NationStates Jolt Archive

Gallifreyans? Koie did not recognize the name, a surprise since she knew at least a little about all the others present. She inclined her head at the drone's question. "Indeed, it is, you are most hospitable. We are to be moving to this Habitat, then, and meet these 'Gallifreyans'?"

"We might. I don't think they've decided yet, afraid of putting you all together given that there have been such...Difficulties." She clicked her tongue, as if thinking, as though slightly dissapointed. "But I think in the end they'll come around, and have everyone meet up. Eventually. If things settle down a smidge.

Can't have our guests upsetting other guests. That would make us bad hosts, wouldn't it? Especially when we seem to be indulging the unruly and poking the pedants"

"If guests are troubled by other guests it's probably though no fault of the host, especially considering none of us were actually invited here." A small smile. "I would hope that none among us are so rude as to warrant isolation."

"Ah I don't think we've quite got to that point yet. There have been some disagreements, true enough, but that is only natural...What grates is the inability of some to accept debate, rather than to entertain argument." She shrugged, sighing softly.

"Otherwise this has been illuminating, most productive. We would look forward to future interactions with both yourselves and the Alversians, certainly."

"As, I think, would my people in turn, though I cannot think to speak for the Alversians. So, this 'Gallifreyan', is he, mm," she cocked her head, "human? Or alien?"

"Human, for all intents and purposes. As far as we've been able to determine anyways. Not that we mind aliens." She smiled, politely, tolerantly. "We quite enjoy meeting other species types, though you're not drastically different of course, nothing like meeting an Aeroform." She tittered lightly. "An experience, certainly.

I expect we'll meet many such interesting races as we journey the stars"

Koie blinked. "What is an Aeroform?"
OOC: Have we been abandoned by the other RPers?

OOC: Nope, I'm just not in conversation with anyone :D

"A species we're in the process of uplifting. A quaint little culture in our outermost gas giant. We let them help us to run our gas-collecting operations, we teach them about technology, introduce them to our civilisation. Quite productive really. We see an interesting partnership somewhere along the line." She smiled lightly. "To only associate with air-breathers would be a crime in such a varied galaxy."

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Jen-sa smiled at the Alversian now, having delivered his eloquent and intense surmisings to the Greywatcher. "It's wonderful to meet species who cannot be swayed and who possess their own reason. It's as though an immovable object is assailed by an unstoppable force. Reason, logic, beautifully crafted progression.

I'm simply thrilled by all of you."

"I'm pleased to be an amusement to you," Louisa stated without malice or offence, a smile on her lips,
"It's refreshing to meet such an open minded race, if not about all things" Lousia gave a wink, glancing to the Greywatchers before resuming her conversation,
"Although in the case of an ummovable object and an unstoppable force, surely both would compromise instead to let the other pass?" She smiled.

"I must confess I haven't ever met a biological being who does not need oxygen in some form to survive," stated Koie, "but obviously they exist. How do they function? Can you show me a picture of one, perhaps?"

"I'm certain that we could provide you with a picture, yes. There are reputedly many forms of life in the galaxy, aside from oxygen breathing humanoid sorts, I imagine. Gas-giant inhabiters, water-worlders, all sorts of strange and varient life. We cannot imagine the galaxy to be mundane and samey, now, can we?" A titter built in her throat, gently lilting from her lips like the music of a small bell.

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He smiled tolerantly as the Alversian traded her wit with the Greywatcher, even at his own expense. He knew that their ways must seem odd to these aliens, even to the more tolerant sorts such as the Alversians.

"When it comes to such ponderous collisions it is often a matter of base and elemental forces. The tide of determination, the eroding fire of conviction. Such things are the fundamentals of the universe, will and underlying strengths. The entire universe, founded upon the intricate flow of power and influence, from the smallest particle to the most vast planetary body.

Such things often contrast and compare, we find methods in their madnesses that can only be described as macrocosms, in which our own emotional microcosms find older siblings, larger iterations." He smiled then, a simple creasing of the lips, his eyes sparkling.

"It is our fate to live in a tumultuous and glorious cosmos, and to dwell in interesting times."

"True, true," Koie nodded. "There are aquatic species, though we've found them few and far in between. The vast majority of aliens seem to be bipedal, carbon-consuming-air-breathing-humanoid races, so I guess," she shrugged, "evolution found a good model."

"I suppose you could characterise it as that. The diasporic rise of human, humanoid and humanish species does hold a certain fascination to those who have observed their rise. You say there are many more of them? Fascinating." Her eyes seemed to flicker with amusement and interest.

"You must tell me more of what you and yours have seen amongst the stars. What wonders? What triumphs? What..." She chewed her lip, expectantly. "...Horrors?"

"We've seen so much," Koie answered, "and yet, so little. There are those who crusade, who rape and pillage and burn in the name of god or glory or lord or gold, and there are beings which consume the minds and souls of other beings to take control of the body for their own uses. Even, there are those who kill because of race, because another being had the audacity to not be born like them, or have particular ways that may warrant their death. And then, there is only power, for most it is power over others, dictators and tyrants everywhere who revel in terrifying their subjects with mobs of faceless soldiers. These are the horrors of the galaxy, and we have not seen even a tenth of them.

There is so much sorrow and pain and death, but there is also, to a lesser extent it often seems, joy and comfort and life. The unification of a dozen different races and peoples under one banner, for peace, freedom and prosperity. The tears of a slave as his shackles are undone and he is set free, the roar of an entire species as they take their people and homes back for themselves. The changing of the guard, an old ruler stepping down so a new one can take her place with all the wisdom and knowledge and mentor can impart. The touch of frail hands of a being that has lived a million years and the small, shining eyes of a newborn child, all of these are the great and wonderful things and experiences we have witnessed."

OOC: Are the Time Lords still interested?

"Quite interesting. You seem like a well-travelled and experienced race, though there is a youth about you, a vigor that older powers would surely lack. The universe is diverse, as dark as it is light, and certainly there must be much that can inspire cynicism as much as it can breed pernicious optimism." She chuckled gently, appreciating the debate and discourse that beings such as the Xiscapians inspired.

"It is sad that there is war and madness amongst the stars, that brother turns against brother and spurns that which is different, that there powers beyond existence and outside of rationality that breathe down the necks of so many.

But in all these things there also lies hope, hope and wonder at the variety of the universe. There is an insect form here which paralyzes its prey and then injects them with its larvae, leaving them to be cannibalised, torn apart from within. Devoured. Such a thing is monstrous to the sentient, sapient, mind but it is merely a facet of nature. There is a beauty even in despair and monstrosity. There is a hope even in the depths of the dark"

Renafel’s hearts beat steadily, almost calm, as she walked through the dimly illuminated areas of the Library of The Forgotten, lightly brushing a finger against the cylindrical ends of stasis tubes containing physical documents made countless thousands of years before her time. These were from not so long after the end of the Dark Times. Each one was imprinted with a circular symbol displaying the title information of the contents, and she stopped at one that translated to ‘inter-parsic engineering.’ That was surely a forgotten technology, lain aside perhaps for some reason, briefly, she wondered what secrets it might contain, before thinking for a moment, and moving upwards to the left in the hexagonal, honeycomb structure.

She took a cylinder out and carried it over to a reader device, briefly wondering what had been the necessity for this archive form. Perhaps just whim, all the information in here could be more easily stored and transmitted elsewhere, but the planet of Gallifrey was filled with eccentricities devised of aeons of tedium. The filmy substance she removed was black, unfolding into a flexible sheet, which she laid across the reader. Billions of layers of text were bound across it, illuminating as differently metered light was shone through. It was the Seventh Treatise of Ayasenara, a survey of a given region of space from a time so long ago that even the stars were different.

The navigation system of this document was hard to comprehend, and she sat, staring at it, as if willing it to give up its secrets.


Marcius, meanwhile, answered those questions put to him as well as he could, trying to avoid the truthful insinuation of how little he presently knew about his parent culture. What he did have to say was of a single world, under light umber and burnt orange skies, with those same golden autumnal colors reflected in every aspect of its wildlife. Those were safe memories, for nothing harmful about the society could be learnt of its wild-culture (the closest translation of a term used by a people who reserved the majority of the surface and sea of their world for creatures other than themselves).

OOC: Definitely still interested. Just couldn’t think of how to get back into this…

"A most wonderful world, my friend. A most wonderful concept. We are are a kind who have forsaken worlds, and who dwell amidst the void...Wonderfully interesting, terribly fascinating to stride amongst the stars and to observe the other races of the universe, is it not?" He chuckled lightly, delicately wringing his hands as he bowed before this mysterious and, undoubtedly, superior race. More than any other who had recently beseeched them, they seemed to be superior, beyond anything they had yet known of.

"It sounds utterly unique, utterly sumptuous, of burning mountains and forests, and colors and concepts undreamed of. We bow to the wonder of the world you yet inhabit, and offer to you the concept and understanding of our world preserved, our Myenya inviolate"

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say unimagined, mind you. There’s many more spectacular places out there, about the most interesting thing we have is that the planet’s biosphere is probably the only one in the universe where no species beyond the uni-cellular level of organization is known to have become extinct.” He paused, wondering for a moment how that was even possible, everything he knew now claimed that such a thing was as good as impossible, “Even before the evolution of our species. There’s hundreds and hundreds of billions of different species of animals and plants. There’s an entire artificial continent, called the Continent of Limitless Memory, terrain-sculpted, which funnels winds from the sea through countless large valleys, isolated lakes and highlands that preserve ten thousand successive eras and ages of land and sea animals. The temperature and sunlight regulated by vary-reflecting unicells that reflect the sunlight down into them, and in some cases, towers of genetically engineered flora that alter the atmosphere to those of earlier ages. The outer areas are either empty, or contain the most recent forms, with older, primeval and more dangerous creatures closer to the center. At its heart is a desolate crater, known as the Death Zone, preserving ancient mosses under blue skies, where stands the Tomb of Rassilon, the mythical founder of our current society.”

Marcius knew this was at least partly true, and that he had seen much of it, but he couldn’t say how it worked, or when this had been created, how it handled migratory or deep sea species, and countless other details seemed just out of reach; he knew there was something deep beneath the Continent of Limitless Memory, but what precisely that was eluded him…