Twilight of the Galaxy (IC, Open)

[The Fallen Jedi]

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
- Lao Tzu

Space, it is the final frontier that all races strive to reach and hold within their grasp, to expand their influence and grip on the galaxy's vast expanse to gain the answer to questions long since asked by each primitive race "Are we truly alone in the Universe?". As each species establishes their hold over a small piece of the massive pie that is the Galaxy, their answer eventually reveals itself through a number of scenarios that were long since thought hypothetical that they are not alone in the Universe. The Galaxy is teeming with life that you can unite under your rule diplomatically, or in a militaristic fashion akin to a hostile business takeover. However, as you leave your mark in the Galaxy, there is a very likely chance that you shall stumble upon nations of either equal or overwhelming power. How you respond to these foreign powers is up to you, but know that as the sun begins to set upon the Galaxy, the stars shall shine upon the Galaxy, it's majestic twilight shall replace the rays of the once mighty sun.

Welcome wayward traveler to the Twilight of the Galaxy, a Space Age and Future Tech RP that is a pure sandbox-type Rp where the individual player can forge their own story and make their own desires a reality in the vast expanse that is Intergalactic Space. In this adventure into obtaining an understanding of the stars that surround us, you have the ability to start off as one of the many Intergalactic Factions that have either made their mark in and around the regions that surround them, or even being a relatively fresh, young Empire that has formally established itself in the vast expanse that houses countless other species with a hidden potential, you could even play as an Early Space Age Nation that has only recently pierced the veil of their atmosphere in order to answer the long-wondered question that permeates our hearts and minds "Are we alone in the Universe?" If that isn't enough, then perhaps you would prefer to be a shadowy organization that has become either a influential or new face in the Galactic Black Market, or even play as a Smuggler or Bounty Hunter who simply desires to make a living by illicit means. Regardless of what path you choose for yourself in this Era of Prosperity, anything is possible as long as you, the player make it a reality.

[The Greater Gambia]

Unknown System
Kandalla-Class Light Corvette: Federation Intelligence Society Ship (FISS) "Sparrow"


Pashto was awoken by the Federation Corvette came out of FTL at the edge of the system, away from prying eyes and hidden from sensors. When one was conscious, an individual would barely feel it, but for Vaurians it was just enough to wake them up. It was at the right time; however, as the Commander ordered his Commando Unit to meet in the Hangar of the ship.

The Hangar was rather small due to the size of the ship, only able to hold a Drop ship. The rest of Pashto's squad was already there, clad in their Vaurian Commando Armor and Vaurian standard issue plasma rifle. Vaurians were once the major military force of the Khyrsian Confederacy, an old nation that sat on the outer edges of the galaxy. They protected the Confederacy for over three thousand years, until the upstart Tagali Federation conquered them in a preemptive strike. Now, they were just another species under the Federation. Another tool at their disposal, but a damn good one at that.

Soon, the Commander appeared in the Hangar, causing the Commandos to stand at attention. The Commander returned the salute.

"At ease, men." The Commander said.The Commander was a Tagali, the founders of the Federation. His sky blue skin suggested he was from Jakala or one of the Tagali colonies. His second in command followed close behind him, a female human of African descent.

"As you know, we've detected signals coming from this system, suggesting that a civilized nation is on our borders." The commander activated a Holo-projector, displaying a planet covered in grasslands.

"Your mission is to gather intelligence on these creatures. From your intel, the Federation will decide how to carry out contact with these people, either peacefully integrate them into the Federation or to forcefully annex them. Lives hinge on your actions, soldiers. Dismissed." With that, the Commandos boarded the dropship. Pashto, placing his helmet on his head, sat at the last seat in front of the hatch. Once everyone was in, the doors of the dropship closed, sealing up for space travel. The ship rumbled as it left the hangar.

[Jelaras]

Free Empire of the Low Isles

FCS Gali Ma, Bilar Star System

<What do you mean, the system is inhabited?> asked Captain Vapra Bin, gazing over at the Sensory Officer that had informed her of the presence of a sizable population of alien life on the surface. This wasn't a surprise--the system had been chosen for its lush vegetation that would support a great deal of herbivorous life, plenty of food for the early colonists that were on board. What was surprising were the artificial structures, the weapon emplacements, and the infrastructure that had seemingly popped up out of nowhere since the probe had cataloged the system a few cycles ago, the images flashing through the Ensign's mind and into the Captain's in an instant.

<I mean exactly that, Captain. Perhaps the probe's sensors were not sensitive enough to detect it, but that is definitely a colony down there already. An alien colony,> the junior officer, Ensign Cala Drox said as she looked up from her visual display. Her body language betrayed nothing, but the excitement rolling off of her was a palpable force to every Niktal on the ship, and the word was spreading fast. Aliens. Real aliens. Sentients. First Contact. The telepathic chatter was nearly enough to drown out the Captain's thoughts, but a quick, sharp command to be still was all it took for most of them to calm down and restore order to their thoughts.

Vapra breathed out sharply through her nostrils, the holes in her face flaring momentarily as she quietly contemplated what to do. They had dropped out of warp just in front of the planet's largest moon, lighting themselves up like a big, juicy target for anyone that happened to be looking up at that time. The colony ship was nearly 20 km long, filled with thousands of colonists. And it was also virtually unarmed, with just a few meager plasma cannons to blow away debris should the shields fail for any reason. They were defenseless, and the colony below was armed. She had only one recourse.

<Set the telepathic enhancer to broadband. Let's hope they can understand us,> she ordered the communications officer, waiting until the other Niktal sent a wave of affirmation before she stood up just a little straighter, looking straight at the display of the densely vegetated jungle planet below.

<Attention, inhabitants of Bilar III, this is Captain Vapra Bin, of the Federation of Jelaris Colony Ship Gali Ma. We mean you no harm. We intend to seek peaceful relations with any and all sentient life in the galaxy. Please, respond in any way you can.>

[Jelaras]

Unknown System
Kandalla-Class Light Corvette: Federation Intelligence Society Ship (FISS) "Sparrow"


Pashto was awoken by the Federation Corvette came out of FTL at the edge of the system, away from prying eyes and hidden from sensors. When one was conscious, an individual would barely feel it, but for Vaurians it was just enough to wake them up. It was at the right time; however, as the Commander ordered his Commando Unit to meet in the Hangar of the ship.

The Hangar was rather small due to the size of the ship, only able to hold a Drop ship. The rest of Pashto's squad was already there, clad in their Vaurian Commando Armor and Vaurian standard issue plasma rifle. Vaurians were once the major military force of the Khyrsian Confederacy, an old nation that sat on the outer edges of the galaxy. They protected the Confederacy for over three thousand years, until the upstart Tagali Federation conquered them in a preemptive strike. Now, they were just another species under the Federation. Another tool at their disposal, but a damn good one at that.

Soon, the Commander appeared in the Hangar, causing the Commandos to stand at attention. The Commander returned the salute.

"At ease, men." The Commander said.The Commander was a Tagali, the founders of the Federation. His sky blue skin suggested he was from Jakala or one of the Tagali colonies. His second in command followed close behind him, a female human of African descent.

"As you know, we've detected signals coming from this system, suggesting that a civilized nation is on our borders." The commander activated a Holo-projector, displaying a planet covered in grasslands.

"Your mission is to gather intelligence on these creatures. From your intel, the Federation will decide how to carry out contact with these people, either peacefully integrate them into the Federation or to forcefully annex them. Lives hinge on your actions, soldiers. Dismissed." With that, the Commandos boarded the dropship. Pashto, placing his helmet on his head, sat at the last seat in front of the hatch. Once everyone was in, the doors of the dropship closed, sealing up for space travel. The ship rumbled as it left the hangar.

Kila Nikmo waited patiently in the tall grass, her tertiary pupils contracting as her brain processed the infrared input in the deep Fraxian night, far away from any of the settlements that littered the surfrace of the planet. Her body was totally still, not even the barb on the end of her tail twitching as she crouched low enough to be completely hidden. A Grish was 30 meters ahead of her, lapping at the water that flowed down the quiet stream that cut through these grasslands, completely unaware of the death that lurked hidden behind her. The animal was large, nearly twice her size, and armed with ferocious tusks that could gore her quite thoroughly if she wasn't careful.

But then, she was RITS. She was bred to be careful. She was downwind, and had made no noise on her approach. The grass had barely even rustled at her approach. She didn't have to worry about sight--the Grish were nearly blind. She crouched lower and dug her claws into the earth, preparing for the rush that would put a sudden end to the large herbivore's life.

But then, sometimes things go awry on a hunt, as she had been taught well. A sudden rumble shook the air, causing the large animal to look up suddenly before charging off into the grass, just as Kila looked up to see what was causing the disturbance. Her pupils all refocused as she took in every input at once, seeing what was very obviously a shuttlepod passing overhead. A shuttlepod of a design that she had never seen before, slowing down as it approached a nearby clearing about half a klick from where she was standing. She knew the terrain around here well, it was the only unobstructed place where they could land. The Major in her took over, causing her to crouch low and start moving towards the landing sight at a decent 32 km/ph, her passing no more than a light wind rustling the three-meter high red grasses that grew in great swaths over this continent.

It wasn't long before she reached the landing sight, crouching low once more and becoming completely still as she waited, watched, and listened, waiting to see what would come out of what was obviously an alien craft.

[Free Empire of the Low Isles]

Free Empire of the Low Isles

FCS Gali Ma, Bilar Star System

<What do you mean, the system is inhabited?> asked Captain Vapra Bin, gazing over at the Sensory Officer that had informed her of the presence of a sizable population of alien life on the surface. This wasn't a surprise--the system had been chosen for its lush vegetation that would support a great deal of herbivorous life, plenty of food for the early colonists that were on board. What was surprising were the artificial structures, the weapon emplacements, and the infrastructure that had seemingly popped up out of nowhere since the probe had cataloged the system a few cycles ago, the images flashing through the Ensign's mind and into the Captain's in an instant.

<I mean exactly that, Captain. Perhaps the probe's sensors were not sensitive enough to detect it, but that is definitely a colony down there already. An alien colony,> the junior officer, Ensign Cala Drox said as she looked up from her visual display. Her body language betrayed nothing, but the excitement rolling off of her was a palpable force to every Niktal on the ship, and the word was spreading fast. Aliens. Real aliens. Sentients. First Contact. The telepathic chatter was nearly enough to drown out the Captain's thoughts, but a quick, sharp command to be still was all it took for most of them to calm down and restore order to their thoughts.

Vapra breathed out sharply through her nostrils, the holes in her face flaring momentarily as she quietly contemplated what to do. They had dropped out of warp just in front of the planet's largest moon, lighting themselves up like a big, juicy target for anyone that happened to be looking up at that time. The colony ship was nearly 20 km long, filled with thousands of colonists. And it was also virtually unarmed, with just a few meager plasma cannons to blow away debris should the shields fail for any reason. They were defenseless, and the colony below was armed. She had only one recourse.

<Set the telepathic enhancer to broadband. Let's hope they can understand us,> she ordered the communications officer, waiting until the other Niktal sent a wave of affirmation before she stood up just a little straighter, looking straight at the display of the densely vegetated jungle planet below.

<Attention, inhabitants of Bilar III, this is Captain Vapra Bin, of the Federation of Jelaris Colony Ship Gali Ma. We mean you no harm. We intend to seek peaceful relations with any and all sentient life in the galaxy. Please, respond in any way you can.>

Garrison Command in Orbit, Nuz Viscasi Colony, Jewar (Bilar) System

"What do you mean, it's a colony ship?" Commander Kutawt asked, his red eyes firmly glued to the gigantic display in front of him just like every other pair in the room. The gigantic, foreign looking structure hovered menacingly in front of the moon like a shadowy predator that wanted to toy with its food before slaughtering it. "Look at it! That thing must have enough armament to level the moon, let alone our colony. I want the defenses primed and ready to shoot that thing out of the sky this instant!"

While the Commander was a surface Csilean, and suffered from a more violent predisposition, the sergeant who was manning the scanners was subterranean in origin. He cleared his throat slightly, and looked back at the information on his personal display. "Sir, initial scans show only light weaponry on the vessel, and a shield system we have never seen before... And, and from my own telepathic search, which is not very reliable due the distance, there are more than a thousand beings on that ship, and they're all more, well, more scared of us than we are of them, right now." he explained, tapping lightly on his console and throwing up the initial scans to the main display.

Kutawt frowned and looked at the sergeant, calming down from his initial reaction. "Are you absolutely sure? What makes you think it's a colony ship?" he asked, glancing back at the twenty kilometer long purple needle hovering before the orange moon.

The sergeant nodded and then sighed. "I, uh, stayed a little bit longer in one of their minds. I don't think it noticed me, but it mentioned something about a colony." he said, looking down. Talk of unwanted telepathic interactions was very embarrassing, as it implied that the person relating the experience was somewhat of a mental voyeur.

"You.. understood it?" the Commander asked, feeling more like a child needing to be placated into feeling safe than a Garrison commander.

"Yes, sir. It's strange, but telepathy doesn't work in... language, per say. Just a... general understanding."

Kutawt opened his mouth to respond to the sergeant, but at that moment, the telepathic message from the aliens came through.

<Attention, inhabitants of Bilar III, this is Captain Vapra Bin, of the Federation of Jelaris Colony Ship Gali Ma. We mean you no harm. We intend to seek peaceful relations with any and all sentient life in the galaxy. Please, respond in any way you can.>

As soon as the message was through, Commander Kutawt was moving toward a communications terminal, pushing the ensign that was operating it out and taking her place. He quickly activated the device, and contacted the nearest Telepath Relay. "I want a message to the High General, and I want it as fast as possible. Send it to the Palace as well. The colony Nuz Viscasi has encountered sentient alien life, and is requesting an immediate diplomatic and military envoy. The aliens seem peaceful, I repeat, the aliens seem peaceful." he relayed. He stood up and looked around the room, matching eyes with each and every person in there.

He sighed, and rubbed his face.

"Well, any hope of containing this situation has been... quashed. What will ensue, most likely, is a combination of fear, excitement, and harebrained schemes to make contact with the aliens. It's our job to maintain the peace on Nuz Viscasi, and we will do that job... I want every Garrison regiment mobilized and moving through the streets. I want a curfew enforced, and a news broadcast made on television, every set on the planet. No one is allowed anywhere near the Telepathic Relay, nor any psionic enhancing drugs. If an individual is found in possession, they will be confiscated and treated to a wonderful night in the nearest cell. Everyone understand?"

Kutawt looked around and matched gaze with each person again, each not saying a word and some nodding. "Good." he said. "Those are your orders... Put them to action."

The room started scurrying around as they moved to make their commanders orders happen, except for the scanner sergeant and Commander Kutawt. The commander looked down at the scanner sergeant, making eye contact. "Congratulations, Sergeant. You're the first Csilean to make telepathic contact with an alien individual... Now, make contact with that... Captain Vapra Bin, and inform her that she will have to wait until the proper officials are here to make contact."

The sergeant stood and saluted, nodding. "May I use th-"

"Yes, sarge. You have permission to dope up."

The sergeant nodded and started to make his way out of the room. Before he could, Kutawt sighed and looked over to him. "Wait." he said, and as the sarge turned around, Kutawt continued. "Please, give her... it... them, a pleasant welcome to the Ascendancy."

The sergeant smiled. "Aye, sir."

After finding the appropriate drugs, specifically a liquid that was administered directly into the place where the brain and spine connected, a telepathic response was sent to Captain Vapra Bin.

<Captain Bin, this is Sergeant Jathi'avur'soatto, of the Nuz Viscasi Garrison. I am under express orders to tell you to maintain your current position, ignore any other telepathic messages sent from out civilians, and wait for the proper officials to arrive before making... a true First Contact.>

A slight chuckle, and a feeling of giddiness came as well.

<It is also my pleasure to welcome you, and the Gali Ma, to the Csilean Ascendancy.>

[The Ik Ka Ek Akai]

Eldrazi space


Space was a deep, cold void. It beheld vast swaths of absolute nothingness, with twinkling marks in all directions indicating a star thousands of times the size of any given planet, and around that star there were likely many planets, and on each of those planets, the night sky was filled with brilliant shining objects that had drifted from the depths of space to entertain countless individuals across all of space. One of these curious creatures were the Arae, a crystalline race curious about the lands beyond their homes. The Arae homeworld had been seeped of its energy, the civilizations that once dotted the landscape had been made extinct, and the natural resources of the planet had been nearly dried up. In this matter, the Arae realized that they must not continue to expand on their homeworld. It could not sustain them as it had done in times past. Thus, many of them boarded large crystalline structures, artificial comets constructed of their very soulstuff, and these structures were launched into the void to find a new homeworld to inhabit.

Many of these colonies drifted across the deep dark. They would be called ships in the most fundamental sense, as they carried the inhabitants across the void. They were given the potential to use weaponry, although it needed an active Arae user to be able to do so. All the inhabitants of these ships would be lain dormant, awaiting their arrival on a new world, and likely awakening on impact. From there, only time could tell what would happen. The Arae sustained themselves during this dormancy by feeding on the collective light of all the stars around them, their own ship's design helping to amplify what little light got through into a more potent form. One of these ships, "Razaz" as the Arae called them, was finally achieving its goal. It had found a new planet to call home. The ship would approach the planet and enter a stable orbit, appearing from the surface exactly like a comet as the razaz expelled xenon gas in copious amounts. The gas would glow as it exited, completing the illusion.

The ship would remain in orbit for a few hours. Its purpose was unknown, but the camouflage as a comet, entirely unintentional, would provide it convenient cover as a natural phenomenon until it could make landfall. After a few hours, the ship began to pulse. Colored lights began to be emitted in beams, purple and blue and red and green, each flashing out from the apparent comet. Half an hour after this, the ship would take a radical change in direction, putting itself on a direct collision course with the planet. The previous beams let out, scanners detecting sources of heat, would point it to the closest source. The ship would pick up speed, faster and faster, and like a shooting star crossing through the sky, it let out a beautiful and brilliant glow to mesmerize as it descended. In little time at all, the ship made landfall. The crater was not as large as might have been expected, as was just beyond the limits of the heat source as to avoid damaging the life forms it had detected.

Upon crashing into the ground, all types of noble gases were expelled violently from the comet. Vivid glows lit up the immediate area, pouring fourth generously like steam from a broken pipe. Within moments, the comet seemed to detonate once again. After a bright flash, the ship was still seemingly entirely in-tact, although shapeless crystal forms now rest in a circle around it. They grew rooted into the ground and awaited the first sign of life near themselves, remaining dormant until that point as they would seep the surrounding environment of energy.

[Tracian Empire]

The Sovereign Colonies
"Deus Enim Et Coloniae!"

---

CMS Roanoke, Shockspace, heading for an uncharted star system.

---

The Colonial Military Ship Roanoke was one of the oldest still active vessels of the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces, currently used specifically for charting and discovering expeditions. In their continuous attempts to expand their nation, the SovCol Council had been sending more and more daring expeditions out in the uncharted galactic space, searching for resources and planets. The Roanoke had a few good hundred thousand missions at its active record, and this seemed to be just another normal day. Of course, not only the system they were going to jump in, but also the entire sector had never been charted before, and this was the furthest they had gone until now from the Colonial home space... but what could go wrong? Right?

The old battleship was of course, upgraded with the latest Colonial tech, and was ready and armed, but if course, the crew was a little tense. All the Colonial propaganda about scary alien races had many effects on the Colonial population, and being afraid from making contact with a hostile alien race was one of them..

"Captain on deck!"

The Colonial officers saluted as Alexander Spencer, Captain of the CMS Roanoke, entered the Command and Information Center of the ship, commonly known among the military as the CIC. The Colonials, in their gray-dark red uniforms, saluted their captain in compliance to the Colonial Military Index, with their clenched fists over their hearts, a gesture representing one's duty to give his life for the Sovereign Colonies they had sworn to protect.

"Status report.", the Captain asked coldly. Alexander Spencer was an older man, in his mid fifties, an experienced officer. With gray-white hair, green eyes, and an uniform worn in complete accordance with all regulations, Spencer was the prototype of a Colonial veteran officer.

"Shockspace travel without any problems, we are nearing our destination. Preparing to deshock." The one who answered was a younger human, probably in his twenties. Despite his young age, he was holding the tank of Major, and from the discussion, it seemed that he was the Executive Officer of the Roanoke, Michael Verner. A young blonde human, with light blue eyes, Verner was from Xalion, the capital world of the Sovereign Colonies.

And their journey came to an end. Action stations, action stations ! All hands, action stations!, the Roanoke's computer announced. Preparing to deshock .. exiting Shockspace... entering normal space in 3, 2, 1..0. Entered normal space.

The CMS Roanoke had reached the unknown star system. Another exploration mission had begun.

---

Maintaining Condition One, entering orbit of detected planet.

Having just deshocked into the system, the Roanoke performed a quick initial scan of the system, detecting no enemy or possibly hostile forces. The system itself was pretty normal, at least a first look. A couple planets, a star. A comet belt was encircling a part of the star system. But what quickly attracted the attention of the Colonial ship's computers and sensors was one specific planet. A planet that seemed to contain life. Closer scanning revealed that it was pretty earthlike, with large forests in the north, jungles in the south, and desert areas around the equator. A large part of the planet's surface was covered by water. Liquid water. Up until now, the planet seemed promising...

50% of the atmosphere is formed by Nitrogen. Neon, Argon,and Xenon have around 10% each. The remaining 20% of the atmosphere is formed by various gases like helium,hydrogen, methane,and oxygen.

Upon entering the planet's orbit, the Roanoke's computers scanned the atmosphere. Although the results were inconclusive, there was a high possibility for nonsentient animal life to exist, but it was clear that the plant life was booming. And soon enough, the computers seemed to detect something that looked like ruins....But computer scans had their limits. "Maintain position in the orbit, launch alert fighters.", the Captain quickly ordered, following the standard procedure in the case of such a situation."Major, take a transport ship and go on the surface, perform a first landing, and explore the area around. We must see what's with these ruins.... "

"Yes sir! For God and the Colonies.", the Major answered, saluting, and then leaving. "God bless the Colonies...", the Captain said in a low voice... "Let's just hope that this isn't what it seems to be.."

---

On the surface of the planet, some time later

A solitary transport fighter landed on the surface of the planet, transporting ten men, or better said, ten scouts, for a first exploration mission on the surface. They had just arrived there... and things already started to take a wrong turn. There was something really strange about it... it seemed to be empty. But it was clear that at least sometime in the past, this planet had been inhabited... the drones the soldiers sent in the air indicated the presence of ruins.. and what looked like shattered crystals. With nothing better to do, the Major led his men, still not abandoning their space suits, and tightly gripping their assault rifles.

"I don't like this silence, Major... it's like in one of those horror stories..", one of the soldiers said, only contributing to the tense atmosphere. The silence, and the empty ruins in the distance were creating such an unreal feeling.. "I don't like it either Private. But let's accomplish our mission and get out of here as soon as possible.", the Major answered, removing the safety off his rifle, just to be sure. And not before long, they reached the closest group of ruins... it was difficult to say what architecture they had. Pretty confusing. But upon a closer inspection, it seemed that the ruins had scorch marks..

"War? An accident? What could have happened here?", the Major murmured, while touching one of the ruin's walls."Sir..", one of the Colonials said, showing with his rifle husk looking corpses... some sort of mummified aliens? Hominids? While pointing their rifles at the mummified bodies, the Colonials slowly started to back down."I don't like this... I don't like this at all.", the Major said in a low voice.... What was this? Mummified aliens? Dead ruins? Did something happen to this planet? Did that something still exist? And the ruins, they were so confusing. Not only did they seem to be ancient, but they also seemed to belong to multiple architectural styles.

Marking the position of these ruins on the maps, the Colonials continued their journey, heading north. The night was slowly approaching, but after a short contact with the Roanoke, the team decided to continue their exploration. They still had to attempt to make contact with life, or at least, to find out what had happened here, and if it could prove to be dangerous to the Colonials. After all, the entire point of this expedition was to find out if this planet could be inhabited, and turned into a colony. It wasn't the first time Colonial expeditions had found alien ruins on a planet... but these were the strangest to the date. Maybe their expeditions had become too daring....

And as the night came, the Colonials started to notice that on the planet's night sky, a comet belt, the comet belt the Roanoke had detected, was visible. Which, they had to admit, was pretty nice.... but it was too quiet. Far too quiet.... the planet had an atmosphere, so they should have been able to at least hear something... but no. Quiet. No signs of real life. Only the stars and the comet belt in the night sky....... and they were alone. The Roanoke was far away, in the orbit.... and their homes, the Colonies, were so many light years away. One can become pretty afraid in such a situation...

"I'm thinking... what happened to this planet?", the Major asked, speaking more for himself, not exactly waiting for an answer from his soldiers."The aliens here must have had a civilization long before human ships left the Sol System for the first time. Even the youngest ruin here must be older than the entire Sovereign Colonies... what happened to them? How did they disappear? Did they destroy themselves? A war? A catastrophe? An enemy attacked? How did they disappear without any trace?"

"I don't know, Major. But we'll find out once the scientists examine those ruins and mummies, I suppose.", one of the soldiers answered. "You're right... but how fragile can a civilization be? We have pride in our Sovereign Colonies, and the human civilization, but alien civilizations have appeared and disappeared countless times in the history of the universe.... how can we know? Maybe sometime in the future, aliens will visit our planets, and see the ruins of our civilization... and will ask themselves how did we disappear... to the size of the universe, the human civilization has no importance."

The soldiers remained quiet for some time, just looking at the sky, and walking. And then, as they continued their journey through the tundra, they reached something really, really, strange. There was like an area, a huge area filled with gray grass, and half buried crystals. The soil was simply.. acidic.

"Get a drone up in the air. I think this is something..", the Major ordered, and soon enough, a small drone was launched in the night sky... and looking at the holographic projection, the Colonials soon noticed that this wasn't just a random area, it was a circle. A circle that had miles in diameter, and it wasn't the only one.
"What in the name of God is this?..", the Major murmured. The planet was just getting stranger and stranger..

[Plzen]

Aurora Spaceport Four, Dawn, Aurora
June 27th, 2341 CE (late morning in Spaceport Four)

Aurora (moon of gas giant)
Population: 492 million people.
Colony Established 2068 C.E.
Net Economic Output: 276 trillion Credits per year.
The first extra-solar colony established by the human nations that predated the United Nations as a sovereign entity. Part of the core region of the United Nations, at just 2.7 parsecs from Sol. Naturally uninhabitable, but heavily terraformed. Notable for being the most thickly populated planet outside of the Solar System itself.

This, thought Secretary-General Chang, was the worst part about being the Secretary-General.

It wasn't the post itself - the position wasn't too stressful - that bothered him. Nor was it his total lack of privacy, courtesy of the press. Even the inconveniences of security didn't bother him.

What he hated about the position was that he had to travel.

He couldn't just sit in his house on his own private estate and just manage the affairs of state. As the symbolic leader of the United Nations, he was expected to be present in momentous occasions. Actually be there physically, not just through a hologram, shake the hands of some relevant people involved, and smile for the cameras. That was what tired him.

In this case, he was trying his best to hide his emotional exhaustion from the cameras on the opening ceremony for Aurora's fourth spaceport.

Why any planet would need more than one spaceport was a complete mystery to him - after all, all spaceports owned by state governments were required to provide its services to everyone - but it seemed like every state with a presence on Aurora wanted one. Prestige and other nonsense like that, Secretary-General Chang thought.

In any case, whatever the motivation was, India commissioned a spaceport on their sector of Aurora, and it was standing here proudly in front of him. All shiny and new. The Secretary-General could not afford to slip up in front of the cameras. India had over a billion voting citizens, and that could easily swing the next elections for or against him.

A fact made all the worse by the fact that the entire affair was being broadcasted at full-power across hyperspace channels.

[Spindle]

CIC
HMSS Observant
Patrol Squadron Athena
Unclaimed Planet Designate Jocasta

For a moment the black sheet of night, pocked with its occasional spots of starlight, was lit up to anyone with eyes capable of viewing the upper ends of the electromagnetic spectrum. X-rays mingled with gamma as they spread outwards in a rapidly expanding cone of high-energy photons which would announce the presence of the seven ships translating back into R-space to anyone willing to hear. Or rather, it would announce their arrival in a few minutes. As it was, the cone would only reach the primary, a bloated, red star whose ruddy light shone on the barren rocks of the system, in thirty-four minutes. As the last of their B-space momentum was bled away into light, Commodore Alexandria Artemis looked out over the seven ships of her Patrol Squadron and sighed to herself, ready for another systemnal check-up.

"Hyper limit hit, ma'am." Burr told her, unnecessarily.

"What's our spread?" Artemis asked, stepping back and seeing her view of her Squadron zoom out by way of answer. The seven ships were spread in a rough oval perhaps three light-seconds across, with the Observant, which was providing her flag facilities, on the spinward rim. Within seconds, the ships were turning, gravitics aligning them so that they could enter the system proper. After a moment Artemis motioned with her hand and Johannes, the Carrier's Captain, appeared in the simulspace.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Get us a full recon flight headed through here." Artemis ordered blandly, "I want to know what's out there. I assume you have a flightplan ready?"

"Yes, ma'am." Johannes replied with a curt nod, "Ready to launch on your command."

"Go." Artemis said simply, watching as a torrent of threat symbology fell away from the Carrier and shot out into the system. Each of the two hundred and sixteen Recon Drones streaking into the system to visit every major object were turning out around twice the acceleration of any one of the six Frigates moving into position around the Observant. The three Enyalius Strikefighters, however, were turning out almost seventy times more acceleration than that, fifty-three thousand gees clawing at them viciously as they shot in-system like missiles.

Still, fast though they were, they'd only begin to decelerate in forty-three minutes, using the primary to bleed velocity before reversing course and going back through the system. The Agamemnons would begin to decelerate around two-point-eight hours later, the warships arriving another one-point-eight hours after that, collecting the drones and examining anything particularly interesting. The drones themselves would be directed in greater numbers to examine anything the Strikefighters had identified from their brief pass, and the Strikefighters served as a scouting force and first-strike should anyone prove to be hostile.

But it would still be a long time until anything interesting happened.

Glancing out across the simulspace, rapidly gaining definition as the Drones made their first EM-based observations and the data from the gravitic sensors was distilled, Artemis felt a familiar twinge in her abdomen. If there was anything dangerous they'd know in forty-three minutes, which was certainly a lot better than it had been before the advent of QE-links, Recon Drones and Strikefighters. But it was still forty-three minutes longer than Artemis would have liked to wait to know whether or not she might be advancing into a trap and it she never liked waiting.

Well, I'd get ready for it. She though glumly, reflecting sourly that she was stuck with ten seconds-per-second subjectivity, After all, I've got another...three hundred and twelve minutes to kill. Or rather, three thousand one hundred and twenty from my perspective...

[Jelaras]

Garrison Command in Orbit, Nuz Viscasi Colony, Jewar (Bilar) System

"What do you mean, it's a colony ship?" Commander Kutawt asked, his red eyes firmly glued to the gigantic display in front of him just like every other pair in the room. The gigantic, foreign looking structure hovered menacingly in front of the moon like a shadowy predator that wanted to toy with its food before slaughtering it. "Look at it! That thing must have enough armament to level the moon, let alone our colony. I want the defenses primed and ready to shoot that thing out of the sky this instant!"

While the Commander was a surface Csilean, and suffered from a more violent predisposition, the sergeant who was manning the scanners was subterranean in origin. He cleared his throat slightly, and looked back at the information on his personal display. "Sir, initial scans show only light weaponry on the vessel, and a shield system we have never seen before... And, and from my own telepathic search, which is not very reliable due the distance, there are more than a thousand beings on that ship, and they're all more, well, more scared of us than we are of them, right now." he explained, tapping lightly on his console and throwing up the initial scans to the main display.

Kutawt frowned and looked at the sergeant, calming down from his initial reaction. "Are you absolutely sure? What makes you think it's a colony ship?" he asked, glancing back at the twenty kilometer long purple needle hovering before the orange moon.

The sergeant nodded and then sighed. "I, uh, stayed a little bit longer in one of their minds. I don't think it noticed me, but it mentioned something about a colony." he said, looking down. Talk of unwanted telepathic interactions was very embarrassing, as it implied that the person relating the experience was somewhat of a mental voyeur.

"You.. understood it?" the Commander asked, feeling more like a child needing to be placated into feeling safe than a Garrison commander.

"Yes, sir. It's strange, but telepathy doesn't work in... language, per say. Just a... general understanding."

Kutawt opened his mouth to respond to the sergeant, but at that moment, the telepathic message from the aliens came through.

<Attention, inhabitants of Bilar III, this is Captain Vapra Bin, of the Federation of Jelaris Colony Ship Gali Ma. We mean you no harm. We intend to seek peaceful relations with any and all sentient life in the galaxy. Please, respond in any way you can.>

As soon as the message was through, Commander Kutawt was moving toward a communications terminal, pushing the ensign that was operating it out and taking her place. He quickly activated the device, and contacted the nearest Telepath Relay. "I want a message to the High General, and I want it as fast as possible. Send it to the Palace as well. The colony Nuz Viscasi has encountered sentient alien life, and is requesting an immediate diplomatic and military envoy. The aliens seem peaceful, I repeat, the aliens seem peaceful." he relayed. He stood up and looked around the room, matching eyes with each and every person in there.

He sighed, and rubbed his face.

"Well, any hope of containing this situation has been... quashed. What will ensue, most likely, is a combination of fear, excitement, and harebrained schemes to make contact with the aliens. It's our job to maintain the peace on Nuz Viscasi, and we will do that job... I want every Garrison regiment mobilized and moving through the streets. I want a curfew enforced, and a news broadcast made on television, every set on the planet. No one is allowed anywhere near the Telepathic Relay, nor any psionic enhancing drugs. If an individual is found in possession, they will be confiscated and treated to a wonderful night in the nearest cell. Everyone understand?"

Kutawt looked around and matched gaze with each person again, each not saying a word and some nodding. "Good." he said. "Those are your orders... Put them to action."

The room started scurrying around as they moved to make their commanders orders happen, except for the scanner sergeant and Commander Kutawt. The commander looked down at the scanner sergeant, making eye contact. "Congratulations, Sergeant. You're the first Csilean to make telepathic contact with an alien individual... Now, make contact with that... Captain Vapra Bin, and inform her that she will have to wait until the proper officials are here to make contact."

The sergeant stood and saluted, nodding. "May I use th-"

"Yes, sarge. You have permission to dope up."

The sergeant nodded and started to make his way out of the room. Before he could, Kutawt sighed and looked over to him. "Wait." he said, and as the sarge turned around, Kutawt continued. "Please, give her... it... them, a pleasant welcome to the Ascendancy."

The sergeant smiled. "Aye, sir."

After finding the appropriate drugs, specifically a liquid that was administered directly into the place where the brain and spine connected, a telepathic response was sent to Captain Vapra Bin.

<Captain Bin, this is Sergeant Jathi'avur'soatto, of the Nuz Viscasi Garrison. I am under express orders to tell you to maintain your current position, ignore any other telepathic messages sent from out civilians, and wait for the proper officials to arrive before making... a true First Contact.>

A slight chuckle, and a feeling of giddiness came as well.

<It is also my pleasure to welcome you, and the Gali Ma, to the Csilean Ascendancy.>

Telepathic aliens. The odds of them contacting aliens who could communicate the same way that the Niktal did were astronomical--beyond astronomical. The surprise that rolled off of her definitely made its way through the link she formed with the Sargent, though no one else on the planet would feel it. As soon as he had responded she had locked onto him, bent the entirety of her thought to the exclusion of all other contact. She could feel others, with minds much like his own, vying for her attention as they reached out across the void, but she cast them all aside as unimportant. Oh, interesting certainly. She was receiving everything from messages of welcome to questions about her plans to conquer the Ascendancy--as if she had any intention to start a war with a ship with barely enough firepower to drive off a Yareth Fighter. One particularly interesting individual was asking her to take him back to the "Mothership," whatever that was.

But none of that drew her attention. A brief glance at this one's mind showed military discipline, some order to his thoughts greater than that of the others that attempted to contact her. Almost on the level of a Niktal civilian, but then, she could tell from a glance at the way his mind worked that he was not exclusively telepathic. He thought in structured words, thoughts overlapping on top of each other in a cacophony of thoughts, feelings and emotions that formed the cohesive whole that was this individual. Niktal's brains were structured by necessity, their six-hemisphere brains designed to compartmentalize and separate their thoughts, emotions, and telepathic communications in such a way that it would take deep concentration to pierce the veil of one of their minds should they be paying the slightest bit of attention.

<Thank you, Sergeant Jathi'avur'soatto,> she responded back to him, sending a wave of gratitude and excitement his way. She let him know that they were peaceful, that they meant no harm, that everyone on board was ecstatic that they had discovered a peaceful race that was prepared to establish peaceful contact. None of this was done with words--more concepts, feelings, fleeting thoughts that she communicated at the speed of thought.

<Are you certain that we cannot arrange a... small meeting with the leader of this colony? Just one-on-one. You are the first aliens our race have ever encountered, after all, and I am sure that you are just as anxious to meet us as we are to meet you,> Vapra communicated, allowing her sincerity to bleed through in her thoughts. What she didn't reveal was her hope that he would say yes, if for no other reason than she wanted to be the first one to set eyes on the aliens. She wanted to be the first one to meet face-to-face with an alien being, to see what they looked like. She hadn't looked far enough into Jathi'avur'soatto's mind to find out what he looked like--that would have been rude--but she was unbearably curious about it. And besides that, she was very tired of freeze-dried and dehydrated meats. She really needed to hunt.

The Engineering Corps ships wouldn't be arriving for another four days, thanks to a slight delay with a micro-singularity that knocked out one of their nacelles, which meant that they wouldn't even be able to land in the dense vegetation if they wanted to. If they stayed in orbit for much longer, they would have to start cutting into the colony's reserve supplies to keep eating.

[The Republic of Atria]

Valan Tharse readied Carrier-48 for his departure. It was an exciting moment for their empire. They had seen many travelers and tourists come through their systems and greet them with open arms every time, but they had yet to actually come across another empire. And if their reports were accurate, they had found a very populated world that they wanted to make contact with. It was an ice world, so they made doubly sure to take their winter gear. Normally they'd just terraform the planet, but doing so when it was under control of what appeared to be another space-faring race, would likely be seen in a negative light despite their good intentions. They kept the terraforming gear regardless. "An exciting day for us, and Sparks willing, for what I hope to be great allies." Was what he said before the massive ship took off from their homeworld.

Valan acted as the closest thing to the leader of their empire. He was a Volt and most everyone trusted his leadership. He did his best to be approachable and kindhearted, as was expected from all Volts. The faith of the empire was in his hands, and he would go down in history as the one who met with the leaders of another empire and hopefully made allies rather than enemies. Despite their virtually perfect track record of making everyone who came to their worlds happy and comfortable, there was always the risk for failure. As Carrier-48 left the atmosphere of their homeworld, the ship tore open a 30 mile wide wormhole that would bring them within a few lightseconds of the planet's orbit. Everyone was nervous, no more than Valan himself. The future was in his hands. His job was diplomacy, but he never actually had to be diplomatic to another species before.

Within seconds, the wormhole tore open a good few lightseconds outside of the planet's atmosphere. Valan was understandably nervous. First contact with another empire was always something to be slightly nervous about, but he silently prayed to the Sparks that he could do it. "Hail the planet. Try to establish communications. And men... Pray for me."

[Free Empire of the Low Isles]

Garrison Command in Orbit, Nuz Viscasi Colony, Jewar (Bilar) System

"What do you mean, it's a colony ship?" Commander Kutawt asked, his red eyes firmly glued to the gigantic display in front of him just like every other pair in the room. The gigantic, foreign looking structure hovered menacingly in front of the moon like a shadowy predator that wanted to toy with its food before slaughtering it. "Look at it! That thing must have enough armament to level the moon, let alone our colony. I want the defenses primed and ready to shoot that thing out of the sky this instant!"

While the Commander was a surface Csilean, and suffered from a more violent predisposition, the sergeant who was manning the scanners was subterranean in origin. He cleared his throat slightly, and looked back at the information on his personal display. "Sir, initial scans show only light weaponry on the vessel, and a shield system we have never seen before... And, and from my own telepathic search, which is not very reliable due the distance, there are more than a thousand beings on that ship, and they're all more, well, more scared of us than we are of them, right now." he explained, tapping lightly on his console and throwing up the initial scans to the main display.

Kutawt frowned and looked at the sergeant, calming down from his initial reaction. "Are you absolutely sure? What makes you think it's a colony ship?" he asked, glancing back at the twenty kilometer long purple needle hovering before the orange moon.

The sergeant nodded and then sighed. "I, uh, stayed a little bit longer in one of their minds. I don't think it noticed me, but it mentioned something about a colony." he said, looking down. Talk of unwanted telepathic interactions was very embarrassing, as it implied that the person relating the experience was somewhat of a mental voyeur.

"You.. understood it?" the Commander asked, feeling more like a child needing to be placated into feeling safe than a Garrison commander.

"Yes, sir. It's strange, but telepathy doesn't work in... language, per say. Just a... general understanding."

Kutawt opened his mouth to respond to the sergeant, but at that moment, the telepathic message from the aliens came through.

<Attention, inhabitants of Bilar III, this is Captain Vapra Bin, of the Federation of Jelaris Colony Ship Gali Ma. We mean you no harm. We intend to seek peaceful relations with any and all sentient life in the galaxy. Please, respond in any way you can.>

As soon as the message was through, Commander Kutawt was moving toward a communications terminal, pushing the ensign that was operating it out and taking her place. He quickly activated the device, and contacted the nearest Telepath Relay. "I want a message to the High General, and I want it as fast as possible. Send it to the Palace as well. The colony Nuz Viscasi has encountered sentient alien life, and is requesting an immediate diplomatic and military envoy. The aliens seem peaceful, I repeat, the aliens seem peaceful." he relayed. He stood up and looked around the room, matching eyes with each and every person in there.

He sighed, and rubbed his face.

"Well, any hope of containing this situation has been... quashed. What will ensue, most likely, is a combination of fear, excitement, and harebrained schemes to make contact with the aliens. It's our job to maintain the peace on Nuz Viscasi, and we will do that job... I want every Garrison regiment mobilized and moving through the streets. I want a curfew enforced, and a news broadcast made on television, every set on the planet. No one is allowed anywhere near the Telepathic Relay, nor any psionic enhancing drugs. If an individual is found in possession, they will be confiscated and treated to a wonderful night in the nearest cell. Everyone understand?"

Kutawt looked around and matched gaze with each person again, each not saying a word and some nodding. "Good." he said. "Those are your orders... Put them to action."

The room started scurrying around as they moved to make their commanders orders happen, except for the scanner sergeant and Commander Kutawt. The commander looked down at the scanner sergeant, making eye contact. "Congratulations, Sergeant. You're the first Csilean to make telepathic contact with an alien individual... Now, make contact with that... Captain Vapra Bin, and inform her that she will have to wait until the proper officials are here to make contact."

The sergeant stood and saluted, nodding. "May I use th-"

"Yes, sarge. You have permission to dope up."

The sergeant nodded and started to make his way out of the room. Before he could, Kutawt sighed and looked over to him. "Wait." he said, and as the sarge turned around, Kutawt continued. "Please, give her... it... them, a pleasant welcome to the Ascendancy."

The sergeant smiled. "Aye, sir."

After finding the appropriate drugs, specifically a liquid that was administered directly into the place where the brain and spine connected, a telepathic response was sent to Captain Vapra Bin.

<Captain Bin, this is Sergeant Jathi'avur'soatto, of the Nuz Viscasi Garrison. I am under express orders to tell you to maintain your current position, ignore any other telepathic messages sent from out civilians, and wait for the proper officials to arrive before making... a true First Contact.>

A slight chuckle, and a feeling of giddiness came as well.

<It is also my pleasure to welcome you, and the Gali Ma, to the Csilean Ascendancy.>

Telepathic aliens. The odds of them contacting aliens who could communicate the same way that the Niktal did were astronomical--beyond astronomical. The surprise that rolled off of her definitely made its way through the link she formed with the Sargent, though no one else on the planet would feel it. As soon as he had responded she had locked onto him, bent the entirety of her thought to the exclusion of all other contact. She could feel others, with minds much like his own, vying for her attention as they reached out across the void, but she cast them all aside as unimportant. Oh, interesting certainly. She was receiving everything from messages of welcome to questions about her plans to conquer the Ascendancy--as if she had any intention to start a war with a ship with barely enough firepower to drive off a Yareth Fighter. One particularly interesting individual was asking her to take him back to the "Mothership," whatever that was.

But none of that drew her attention. A brief glance at this one's mind showed military discipline, some order to his thoughts greater than that of the others that attempted to contact her. Almost on the level of a Niktal civilian, but then, she could tell from a glance at the way his mind worked that he was not exclusively telepathic. He thought in structured words, thoughts overlapping on top of each other in a cacophony of thoughts, feelings and emotions that formed the cohesive whole that was this individual. Niktal's brains were structured by necessity, their six-hemisphere brains designed to compartmentalize and separate their thoughts, emotions, and telepathic communications in such a way that it would take deep concentration to pierce the veil of one of their minds should they be paying the slightest bit of attention.

<Thank you, Sergeant Jathi'avur'soatto,> she responded back to him, sending a wave of gratitude and excitement his way. She let him know that they were peaceful, that they meant no harm, that everyone on board was ecstatic that they had discovered a peaceful race that was prepared to establish peaceful contact. None of this was done with words--more concepts, feelings, fleeting thoughts that she communicated at the speed of thought.

<Are you certain that we cannot arrange a... small meeting with the leader of this colony? Just one-on-one. You are the first aliens our race have ever encountered, after all, and I am sure that you are just as anxious to meet us as we are to meet you,> Vapra communicated, allowing her sincerity to bleed through in her thoughts. What she didn't reveal was her hope that he would say yes, if for no other reason than she wanted to be the first one to set eyes on the aliens. She wanted to be the first one to meet face-to-face with an alien being, to see what they looked like. She hadn't looked far enough into Jathi'avur'soatto's mind to find out what he looked like--that would have been rude--but she was unbearably curious about it. And besides that, she was very tired of freeze-dried and dehydrated meats. She really needed to hunt.

The Engineering Corps ships wouldn't be arriving for another four days, thanks to a slight delay with a micro-singularity that knocked out one of their nacelles, which meant that they wouldn't even be able to land in the dense vegetation if they wanted to. If they stayed in orbit for much longer, they would have to start cutting into the colony's reserve supplies to keep eating.

The sergeant smiled physically, sending along a sense of inward satisfaction. <That is an impressive grasp of pronunciation, for someone not used to our language. Is that something your people are known for? Oh, and please, just call me Thiavur.> he sent, and then frowned slightly. <And... I apologize, but I do not have the authority to permit you to do even that. That would be up to the Commander, and he ordered us to wait for the Diplomatic Corps to arrive. I can assure you though, it won't take long. Our generator can spool pretty fast; in fact, it only takes a few hours to make a wormhole nowadays, and then it's just a few minutes travel.>

C.D.S. Ch'acevi, Csillie Generator, Csillie System

Diplomat Elusi made her way quickly to the briefing room, followed by the three other diplomats in her entourage. She had no idea what she had been picked up for, or why it was so hush hush. It wasn't normal for a diplomat to be taken in the middle of an assignment, put on a ship, and not told what it was all about no matter how vehemently she asked nor how annoyingly she struggled. This situation was bery perplexing to Elusi.

The diplomat entered the room gracefully, as she had been trained, and took a seat at the opposite side of the long table, looking directly at the other person in the room. The other person, to her surprise, was General Thzeno, Han'ci-Vit of the Ogir clan. The General raised a thick eyebrow at the diplomat, and then looked down at the tablet in front of him.

"Do you know why you are here, Diplomat?" Thzeno asked, his voice quiet yet still taking up the entire room.

Elusi placed her hand lightly on the table, one placed over the other, and tried her best not to show how intimidated she was by this man. In fact, everyone in the room was trying to do the same thing. Thzeno was indeed an intimidating presence, being the tallest in the room and the widest... and the only one that could possibly be able to take over the entire ship singlehandedly with only the small knife on his hip. "I do not, sir." she said quietly, doing a good job of hiding her feelings. "In spite of all my questions, I have no idea why I was taken from my very important miss-"

"Because, Elusi, this mission is infinitely more important than negotiations with some backwater, fifty year old mining station that's falling apart." Thzeno said, sliding the tablet across the table easily.

Elusi picked up, and struggled to contain a gasp of surprise when she saw the image that appeared on it. At the same time, the screen behind Thzeno turned on, showing the same image. It was the basic scan of the Gali Ma, complete with a picture of the twenty kilometer long purple needle.

The diplomat and her team all stared at the picture, until Elusi looked up at Thzeno with a smile. "First Contact?" she asked quietly.

"Well, no... from reports, first contact with an alien goes to a telepathic sergeant named Thiavur, from Clan Rori. But you will be the official representative of the Ascendancy at the first meeting between governments... Or, well, the captain of a colony ship and our government."

Elusi sighed, and chuckled. "Some people have all the luck." she muttered, before looking back up at the General. "Orders?"

Thzeno gestured to the tablet, and then stood up from the chair, looking at the screen that had been behind him. "I believe it specifically asks for a non-aggression pact, trading rights, and open information of both species to be provided to each other. That way they aren't tempted to probe us or anything..." he said, with a small cacophony of laughs following.

The tablet did indeed request something along those lines, but also gave Elusi the authority to make any changes to it if she thought it best. The Bei-Csahn trusted her judgement.

For a Csilean, those words were more important, more stupendous, more worthy of celebration than anything. The only thing that could be more wonderful was someone's child being accepted into the Rin'vt clan.

"... How long until we arrive?" Elusi asked to no one in particular.

"When I leave the ship, and make it back to the Ch'etecu'ib, we will have... about two hours before the wormhole is open." Thzeno responded, making his way toward the door, stopping just before he left. "Oh... and may Tivv's warmth protect you, if you need it."

With that, the General made his way off the ship, leaving Elusi to her visions of what this alien race might look like, talk like, everything.

[The United Remnants of America]

CIC
HMSS Observant
Patrol Squadron Athena
Unclaimed Planet Designate Jocasta

Unknown World, Unknown System
Strike Fleet Argarce

To an outsider, one of the most interesting things about the Hive would probably be their ships, if questioned. Everything about the Vresh's style and culture as per starships is illogical to any rational-thinking military, but to the Hive, it works.

Ships, to the Vresh, are a mode of transportation to other planets, little more. Due to this, Vresh ships have always been notoriously under-armed and under-defended, since space combat was never thought of until extended contact and conflict with naval ships of other species. This was when the Hive attempted an organization of their ships into fleets.

The largest of these fleets are the Hive Fleets, usually numbering in the thousands of ships, all ranging in sizes and roles from what others would describe as dreadnoughts, to what could only be considered transports and escort ships, since there is no strict guideline to organize them, the composition of each Hive Fleet could be entirely different, and the capability of each changes with each fleet, but their purpose remains the same: A Hive Fleet exists to take star systems. The main identifier of a Hive Fleet was the "Arbiter," a massive Vresh ship that acted as flagship and destroyer. Named by outsiders long ago, almost every Arbiter is the same, as they are some of the first ships the Hive built with the logic of other species in mind. Each Arbiter, and in turn, each Hive Fleet is commanded by a high-ranking Vresh breed known as a Commander, a Vresh so intelligent and powerful and given so much leeway that they are nearly individuals. Nearly so.

The only issue noticed when attempting to communicate with Vresh for any kind of military cohesion is that the Vresh named their Hive Fleets after planets within their Hive. The Arbiters in each Hive Fleet are named after the Hive Fleet. And the Commanders are named after their Arbiters. So in turn, within the Hive, there is a planet, a Hive Fleet, an Arbiter, and a Commander all with the same name, and the reason this doesn't confuse the Vresh is due to the associated thoughts with each title. But communicating this to an outsider is neigh impossible, and frustrating for both parties involved. Nine of those fleets currently exist.

But what if the Hive needs to explore, or what if a system or civilization-killing fleet is too much overkill? Enter, the Strike Fleet.

Strike Fleets are less organized than the Hive Fleets, but they seem to range between a third and half the size of a Hive Fleet. The main difference is they lack the Arbiter and the Commander. Strike Fleets explore, and they take new colonies. They are massive raiding parties, in essence as much as in action. Several Strike Fleets exist throughout the Hive.

Strike Fleet Argarce was on the smaller end of the Strike Fleet scale. It only numbered approximately 1,500 ships; relatively small for the Hive's vast numbers. Strike Fleet Argarce was constructed with the idea of exploration in mind. Exploration in search of food. Due to this, the fleet was mostly made up of what others would call transport vessels escorted by hundreds of cruiser-sized attack ships.

From observation, the fleet would appear lifeless and definitely alien. No propulsion could be seen, and there were no windows or observation ports. The ships appeared to sit dormant in this system, but that was because they had stopped in this system for a reason. Every ship was a pale color and appeared to be constructed from bone, flesh, and metal. Really, each ship was created with more organic materials than non-organic materials, just like most Vresh technology. They were powered by bio-energy, and when moving, the propulsion from the backs of the ships that pushed them forward was a sickly greenish color, the familiar color of almost all Vresh life--giving energy. The transports appeared much smoother than the cruisers, but that was only because the cruisers were bristling with needle-like points and tubes of various sizes. The Vresh had never bothered mastering ship-building architecture when the vessels were just a means to an end.

Even now, the small fleet; a fleet larger than some civilizations' stellar navies, idled in wait. The planet of note in this system, known to some as "Jocasta" but unknown to the Vresh, had yielded unfavorable results when probed with scouting groups. There just wasn't much of value for the Hive. It had only been a handful of rotations of that world that the Strike Fleet had been sitting, the Hivemind pondering on where to send the ships next.

The Severita breeds aboard the larger ships, their large, sedentary forms sitting in chambers assigned to them, had been working together to stargaze, looking for their next targets. The Severitas did not see how the rest of their kind saw. They sensed gravitational fields. But the Severitas did not just see these gravitational fields, they could manipulate them. Severitas lived and died in their ships, where they acted as both navigator and FTL drive for their vessels. They would find a star or a planet with a large grav-field, and they would grab it, bending it slightly. A single Severita could pull a grav-field and open a wormhole for a single ship for a relatively short distance, but a fleet's worth of them working together could usually connect the fields of two stars and slip their fleet into that bubble of gravity, launching their ships through space-time.

So of course it was, as the Severitas were watching, that a distortion in gravity went unnoticed in the same system. While these specific Severitas had never before witnessed an FTL drive coming out of B-Space, plenty of other Vresh in the Hive had witnessed similar events, and through the network of the Hivemind, the Severitas were able to come to the conclusion of what this was: Outsiders.

The Strike Fleet remained immobile and dead, but now the Vresh were waiting. The Severitas could no longer see the ships that had exited the distortion, but it was now known something was in this system with them. The Vresh would now wait until these newcomers found them or left.

They would find them. They would investigate. Outsiders always investigated. Inside the hundreds of ships of Strike Fleet Argarce, countless Vresh of varying sizes, intelligences, and purposes began to hum and buzz in anticipation.

[Spindle]

CIC
HMSS Observant
Patrol Squadron Athena
Unclaimed Planet Designate Jocasta

Glancing over the simulation of the system, Artemis' felt a frown creeping over her avatar's face. Switching between her overlaid EM and gravitic data, there was a slight mismatch between the two which defied all forms of data refinement she had attempted. Potentially, there was a third asteroid belt that EMDAR wasn't picking up on, but with the spread of her drones it seemed unlikely. It could also be some issue with their GRADAR, but the system was almost as time-tested as the other two. No, Artemis was sure there was something they hadn't found waiting out there.

Which didn't exactly fill her with confidence about this system.

Bringing up the locations of her Recon Drones, Artemis scanned the timings and sighed to herself. It would be another thirty seconds from the ship's perspective before the Drones began to take proper readings and refine the data which the Strikefighters - now decelerating and coming around to meet with the Observant - had provided. And that meant that, from Artemis' perspective, it would be five minutes. As the time ticked by, agonising eternity after agonising eternity, Artemis busied herself with the tasks need for ships potentially entering combat. Two-one-three six-shots were loaded into missile tubes and low-level ECM began to mutter gently in the background as point-defence clusters activated and scanned the void, eagerly awaiting the arrival of new targets.

And then a wash of information hit the simulspace, resculpting it with new data which added texture to the blank face of the system. Starting from the edge of the system closest to the Squadron, the Drones began to re-write the map which Artemis' simulspace had loaded. As the minutes dragged painfully on, the leading edge of the wave hit the fringe of a blob of ships which hadn't shown up on the Strikefighter run. Visuals hadn't been established yet, but both EMDAR and GRADAR insisted that they were there and that there was a lot of ships, varying wildly in shape and tonnage.

"Johannes?" Artemis asked, her Flag Captain's avatar appearing next to her, "Get us a squadron of Drones in there, ASAP. I want detailed hull examinations, full active and passive scanning."

"Yes, ma'am." Johannes nodded, "Should we prep for combat?"

"Yes." Artemis nodded tersely, her mind already beginning to do the maths.

Initial estimates were a thousand ships out there but initial estimates were always low, so she doubled that. Two thousand ships. The Observant had nine Strikefighters, with fifty-four kinetics each, as well as thirty-six Interceptors which, if they were used for a relativistic strike, could fire eighteen kinetics. Even assuming a one hundred percent kill ratio, that would whittle the enemy down to 'only' nine hundred ships against their seven. Current combat figures were twenty percent from the Strikefighters and less than ten for the Interceptors.

Then, in missile combat, the combined throw weight of their Squadron was only two hundred and seventy missiles when within pod range, and two hundred and sixteen outside of it. Considering the need for Lethes, Orpheuses and Daneas, that would decrease by thirty percent, at a conservative estimate. That gave them a best-case estimate of one hundred and eighty-nine combat missiles at pod-range and one hundred and fifty-one at long-range. It would take far too long for those kind of salvo size to kill even a nine hundred ship fleet, let alone a two thousand ship one!

In short, they were screwed if the alien fleet decided to attack.

A terse order had the Squadron burning to burn off their momentum, heading in a slow arc around towards the alien fleet. They would be there in forty minutes: the Drones were going to reach it in less than five. Watching with baited breath as the twelve small craft made their way into the midst of the ships, Artemis began to evaluate the data they were getting back. Visuals were...disturbing. Like something out of an Old Earth sci-fi novel, except in reality and in the very same system as her own ships. Of course, most of the Old Terran novels didn't have slabs of metal interspersed with their flesh and bone, but that was probably just an oversight on their part.

Coasting to a stop just short of the fifty-seven light-minute mark, the Squadron settled into a defensive posture with point defence lanes covering the Observant. LIDAR and RADAR flickered, the targeting computers tracking a distressingly large number of target locks. Certainly, more than the Squadron could actually engage at any given time and especially at these ranges. Another three squadrons of Recon Drones hovered just under twenty-four light-seconds away, poised and conveying targeting information back to the main ships.

With stately grace, a Recon Drone combed over the body of one of the larger ships to find an orifice, before it and its eleven companions slid inside, branching along the arterial passageways to explore and build up a map of the innards of the ship. With every moment, Artemis felt the tension welling up inside of her until she turned sharply away from the twelve video feeds projected into her simulspace and barked:

"Johannes!"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Get a data-dump back back to Hybris Base. Include everything. If that means using qubits which we're using for some of our more far-flung Drones, so be it. And I want another dump to them every five minutes. If this goes down badly, we're at least giving them some useful intel about what these things are."

[The Ik Ka Ek Akai]

snippidy snip

Upon the approach of the humans, the crystals gained an eerie glow. Some of them were cracked, others were complete. After a few more moments, the crystals began to emerge from the ground. Their glow began to shape into vaguely human forms, with the previously small crystals extending and contorting to match these. The cracked crystals attempt to do the same, but their forms collapse and their glow ceases. The forms emerge fully, and the crystals begin to speak in the ancient tongues of the ruined civilizations dotting the planet. Their outer appearance shifts, demonstrating some very familiar hominid forms before undergoing subtle transformations to match the appearance of the humans before them. These creatures are appearing all around, whispering tongues not heard in millennia, filling the heads of the explorers with the thoughts, the hopes, the dreams of those perished so long ago.

Before long, the creatures begin to mimic the sounds made by the humans before them. Their voices are broken and artificial. Given a few more moments, their voices began to stabilize, and they repeated the few phrases humans had said while near them. Flesh began to appear more distinctly on their forms, appearing at first like a hologram, and then slowly solidifying itself. These beings were coming back from regeneration after so long, and now they were here. In this process of regeneration, no weaponry seemed to be of feasible use against them. All would simply pass through them, or be lodged into their forms and dropped soon after. In little more time, a leader would appear to emerge out of the group.

It stepped forth. A brilliant crystal of exquisite quality, the most human-like of them all, having achieved its form the quickest. It seemed to scan the group before it, quickly reshaping itself. It appeared first as a neutral being, without any recognizable features marking it as being a specific type of human. The form looked almost perfect as it began to shift, first taking up what appeared to be a more masculine appearance. The skin was dark, the hair and eyes both dark brown, the hair wavy. After a bit more scanning, it began shifting to a feminine form, and started to appear like anatomically modern humans, rather than some ancient racial mixture. She appeared standing before them, definitively Mediterranean in appearance. She was lithe, her hair longer than before. She was also stark naked, except for a necklace beholding what appeared to be a brilliant, glowing fragment of the jewel she had spawned from.

She walked forward and approached the humans. Revealing shards of crystal in her hand, she tossed them at the strangers. These shards would attach themselves, and dig into the flesh, just temporarily. A few blinking lights would come from them before they would detach, apparently leaving no wounds, although those affected by them would begin to feel a bit tired. With this, the unified mimicry in the background stopped. The crystals took various forms, often changing between male and female, before settling on one. They were all just as naked, as they cannot shift their flesh into clothing. The leader spoke up, now with knowledge of the foreigner's language. She said to them, "Welcome to Araesala'a. I am the one they call Arae."

[Tracian Empire]

snippidy snip

Upon the approach of the humans, the crystals gained an eerie glow. Some of them were cracked, others were complete. After a few more moments, the crystals began to emerge from the ground. Their glow began to shape into vaguely human forms, with the previously small crystals extending and contorting to match these. The cracked crystals attempt to do the same, but their forms collapse and their glow ceases. The forms emerge fully, and the crystals begin to speak in the ancient tongues of the ruined civilizations dotting the planet. Their outer appearance shifts, demonstrating some very familiar hominid forms before undergoing subtle transformations to match the appearance of the humans before them. These creatures are appearing all around, whispering tongues not heard in millennia, filling the heads of the explorers with the thoughts, the hopes, the dreams of those perished so long ago.

Before long, the creatures begin to mimic the sounds made by the humans before them. Their voices are broken and artificial. Given a few more moments, their voices began to stabilize, and they repeated the few phrases humans had said while near them. Flesh began to appear more distinctly on their forms, appearing at first like a hologram, and then slowly solidifying itself. These beings were coming back from regeneration after so long, and now they were here. In this process of regeneration, no weaponry seemed to be of feasible use against them. All would simply pass through them, or be lodged into their forms and dropped soon after. In little more time, a leader would appear to emerge out of the group.

It stepped forth. A brilliant crystal of exquisite quality, the most human-like of them all, having achieved its form the quickest. It seemed to scan the group before it, quickly reshaping itself. It appeared first as a neutral being, without any recognizable features marking it as being a specific type of human. The form looked almost perfect as it began to shift, first taking up what appeared to be a more masculine appearance. The skin was dark, the hair and eyes both dark brown, the hair wavy. After a bit more scanning, it began shifting to a feminine form, and started to appear like anatomically modern humans, rather than some ancient racial mixture. She appeared standing before them, definitively Mediterranean in appearance. She was lithe, her hair longer than before. She was also stark naked, except for a necklace beholding what appeared to be a brilliant, glowing fragment of the jewel she had spawned from.

She walked forward and approached the humans. Revealing shards of crystal in her hand, she tossed them at the strangers. These shards would attach themselves, and dig into the flesh, just temporarily. A few blinking lights would come from them before they would detach, apparently leaving no wounds, although those affected by them would begin to feel a bit tired. With this, the unified mimicry in the background stopped. The crystals took various forms, often changing between male and female, before settling on one. They were all just as naked, as they cannot shift their flesh into clothing. The leader spoke up, now with knowledge of the foreigner's language. She said to them, "Welcome to Araesala'a. I am the one they call Arae."

As soon as the crystals started to glow, the Colonials realized that something was really, really wrong. The planet wasn't dead.. it must have just been sleeping. And they had somehow just awaken it. Quickly aiming their rifles at the awakening crystals, the humans slowly started to back down, as the crystals started to turn into something. Turning into vague human forms, the crystals started to speak, into strange tongues, languages that probably had never been heard before by any humans.. all around them, the crystals were turning, speaking, and whispering. But they understood nothing... and scared, the human soldiers entered a circle formation, ready to fire.

But the situation became even stranger when the crystals started to mimic human words. Firstly, they sounded broken and artificial, as if they were an old and scratched vinyl record. But then, they started to speak normally, repeating the phrases the Colonials had said before them, just a little ago. And then, if this wasn't enough, flesh started to appear on them, as if they were holograms turning into real persons. This was enough. No human military discipline could hold the soldiers off, and some of them opened fire. Some had forgotten their weapons on semi-automatic modes, only a few shots were fired. One soldier had his rifle on the automatic mode though, and he simply sprayed at the crystals in front of him with bullets. But nothing happened. The bullets either simply passed through the figures, or remained stuck into them before falling down on the ground. "Hold your fire!", the Major shouted. Some of the soldiers obeyed, but the one with the automatic mode rifle didn't, loading another clip into his rifle, before the Major used the back of his rifle to hit him. "Stop!" More or less willingly, the soldiers stopped, but with their fingers still on their triggers. Some even started to shake, clearly afraid.

But then, one of those beings stepped forth, what seemed to be the most human like crystal of them all. And it slowly but surely started to turn into something that looked like a human being, as the Colonials simply watched, too scared to even move. It firstly turned into a rather neutral being, before slowly turning into a darker skinned male looking form. But then, the soldiers had to watch how it turned into a woman, with an aspect that back on the Old Earth, would have been considered Mediterranean. She looked perfectly like a normal, modern, human being. But she was naked, and that was a thing that the soldiers soon noticed. Except for a necklace that seemed to hold the piece of jewel she turned from, she was was wearing nothing else.

And then, she went forward, approaching the Colonials. Most of the soldiers, and the Major, pointed their rifles at her, before she suddenly threw shards of crystal at them, taking them completely unprepared. The crystals attached to the flesh of the humans, before blinking lights, and then dropping on the ground, leaving no wounds. Some of the soldiers dropped their rifles in surprise, taking them back from the ground and aiming them at the woman again, with shaking hands. But it was more hesitantly this time. A naked woman didn't particularly look threatening, and some of the soldiers slowly started to lower their weapons. And then all the crystals turned into humans, either males of females, but they also, were naked, as they probably couldn't create clothing from what they had turned on. And then, the woman that seemed to be their leader started to speak in a perfect and normal English. The soldiers looked at one another for a few moments, before they all looked at the Major. And the Major knew that he had to say something.

"A-araesala'a?", the Major vaguely said, his voice stuttering a little, as he was probably just as scared as his men."A-arae? Who.. who are you? W-what are you? What is this?" But despite the clear fear in his voice, the Colonial slowly started to lower his weapon.

[The Ik Ka Ek Akai]

snippidy

"This, Major, is our homeworld." she responded. "We are the buds of the earth. The builders of what you see..." she transforms into one of the various hominid races found in the long-dead ruins, "And the end of it too." she transforms into another race, and then back to her crystal form, before morphing once again to her human variant. "You are a Major for the Sovereign Colonies, sent here on an expedition to explore the planet, or what remains of it, and see if it is viable for colonization. You landed here in the morning, explored the ancient ruins, and ventured into our circle here. Your unit's collective heat awakened us from our dormancy, and for that we are grateful."

She spoke with no hesitation, and extreme confidence. Those leeching crystals must've certainly done much to give her such knowledge, and furthermore the ability to speak the language at all. "Your species are humans, and are anatomically similar to the people who once lived here. You are scared, paranoid of what contact with my people means for yours. You've spent a lifetime learning about the dangers of the worlds beyond, but have never contacted sentient life beyond your own species. I can assure you, Major, that we are not here to harm you. That stage of our cycle is long past, as you can see around you."

[The Fallen Jedi]

The Old Masaki Dynasty

"With my power, and my own two hands, I shall pave the way to our prosperity."
- Kazuko Masaki, Grand Warlord of the Old Masaki Dynasty

They existed within the Shadows of an infantile galaxy that had been embroiled within a period of barbarism within the northwestern fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy, a place of such unkempt hostility between warring clans and anarchists, this period of endless wars nearly tearing all known civilization within this quadrant asunder, until fate would so have it that a single ray of light emerged from the darkness that embroiled the Galaxy, a god among men known only as Spera Masaki sought an end to all conflict within his area of the Galaxy, dedicating his entire life to restoring the balance and establishing peace and prosperity of his home, leading to the creation of one of the most legendary and most quietly whispered nations in the known galaxy, the Old Masaki Dynasty, an immensely old and technologically advanced nation that had dedicated a large portion of it's early life waging war against the warring clans and anarchists, that was, until Spera reached the end of his life and would eventually die from old age, to this end, Spera sought a maiden in which he could sire children in an attempt to continue his legacy, eventually leading to the rise of the 2nd Generation of Psi-Human Hybrids, the beginning of a new age: an age of Isolationism.

Having sired two children known only as Asumar Masaki and Kazuko Masaki, Spera taught his children in the ways of leading a nation, both politically and militaristic, as numerous other civilization had joined the Old Masaki Dynasty in order to protect themselves from the very chaos that had embroiled their home years ago, and then eventually, having fought on the planet of Rhen Var against the last bastions of the ruinous powers, Spera died, not with a whimper of old age, but in a haze of blazing glory, reputed as a hero of the people, leaving the fate of the Old Masaki Dynasty to his two children. In an attempt to honor their father's wishes, Asumar and Kazuko set out on a glorious exodus in order to search for their long lost bretheren who had been scattered to the stars, with the journey ending at the moon of Yavin IV, a place with immense psionic presence, something that no Psionic individual could simply shrug off without exploring the planet and obtaining knowledge of it's immense secrets. Upon landing upon the planet of Yavin IV, Asumar and Kazuko's exodus came to a stunning conclusion, with the discovery of a Psionic-based civilization that had discovered that they were connected to the lineage of Spera Masaki, they were the Psionic Order, an organization that honed their Psionic skills in an attempt to reach enlightenment.

While the discovery of the Psionic Order was a cause for celebration, fate would not have it out to be a time of celebration, as a special decision had to be made by Asumar, Kazuko, and Alpha Squadron, while the age of barbarism had come to an end, many of the planets that were under the Dynasties control desired to withdraw themselves from intergalactic affairs and enter an age of isolationism, solely desiring to tend to their own devices, and deciding to tend to the advice of his people, Kazuko followed through with his nation's desires, he ordered an end to the expansionist policies of the Dynasty and maintained their secrecy, until now...

- Snip -

The endless barrage of snow and sleet that almost always bombarded the distant planet of Rhen Var was a daily reminder of the ice age that still embroiled the planet, a result of the planet's distance to it's closest star as well as a major polar shift that resulted in the icy wasteland that was the world of Rhen Var, the official capital and homeworld of the Old Masaki Dynasty. In reality however, Rhen Var was not the true homeworld of the Dynasty, but rather it was a cover up to protect the ancient secret that was Sigma Galli Prime, a planet of such unparalleled beauty, rich resources as well as a variable source of gas that would be breathable to virtually any known species, Sigma Galli Prime was an important secret that needed to be protected no matter the cost. Although the two planets were vastly different in comparison of it's environment, there was one major similarity that made Rhen Var equally important to the Dynasty as well as it's ally, the Order of the Nexus: both Rhen Var and Sigma Galli Prime were nexuses to a rare cosmic energy known only as The Force. While this cosmic energy was indeed a rare one, The Force was also an exceptionally strong tool that could be utilized by those who brought their body and soul into synchronization, and more spiritually connected an individual was, the more powerful this "connection" could be to the user.

Within the heart of Harmony Point, an exceptionally powerful nexus on Rhen Var sat an ancient and archaic castle that had just recently been renovated to the point that individuals could inhabit it's walls, the castle being isolated from other civilizations that inhabited the ice world. While it would not appear to be a Government Center, this was in fact the very building that housed either the Grand Warlord or the Vice Warlord, and in this case, it was the Vice Warlord, Asumar Masaki who inhabited these walls, and unlike others, who would complain of the lack of activity in Harmony Point, Asumar had no such qualms, because if he wasn't engaged in combat or in the battlefield, he was in a solitary and quiet place where he could gather his thoughts and even meditate when he desired, but he was never alone: wherever the Grand Warlord or the Vice Warlord went, a legion of highly elite Masaki Guardians accompanied them, as well as a member of the illustrious Alpha Squadron.

As soon as Carrier-48 entered the Rhen Var system, numerous notification alarms began to ring ominously within the Temple's Throne Room, in which Asumar slowly opened his eyes, emerging from his deep meditation with his eyes automatically on the large monitor that stood approximately ten feet from him, an image of the large carrier automatically gaining his attention. Judging by the initial scans of the ship, there was no evidence of any weaponry, which somewhat baffled Asumar thinking that such a vast ship would have an array of weaponry. To make matters even more baffling, the large carrier then proceeded to hail the planet, the crew of the ship stating it's intentions to interact with the inhabitants of the planet, or their leaders. Asumar looked to the right arm of his throne, a button glowing blue as if in preparation to launch an attack, but this button would be used to call upon the nearest fleet within Rhen Var's vicinity, the 22nd Attack Fleet, which had been stationed at the far end of the Rhen Var system. Instead of pressing this blue button, Asumar then proceeded to press the glowing white button that was right below the blue one, sending a message to the Carrier above:

MESSAGE TO UNIDENTIFIED VESSEL

ATTENTION UNIDENTIFIED VESSEL, YOUR INTENTIONS OF ESTABLISHING CONTACT HAS BEEN ACCEPTED, PLEASE LAND AT HARMONY POINT, A REPRESENTATIVE SHALL BE WAITING FOR YOU.

[The United Remnants of America]

CIC
HMSS Observant
Patrol Squadron Athena
Unclaimed Planet Designate Jocasta

Unknown World, Unknown System
Strike Fleet Argarce

Since the gravitational distortion a short while ago, the fleet remained blind to the outside system. A Hive Fleet, with its advanced Arbiter constructed using outsider intelligence would have the tracking systems to locate and reach out to whatever had caused that distortion, but a Strike Fleet was a simple organ of the Hive, meant for the basic purpose of reaching points of interest, exploring them, and harvesting anything they found. Even Strike Fleets within the Hive's normal space of operations were just transport fleets that moved Vresh between worlds or acted as food collectors for the couple planets allowed to sustain outsider life for the purpose of farming them.

The Vresh sat patiently, both because they had no way to do much else and also because they were curious to see what this was. The Vresh aboard the ships of Strike Fleet Argarce that were intelligent beyond the basic animal instinct of the smaller breeds assumed they were soon going to die; that whatever had caused that distortion was some insurmountable threat. Death wasn't a fear of a Vresh, nor was it a goal. The Hivemind had experienced billions upon untold billions of deaths over the species' lifetime, so it was a product of this that the Vresh did not fear death nor did they memorialize those countless hive mates that had died in the past. It was the end of the life cycle.

But when death did not immediately come for those aboard Hive Fleet Argarce, the Vresh began to grow curious.

What could it be? Outsiders? Explosion? Must explore. Must send explorers. Must learn.

For now only a single tendril of curiousity ran through the Hivemind. On one of the many ships in Strike Fleet Argarce, a smaller transport vessel, openings appeared as Vresh within prepared dropships to leave their ship and explore outer space.

These dropships had been constructed like with the Arbiter-type ships and with several other weapon-like innovations: With the help of outsider interaction. Before, this kind of technology was never thought about, and the small, aircraft-sized dropships appeared almost sleek and stylish when compared to the abominations of the Hive's starships. Made of black and grey metals with yellowed, bone-like coverings, the drop ships began to lift off of hangars within their transports, loaded with flight crews and extra Vresh to take up the piloting. Only a handful of these dropships were rising, and as they began to exit the transport through openings through the sides and spine of the transport, some dropships were stopped dead in the tracks.

On dropship's pilot stopped so hard the crew inside lurched forward from the rapid deceleration, causing all to look out the forward viewscreen. Ahead of them were small probe-like beings, smooth and obviously outsider-made, but their appearance wasn't as surprising as two things.

First, the Vresh had an inbred, deep-set hatred of artificial intelligence and machine life. Synthetics. The Vresh could not harvest them or feed on them and were deemed wastes and threatening wastes at that. Not only did this utilitarian philosophical viewpoint on robots exist, but so did the history between them and the Vresh. The First Great Extinction, or known to the Hive as The Long Sleep, where the entirety of the Vresh were eradicated down a single world, where surviving Vresh hid in caves as the planet was glassed, had been caused by synthetics. And to the Hive, all synthetics were alike and operated together, as if they were not made by different and unrelated creators.

Secondly, this thing was inside the ship. And as more dropships came into contact with these things inside their own launching tubes, the occupants of the dropships staring in awe at the presence of these little invaders, the Hivemind went momentarily quiet, at least in this part of space, as all Vresh saw them. But this momentary surprise was quickly overcome.

Invaders! Metal outsiders! They inside! Kill outsiders! Kill metal invaders!

And with that thought, every dropship within the transport staring down the little alien probes armed their weapons and targeted the probes. Almost at once, every dropship pilot fired and from each dropship came a pulsing blast of yellow-green bio-energy compressed into high-energy plasma that reached out and connected the probes and dropships for an instant. Dropships that hadn't encountered probes immediately turned and sunk back into the depths of the transport as the Strike Fleet had now found out the outsiders were indeed threats and they were trying to invade their ships.

Across the Strike Fleet, the Severitas stopped looking across the stars and began to look within their system with focus. With some effort, six small waves appeared, almost appearing as small bumps to their senses. No Severita in existence had ever been sensitive enough to actually manipulate and bend the gravity of another ship, and the idea of trying to bend space between to points to put the other ship in a tube was too difficult when ships were constantly moving. This was also why Vresh ships could never move into FTL travel in combat and had to momentarily stop so the Severitas could warp gravity safely and accurately. Despite their limitations, Vresh Severitas could still sense ships as tiny dots compared to the gravity well of even a planet, but that was it. Their sensitivity was also limited; small ships and even probes could not be detected.

As the Severitas locked onto the bumps, this information was quickly relayed to the rest of the hivemind, and almost at once Strike Fleet Argarce roared to life as every ship's sublight engines ignited and the fleet began to move, the same yellow-green bio-energy that the dropships used as weapons now burning out the back of every Vresh ship. Aboard the combat ships, Vresh of all types began to mobilize for combat efforts and for the primary goal of Vresh space combat: Boarding and imprisonment. Once boarded, the Hive would then see if the metal invaders encountered and being fired upon within the transport were on these ships to confirm the presence of synthetic life:

If not, then imprisonment would begin so that the beings aboard the ships could be processed, their biological material either being used as energy, food, or living hosts. If they were invaders, then the Hive's combat ships would open fire on the fleet to destroy them.

The metal ones come to Vresh ships. Vresh safe havens. They die so Vresh live.

[Tracian Empire]

snippidy

"This, Major, is our homeworld." she responded. "We are the buds of the earth. The builders of what you see..." she transforms into one of the various hominid races found in the long-dead ruins, "And the end of it too." she transforms into another race, and then back to her crystal form, before morphing once again to her human variant. "You are a Major for the Sovereign Colonies, sent here on an expedition to explore the planet, or what remains of it, and see if it is viable for colonization. You landed here in the morning, explored the ancient ruins, and ventured into our circle here. Your unit's collective heat awakened us from our dormancy, and for that we are grateful."

She spoke with no hesitation, and extreme confidence. Those leeching crystals must've certainly done much to give her such knowledge, and furthermore the ability to speak the language at all. "Your species are humans, and are anatomically similar to the people who once lived here. You are scared, paranoid of what contact with my people means for yours. You've spent a lifetime learning about the dangers of the worlds beyond, but have never contacted sentient life beyond your own species. I can assure you, Major, that we are not here to harm you. That stage of our cycle is long past, as you can see around you."

The humans watched, scared, as the leader of the aliens, the so called Arae, spoke to them, turning into different races before she returned to her human form. She seemed to know who they were, and why they were here. She even seemed to know what they were currently feeling. It was probably due to those crystals... those crystals did something to them, and brought back information to the alien, the Major realized. But the problem was rather large. Judging by what they had seen up until now, one thing was clear. This alien civilization was probably much, much more advanced than anything the Sovereign Colonies or the human civilization could offer. What did they stumble upon?

"Y-yes.. that would be correct.", the Major said, slowly lowering his rifle. "I am Michael Verner, Major in the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces, Executive Officer of the Colonial Military Ship Roanoke. And these are my men.". The Colonial tried to be calm, although some fear was still present in his voice. Under normal circumstances, in such a situation, the Major would have had to contact his superior officer, and inform him of the situation, after which the Captain would make a decision. Those were the rules specified in the case of a first contact situation. But not only would it have been impossible for the Colonials to contact their commander right now, surrounded by aliens as they were, but also, thinking about the virulent xenophobia of his commander... the Major did wonder if that would have been a wise thing to do. Probably not. Most surely not. Certainly not.

"Everything you said would be correct... we had no idea that this planet would be inhabited... and this would be the first time the.. Sovereign Colonies directly contact an alien race.... but we come in peace... I guess?", the Major continued. Even if, ignoring the fact that they super advanced aliens, the naked human looking figures around them didn't look all that threatening, the humans did feel threatened, and would have probably already opened fire, if not for the relative calm of the Major. The situation was just so ripped off from one of that alien fiction movies back on Xalion that many of them had problems realizing exactly what was happening anyway.

"If you say that you're not going to harm us... we'll trust you on that...but..", the Major said, hesitantly."What exactly is your species? Why were you all asleep? What happened here?"

[Spindle]

CIC
HMSS Observant
Patrol Squadron Athena
Unclaimed Planet Designate Jocasta

A contact alert rang through Artemis' head, warning her that the Drones had found something. Spinning on her heel, she glanced up at the dozen monitors which showed her the Drones' camera feeds and saw their hosts for the first time. If the ships had been like something from an old sci-fi novel, before the requirement for politically correct x-ray species, these were even more so. They might have been some form of small craft, or they might have been the x-rays themselves, but the distinction was impossible to make without a vivisection - not something Artemis wanted to do on their first contact. The...creature itself was evidently biological and seemed to be curiously inspecting the Drone, like an animal when it first meets a new toy.

The two objects watched each other for a moment as more and more of the things appeared in the view of both the first Drone and the others. It could only have been a few moments, but it felt like much, much longer and this time that was nothing to do with Artemis' interlink. Each moment seemed to stretch into hours as she waited with baited breath to if the x-rays would attack. After a few seconds, she brought up a holo-console and began to shift the blank oval of the drone into a screen which she could use for-

Sickly green light flashed in every single screen at once and the feed from the Drones cut out. Checking diagnostics, there was nothing. None of the self-repair systems were active or, if they were, they were too scattered to actually pull anything together. Those...things had just wiped out every single Drone she'd sent over to them. The thought sent a bucket of ice cascading into her stomach as she considered the implications. They'd been unarmed - they'd been blatantly unarmed - and that meant that these x-rays had killed them for no reason.

Or for a reason which makes no sense to us. Her inner voice said, Remember your political correctness.

With a snort, Artemis dismissed the thought and waved her hand, seven other figures appearing in her simulspace. Her seven Captains. She just wished she didn't have to be the ones to tell them this news.

"We're leaving." She said bluntly, "Now. Take the least-time course to the hyper limit and translate out. Don't worry about the Observant, you've got more accel than us. If you can make it then we've saved Admiralty six Frigates and that'll be worth it. Any Drones you can pick up along the way would be useful: liaise with Johannes to get them on a useful vector, but we're melting any of them we can't take. Johannes, as well as that I want our Interceptors out and covering our rear. Get the Strikefighters ready for a high-c attack if the pursue, but don't launch them yet.They take to long to dock and I want to be able to translate out as soon as possible. Get the three we've got out there in here as soon as possible. I don't want to leave any of them behind either."

A chorus of: "Yes, ma'am."s filled her hearing before Artemis waved her hand once again, dismissing her Captains. Turning back to the simulspace map, she looked over the happenings. A flurry of small craft were exiting the ships, or had been exiting the ships, before suddenly beginning to contract and head back for the ships again. Glancing at the threat symbology which symbolised her Recon Drones, a small sigh escaped her lips. Twenty-four light-seconds. That meant that that light was when the Drones had been discovered, almost exactly. A small frown creased over her face, before she nodded to herself. They had QE comms or some other form of FTL communication. That made them more dangerous than she'd been hoping.

Turnign to the holo-console again, she prepared another data-dump. Hybris Base would still be going through their last data-dump and figuring out what was happening and she wanted them to know to not come here. Standard protocol would be for them all to get back to Hybris in a roundabout fashion, to deny the enemy the location of any Spindlean systems, but Artemis would have to be sure to mind-wipe her crew if the enemy could pull more gees than the Carrier. It wasn't the best thing to do to her crew, but it was better than giving the enemy intel which could bring the war to the Star Kingdom. And they'd known what they'd signed up for when they joined the Navy.

Somewhat morosely, she watched the Frigates speed away. They'd hit the hyper limit in around two and a half hours without the Carrier slowing them down: the Observant would take almost six. As the Frigates burned and sped away, the twenty-four Recon Drones monitoring the x-ray fleet caught sublight engine after sublight engine activating as the x-rays began moving towards them. If she had time to refine the data and figure out their acceleration, Artemis could have made a substantiated judgement about what to do with the Observant. But she doubted the Drones would survive much longer and the ballpark figures she was getting were enough to tell her exactly what she needed to do.

"Johannes?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"We're not taking a least-time route." Artemis said, a dotted line springing up in the simulspace, "We're going to curve around Jocasta and head perpendicular to the Frigates. If that acceleration is the best they can do, they can't catch the Frigates and both sides know know it. But they can catch us whichever way we run. So we'll head past Jocasta, dip into one of its storm systems and launch escape pods. We keep a skeleton command crew and head off to draw more of their fleet away from the Frigates, launching a high-c attack with the Enyalii to keep their attention over here. Drop two squadrons of Alkons to keep them out of the orbitals as long as possible and use the third to ward off any fast elements they can throw at us for as long as possible. Give the evacuees time to get out of the drop site and into hiding before the x-rays can land anything."

"Understood, ma'am." Johannes nodded crisply, the Observant already spinning and firing its engines to change course, "Who's staying?"

"Me, Burr, Alastor, Scorpius, Maia and Rhea." Artemis said, and unspoken conversation flashing between the two officers.

"Yes, ma'am." Johannes said without any hint of inner turmoil, "We'll be there in point-seven hours. With your leave, I'll go and prepare everyone for the evacuation."

"Go." Artemis said softly, Johannes' figure fading from the simulspace. Looking at the two dotted lines, hers and the Frigates', it all felt terribly cold. There wouldn't be any brilliant plan to save them, the way it happened in a holovid. This was war, she supposed. The plans were laid down and then both sides were simply along for the ride, the outcome decided long before the first shots were ever fired. But looking at it, seeing the precise patterns of Drone migration as they headed to rendezvous with the Frigates and the symbology winking out as the Drones which couldn't be recovered liquified, it hit her how much everything was decided in advance. From the moment they'd arrived in the system, this had been the inevitable result. All that was left to do was to see how much they could salvage from the fiasco.

[The United Remnants of America]

CIC
HMSS Observant
Patrol Squadron Athena
Unclaimed Planet Designate Jocasta

Unknown World, Unknown System
Strike Fleet Argarce

The Severitas obviously picked up on the changes first of all.

The ships, they counted seven, were moving. One was breaking away as the others seemed to begin moving away from the accelerating Strike Fleet. The maximum speed of the sublight engines of the fastest of the Vresh ships was roughly half the speed of the light, but due to thelack of standardization, this was only a record for the fastest of the ships. The slowest usually went half that or a little faster at full speed.

They separate. They flee. Give chase. Follow.

It never occurred to the Vresh that the unknown ships were faster than their own, so as the distance between the single ship and the group of fleeing ships increased, the Strike Fleet began to diverge proportionally. The majority of the Strike Fleet never wavered from their course heading for the retreating unidentified frigates, while a smaller contingent of a few hundred vessels of the Strike Fleet broke off from their course to track after the single ship that was moving towards the low-quality planet that the Vresh had scouted only days ago.

For the majority of the Strike Fleet giving chase to the fleeing frigates, it began to dawn on the collective thoughts of their Severitas that the ships were gaining distance. They were accelerating faster. But chase must be given. They would eventually have to stop or turn or slow down. And that was the reasoning the Hive used to hold course. For some of the lead cruiser-type vessels in the group, the slightly faster ships, the crews knew they were out of boarding range from the half-dozen unidentified ships, but they were still within firing range.

From several forward-facing tube-like structures on the smaller cruisers, points of yellow-green bio-energy collected and grew. This energy was the same used for all Vresh technology, and the only difference between the weaponized bioenergy and the fuel was that the weaponized version burned hotter and was plasma-like in both properties and effect while still retaining it's rather syrup-like consistency. The energy was collected from several ships on several "cannons" each until almost at once the ships fired their collective volley of bio-plasma, sending the yellow-green orbs searing in the direction of the fleeing frigates. With little to no targeting and lacking any kind of engines, these "bio-balls" were not as fast as most munitions and obviously mostly straight-firing with little deviation. The only hope was that the sheer amount of fire would hit something before the frigates went out of the range where the bio-energy would begin to burn and fizzle out.

As for the ships that were racing after the decidedly larger and slower ship that was moving towards the planet, they were nearing boarding range, but since it helped to be as close as possible for the Vresh to not miss a boarding volley, they waited to be sure of their target, accelerating ever-forward towards what they didn't know was the Observant.

The many escape. The one remains. Must not let go. Must stop. Must catch.

In a relatively rare idea, one of the leading cruisers in the break-away portion of the Strike Fleet similarly loaded up a small volley of bio-energy and fired on the fleeing carrier, sending out a single handful of shots towards the ship in a weak attempt to try and slow or disable the vessel. The Hivemind assumed they would miss, and so the ships did not even wait for the outcome of the single volley of fire as they sped towards the unknown invader of the Hive.

[Plzen]

UNSS Karlstad-37112, in orbit around some unimportant civilian shipyard;
Deep in Sovereign Colonies Space, 36 parsecs coreward from Sol;
07:14 Earth Standard Time, 02 July 2341 CE

Karlstad-Class Recon/Espionage Vessel
Crew: 0 (AI driven)
Armaments: none
Shields: 2.5 kJ deflectors; 1 mm aluminum-steel alloy
Engines: 1x B & R General Purpose Drive (model 2302)
Auxiliary Components: EM damper; gravitational damper; G.E. Passive Sensor Array (model 2294)
Production duration: 6 hours
Production rate: 37/day
Number in service: (classified)

Karlstad 37112 was "happy" - as much as an AI stuck in deep space on a 6-week espionage mission can be, anyways. It was only two hours until the trip back to base, and then it will be able to enjoy all the desires an AI could ask for - company, care, and CPU space. Lots and lots of CPU space.

The cramped miniature computer aboard the vessel didn't give it much space to actually think. It missed the great arrays of supercomputers that housed the AIs that were not on a mission. It was big, spacious...

Best not to think about that, the AI thought. It will just make me want to go back faster.

Its mission was exceedingly simple. An insult, really, to an advanced AI like it. Simply watch the hostile shipyard ("hostile", of course, meant the Sovereign Colonies, even though they were not at war) and log any particularly large ships or vessels that might be military.

Grunt intelligence work, in other words. It didn't have any doubt that there were ten thousand other ships like it doing the same thing. It also didn't doubt at all that Sovereign Colonies' spy vessels were doing the same on UNS shipyards. But orders were orders, and here Karlstad 37112 was, looking forward already to the trip back.

Best charge up the engine in advance, the ship thought, diverting some power to the great engines that made travel between the vast distances between stars possible.

Something clicked.

That can't be right, the ship thought, cutting power.

Goddamn it. It's handler taught it the phrase when she was drunk on alcohol. Karlstad 37112 liked the phrase. It was so... applicable... for so many situations.

A quick systems check told the ship that everything was working properly. The ship started powering the engines again.

Something clicked. Heat. Fire? The Artificial Intelligence made preparations to eject its mainframe from the ship, and tried to cut power again.

BOOM

When the Sovereign Colony authorities arrived to investigate the explosion twenty minutes later, there was nothing there except for one Karlstad-class wreck and one very irritated, very uncooperative AI.

[The Greater Gambia]

Kila Nikmo waited patiently in the tall grass, her tertiary pupils contracting as her brain processed the infrared input in the deep Fraxian night, far away from any of the settlements that littered the surfrace of the planet. Her body was totally still, not even the barb on the end of her tail twitching as she crouched low enough to be completely hidden. A Grish was 30 meters ahead of her, lapping at the water that flowed down the quiet stream that cut through these grasslands, completely unaware of the death that lurked hidden behind her. The animal was large, nearly twice her size, and armed with ferocious tusks that could gore her quite thoroughly if she wasn't careful.

But then, she was RITS. She was bred to be careful. She was downwind, and had made no noise on her approach. The grass had barely even rustled at her approach. She didn't have to worry about sight--the Grish were nearly blind. She crouched lower and dug her claws into the earth, preparing for the rush that would put a sudden end to the large herbivore's life.

But then, sometimes things go awry on a hunt, as she had been taught well. A sudden rumble shook the air, causing the large animal to look up suddenly before charging off into the grass, just as Kila looked up to see what was causing the disturbance. Her pupils all refocused as she took in every input at once, seeing what was very obviously a shuttlepod passing overhead. A shuttlepod of a design that she had never seen before, slowing down as it approached a nearby clearing about half a klick from where she was standing. She knew the terrain around here well, it was the only unobstructed place where they could land. The Major in her took over, causing her to crouch low and start moving towards the landing sight at a decent 32 km/ph, her passing no more than a light wind rustling the three-meter high red grasses that grew in great swaths over this continent.

It wasn't long before she reached the landing sight, crouching low once more and becoming completely still as she waited, watched, and listened, waiting to see what would come out of what was obviously an alien craft.

"Pashto, take point!" The Squad Leader ordered. Pashto was the first outside of the dropship. As he scanned the surrounding area, the rest of the Squad hopped out as well, establishing a perimeter. They had landed in an empty field, away from any major population centers. Once the squad was out of the dropship, it lifter off of the ground, returning to the corvette at the edge of the system.

"Pashto, see anything?"

"Nothing, area sec- wait." Pashto aimed his rifle towards a nearby hill. He switched to the thermal setting of his helmet, outlining a living organism watching them.

"There's a native watching us from over there. Should we fire?"

"Yes, but use low power. We can probably get some intel from it." With the order given, the whole squad fired stun rounds at the alien, hoping to capture it.

[Jelaras]

"Pashto, take point!" The Squad Leader ordered. Pashto was the first outside of the dropship. As he scanned the surrounding area, the rest of the Squad hopped out as well, establishing a perimeter. They had landed in an empty field, away from any major population centers. Once the squad was out of the dropship, it lifter off of the ground, returning to the corvette at the edge of the system.

"Pashto, see anything?"

"Nothing, area sec- wait." Pashto aimed his rifle towards a nearby hill. He switched to the thermal setting of his helmet, outlining a living organism watching them.

"There's a native watching us from over there. Should we fire?"

"Yes, but use low power. We can probably get some intel from it." With the order given, the whole squad fired stun rounds at the alien, hoping to capture it.

Kila saw the first rifle raise in her direction, and by the time they were firing she was already gone, running at nearly 40 kph as she avoided the rounds from the aliens. A brief scan of their thoughts was all it had taken for her to know what they intended to do to her, and she had no intention of ending up a lab rat for some alien scientists. She ran out away from the clearing, then back in, resuming her stationary position behind the aliens with her tail now raised and twitching, ready to strike at a moment's notice. The stun rounds that they had fired had passed through the high grass without striking anything, which they would most assuredly notice.

These people were soldiers, she could tell by the way their surface thoughts were structured--she dare not dive any deeper for fear of them noticing her presence there--which meant that they were most likely trained to react to commands, not emotional appeals. Just as she was trained. So, she took the only course of action she could see working.

<Stand down, soldiers. Hold your fire,> she broadcasted into the minds of every alien there, pushing the weight of command into every word she thought. She was a Major in the RITS, she was used to corralling five blood-lustful Niktal into a cohesive military unit--so commanding some relatively calm aliens to stop shooting at her shouldn't be too much of a problem.

<I am Major Kila Nikmo, RITS. Please, stop shooting,> she continued, a little more calmly than the first time she had contacted their minds. She stepped out of the grass behind them, making sure to use as much noise as she possibly could. She purposefully stepped on a patch of dry, dead grass as she folded her claws in, wrapping her tail around her front and putting the barb behind her in a show of peaceful intent.