in the past, and was perfectly willing to let them have their fun. Had this been a ship under his command, of course, protocol would have been met with much more seriously, but... it wasn't.

"It is an honour to meet you Captain Thath," Derek said, bowing his head slightly in respect. "I'm pleased to meet you all. As the Captain mentioned in her previous transmission, she is presently indisposed at the moment meeting with the other alien party, who claim themselves to be 'Krogan' from a nation called the Federation of the Warlords of Tuchanka. I believe they should be aboard by now. If I may, I will escort your party directly to the wardroom now."

He was about to turn around when he remembered the large alien that had accompanied them, as if he could forget it, and stopped in his tracks.

"Ah... your large colleague here might find it somewhat uncomfortable navigating our ship, I'm afraid," Derek informed them, as delicately as he could. "Nobody in the Federation rises to such impressive heights, you understand. He may wait here, or we can transport him directly to the wardroom once we have all arrived, if you wish?"

***

...

"Nasty tendency of malfunctioning?" Hicks mused thoughtfully. "I don't recall the Federation ever meeting this particular nation before, I wonder where they got that impression?"

"That would be why their 'intelligence' on our transporters is so inaccurate then," the Bajoran Ensign remarked sarcastically.

"Well, whatever makes them comfortable," Hicks shrugged. "Put me back on, Ensign."

"Aye sir," the Bajoran sighed.

"As you wish, Captain," Hicks said. "You may send a shuttle at your discretion; our main shuttlebay is to aft, on the ventral side. Shuttlebay control will contact you with instructions as you approach. While our senior staff is presently occupied, I will make efforts to greet you personally. Until then, Vincennes out."

OOC-Amazonian Beasts, I find it completely insane to believe that NS nations have visited even close to every star in the galaxy. Assuming it's anything like the Milky Way, it has at least 400 billion stars. Good luck visiting that many stars in any amount of time. As for myself, I might develop a map of the cluster Herschel is in as my region map. >_>

USS Vincennes, "Urdnot" System
Once in the wardroom, Warlord Zuka took his seat, surrounded by men on both sides. He listened intently, quite surprised by the news that there were more aliens coming. He couldn't help but overhear two of his men whispering about the way these 'humans' stored their food in ceramics. Must be because they have enough resources to spare, he thought. Behind him, one of the soldiers was fiddling with a framed picture, apparantly unaware of it's pupose, and accidently broke the frame. Zuka could see him scoot away from it from the corner of his eye.

"We will speak with the aliens when they arrive. As for our reasons for colonizing here; we recently perfected the technology behind manipulating mass and opened a massless corridor to the first system we found with a habitable world. We had been searching for several decades, and our time was running out. Our planet, Tuchanka, is a violent world. We eventually overcame the violence, lack of resources, and virulent disease, only to realize that our population growth, the only thing that had previously kept us alive, was too much for us to handle. Within centuries, our world became a single massive city. Within the last century, Tuchanka's moons and the other planets of our solar system have started developing into cities as well," Warlord Zuka looked about; the Krogan soldiers with him were listening intently as well, likely to make sure he made no mistakes in explaining the situation,"Even our planet's orbit is littered with spacestations that work as cities.

"Obviously, we had to do something. So we developed the technology needed to reach another star. Here we are, hoping to find our salvation in the form of resources and space. I was given command of the Colonization Fleet and given the post of Warlord of the Udnot System, our name for the system."

In all honesty, Zuka wanted to explain everything about the Krogan to these people. He wanted to know about them, as well. Why were they several foot smaller, and so weak looking? In fact, they didn't look Kroganoid at all, now that he could see them up close. It was only now that he realized that the lights within this ship were not UV lights. Did these people even bask? In fact, what was this food they had? It didn't look like Varren meat. And what did they mean when they said they'd materialize the food? On a Krogan ship, a person could just find a Varren nest and have enough food for himself for several days.

These people were strange.

I have made an OOC Thread for all the OOC comments that are starting to flood the RP..

Can the Tuchanka please post this link in the first Post so it can be found easier?


http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=13309699#post13309699 (http://http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=13309699#post13309699)

As you wish, Captain, You may send a shuttle at your discretion; our main shuttlebay is to aft, on the ventral side. Shuttlebay control will contact you with instructions as you approach. While our senior staff is presently occupied, I will make efforts to greet you personally. Until then, Vincennes out.

"Well, that was rather abrupt." Ardennes said frankly. But it would seem that since the other races had already arrived that there was little likelihood of them getting the high welcome, as was to be expected.

"Captain, Lieutenants Greb and Darbrook have arrived."

"Thank you ensign. Tell them to meet me in the shuttle hangar. And order for two fighters to be ready to escort. Once I'm gone go to Green Status and be prepared for anything. But so help me, if someone starts a war without my orders I will have you thrown into the vacuum."

"Aye sir!" Replied all of the ensigns on the bridge.

---ShuttleHangar 001---

With the shuttle ready and fueled, Ardennes looked at the small guard with him. It wouldn't be necessary for a large force, the humans were a fragile race. Ardennes had experienced that first hand in the Opius constellation. Yet weapons were being brought regardless, yet small arms only, nothing too massive.

"Everyone, we're going to make contact with two new interstellar groups on that ship. I don't want anything going wrong. Especially if we're on one of those Human vessels, we've had peace for several years, I will NOT be the one who starts another war." Ardennes looked around at his men's serious demeanors and smiled, "Now best behaviors children, don't make daddy look bad," and with that his smile disappeared, "Understood?"

"Aye sir!"

Ardennes turned and walked onto the shuttle and his company followed quickly. As the door sealed the two F-83 escorts launched out of the air shield and into the vacuum followed by the shuttle. The three ships formed into a small delta and headed at full burn towards the human vessel. On the comm. came a human voice,
Shuttle 1 and escorts you are cleared for landing in Shuttlebay 090. Please approach following the nav points we are sending you now. Your estimated time of arrival is 14.3 minutes.

"Courteous aren't they?" Greb said casually.

OOC: Completely possible, though not by manned vessels (but using exclusively manned ships isn't that popular a tradition as it is...probes can't be manned). I could explain, but I don't want to drag out the OOC.

IC:

"An honor to be aboard your vessel, as well," Thath remarked, before turning slightly towards Veeryn. "He will be able to manage." Just as Thath started saying it, the Skrawl also had said "I'll manage...". Both were on the same page, at least.

The security chief undulated his tall body into a retracted position, shrinking almost down to 9'. It was a bit cumbersome - and Veeryn didn't look particularly excited (the Skrawl usually limited crunching their bodies down to 10'). Nevertheless, he was able to make an akward, though successful, move to a more reasonable height, about a foot taller than the Tondani counselor. The Skrawl grumbled a bit, letting loose a few gutteral words in the natural language of the insectoprimate species.

"Let's head to the wardroom," Thath suggested. He didn't mention, "before Veeryn here gets angry and loses his temper."

...

Ship's stewards rushed to the valuable-looking picture frame when the alien soldier broke it, desperately trying to prevent it from falling to pieces while another steward helped them hoist it down safely. They received amused glances from the senior staff for their troubles, which followed them as they hurriedly carried the frame off and out of the room. Once the flustered stewards were gone the officers looked back to the proceedings, listening to what the Krogran had to say.

"So this is your first interstellar voyage? Congratulations," Commander Brady asked thoughtfully once the stewards were gone. "I would be interested to hear more about this massless corridor you developed."

Rebecca had not even noticed the scene, as she listened intently to the Warlord's explanation of their situation. These Krogan were certainly amongst the most unusual species they had made contact with on their mission, and their story was almost tragic. It was no wonder they were acting so suspiciously around them, for if this was their first interstellar voyage then it was possible that this was also their first contact with an alien species. She wanted to hear more about their world and culture, and hoped they would get the chance to do so.

"Indeed, congratulations," Rebecca said. "It's a big step into a wondrous new world. If you like, we would be happy to offer you our starcharts for this region of the galaxy - we haven't been everywhere, but we have scanned much of this region of space on our journey and it may be of some use to your people. I would like to learn more of your homeworld, though - for example, why is it so violent there? Warfare? Crime?"

...

"Ah," Derek said, wincing slightly as the enormous alien somehow managed to compact his size by a significant amount. He didn't imagine that it could be comfortable, and agreed somewhat quickly with Thath's recommendation that they move quickly.

"Indeed," he nodded. "If you'll please follow me."

Leading them out of the shuttlebay and into the corridors, which were somewhat more industrial than those on the upper decks near the transporter room, he lead them through a quick series of sharp turns before coming to an apparent dead end. Doors opened to the turbolift, and they crowded inside - having to take two trips for the Skrawl. Now on the upper decks of the saucer section, which were a little less plain, the Commander led the unusual party through the same set of corridors as the Krogan had passed through, even taking a short-cut through the transporter room on the way.

They entered the wardroom at last, the two security guards joining their other two colleagues outside, and were greeted with the same, slightly curved room as before, only now it was occupied by several Starfleet officers and the ever-present Krogan delegates. Fortunately the ceiling was a little higher in this room than the corridors, and if the Skrawl stayed towards the far end of the table he would find plenty of space to 'spread out', as it were.

"Captain Hughes," he announced. "May I present Captain Thath's delegation, representing the Amazonian Dominion."

Rebecca and her senior staff all rose in respect. "Captain, a pleasure to meet you in person at last. May I introduce my senior staff - Commander Adelbor, Lieutenant Commander Phillip Cobbs, Lieutenant Su'vak, and Commander Jeanette Brady. Commander Derek, I believe you already know."

Gesturing towards the Krogan party, she smiled. "Warlord Zuka, representative of the Federation of the Warlords of Tuchanka, may I introduce Captain Thath, commander of the space station I mentioned to you earlier. Please, by all means find yourselves seats."

...

Lieutenant Junior Grade Demura was on duty in the shuttlebay control room as the second alien shuttle of the day approached, and he was positively confused. They seemed to be receiving communications from a completely different shuttlebay, which had identified itself as '090'. As there was only one hangar on the Vincennes, and for obvious reasons it didn't need to be numbered, he had no idea where such was coming from.

Regardless, he aimed to set them straight before they crashed into something, without asking any questions. "Alien shuttle, this is Vincennes shuttlebay control," he said. "You have been granted landing permission. Please cut your engines and prepare to be tractored aboard now. Welcome to the Vincennes, shuttlebay control out."

With that, the shuttles were gently towed through the hangar doors and deposited on landing strips adjacent to the Dominion assault shuttle. Once they were aboard, the hangar doors once more whirred shut and the forcefield disabled, and Lieutenant Hicks could be seen along with two more security officers entering the hangar and awaiting their next group of guests.

Ardennes took a deep breath and looked at his other officers. Then he calmly opened the door and stepped out. He could see the Human's reactions to his appearance.
It was obvious that they had never seen a Scaveutii before. They must have been taken aback by seveal features, such as the massive almost apelike forearms that indeed reached nearly to the shinbones. Also the blue, scaled skin could have attributed to their air of surprise. Yet as he could see, it seemed that the Scaveutii were so far the only creatures that had been shorter than the Humans, standing at only 6rebs tall (1reb~10 inch) their stature was nearly matched by their width. That along with the surprising garb of silk-like material of a stark white color and his small sonic gun at his waist was still an awe inspiring sight.

Ardennes turned and waved his officers and guards out, they were similar in appearance, yet they wore different shades of cloth and the guards wore what appeared to be a glittering armor, it was purely for show, but it had been known to dampen phasers so there was some use. Ardennes turned towards the assembled greeting party and opened his mouth to speak.

"I am Captain Ardennes, it is an honor to be aboard such a fine-" Ardennes had forgotten that Humans were not used to the volume that having two throats with two sets of lungs could produce. Yet Ardennes was speaking in a normal voice for his people, but he could see visual winces from the assembled Humans.

It was strange how evolution took it's course, humans, while very intelligent, were still fragile, and could barely make noise compared to Scaveutii who could easily reach sound levels of 80,000 decibles, a long pastime from Scaveutii savagery. Yet Ardennes could ponder this later, so he took a breath again and spoke this time in a much softer voice.

"It is an honor to be aboard such a fine vessel. I appologize for the noise, we are not used to speaking so quietly. You must be Lieutenant Hicks, thank you for your hospitality."

USS Vincennes, "Urdnot" System
"...I would like to learn more of your homeworld, though - for example, why is it so violent there? Warfare? Crime?"

That was likely the oddest question that had ever been posed to a Krogan.

"Well.." Zuka was confused about how to answer, but he had concluded that these 'humans' had evolved on a world nothing like his, so he explained,"The only crime you'll find on Tuchanka is in the form of bounty hunting. As for warfare; we have no one to fight. In our early history, that's all we did, but not anymore. The reason for the violence is because of the path our planet's organisms evolved down," he set a small square object, about the size of a laptop, onto the table. It opened and showed pictures from pre-world city Tuchanka. The place was barren, aside from some random trees. The sky was reddish, from smoggy, heated air, but mixed with the blue heat radiating in from Herschel. Fumes pumped out of the cracked ground in random places; beaver-sized reptiles clammered around these for heat. Even these looked vicious, but they were the bottom of the food chain.

A group of Krogan, in much older armor and gunpowder weapons, moved across the screen. This was a documentary from centuries ago, some of the only surviving footage of the world before it was consumed by the Krogan. But it was apparant that they were not safe; the crewmen themselves had to carry weapons. Someone might wonder,"how did life survive here?"

Moving into a forest of trees, littered with virus-tipped spines, the Krogan pointed out a pack of Varren, watching them. They were ready to pounce on any Krogan that accidently stepped on a tree-spine and killed himself. They were sure to point out the alpha-varren, the leader of the pack. He was easy to pick out because of his reddish scales. Throughout the course of the video, much larger creatures were shown, including a group of predators similar to tyrannasaurus rex, though much, much larger.

Tuchanka, it would seem, was like a desert version of ancient Earth.

Closing the device, Zuka stated,"Our world was dangerous, and if you choose to go to the floor today, you will realize that it is still dangerous. It has made every world we have touched dangerous, and I have no doubts that Exodus will become dangerous, too. But it is what we are built for, and no place is home without a Varren around every corner."

It was at this point that the other aliens came into the room and Zuka was introduced. One was another human, and one was.. what was that other thing? It was massive. It looked like it could actually survive on Tuchanka. For a moment, he imagined placing a human and this.. thing, onto Tuchanka and seeing how they'd fair. He shook that off.

He shouldn't give himself ideas.

...

Rebecca had been listening intently as the Krogan relayed the story of his homeworld's ecological problems, watching the video footage of the vicious fauna with some interest. She found it astounding that a civilised race could have been birthed on such a world, but these Krogan had found a way. It was quite impressive, actually, and she found herself wondering just how any of the member races of the Federation could have survived on that world without access to their technologies.

She was keen to hear more, but her musings - and the Krogan's tale - were broken up when the Amazonian Dominion representatives arrived and she greeted them. An uneasy moment of silence filled the room once they had been introduced, as she half-expected them to say 'hello' or... something to the Krogan delegation at the very least, but she got the impression that formalities weren't foremost on their minds. Clearing her throat, she became the first to break the silence and spoke up.

"So, Captain Thath," she said with an uneasy smile. "I suppose the best place to start would be to clear up exactly what purpose your space station serves, and what the nature of your Dominion's claim on this system is."

...

Hicks stood rubbing his ears for a moment, nodding politely. "Welcome aboard Captain," he yelled, over the sound of his own buzzing ears. "I hope your journey was free of incident. If you'll follow me I'll take you to the wardroom immediately."

Without delay, he immediately turned around and led the party out of the hangar. He was supposed to be on the bridge, after all. Following through the same corridors as the Amazonians had been led, with only a slightly different route due to his unfamiliarity with the lower decks, they arrived at a turbolift and took it up to the deck on which the wardroom resided. Passing by the transporter room once more they finally arrived at the wardroom doors, and the third set of security guards that had followed them from the hangar joined the other four on either side of the door. They passed through the hissing doors, and into the wardroom just as the Captain had asked the Amazonians a question, it seemed.

"Captain Hughes," Hicks said. "Apologies for the interruption. This is the party from the Intrepid that you were informed of. This is Captain Ardennes."

"Greetings Captain, welcome aboard," Rebecca said. "Please take a seat."

Thath began immediately, as the Intrepid delegation began moving for their own seats. Veeryn, to his left, stretched out across the floor towards the table as he moved onto four legs, considerably reducing the heigt requirement of the burly alien. Thath and Selaas take their own seats considerably easier, settling down before the motly party of assembled civilizations. Rather than doing his own talking, however, Thath set the small globe upon the table top, and Kelta's dark green AI form shot up on the table from the globe's holoemitter.

"Hi everybody," Kelta said, perking up a bit more than either of the three organic Amazonian delegates. "I'm Kelta, the station AI. Our station, Quatra, is an outpost mining station in this system. Our actual boundries are a few sectors over from here, taking up 42 sectors of space in the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy. We have probes constantly scouting new areas of space, with up to 950,000 out at one time - we mass-produce materials with biological manufacturing components. Here, we're mining gases and chronoton particles produced by the gas giant for later export to convoys that come through about once a month - entirely droid-operated convoys, of course. Our claim is virtually nil - we don't have a claim to the gas giant, to the system, to anything but what we have to mine. We have no interests in colonization in the system - we have hundreds of systems as it is. We're simply here for economic reasons."

Satisfied, Kelta crossed her arms, waiting for their response.

Finding herself a little surprised that the little sphere contained a person, albeit an artificial one, Rebecca tried to avoid staring impolitely at Kelta as she spoke about their reason for being in this system. It was relieving to hear that they had no vested interest in this region of space, for it made things a lot less complicated and it actually explained a lot as well. After all, were someone to start colonising a world within Federation borders it would elicit some kind of response, if only a few starships showing up to find out what was going on. Until the Vincennes arrived on the scene here, however, these Dominion types didn't seem to have done anything about it, and now she knew why.

"Hello... Kelta," Rebecca said hesitantly, with a smile. "That is good news. To clarify the situation, then, I presume that this means the Dominion has absolutely no objection whatsoever to the Federation of the Warlords of Tuchanka establishing a colony in this system? And presumably, no objection to their inevitable expansion into surrounding sectors?"

Pausing to allow the Captain to respond, she then looked over to Warlord Zuka. "What of the Krogan, Warlord?" she asked. "Will your government have any kind of objections to the Dominion maintaining their mining outpost in the gas giant of this system? And their regular convoys?"

Urdnot System:


Space tore itself open as a wormhole formed. Light seemed to bleed out of the area, absorbed by the strange phenomenon. The sphere of darkness quickly collapsed upon itself and a bright light formed within the middle of the area. The stars in the background warped and wavered in the bizarre gravitational fields. The wormhole formed and stabilized within a matter of a few seconds and an object could be detected in the light. The ship, a full thousand meters in length, emerged from the aperture and proceeded into the system a short distance. After the strange vessel left the wormhole, the darkness collapsed upon itself and disappeared in a wisp of twisted readings as space reset itself as if nothing had happened.

The Navigator (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/beldragos/Explorer.jpg) held position, scanning the activity within the system. Sensors would easily detect the vessel, the singularity within the drive would register the ship as having the gravitational shadow of a small star and the energy readings of the ship were enough to make some sensor officers doubt the accuracy of their instruments.



Aboard The Navigator:





“Captain, we are getting massive readings and ship signatures.”

“Of course we are, there were reports of a colony fleet arriving in this system by a passing probe. That is why we were sent.”

“No Sir, I meant we are getting multiple different signatures.”

“Oh, I see. How many are there?”

“Let’s see, I read five, no six different sources currently. There is an energy signature in the asteroid belt that sensors missed on first pass. Other than that there is a ship about five times our size, the colony fleet, and a collection of ships that seem to be meeting but their configurations are all based upon different cultural design specifications.”

“I guess we are a little too late. It appears the rest of the galaxy has shown up on their doorstep. That was damn fast. Any idea who the visitors are?”

“Negative Captain. None of the configurations are in our databanks. I have no idea and the Shipmind cannot tell.”

“Well, we wait here until someone contacts us.”

“Is that wise?”

“It is better than rushing in demanding we be noticed. I am pretty sure the others would have detected us and will contact the ship when they get around to it. While we wait, continue scanning the system. Use complete scanning protocols so we don’t miss anything.”

“Yes Sir.”

OOC-Sheesh, sorry that it took so long guys. I've been really busy. I thought I'd be able to get a post up a lot sooner.

Zuka looked somewhat surprised at the question posed to him. Would he object? Hah!

"Of course the krogan object! We wont be having any potential enemy stations in our system, and even if it is disarmed, it is still taking up space and resources that we actually need."


Meanwhile, Approaching 'Exodus'
It was like nothing Moros had ever seen. It was a brilliant mix of blues and greens; the atmosphere seemed to glide across the planet's horizon. Poofy clouds drifted across a friendly breeze. It was almost sickening to the krogan that viewed it. The question surged through every man's head, especially Moros's.

Why?

Why was this planet so pleasant? Why were they forced to live and grow on such a planet as Tuchanka? In an overradiated system like Herschel? Why, why, why? It made Moros' brain lock up with anger. He fought the impulse to nuke the planet for being so wonderful. But he remembered that the krogan needed this, and that regardless, this planet would be consumed by a varren infestation and eventually a global city.

Almost as soon as the planet was within view, the krogan colonization fleet-a whirlwind of resource efficiency-went to work. Entire ships slammed into the atmosphere; ships that normally would not be capable of entering a planet's atmosphere. Touching down, with much effort, they began to convert themselves, digging into the ground and placing a foundation. Corridors within the ships began to shift, bridges began to lurch, ships joined and linked themselves. Within several hours, the fleet, bar the warships, would convert themselves into the first krogan city outside of the Herschel system.

Krogan parties spanned out, cutting through forest and digging into mountaints in order to harvest resources from the immediate area. The krogan had yet to realize that they were in no short supply of useful stuff on this planet, but it would sink in soon. But not before the valley around the shipcity was stripped clean and infested with varren.

Such was krogan efficiency in such matters.

OOC: No worries, Tuchanka. RL > NS.

IC:

Selaas made a motion the speak, the counselor attempting to dissuade negative negotiations. However, before she could speak Veeryn beat her to the punch. Rather than try peaceful negotiations, the Skrawl security chief, per his species, preferred direct intimidation.

"Be thankful, interloper, that we don't claim this system right now and wipe your pathetic civilization from its roots!" Veeryn retorted, four eyes of his ocular cluster lancing red and his face baring into a toothy snarl, sharp canines sticking from his mouth. To emphasize his point, Veeryn concluded his sentence with slamming a heavy appendage into the table, denting the metal towards the floor.

While the Skrawl clenched his jaw, Thath attempted to try a little lighter.

"What Commander Veeryn's trying to say is that we have a foothold in the system already, and if we're going by accepted practices, have more of a claim than you do," Thath said, forcefully but not pushing the envelope as the Skrawl was. "We don't need nor want a system out this far for a developed habitation system, but we aren't going to simply give up a profitable station immediately off the bat. There's many systems in this galaxy, and as your species expands out, you'll find more."

"Not to mention," Veeryn added again, leaning forward out on the table with his two highest appendages leaning down beside his eye-studded head, "We have no intention of disarming a space station or participating in any other naive strategies."

The Warlord was less than impressed by the skrawl's act. It was threatening, but the simple fact was that the krogan dealt with extreme predators on a daily basis; Tuchanka's habitats set the krogan psychology for toughness just as it had done for the body.

"If you are not willing to leave this system, then these talks are pointless and I'm afraid I'll have to end them," the krogan soldiers around the warlord tensed up, who knew what these aliens would do if they did not accept the station's presence,"We are not interested in conforming to petty alien practices in the way of politics, nor are we interested in having aliens taking resources from our system and our gas giant. The simple fact is that we need this system much more than you ever will and we will not have upwards of several billion future colonists in this system feel uneasy due to a strange alien presence nearby. We do not want to fight you over this, but if you are true to your petty threats," the warlord shifted his gaze to the skrawl,"we will destroy your station within our a second thought."

The warlord subtly nodded to the soldier next to him, who stood up and walked to the wall. Opening up a comm to the Nodacrux, orders were given to the battleship to prepare for a battle.

The warlord may have been jumping the gun, but he was a krogan. A second thought on Tuchanka meant a dead krogan.

"Incorrect," Thath said, reclining in his seat. He toyed with the needler on his belt - he wouldn't fight the Krogan here on the Federation ship unless they attacked first, but if they did, the needler was a weapon that could punch straight through the interior walls of this vessel they were on - it could certainly punch through the battle armor of the reptilian Krogan, flesh and bone besides the point. "You do want to fight us over it. You claim to need the system - another fallacy. Your overblown exaggerations are comical now, but will one day - maybe this day - get you killed."

"Your view is your own - your space has only been yours for very little time. Our 'politics' if you prefer to call it that, would rather have you dead - and ourselves dead - than let you force your primitive ideals on a far more powerful civilization. You overestimate your pitifully tiny importance filled with a galaxy containing many bigger fish than your own."

"Your choice," Kelta smiled, retracting her avatar back into the sphere, which Thath quickly reattached to the belt.

The Skrawl laughed, yellow beads of spit projecting from his carnivorous mouth: "A great day to die, interlopers! If your civilians feel threatened by an alien construct, they are weak. Your race is weak."

From inside the orb, Kelta transmitted several messages back to the station and the two corvettes hanging around. Both powered to yellow alert; shields up but weapons charging. They could move to red any time and immediately launch fighters and gunships, but would probaly wait for the station's substantial support craft compliment first. Either way, the Dominion's tactic here would be to draw the Krogans towards the planet (where they'd have to go anyway to knock out the station), giving the Amazonians technically the home-field advantage and knowledge of the local area. Reinforcements were impossible for any viable time scheme - Thath knew that - but he was an able commander who had plenty of combat experience against much scarier foes who wielded far stranger powers.

"Take heed, humans," Selaas, the Tondani counselor, said to the Federation humans in the light, airy Tondani voice, "You may wish to avoid a potential firing zone."

OOC: We may want to let IP post a response before local space blows up...his ship's in the way, after all.

OOC-Yes, I agree. I don't really want to have a fight here, mainly because I'm new to FT and don't really know anything about my own ships XD.

This all seemed humorous to the krogan,"You think that my reasons are overblown exaggerations?! The krogan are facing a critical overpopulation crisis in a system of remarkable few resources; we support nearly 60 billion souls within our entire system from a base planet barely suitable to serve 10 billion. We need this system for reasons you stupid bastards will never understand. You want a station for profit, we want this system for our very survival. Our people are not weak to assume that people such as you," Zuka was sure to put emphasis on the skrawl,"would be willing to attack them, and we will not allow for such potential in our system."

Now addressing Thath, Zuka continued,"We care not for your petty presumptions that you are powerful or more important than ourselves; you mean nothing to us and your lives will carry no weight amongst the krogan. We will not allow for any foreign presence within our system whatsoever. We do not want to fight you, but if you maintain that your station, which you claim is unimportant and one of many throughout the galaxy, must stay, we will have a fight here."

The krogan soldiers surrounding Zuka readied their rifles. Turning to the captain of the Vincennes, Zuka spoke for the last time,"This meeting was a mistake, and I'm starting to wonder why I agreed to come onto an alien ship."

Another nod; the krogan soldier sent another message through to the battleship, one which went through the communications relay and off for Tuchanka. This situation was getting bad, and the Overlord would want to hear of this. No warlord would savor the idea of using up resources and ships in a battle with silly aliens, but the krogan were stubborn. They would not back down on this situation.

The Exodus fleet was on standby, already the shipcity on Exodus was preparing for a defensive fight if things went bad in space.

This wasn't how the krogan envisioned their first colonization in space.

The explorer vessel, The Navigator, continued to wait for someone to contact her. The drive deep within the vessel contained a singularity that make sensors register the ship as having the mass of a small star and the power readings on the ship were pretty incredible.





OOC:


Sorry to repeat info from my last post but I didn't have anything I could respond to and I figured someone would have noticed the ship there.

Rebecca sighed as the two leaders postured and puffed their (metaphorical) chests, as they each appeared desperate to appear more intimidating than the other. As weapons were touched by both sides in an uneasy confrontation, the security officers who had been standing outside of the room were discretely called to stand inside the room instead, while Commander Derek moved away from the table briefly and ordered the transporter room to lock on and be ready for an immediate site to site transport.

Rebecca was still hopeful of settling things somewhat amicably. Initially she had thought it would be the Dominion who would cause the problems, but this problem was more complex than she had thought. Why did so many people in the universe have such an aversion to leaving their weapons holstered? Did these two really place so little value on their own lives that they would be willing to kill each other over a space station, without even considering any shade between the black and the white? Whichever way things turned, she wouldn't tolerate insults and threats being hurled around her wardroom, let alone weapons fire.

"Calm down please, all of you," she said, raising her voice for the first time in her immediate memory. "The Vincennes is serving as neutral ground, and neither of you will be shooting at each other while you aboard my ship. I personally guaranteed the safety of all of you whilst you are our guests, and I don't intend to become a liar on this day. The next time somebody touches their weapons, you'll be beamed out of this room immediately."

She settled down again and straightened her uniform jacket, hating the occasion where she had to speak in such a tone.

"Besides, I don't want you ruining the decor - we only just had it restored after suffering some previous damage," she said, in her usual tone once more, trying to lighten the mood. "Now, I've been sitting here listening to your heated exchange, and I simply don't understand the problem. Where you see an excuse for fighting, I see an opportunity for trade and mutual assistance. There are many different alternatives here beyond violence, and we just need to work out a compromise that would suit all concerned parties.

"Perhaps the Krogan could take over the mining operation, and sell the necessary raw materials to the Dominion? The Krogan would be creating jobs for their settlers and bringing in foreign trade, which would greatly assist your expansion. Meanwhile the Dominion would no longer have to man and operate a strategically unimportant and expensive space station so far from their territory. You'd save money by outsourcing, while the Krogan would benefit from the same.

"Or perhaps the Krogan could simply install representatives aboard the station to see for themselves that their are no hostile intentions? Some sort of mutual defence pact could be established as well, making each party's position here much more tenable. The Dominion, I expect, has great martial resources at their disposal, although distant from here, while the Krogan will probably be stationing a large number of ships in this system. Each could aid the other in times of need. It could even be the beginnings of a long-standing friendship.

"Perhaps even some sort of trade could be worked out? The Krogan will need technical and industrial supplies during their colonisation, while I would think that a space station so isolated and far from home has difficulty acquiring supplies such as fresh food or medicine, especially if your convoys ever get delayed for some reason. If you were able to acquire all that you could from the Krogan, it would certainly reduce your overall operating costs, and would benefit their fledgling economy too."

She paused briefly, as several stewards came in carrying bottles of purple-red liquid, each labelled up as 'Château de Jaeih - 243 A.F.' and promptly poured the liquid into tall wine glasses at each place on the table. It wasn't quite wine, however, as it had a slight blue tinge to it and had a slightly higher than usual alcohol content. Perhaps the name of the beverage gave it away - Jaeih being a Romulan name, this drink was the result of the unusual cultural clashes that so frequently occurred 'back home'. A unique blend of vintage red wine and superb quality Romulan Ale, the mixture worked surprisingly well, and though it didn't hit as hard as ordinary Romulan ale it packed more punch than normal wine.

"There are many possibilities here," she said, nodding her head to one of the stewards in thanks as he filled her glass. "Many mutually beneficial possibilities. I have only rambled off the few that came to mind at this moment, but a race that lives not far from our own borders has a common saying - 'everybody has a price'. We just need to find out what each party needs, what each party could provide to the other, and work out an accord to satisfy both. Because I guarantee that whatever expense - if any - may be incurred through a compromise would pale in comparison to the materials and lives lost in a needless conflict. You just need to trust each other, at least enough to leave your guns in their holsters while we discuss all of the alternatives available to us here.

"Warlord, I understand that your people are in need," she said with a note of compassion. "This exploration mission has lasted for several years and I have met several new species who are, like the Krogan, unaware of the existence of aliens. I know that it must be somewhat overwhelming for you to suddenly be thrust into all of this, and that you must find it difficult to trust any of us. But if you are willing to talk this out, and try to find some kind of peaceful solution, I know that it will be the best thing for your people in the long run. And hopefully, when all of this is settled, we can all find some way to help the Krogan get settled into their new world with as little hardship as possible."

"Perhaps our profit is greater than your survival," Veeryn replied before Rebecca broke up the match. "we have raised planets, voided civilizations...what makes you think your speeches fall upon caring ears? Your failiure to adapt could lead to your destruction. What you have constructed in milennia we could erase in minutes."

Still, the Skrawl let Rebecca speak about trying to diffuse the situation. His race had a taste and lust for blood that went back eons - the surface of Cantara, the homeworld of the Skrawl, was devoid of nonsentient life above 1m in length, thanks to the genocidal rampages of the species. It would satisfy such an urge to wipe another species out of the local space of Dominion stations and systems.

Thath spoke up after Rebecca finished - though he certainly did not want to give up rights to the station without a significant kickback. The Dominion had a policy of never looking weak in the eyes of another species - oftentimes involving the refusal to surrender even when doomed to death. Better to take down as many as possible and to sacrifice one's own life than to surrender and face dishonor from the shame of cowering for one's short-termed survival.

"We would be willing to open the station upas sort of an...interstellar forum," Thath said, "Open to the Krogan as well as other species looking for commercial hubs."

Not only was it something that would likely please Rebecca's diplomacy, but Thath was thinking secularly as well. Something of the sort would also help in financing greater operations through increased revenue streams, and no doubt his superiors would like that a lot.