Remember guys this is a political drama thing and not some huge retarded war. Also, in case that does happen (which would indicate a failure on my part somewhere) somebody slap me if I get unchained and start wanking. Everyone remembers Galadriel versus Unicron.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
ADLG So'Yalra Desinet
Outskirts of the Tredlan System
Sanet Space
Ghayad'tesh, or Ship Commander, Alemdea strode swiftly down a narrow corridor, slipping past numerous crewmembers who scrambled to make way for him. The commanding officer of the So'Yalra Desinet, whose name translated to "Of Blessed Spirits", a tribute to the Sanet citizens lost in the last war, had been summoned to the control center by his watch officer, who had indicated that the ship was picking up alien signals of some kind.
Finally Alemdea stepped into the control center, where Maned'se Evjadmal waited. She looked up from a screen to meet the commander's gaze, nodding her head respectfully.
"What do you know of the signal?" asked Alemdea.
"Not much, honored Ghayad'tesh," answered Evjadmal. "We received the signal not seven neladet ago, and our communications crew has been working to decypher it."
"Very well, but we are a warship, not a scientific vessel," answered the commander. "See what you can make of it, Evjadmal, I shall call the Scientific Ministry."
"As you order," the officer nodded.
"Maned'se," called a crewmember. "We've decoded part of the signal."
"Indeed," nodded Alemdea.
"Commander, I apologize," the young crewman said. "We have determined the signal to be made up of a binary code, using the numerals Kash and Vi. Even with our equipment, the computer was able to decrypt some of the sequence, though it is nothing we use."
"Yes, our computers use a four-digit language," Alemdea noted.
Evjadmal worked a console, her long hands flying over the controls before she looked up again. "Speeding up the sequence, we appear to have a most... odd message."
The crewman walked over, and also worked on the problem, finally coming up with something. Onscreen appeared a being with pale whitish skin and small eyes, as well as hair growing on the top of his head. To the gray-skinned Sanet, he was an odd sight indeed.
"A new species," noted Evjadmal. "Most odd looking, but positively mammalian."
"Does it say anything?" asked the commander.
The image animated, showing the man saying something. However, to Sanet ears it was completely unintelligible.
Then, another crewman stepped up. "Ghayad'tesh, we are receiving other transmissions. Apparently we have encountered very old radio transmissions from another civilization; broadcast pollution not unlike that we and the Kiir have put out for generations."
"Inform Halne and the Scientific Ministry immediately," Alemdea commanded. "We may be looking at a first contact."
OOC: ADLG - Aldar'al Deshim Lan Ghayad, Alliance Royal Star (large) Vessel
Last edited by Ra on Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
"Oh wow, check this out," George Walton, a bearded intern, no more than age 20, said from his chair in front of what looked like a LCD terminal with lines running across it.
"What now?" asked Doctor John Smith, a man who looked about 35 wearing a casual suit at another terminal, apparently writing a paper.
"The computer's got something on the array." George said. "Come take a look."
Doctor Smith walks over and examines the data on the screen.
"That is definitely a regular pattern. Are you sure it isn't from us?", he asked.
"Yes, the computer would have filtered anything from us." George answered.
"I also compared against a reflection of our signal and it turned up negative," a calm voice added from the wall: the voice of the university's mainframe AI. "I wouldn't have alerted Mr Walton if I wasn't sure myself."
"Well, what do you make of it?" John asked the computer.
"Success." the computer answered, matter-of-factly.
"Any progress on that decode, George?" Doctor Smith asked.
"Nope. The encoding is really weird. It looks like a digital signal, but it has more lots of data. Looks like it uses some bizarre multiplexing scheme, but it is going to take a long time to decode it. How about you? Any word from other observatories?" George said.
"Yeah. The belt campus has the same thing. They aren't making much progress either."
"I have been coordinating with my counterpart in the belt" the calm voice of the AI rang from the wall speaker, "we believe we have a location of the source of the transmissions. It is conclusively alien, from the star JON-1093. Shall I forward this data to the Ministry, Doctor?"
"Yes, certainly." John told the computer, and it silently complied.
"Should we tell the news?" the young intern asked.
"Lord no, George. Responsible scientists need to be sure of their discoveries and have some hard details before going public. I'd hate to release another false alarm!" Doctor Smith told him.
"I am quite certain," the AI confidently chimed in, "as is my counterpart at the belt campus, that this discovery is legitimate."
"Yes, but I want to be sure."
"To cover your ass?" George asked him.
"Put simply, yes. We don't want to jump the gun with the public. It hurts your credibility with your peers, remember that. Let's get back to work."
An hour later
"It's time to get out of here," George said, looking at the clock.
"Really?" John said, "I hadn't noticed."
"Yup, I need to get going," George said while getting up to leave, "see you guys tomorrow."
"Good night, Mr Walton. You should get home too, Doctor Smith. There is nothing you can do that my algorithms can't do on their own." the AI reasoned.
"I guess you're right," John Smith conceded. "Good night, Al."
"Good night, Doctor Smith.", Al the AI responded.
John gathers his briefcase and shuts off the lights as he leaves the room. Once outside the building he starts to walk toward his home.
Around him in all directions, the land seemed to perpetually curve slightly upward but it always felt level. Above him, he could see his house upside down beyond the clouds, and next to it a lake.
He walked through the beautiful scenery of the lush fields and trees of the campus. Shortly, he even walked under some students enjoying human-powered flight.
It took him about 35 minutes of walking to get to his home, from where he could look up and see the college and his office, a sight he was entirely used to having worked here for some 40 years now.
His house was a rather simple terraced two story design, and constructed out of primarily aluminum, like most in the area.
He walks in to meet his wife.
"Hi, Jane," he addressed her, not realizing their names seem like it was pulled out of a generic list, "how was your day?"
"Oh, I had to check one of the water pipes in the agro torus number two. Loss of pressure, we thought the bloody thing burst."
"So what was it?"
"Some random roots grew into it. I don't know how that happened, but it took an hour to clean it out."
"Wow."
"But other than that, same old, same old. How 'bout you?"
"George and Al think they found alien life."
"Again?"
"Yeah, but this time, the belt saw it too. They are all sure this one is for real."
"And you're not so sure?"
"I don't know. Al usually isn't wrong when he says he's sure, but I'm not convinced yet. Anyway, wanna get dinner?"
Aldar'al Scientific Ministry Building
Sheram'khal, Halne
Four Hours Later
Verishah, Chairlady of the Aldar'al Scientific Ministry, looked out her curving office window at the expansive sea, its shores not a minute's walk from the building. Her black eyes regarded the waves with a gentle familiarity, a sight she had seen since childhood, and never got tired of, despite being in places thousands of lightyears away before. She had set foot on many alien worlds over her life, but to Verishah the world of Halne had her heart.
Despite that, she had always been the rambling, curious type, which had brought her into the field of science. Halne was merely an anchor for a woman that was otherwise always seeking out the unknown. In a way, despite so much being chronicaled about it, the sea still had a feeling of endlessness and mystery, a massive thing that was at the same time simple and profound.
Her track of thought was diverted by a beep on her desk. Verishah looked down slightly, and pressed a button, bringing up a masculine voice.
"Verishah?" the message began. "We just got a message from a star cruiser, the So'Yalra Desinet. They claim to have picked up numerous radio transmissions, which they claim to be of alien origin. The transmissions and their findings are being sent now."
"It must be quite important if a cruiser interrupted their patrol to send over a cutter to relay this, Laiamtai," Verishah thought aloud. "I'll be right down."
Minutes Later
Verishah had reviewed the findings from the cruiser, and her curiosity was piqued. The scientist's black eyes scanned over lines of data, as Laiamtai stood nearby, watching the actual recorded transmissions. An aide walked over, handing Verishah a datapad.
"Thank you," said Verishah. "How's triangulation coming?"
"Very well, dea'vay," the aide nodded. "Using the data from the Fleet, we've already narrowed signal origin down to three sectors approximately ten thousand lightcycles away."
"I think I can narrow that down," Verishah smiled. She worked over the console, and worked for several minutes, chatting with aides and the computer as she worked. Finally, she looked up.
"Star System AL-2935D," Verishah said in interest. "The location is certain, and the computer confirms my findings. Oddly enough the Temiret was considering funding a mission there in the next budget cycle..."
"Very good, Chairlady Verishah," said an older male voice. Verishah spun around to see a male Sanet dressed in an ornate, brightly colored and decorated Aldar'al Fleet uniform. She had seen him on news broadcasts before; he was High Commander Enmatal, the final authority of the Aldar'al Fleet. He nodded at her, and added, "Ghervay Volisar demands your council."
Verishah moved back slightly, and swallowed her shock, finally answering, "The Empress?"
"Yes," came the officer's rather blunt answer. "This is a possible first contact situation, and it has earned her attention. It could be nothing; we're looking at data thousands of years old. This civilization could have already bombed itself into extinction... or it could be an interstellar empire of considerable strength. The Ghervay - and myself - want to make sure we do not have another Kiir incident on our hands."
"Very well, Commander," Verishah said nervously. "Lead on."
Last edited by Ra on Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
Bernia, the capital of Swivia Prime, Head Office of Swivian Banking Cartel....
The recently appointed Swivian Baron Treasurer Kreshna Aryaguna of House Nurzaman stood in his small office across the river. Smoking with a cigarette holder, he stared thoughtfully at the windows, watching the old city before him (OOC: an old city indeed, with paved streets and antique building like those of 20th century European countries of Earth). His office is a simple, antique building at Tartaglia Street.
Nobody would ever thought that the old, uninspired and ordinary building that housed the central activity of the Swivian Banking Cartel had also been the center of international conspiracy for economic domination for centuries.
Baron Kreshna dressed like an ordinary Swivian noble (OOC: like the Eastern European or German nobles in early 20th century); double-breasted jacket with horizontal braids, Austrian knots, and of course, a monocle. A pelisse hung asymetrically from his shoulder. His hair, however, was shaved bald, with a goatee hanging from his chin.
He contemplated on the report he had just received. Of course, it could have no immediate economic value, but the Cartel always held every information that could be valuable in the future.
The A'millian Star Empire was making contact with some alien civilization.
The A'millian Star Empire, Baron Kreshna contemplated. The nation that had pushed (former) Baron Pierre of House Corbin --Kreshna's predecessor-- to the point of concession. The Baron Treasurer shuddered a bit, considering the consequences that could had happened if the Cartel conceded and changed its policy of secrecy.
It would be an outright violation to our tradition --the tradition we have been believing and maintaining for years, the Baron Treasurer thought.
Kreshna turned his attention back to the report.
The A'millian Star Empire was making contact with some alien civilization.
Well, an alien civilization. A short-sighted investment banker could have overlooked its potential economic value, but the Cartel, of course, knew better.
As always.
He fixed his monocle, took the phone, and issued an order.
Light-years away, a series of powerful parabolic transceivers were sending messages to the direction of the alien race the A'millans were trying to communicate. Encoded with every known language, and some hypothetical interpolation as well, the parabolic transceiver sent the following message:
"Alien Nation, this is the Swivian Banking Cartel. We are looking forward for mutually beneficial cooperation between us."
The Sick, Twisted Fuck | Sap #2 of the Bitter Trio | Knight of the e-mail | Evil Liberal Conspirator | Esoteric Order of Dagon | Weird TGODer
So be it. If saying "NO" means being alone, then to hell with love, with romance, with marriage, and all the shit life keeps pumping at me. I'll walk alone, but with freedom and a healed pride.
Verishah was beyond nervous; she was worried. Despite having such a position in the Aldar'al government, she had never seen the Empress, or Ghervay, of the Sanet in person. In a civilization with numerous star systems under its banner, to see its head of state was going to be extremely unlikely. She had seen the ruler in speeches broadcast on the datanet, and had seen her coronation as a very small child, but that was about it. Now, she wanted to see her.
It was as exciting as it was unnerving. Verishah stared in awe at the pure ivory stones and statues around her as she went down a wide, lonely hall within the palace. Enmatal marched in perfect form beside her, saying nothing. Light poured through the palace's massive windows, gleaming off of a massive statue of the local Sanet culture's most reverred legendary heroine, Irikhar. She stood proudly with one foot upon a helm, holding her half-sheathed sword, Hiam'te, in one hand. The sword itself still existed, amazingly, but it was in the High Museum down the road. Verishah had seen it as a girl, and remembered it fondly.
Walking on under the statue's shadow, Verishahsaw two guards in traditional breastplates flanking large doors, holding weapons that were like a spear with a sword blade mounted on their tips, in place of a head. The guards went to open the doors without a word, allowing Verishah and Enmatal access to the Empress' personal dining room.
To say it was "beautiful" would have been an understatement. The most lavish decorations available filled the room, and the floor was richly decorated with intricate patterns. Yet amongst the old marble and silver decoations were humming monitors, and one of the walls had been made into a monitor, the wallpaper blinking into a starmap as Verishah walked in. Numerous well-dressed Sanet were in the room, standing or sitting as they noticed the two enter.
But in a silvery dress stood the Ghervay, Volisar, who looked kindly at her. For such a powerful woman she looked at peace, with her narrow lips curved into the Sanet equivalent of a smile. Despite being well into her seventies by that point, Volisar was still youthful, thanks to the various life extension projects her government had employed for the last 500 years. Verishah, herself, was in her fourties, and looked barely past adolescence.
Verishah bowed immediately at receiving Volisar's gaze, and said in the most humble tone she could manage, "Yalisar, Honored Ghervay. I am summoned before your presence, and I have faithfully come as you command. Yalo kat sen Ghervay, ev-"
"Please, Chairlady Verishah, you are my guest here today," Volisar said kindly. "Please, sit with us. Myself and the gathered Temiret wish to have your knowledge on this situation."
"Thank you, Ghervay," Verishah nodded, raising her head up once again.
"Your Honor, High Commander Enmatal reports as you Mandate," Enmatal said, standing firmly in respect.
"Very good, Enmatal," Volisar nodded. "Shall we proceed to the matter at hand?"
"As you wish, Honor," one of the gathered Temiret members, Dasharvi, answered. "As you well know, a Nersal-class cruiser detected signals from a distant star system. Chairlady Verishah's team was able to determine the system of origin. Chairlady, would you care to elaborate?"
"Of course, Temir," Verishah nodded. However, she made a mental note of how odd it was for the bureaucratic Temiret to be rushing about things. She had only tracked down the system a mere hour before. "We have made the determination that the system in question is AL-2935D, approximately ten thousand lightcycles away in the Sekaya Sector. Astronomy had determined around TE 1503 that this system has a single planet about Halne's size around it, along with others that are likely of no interest to you. We had been hopeful that AL-2935D would posess life, and this discovery is very exciting."
"Indeed it is," nodded Volisar. "However, I want caution in this matter."
"Agreed," Enmatal added. "If something goes wrong here, it could be another Sanet-Kiir War, which frankly I want to avoid."
"I think we can all agree that such a thing should be avoided at all costs," Volisar answered.
"However, we may be making a big deal out of nothing, Your Honor," Temir Dasharvi stated. "For all we know it could be a bombed out system, not unlike our own Tredlan System."
The Tredlan System, ironically where the signal had been first detected, was on the very edge of Aldar'al territory. It was also the first victim of the Sanet-Kiir War. Bombed out in the first few days, the Kiir kept hitting the planet until radiation levels had made the fifth planet completely uninhabitable. Only then, centuries later, was it even being considered for cleanup and resettlement. So great had been the destruction that the Sanet had renamed the system "Tredlan", or Star of War.
"Possibly," Volisar said. "But let us get to your proposal, Temir."
"Of course," nodded Dasharvi. "I propose that an expedition be sent to AL-2935D, to ascertain if this civilization can be reasoned with."
"A probe was dispatched about thirty minutes ago," Enmatal stated. "We should get some telemetry back tomorrow. Until then, we don't really know what we're dealing with."
"Yes, but preparations should be made nonetheless," Volisar answered.
"Then comes the matter of funding," Dasharvi continued. "The Aldar'al is running a surplus this cycle, and I believe we can readily fund such an expedition."
"Wait," called out another Temir. "This allocation is ludicrous. Subsection 91-E, paragraph two. This entire thing is nothing but your own little money drain!"
Verishah sighed. It was going to be a long day.
"I hate politics," she muttered.
"So do I, young Verishah," Enmatal muttered. "So do I."
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
Enmatal sat quietly as the Temiret bureaucrats worked things out with their budget problem. Ghervay Volisar was occupied whispering to an aide, while Verishah typed away at a datapad. He leaned back in his chair slightly, just as he heard someone walking up from behind.
"Commander," a younger male whispered, "We've detected more transmissions... but these were beamed using something similar to our own FTL techniques. The transmissions are only a few hours old."
"What?" Enmatal muttered. "From the same system?"
"Not precisely, but in the same sector."
"I want the Fleet brought to alert level three," Enmatal commanded.
"Yes, sir."
The Commander then looked up to see Volisar staring him down. She was obviously curious as to what he was muttering about.
"Your Honor, it has come to my attention that we received an interstellar transmission - directly from the sector in question," explained Enmatal.
"Lightspeed is a constant across the universe," Verishah said. "If we picked up their transmissions, it was only a matter of time before they picked up ours."
"Indeed," Volisar nodded. "Though this attempt at communication is odd, at best. You were wise for alerting the Fleet, Enmatal. No more discussion, I am making a Decree; you and Verishah are going to lead an expedition to this system, and ascertain what is going on. For now, I only want one starship to enter their space, but a taskforce should remain within jumping distance in case something goes wrong.
"As you command, Honored Ghervay," Enmatal said, bowing his head.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
Doctor Smith finished teaching his morning classes and eagerly returned to the university's SETI lab.
"Good afternoon, Doctor," Al greeted him as he walked in.
"Afternoon." he said and looked around, "George not here yet?"
"He was in at his usual time, but he said he had to leave only shortly after getting here."
"Was he sick?"
"He looked fine. I don't know his reasoning."
"Well, might as well get to work without him. What did you learn overnight?"
"Take a look." One of the terminals came to life and displayed a graphical representation of the signals received. "I was able to determine the multiplexing scheme, but noticed something interesting about the data once I isolated it." The representation on the screen changed to a single line, like an osscilioscope trace:
"Precisely. It was encoded like a high content digital signal, but rather than two states, there are four. No design we have ever constructed uses such a system."
"Couldn't it be a form of compression or encryption? Or just noise?"
"Certainly not noise - it is too perfect for too long. I have considered it may be a form of obfuscated encryption. Doesn't match any public algorithms, but it may be a military secret or a code from the WFSR. But the signal is hundreds of yahren old - even if it was a military code, we surely would have intercepted it by now."
"So you aren't sure what it is."
"Is is not natural, and it is old, but not in any known databases. It comes from a system with high relative velocity and no known settlements. The signal is too strong to come from a starship passing through the system, and a century old ruse is not logical.
"I conclude with over 90% certainty that it is a signal from an unknown intelligence, and my counterpart at the belt and the Ministry of Science agree."
"Sometimes I wonder why you keep me around," Doctor Smith remarked. Overnight, the artificial intelligence analyzed a tremendous amount of data extensively from many angles and came to the conclusion on its own. It would take a team of human experts much longer to determine this.
"To direct the project and write the reports," Al responded with his usual calmness.
"I guess I'd better get started writing then." John said and sat at a terminal.
Around the star A'millius revolves the planet A'millia II, or simply A'millia. Known to its ancient inhabitants simply as 'the homeworld' in their language, it is now known for its only remaining city: A'millian Prime, First City of the A'millians, capital of a star empire.
Though aside from this one city, the planet is so insignificant to most people that they refer to the city and the planet by the same name in the modern age.
Contrasted to the human homeworld of Koreallia (technically Koreallia III to the A'millians, and with a slew of names to its native inhabitants), which has over a million man made permanent structures and four space elevators orbiting it, the space above A'millia is almost empty.
An old manufacturing and assembly facility still exists in high orbit: the remains of the old kingdom, not used for almost a thousand yahren, serenely circling the world below once every four days since its construction almost 1400 years ago. Also in high orbit are the automatic bubble shield generators: 8 satellites with warp coils that stay spinning simply to disrupt any other warp fields in the area, preventing a ship from jumping in too close to the planet. Farthest from the planet, about one and a half light seconds out, is the FTL transceiver pointed at Koreallia.
Lower, in geosynchronous orbit, are two ancient satellites, still used today: a solar power satellite that once provided electricity to most the kingdom, and now still powers the city of A'millian Prime, and a large communications satellite that in the past connected all A'millians together in a single network, and now serves only to connect the Space Bridge to the capital city.
Then, in low orbit is the truly ancient rotating torus that is Space Station LEO, destination of the Space Bridge, and waystation between the stars and the world below. Ages ago, it was a major scientific facility: it was here that warp drive was invented way back in AW 2087, but now since most scientific research has moved to Koreallia, it serves mostly as a lonely automated waystation, only returning to its previous glory when His or Her Majesty decide to play with a few things. Lower than it is a small network of weather satellites, and a little higher than the station, there are also four orbital telescopes: one large, three smaller, that used to be used for astronomy, but are now used mostly to keep an eye open for ships warping in.
The planet below, like Koreallia, is remarkably Earth like, though it never was very well populated.
On the equator, there is an airport and a single road that leads to a hydroelectric power plant and past that, an elevator that goes up to a gigantic floating station and electromagnetic accelerator, suspended almost twenty miles high by huge ballons, tethered to the ground by large cables. The Space Bridge: the old kingdom's solution to high space launch costs, still in operation today.
About 40 degrees of latitude north, is a large island surrounded by smaller islands and eventually ocean that is the evolutionary and ancestral home to the A'millians. The large island was about 200 miles long and 150 miles tall - its land area was only a little half than that of Great Britain of Earth.
On the west coast large island's southern peninsula rests the capital city of A'millian Prime. To the north is the forest and a river, and about 30 miles beyond that, the SPS rectenna. Shortly to the south was the airport for transit to the Space Bridge. West of the city is the beautiful ocean, and to the east the vast plains leading into the mountains.
The city itself is small - only about 8 miles across. On the shore side is the largest building in the city: the Royal Castle that has stood for almost 4000 yahren.
The castle had what was orginally intended to be a moat around it, but it was turned into a decorative aspect of the castle after only the first hundred years by King Melvane, the first king of the united A'millians. The castle and its grounds, from the moat in, took about 40,000 square metres (~10 acres (note to self: that is about the area enclosed by the roads around the water tower at Thompson Park here in the real world)), and its tallest point was about 45 metres tall (~10 floors) (note to self: slightly shorter than the State office building in Watertown). Like most things the A'millians built, it wasn't terrible large in comparison to human buildings, but it was beautifully elegant and got the job done efficiently.
(ooc comparison note to self: Buckingham Palace in London is 108 metres long across the front, 120 metres deep (including the quadrangle) and 24 metres high.)
The rest of the city had the Royal Academy grounds, which included the old Royal public Library, and the rest was like Watertown, NY: a big chunk of parkland, then houses etc, and lots of trees and snow in winter.
Inside the castle, the sovereigns of the A'millian Star Empire, His Majesty the King Adam and his wonderfully awesome wife, Her Majesty the Queen Leila, slept, and in the morning, would wake up to an interesting report from the A'millian National University's SETI folks...
ooc: that took way too long to write. time to sleep.
Last edited by Destructionator XV on Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:21 pm, edited 3 times in total.
In the A'millian Royal Castle, the leaders of the star empire are going about their daily work of keeping up on the developments in the realm.
Most everything actually happening has been routine, meaning not a lot goes to the Sovereigns themselves. They can quickly look over reports, then spend some time reading letters from the people. Though most are actually responded to by staffers on Koreallia, sometimes, the Sovereign will respond to them personally and even offering a royal blessing of certain groups or offering special funds to a project or individual. While they go though the letters quickly, the contents are often noted as things to discuss later, and perhaps address in law or a visit to the area.
Most days, due to the large number of people under the Crown, they will have thousands of letters, and will read a score or two at random, and any others passed up by the public relations staffers.
Once this is finished, Adam moved on to the intelligence reports and Leila started reading new scientific papers recently published. She is the ruler of an empire by title, but still a research scientist at heart, holding Ph.D's in five distinct specializations of the hard sciences, and likes to stay as up to date as possible.
But, today, they would read about the same thing. On the top of each list was a paper from the Ministry of Science, marked top priority from the War Department, about a possible new intelligence being discovered in the system JON-1093.
The Lady quickly reads the abstract, rises and eyebrow, and says "Fascinating. Take a gander at this, old friend."
"Check this out first," he said to her, "aliens!"
"Same thing, then." she says while scooting over next to him, "apparently a 90% chance ANU picked up an alien signal,"
"Yup. And D.O.W. thinks we need to act quickly to confirm it."
"So they can exterminate it, no doubt." she said wryly.
"Well, I'm in no big rush. We should do a proper analysis of the signals first. Beside," he said while reading more of the report, "JON-1093 has a pretty sizeable relative space velocity. It will take a bit to prepare a proper probe anyway."
"You have to remember, though, if we can see them..."
"...they can probably see us, true. And I guess we can just warp in an automatic telescope recorder, take a quick gander, and warp it back out, but still."
"Yeah, no need to get all fancy to confirm, but I don't think we should rush the probe either. We'd want to gather as much as we can from here to properly plan the mission before leaping in, and possibly pissing off whatever life is there."
"Aye."
"But apparently," she reads more of the intelligence report, "that is just what DOW and MOS want to do. They want to jump in a parabolic receiver to a range of two lightyears and gather more signals."
"That actually seems reasonable. They shouldn't be able to detect it at that distance for the short time it will be there."
"Indeed."
"And they think they can assemble the vehicle within thirty days for the low, low cost of one billion dollars."
"It never ceases to amaze me how fast the war department can make financial estimates."
"Yeah. I think it sounds pretty decent. The budget can easily afford it, and the mission is low risk."
"Yeah, it should probably be done. If this is an intelligence, is may be just a matter of time before they do the same to us."
The A'millian battleship, ASV Indefatigable, was assigned to patrol duty of the K-sphere, the planet and the orbits around it that housed the vast majority of the A'millian Star Empire. [refer to my latest OOC post for a little map]
The Indefatigable, A'millian Space Fleet registry number BB-1408, was a battleship, massing about 30,000 metric tons. Its main body looked like a short, fat cigar: about 15 meters in diameter and about 45 meters long. Sticking out of it on the sides were four retractable heat radiators and on the back was a large pusher plate for its propulsion system: a stream of tiny nuclear explosions behind the ship that could accelerate it to almost one full g.
As a battleship, it had no FTL equipment at all. They are designed to operate in system, usually inside the array of bubble shields that protected the sphere from random FTL jump tactics. But these bubbles also had the effect of making any FTL impossible inside them, so carrying a warp drive would be useless baggage for an in system battleship.
But, her radio was tied in to the FTL detection grid outside the bubbles. If a ship jumped in system, the detection grid would have at least a couple seconds to see it coming before it actually appeared, and would immediately broadcast this on standard radio to the inside of the field. A couple seconds later, the signal would reach the battleship, informing it of the new contact's vector, so they could instantly point their telescopes in that direction and determine what to do about it.
Every ship in the system knew every other ship's position at nearly all times. Infrared tracked all STL ships and the FTL antennas could see all ships jumping in or out. So long as communication was possible, all friendly ships and stations share their tracking information. There were no secrets, only light speed lag.
ASV Indefatigable was on a patrol orbit about the L4 colonies when she received a signal from the detection system. Something jumped in, and her computer read the data and instantly informed the captain it was not a planned arrival and she was the closest warship to the object. The captain, knowing standing orders for a patrolling ship was to investigate such occurances, ordered Indefatigable's telescopes pointed in that direction.
Warp jumps are actually somewhat rare, compared to in system trips. There aren't that many good destinations outside the system, and the places people want to go were all moderately expensive and on a different vector anyway.
The captain wasn't sure what to expect from this direction, and waited intently for the identification data to come in from the telescopes...
A silvery point of light blinked into existence in the eerily dark void of space as a Sanet probe jumped in, dispatched to investigate the alien transmissions' system of origin - known to the Aldar'al Scientific Ministry only as "AL-2935D".
It was just a designation assigned at random by astronomers centuries before, as they mapped the galaxy in hopes that one day Sanet vessels would explore them. Now, in a way, their dreams were coming to pass.
But the tension over such an event was far more than usual; the Sanet had explored hundreds of systems over their millennium of interstellar travel, but most of those were known to be uninhabited. Contact with systems known to be inhabited were always tense.
However, to the small probe, all that tension was nonexistent. Equipped with an AI rather basic by Aldar'al standards, it had about the intelligence of a dog, merely programmed to search for information, do the most basic of investigating, and report its findings back home. A tiny, sleek construct, the probe had four fin-like structures extending back, sheathing a high-powered ion engine that now hurtled the craft toward the system's star. The bow was much more blunt, and featured a small sphere from which various instruments were mounted. A single massive antenna extended ahead, giving the probe the rough appearance of a silver dart.
The probe scanned diligently, noting massive spatial distortion fields centering around a single planet; clearly an attempt to prevent FTL strikes on their planet and its orbital facilities. More long-distance scans and imagery revealed orbital constructs and possibly vessels, clearly indicating what Chairlady Verishah and the public at large had been hoping; that the civilization was still around.
The probe powered up its FTL systems to beam a transmission home.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
The Indefatigable's telescope was able to easily see the alien probe as it burned toward the sun.
The captain was willing to let it go, since it seems to be no threat, but an order from the base came in to disable it then attempt to capture it.
She ordered the battleship's microwave laser to take aim at the craft predicting where to shoot based on its current acceleration, and fire a pulse on it.
In a matter of seconds, the laser pulse would hit, causing an electromagnetic pulse in its unshielded electronics, which should cause only minor damage, but disable any onboard computers, assuming they have no EMP shielding - the A'millians had no way to tell either way at this point how well protected the probe was.
At the same time, the Orbit Guard's light cruiser AGSV Burnside prepared to fire her engines to bring her outside the bubble shield which would allow her to FTL jump to the probe and pick it up. Of course, before jumping, they would wait for confirmation that the microwave pulse was effective....
Last edited by Destructionator XV on Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
The probe sensed something was wrong as it registered a buildup of energy from a vessel, and shortly thereafter a coherent microwave pulse. With its minimal programing the AI was not expected to evade, but it did fear, and began altering course. The probe's beaming of telemetry was suddenly interjected with data regarding the attack, including which ship in the area had fired.
The probe did not evade soon enough, however, as it was stunned and spun out of control, the AI frightened that the next shot would be even more destructive.
The Wars of Wrath, fought not long after the Sanet had achieved primitive interstellar travel, ravaged Halne, with two international factions; the Say'makal and Aldar'al (roughly translated to "Northern Federation" and "Alliance", respectively), fighting a series of brushfire conflicts that quickly escalated into world war.
Orbital weapon platforms and surface-based facilities had pummled battlefields and cities with nuclear weapons, creating an apocalypse from which the Sanet race had barely recovered.
The impact of such a distant event upon that small probe was the fact that the Aldar'al hardened all of its military electronics with devices not unlike a terrestrial Faraday's Cage, rendering their circuitry protected from EMP attack. It was not a perfect defense (albeit far more developed and refined than modern Earth), and the probe was momentarily startled, but it was not shut down.
Gaining its bearings once more, the probe's gyros put it on course for the outer system, and it attempted to fire its ion engine, and escape. However, the pulse had damaged the probe's civilian-grade, unhardened ion grids, and the probe realized it would not be able to go to its full burn.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
Herasim
Sanet Deep-Space Exploration Vessel
High Orbit, Halne
The Herasim was one of several huge explorer starships operated by the Scientific Ministry, massing nearly as much as a command ship. A sleek vessel like most Sanet ships, the Herasim was vaguely cigar-shaped, with a sharp bow antenna and two massive "fins" that extended vertically from the ship's stern. The fins held the ship's ion drives, as well as coolant radiators that gave the fin structures the appearance of scaly wings.
The ship overall was painted a gleaming golden color, distinguishing it from the "white ships" of the Aldar'al Fleet, which are traditionally painted in metallic silver. The Herasim was unarmed, but fully equipped with shields and armor, to protect the craft long enough to jump away, or for help to arrive.
Verishah stood silently over a set of instruments, reading the information coming in from the probe. She was quite interested by the results, and began to feel a small glimmer of hope that peaceful contact could be made.
Enmatal was elsewhere in the ship's sensor room, examining the results himself; for military reasons.
"Look at this," Enmatal intoned to his adjutant, Manad'kal Nemhesi. "These aliens have quite potent shields around their most populous planet, preventing jump activity; not conductive to commercial interstellar travel, but they do seem to have suffered some great war in the past."
"Like us," Nemhesi nodded. She put a finger to her chin, and added, "It is odd that they keep such shields active all the time, however."
"Remember what you learned in your officer training, Manad'kal," Enmatal stated, still scanning the probe's results. "The war with the Kiir cost us much because we did not even consider the possibility of jumps so close to a planetary mass. The Kiir were no fools, and we lost three planets because of it. We have the shields just as these aliens do, but we do not use them unless a known threat is active."
"Respectfully," answered Nemhesi, "I merely believe that we are not a paranoid People."
"Granted," Enmatal nodded. He fell silent for a moment.
Verishah, meanwhile, was thinking mostly to herself. Then, she saw the readings change.
"What is this?" she murmured.
Verishah's eyes widened as she saw readings of energy buildups and a microwave burst.
"Sweet Goddess," Verishah gasped.
"Verishah!" Enmatal roared.
"The probe has been attacked?" Nemhesi snapped.
"Clearly these people are not open to peace," Enmatal stated, walking over to Verishah's side. "What do you make of this?"
"The same," sighed Verishah, "Though I would advise caution. They would, from their level of technology, know the craft was unmanned, and did only shoot to disable. Perhaps they wished to study it first?"
Verishah was not convincing even herself. The fact that the aliens had shot at the probe had her unsettled and even frightened. Even the Kiir had not attacked the Sanet's probes.
"Just maybe, and just maybe I'm Irikhar's fabled son," Enmatal cursed. "They attacked one of our craft, for merely travelling in the outer system, and I fear for the safety of this ship and its crew! Were we less wise and had sent in this ship first, we would be looking at a bloodbath."
"Thank Valiar we were not so unwise," Nemhesi nodded. "I await your commands, sir."
"Open a channel to the Fleet; I want the Fleet Command Staff to rendezvous with me aboard the Itesal, post haste," Enmatal ordered. "We will be formulating a war plan in the event of alien retaliation. Verishah, I pray you speak to the Empress soon. I will do so myself once the meeting is adjourned."
"Very well," Verishah nodded. "Yalisar, my friends."
"Yalisar, young Verishah," Enmatal answered, nodding courteously. He and Nemhesi then spun around abruptly, and stormed out of the room. Verishah collapsed into a chair, and held her head.
"This isn't happening," she whispered.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
The Burnside saw the probe turn and run, like a scared animal, causing her captain to wonder just what this is: it doesn't seem to be acting like an expendable robot, like all known nations used, but it also wasn't big enough to be manned.
Nevertheless, the captain had her orders. In moments, the light cruiser's floor plates vibrated slightly as the FTL drive spun up. It reached a peak, and the view out the window suddenly changed, and then the vibration stopped.
If the probe had FTL receivers, it would have noticed a short series of pulses right before it saw that in the space ahead of the probe, the nothingness before it suddenly and unceremoniously changed to a bundle of cylinders, with what appeared to be dragonfly wings extending from the outer cylinders, glowing a dull red.
A magnetic arm extended from the ship, with a weak field at first to try and slow down the relatively fast moving probe without damaging it. If successful, the magnetic field would be strengthened, both to hold on to the alien hardware, and to disrupt the stream of ions coming from its aft, as to reduce stress on its little engine.
However, even if it does fly by the magnet, this close encounter would give the Burnside a good look at the probe, and confirm its alien origins, which would instantly be radioed back to base...
Last edited by Destructionator XV on Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:11 am, edited 2 times in total.
The probe detected the jump and attempted to evade, but its inertia was too great. How it would evade the oncoming arm, its limited intelligence did not know.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
The magnet gradually was strengthened, and it soon brought the probe to a relative stop with the Burnside, which now held it.
They spun up their warp engines, not for a jump, but instead to generate a small local bubble shield, to prevent the probe from jumping away, and to prevent another ship from jumping on top of them, and fired their main engines to return to the nearest base.
It would take a couple hours for the Burnside to make it back to base on STL, during which time, their sensor data of the probe would be radioed ahead of them.
"Captured?" a crewman whispered. "The technological contamination would be immense."
"Not really," Verishah sighed. "It would take years for them to reverse-engineer much of the equipment, and outside of highly advanced sensors, there is nothing militarily remarkable about the probe. Still, this is a setback. I frankly don't want to risk entering their system. No followup craft, nothing manned... wait..."
"You have something in mind?" the crewman asked.
"I do. Prepare to beam a transmission to the offending ship; nothing complex, merely a transmission asking their intent... Send: 'Alien vessel, what is your intent'."
"Entered," the crewman answered. "FTL array is powering up... transmission sent."
"Not that I expect a response," Verishah nodded. "However, I do expect them to know we're watching."
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
However, probably unknown to the mysterious aliens, the transmission was never received by the ship. One of the side effects of activating a bubble shield was that it also stopped FTL transmissions from getting in and out, unless relayed off an external antenna.
But while the ship didn't receive it, another FTL antenna did pick it up, and forwarded it to its home base. But to them, it seemed like nothing more than noise: the encoding was different due to their computer's differences, and even if it was figured out, their language would simply be gibberish. Nevertheless, the signal was forwarded to a processing computer.
Doctor Smith sat at home chatting with his wife, while a 24 hour news network was on the television. They weren't really watching it; the TV was just turned on to that channel...
"The word from A'millia: another tax hike!" the pundit on the show exclaimed, "we already pay some of the highest taxes in the known universe, so what could the government even do with more money?! Waste it, like what government always does with money."
"We also enjoy the highest average standard of living in the known universe," the man on the other side of the desk countered.
"I'd like to spend my hard earned money how I decide, not how some bureaucrat decides. This is ridiculous."
"Our society was built on our collective strengths."
"Did I say we should all abandon eachother? No, what I would like is to keep some of my money for myself. If this hike goes through, we'd be paying 61%. Sixty-one percent of our money that we can't spend."
"Money that w-- just a moment," the commentator put his hand to his ear, "this just in! A mysterious probe was just captured minutes ago by the Orbit Guard, and there is speculation that it might be alien in origin. The AOG declined to comment, but we expect a press release in minutes."
The text at the bottom of the screen was changed to "BREAKING NEWS: Possible alien probe captured"
And the other pundit simply says: "Or is it another whacko secret experiment discovered? Is this where our tax money is really being spent? Stay with us, we'll be right back."
And the show broke for commercials, hoping to get in their advertising before they would cut live to coverage of the discovery and press conference.
Meanwhile, the probe was dragged to an A'millian military station. The station was a bicycle wheel design: a six spoked double torus, rotating at about 1 rpm for artificial gravity, almost two kilometers in diameter. Under the wheel was a mirror, reflecting sunlight into the habitat area, and in the center, were receiving mirrors and a large open hub, where spacecraft were maintained.
Not to scale and severely lacking all detail
The Burnside came close to the station, but did not actually dock with it; it held on to the alien probe at some distance, just in case.
High resolution scanners were trained on the probe, and started to give in more detailed information about it to the military scientists within the base.
OOC: this has been stuck here for a day, so 1, 2, skip a few....
A couple hours later
A great deal of data was passively gathered by observing the probe, confirming it was unlike any tech used by known entities, and was in no way a weapon: it appeared to be a scientific servey system. It was also learned that it ran on simple ionized fuel.
Some minor damage caused by the laser was repaired, then the probe was refueled, and taken back where we picked it up, and released.
"Spatial distortion at one-five-zero mark nine," a crewman droned.
Verishah shot her gaze up from a monitor, and walked over to the vast sensor room aboard the science vessel.
"It's the probe," Manad'kal Nemhesi said in blank surprise. "In surprisingly well condition. It appears that despite how things appeared earlier, the aliens were merely curious."
"Perhaps too much so, but curious nonetheless," Enmatal sighed. "While our action plans shall remain in place, the return of our probe - intact, no less - is enough reason for me to end the alert status across the Fleet."
"I am happy that these aliens appear reasonable," Verishah nodded. "Perhaps now, further contact could be made with the species. Have the probe retrieved, and I shall contact Her Honor immediately."
A crewman nodded, and went off to the docking controls. Enmatal stood by quietly, but he was clearly concerned about the whole matter. Yet now, it was going to be entirely in the Ghervay's hands, for she had taken such special interest in the situation.
Jonathan McKenzie
Half-Insane Snakehead | MSPaint Acolyte | Wierd TGOD'er
"Every time you stay abstinent...Kitten kills a god."
The knowledge that we were probed accelerated the effort to get our own probe out there. Rather than constructing a specialized vehicle for the mission, a generic robot receiver was used instead.
It was launched shortly after the alien probe was released, toward the world from where the radio transmissions were received earlier. Also, since it was a generic design, it could not sit two light years out like the special plan would have done - it would instead sit about 40 AU out from the star (about Pluto distance) and listen there.
Also, the vector from the FTL transmission the alien ship sent was calculated at two station, giving an approximate location. A manned and armed ship sent to jump in that direction and see if they can find it.
Sending a manned ship was a quick, but hard decision, but since the transmission clearly came from someone, the Sovereigns decided answering it in some way may be a good choice.
:thumbsup
