An Ordinary Chat [closed]

[Allied Sapients]

The Coalition of Allied Sapients had been unable to secure an office proper in the World Assembly Headquarters, likely because they weren’t actually a member of the organization. Instead, ambassador and trainees alike stayed in a shuttle out in the parking lot, and considered the occasional parking ticket to be essentially the same as paying rent. That the shuttle was the size of a house didn’t seem to net it larger fines, oddly enough.

The shuttle itself was quite utilitarian: the general shape of a cone for aerodynamics, a trio of wings for stability, and a well-weathered look to the lavender and white bands painted across its surface. The engines attached to the wings were clearly meant to work in-atmosphere; this was a machine meant to go straight up and be caught by an actually maneuverable spacecraft once the engines ran out of air to work with. Most importantly, this was a machine that would be utterly useless to anyone who might try to fly off with it without permission. Without the interceptor spaceship, any prospective hijacker would find that the only place they could go with the shuttle was straight down.

As Rirten started up a fairly boring ramp, the equally plain door on its other end opened on its own. “Oh, Hordt must be here,” they said to Jasot. “Normally I have to let it scan me before it’ll let me in.”

[Tinfect]

The alien shuttlecraft was, as it turned out, in entirely the wrong section of the parking lot for the Imperial landing craft to be visible. That didn't particularly matter, in any case; while the Alien craft was distinctly foreign, its size was similar enough that Rirten wasn't likely to be impressed. At the very least, it didn't appear to be a military craft. With its dedicated atmosphere engines and wings, and apparent lack of any point defenses, this was a dropship that would be obliterated with ease if it tried to come down into a warzone. If it had been proposed to the Imperium, they'd have shot the prototype and the designers.

Rirten's surprise broke her out of her musing, and she stopped at the base of the ramp. "Hordt? Another member of the delegation, or your pilot?"

[Giant Bats]

Ikiti Tikilikrr, a member of a species of aerial predator which resembled a cross between a bat, a great white shark and a bird of prey, had been circling over the parking lot in question, waiting for the two slow terrestrial creatures to emerge from the building. She had used the time to get measurements of the alien craft with the instrumentation attached to her cybernetic headgear. Her natural sonar was of little use when it came to spaceships of any kind, apart from the size, which, to her, promised indoors spaces that would be claustrophobically small.

Used to unlimited skies as her natural habitat, close quarters without room to spread her six-metre wingspan were normal only when roosting, surrounded by her tribe, and even then open space would be all around you. The spaceships the Tikrr used, were mostly hollow space to alleviate the problem of lacking the chance to go flying, and even then traveling in them was considered merely tolerable, rather than enjoyable.

It was only because of the urging of the communications AI, reminding her that she had promised to go visiting the alien craft, that Ikiti finally aimed for the ramp of the shuttle, to land on. At least her aerial mastery allowed her great precision with such manouvers, allowing her to neatly insert herself between the amphibious Rirten and the Tinfectian supersoldier, who hadn't yet stepped on the ramp.

[Allied Sapients]

Rirten rumbled a greeting as Ikiti landed. “I’m glad you found us!” they said. Turning around to face the two of them, they answered, “I guess you could call Hordt the pilot, because they officially run the ship. But really, everything’s automated, so most of what they do is look at numbers, talk to Olsh and me and Diplomat, then look at more numbers. Usually when they talk to me it’s about my pheromone bath.”

They stepped through the door and gestured at Ikiti and Jasot to follow them. Immediately inside was a perfectly round airlock, easily large enough for the three of them. Leading from it were doors- three of them, in addition to the entryway- all carefully labeled in a script comprised predominantly of individual, unconnected lines of varying lengths and angles. Beside the entryway was a wide hatch connected to a chute, which was used to deliver environment suits, respirators, and other necessities based on the species that needed them at the time. Keeping everything in the airlock proper was unfeasible.

[Tinfect]

The giant bat alien that had suddenly elected to land in front of her caused Jasot to jump back, though the Tikrr's position had kept her out of Rirten's line of sight. She stepped to Ikiti's side when he started speaking; the only thing worth noting were the words 'pheromone bath', and those were the ones that she couldn't quite get over. The very thought of such a thing only reinforced her reasoning for trying to get an HLE suit.

Fortunately, as she followed Rirten in, the ship didn't appear to contain anything of the sort, at least not in this section. Whatever language it was that was on the doors wasn't Indexed, nor did it look particularly advanced to her eyes. Still, she made a mental note to see if she couldn't acquire a dictionary of some sort; Intelligence could work wonders with it, and it was always good to be on their good side. The rest of the room was inscrutable without the information on the doors, and with that, she turned to Rirten.

"What is this, then? Ship looked a lot bigger on the outside, Rirten." She paused; she didn't know how well Humor translated, rumor had it that Esiat were nigh-incapable of it. "That was a uh, joke. Still don't know what this room is, though."

[Giant Bats]

"Airlock," Ikiti said in response to the Tinfectian's question, completely missing any humour of the question.

Her tenseness didn't get translated to the voice of her translator device, but would have been easy to see for anyone familiar with Tikrr body language. Unfortunately the number of people outside of her own that were fluent in reading the body language, was all of one so far, and the one person had not come along for this foray. The spines on her back were slightly raised, she was walking more crouched down than usual, with tensed muscles and with her ears flicking back and forth as she used both her natural sonar as well as the visual to aural - VTA for short - system to explore her surroundings.

The air was wrong, the spatial dimensions were wrong, the magnetic and electric fields were wrong. The only reason she wasn't completely freaking out was that the communications AI was singing a calming croon into her brain implant, the kind that an adult Tikrr would sing to a scared fledgling during a bad storm in the skies of her homeworld.

[Tinfect]

"Airlock," she said, "Right." What the hell kind of dropship needed an airlock? If it was being dropped into a vacuum space, the interior should be depressurized too. Now these aliens were less threatening and more confusing.

[Allied Sapients]

The moment after Ikiti and Jasot entered, a voice emanated from a speaker in the ceiling. “This will just be a moment. Rirten, I’m adjusting the atmosphere in your room. One of your guests is human, but I can’t make assumptions about the other one so I’m matching it to the air outside. Your pool will be exactly the same as it usually is, however, and I’m keeping the temperature and humidity within your tolerances.”

Rirten let out a high-pitched noise somewhat like a dental drill starting up. Northerners could tolerate Earth-standard atmospheric composition (and vice versa), which was one of the reasons why the jarans had introduced the two species in the first place, but tolerable didn’t necessarily mean comfortable.

“The room will still be very warm for at least one of you, just as a warning,” continued the voice. The hatch in the wall opened up to reveal a half dozen arm-length, gel-filled pads. “Please take these cooling pads and put them on your arteries or an equivalent thereof.”

With that, the door to the outside closed with a soft hiss, and the one on the far right slid open. The room inside was quite large in comparison. In fact, it had originally been three rooms, but the lack of other personnel to house meant they could afford to knock out a few walls in the name of letting the trainees spread out a little. Dominating the room was a large pool which showed clear signs of originally having been an under-floor storage space. There were marks on the bottom where shelving had been removed.

The room was also warm. It was easily 80 degrees Farenheit, and humid enough that condensation was forming on the walls.

“If you need to cool down, feel free to retreat to the airlock and I’ll adjust the air accordingly in there,” said the voice, this time from a speaker by the door. “This is as low as I can take it and still be safe for Rirten.”

Rirten themself wasted no time in shedding their environment suit. The faceplate was removed first, with a soft pneumatic hiss, and then a seemingly seamless place on the suit itself slipped open, spilling out a copious amount of both water and crocodilian alien. Rirten looked significantly smaller outside of their suit. Much of their apparent volume was in a thick mane, tip to tail, of thin, hairlike gill filaments that billowed out like seaweed as they dived into the pool.

“That’s much better,” said Rirten, twisting around to rest their arms on the edge of the pool. “That suit is very confining. Want to swim with me?”

[Tinfect]

That explained the airlock, at least, and told her where Hordt was. The tactical system she was tied into reclassified the situation from 'suicidal', to merely 'lethal'. It still wasn't decided on whether or not it trusted Ikiti, but it didn't like Rirten at all. That was fine, it was free to be wrong; she doubted that Rirten was dangerous even if he was malevolent, which, thus far, seemed damned unlikely.

She left the cooling pads alone, having her own cooling systems built in, and followed Rirten into the room, only to stop dead when Rirten's suit started open. She wasn't entirely sure what she had expected to come out of it, but a ton of water and a strange looking, very wet, alien, certainly hadn't been it. In, some form of curiosity, it remained a subject of debate whether it was morbid or not, she joined Rirten at the pool's edge, and got a much better look at them.

Jasot absolutely hadn't expected Rirten to be so damn cute. The tactical system be damned, Rirten didn't look like they could hurt her if they wanted to, but, whether or not she would hop into the water depended on a question. "Depends on what's in the water, uh, besides you, Rirten. Heard something about a pheromone bath earlier?"

[Giant Bats]

The voice from the ceiling was still of the very low-pitched alien variety and as such didn't draw much attention from Ikiti, while getting translated by her system. Around 27 degrees Celsius was hot for air temperature, for her, but not unbearably so. She didn't pay the cooling pads any attention, because although the air war warmer than she was used to, the Tikrr were only partially endothermic, and could tolerate several degrees' changes in body temperature with ease. She would cool back down when she got outside.

The humidity was a much bigger issue, making her instinctively mistrustful of the oxygen content, because on her planet only the lower parts of the air column the Tikrr hunted in, were often hot and humid, and the CO₂-O₂ ratio there was not suitable for the kind of oxygen-breather that she was. She fought the urge to hold her breath as she reluctantly moved out of the airlock, staying as far from the pool as she could, without touching a wall.

Rirten decanting himself from the encounter suit made Ikiti's predatory instincts flare up briefly, but fortunately the mane made him resemble one of the all but inedible filter-feeders from her homeplanet, and while she wasn't about to call him a crap-eater - which was what the Tikrr word for the creatures would approximately translate to - she also no longer was curious about what he would tast like. That the Tinfectian supersoldier appeared so comfortable with the situation as to nearly flirt, as far as Ikiti understood the situation, anyway, with the aquatic alien, was a surprise both to her and the communications AI. It also made her feel even more like she shouldn't be there.

"I would be very likely to panic in the water, and when panicked, forget that we are all sapient creatures," the miniature speakers of her cybernetic gear said, without any input from her part, "so it is best for everyone that I do not interact with your pool. Is there any way to arrange a pole or a bar - vertical, slanted and horizontal are all good, though horizontal would be easiest - for me to perch on? Being on the floor makes me uneasy too."

[Allied Sapients]

Rirten would not be happy about being compared to a filter feeder, but it never hurt to be considered distinctly inedible. Though to be honest, Rirten would be more confused than alarmed if someone were to make some sort of statement about their edibility. They just weren't. Couldn't anyone tell that. Being considered adorable would also be a plus, if they knew about it.

"I can do that. One moment," said Hordt from the speaker. A panel near the ceiling opened up and a barred rack, normally used for overhead storage, shot out across the top of the room above Ikiti. "Will this work, or is there a better place you'd rather have it? I also have wire-bottom racks and ones with a solid surface, if you'd prefer, and I can also bring out multiples of each. If there's anything else you need to be comfortable- either of you- please speak up."

While that was being worked out, Rirten answered Jasot. "Oh, there's pheromones in the pool. Fake ones exactly the same as the real ones, anyway. And they're in the water in my suit, too, when I have it on. My species uses them for social signalling, and not being able to feel any of them at all is bad, psychologically. Physically too, after a while. It's completely harmless to humans, though, the jarans made sure of that before they introduced us."

[Giant Bats]

Ikiti turned her head up to measure the offered bars with her soft sonar. "A single bar, two to three times the diameter of those ones, its own diameter from the ceiling would be ideal. My intention was to hang down from it, enabling conversation from a closer range. The perching reflex of my feet does not care if I am upright or hanging down, both are just as comfortable. If that is not threatening to you, Rirten?" she added, turning her attention to the pool inhabitant again. "Many terrestrial species do not like people hanging upside down above them, but I do not know how aquatic species feel about it."

[Allied Sapients]

"No, it's fine!" said Rirten as the rack disappeared into the hatch it came from. "I mean, I'm not used to people being above me in the air, but it happens a lot in the ocean."

After few moments a rod, about six inches across, shot across the top of the room and attached to a latch on the other side, and then moved upward on a track until it was the same distance from the ceiling. This one had also been used for storage at one point, as something to hang cabinets from. Permanently attaching storage units to the dividing walls between rooms was difficult when those walls were retractable, and besides, jarans liked having their rooms easy to alter at will.

"Is that better?" asked Hordt.

[Giant Bats]

"That is excellent, thank you," Ikiti said. What she did next, tended to astonish people who didn't know the strength of Tikrr wing muscles; she used her wing limbs to jump in the air, turning while doing so, to unerringly wrap first her killing claws and then further her toes around the bar. Feeling it take her weight easily, she folded back her wings, directing her attention to the pool that was now below her - far enough that she didn't feel threatened by the water surface, but close enough for what species with inferior hearing considered a comfortable conversation distance. "Your pheromones sound to me like what subconscious vocalizations are for Tikrr. We are a social species, and a solitary Tikrr is vulnerable to many of the dangers of our homeworld. Is safety in numbers the reason for your pheromones too? And Tinfectian female, what is the human form of social signaling? I know you are a social species as well."

[Tinfect]

That, unfortunately, dashed any chance of her getting in the pool, even as warm as it was in the room; strange aliens she could handle, she'd had to do enough of it in the World Assembly, but strange alien pheromones were not happening, harmless or otherwise. "That's about what I was afraid of," she said. And, with that, she elected instead to simply sit down at the pool's edge while Itiki got herself situated.

The bat-alien was definitely right about one thing, it was very much unnerving to have a large creature hanging above her head, not at all helped by the fact that she was fairly certain that her species were straight-up predators. The fact that she took the position by effectively launching over her head was, comparatively, unimportant. It took her a moment to figure out that Itiki was talking to her; 'tinfectian' was just, not a word. "Social signaling? I don't know, we talk. My specialization was Civil Organization and Law, not the uh, mechanics of human interaction."

That, however, brought up a question of her own. "Hey, Rirten, your people been uplifted long enough for you to run through a school? What'd you take, or, does the Coalition not do specialization?"

[Allied Sapients]

Rirten hadn’t been expecting a jump like that. Those wings must be really strong! Northerners couldn’t jump anywhere near that high. In fact, they couldn’t jump very well at all. Launch off of surfaces in the water, sure. Maintaining a neutral buoyancy helped a lot with that. But in air, with the full force of gravity bearing down on them? Not so much.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Rirten said, tilting their head back to look straight up at Ikiti. As the rest of their body was still floating horizontally near the surface of the water, this meant their neck was bent at an angle that looked astoundingly uncomfortable. “Us being social probably has to do with being able to help or at least compensate for sick or injured members and hunting more efficiently rather than safety, specifically. But the pheromones themselves are just- “I am part of your community, you are not alone,” “I am sick, help me,” “I am a stranger, but I mean no harm.”” Rirten rumbled. “I know there’s also an “Extreme danger, flee!” signal, but the volcano hasn’t erupted since before I was born so I haven’t felt that one myself.”

Looking back at Jasot, they continued, “The jarans are worried about the volcano, which is why they’re rushing us through uplifting. It’s only a few years, though. There are schools, yes, but they’re all jaran-run. I originally went to learn to make metal and plastic tools- no one buys stone anymore- but it turned out I’m pretty good at talking to aliens? So, diplomacy training instead. I guess you can call that my specialization.”

“This venture to the World Assembly is considered schoolwork,” said Hordt from the speaker by the door. “For both Rirten and Diplomat. Merchant of the West Pass, too, if the higher ups approve.”

[Giant Bats]

"What species are Hordt and the diplomat?" Ikiti asked. The idea of sharing one's homeplanet with another sapient species felt as foreign to her as living underwater did. Tikrr could barely tolerate sharing theirs with other Tikrr. "Our uplifters are... not as interactive as yours. Only priestesses who can hear the ancestral spirits, can hear them, too, directly. But they saved us from going extinct. Our planet has been slowly dying for a long time. We would have been gone soon, too, if they had not found us. I hope the jarans are able to help you to not go extinct, too." She then moved her head a little to face the mostly artificial human sitting at the poolside. "Is your species alone, or do you have big sisters looking after you?"

[Tinfect]

Pheromone-talk remained, at best, creepy; she had absolutely no desire to find out what those kind of senses made of humans, if, anything at all. Another excuse not to get into the water. The fact that the Jaran ran the schools wasn't surprising, the fact that the Northerner society hadn't even developed past stone tools, absolutely was. They would have been the kind of species that the Imperium would've simply burned off a world and forgotten about; she knew very well about the two species that met such a fate during the purge, without ever even being so much as indexed for the records. It was perhaps best that she avoided talking much about home.

Hordt had said 'Diplomat' like it was a name. 'Merchant of the West Pass' too. Either there was something wrong in the translation, which shouldn't happen unless Imperial Intelligence has been overstating the effectiveness of their methods, or those were names, in which case, alongside Itiki's words about priestesses and ancestor spirits, it was starting to look like the Imperium was by far, the most advanced culture in the room. The tactical network reduced the situation threat again, not quite enough to fall under a different classification.

She looked up to Itiki. For once, she was somewhere that she was reasonably certain had exactly zero Imperial Intelligence presence, she could stand to share some old stories. "Not, not like you two do. We know there was some contact with something a few hundred years ago, Intelligence keeps wraps on it; anyway, they didn't stick around, and what we got, we stole. Hell, the Aeravahn War taught us how to use half of it; bastards didn't have any idea where we came up with our tech."

Sorry for the delay...

[Giant Bats]

Ikiti turned her head to face the mostly artificial human again when she spoke. Her neck wasn't quite as flexible as Rirten's, but had more vertebrae than the human's did, thus allowing for greater movement range.

"That explains why your technology is so unevenly advanced," she said, as the communications AI poured information into her brain via the radio connection from their habitat within the WAHQ building. "You have instantaneous travel and communications, and can destroy entire planets, yet you generate apparent gravity by rotation and use thrusters for maneuvering. Likewise, you'd rather just cut out diseased or dysfunctional parts of your bodies and replace them with artificial ones, than heal and repair organic tissue. And if I understood correctly, your weaponry relies mostly on directed energy and antimatter explosives. And your spaceships are piloted by humans who press buttons, rather than advanced computer minds. At least our pilots are cybernetically connected to the ships when piloting them, enabling much faster and accurate reactions, and bypassing the need for verbal communications. Tell me, do you often lose ships because you were too slow to react?"

[Allied Sapients]

“I am a jaran, the same as Ambassador Olsh,” said Hordt. “Diplomat is a voleo- imagine a small feathered quadruped that uses a prehensile tongue instead of hands. You may see them in the Strangers’ Bar sometime. I’m sure Olsh will introduce you if you ask.”

Rirten wasn’t upset about Hordt taking the question from them- it let the Northerner catch up with how the conversation was developing. They rumbled up at Ikiti. “I don’t think we have to worry about going extinct. The jarans disagree, though, so...” They tilted their head at the speaker. “They have a lot of practice at making sure people don’t go extinct. I hope your uplifters do too.”

“Yours are strange, though,” they said to Jasot. “Whether you stole from them or just stumbled on remnants of them, it’s hard to imagine an uplifter just disappearing.” Not unheard of, though. A large number of species in the Coalition were physical and genetic uplifts, not just technological, and one of the major sources of said species had been overthrown by their own creations long before the jarans came along.

[Tinfect]

Another species of aliens. Voleo this time, with a disturbing resemblance to Esiat, from Hordt's description. Jasot was briefly struck by the grim curiosity of whether they would make for as good target practice as the veterans always said about the Esiat. Ikiti's questioning of the Imperium was only mildly less disturbing than that; it was accurate, much too accurate for comfort.

"Uh, no, Ikiti. Losses are generally the result of tactical and strategic imbalances, and usually within expected ranges. When the battlegroup doesn't have enough escorts for the dreadnoughts, you're going to lose a few dreadnoughts. When the Aeravahn has infinitely more fleet mobility than Intelligence thought, you're going to get outmaneuvered. Third shouldn't have engaged at all, it was out of the Exterior, not their jurisdiction."

With that handled, she turned to Rirten. "From what I heard, and, uh, don't go spreading anything I tell you about this around, by the way, they were just passing through, had no plans to do any kind of uplifting." She paused a moment. "Hope you don't go extinct either, for what it's worth. We've done- well, actually, Rirten, how much do you know about the Imperium?"

[Giant Bats]

"The voleo sounds like a prey animal, so it is perhaps best not to introduce me to them," Ikiti directed the words towards the speaker Hordt had last used to speak to them, and then re-focused on Rirten. "Our uplifters have been uplifting smart animals into sapiency and civilization for longer than our universe has existed. We are in good hands. How big is your breeding population currently?"

She also listened to Jasot's answer, and then listened to the communications AI as it explained to her what all the strange words meant. She wasn't in the military, so warship classes and terms directly related to warfare said very little to her. The mention of the Aeravahn caught her interest, though, given what little she knew of the Imperium and its history. She thought however that it would be best to wait for Rirten's answer and to hear what Jasot was willing to say on the matter. She could always ask additional questions if necessary.

[Allied Sapients]

Rirten let out a buzzing sound. “Not much. You’re exclusively human, you’re a space empire, and since my suit’s computer told me not to engage with you I assume you’re the kind of space empire the Coalition would have a problem with. Like the one Diplomat’s people used to be part of.” Rirten was already skilled in the subtle art of ignoring whatever they were supposed to be doing in favor of doing the more interesting thing; Northerners weren’t particularly hierarchal, and were extremely neophilic. This was yet another reason why Olsh wanted them practicing their alien-socializing skills somewhere not in Coalition territory.

To Ikiti, they said, “Very low, according to the jarans. Around two thousand members? Maybe a little more? They’re encouraging us to raise that number, and ideally have it doubled by the time the new colony is habitable.”

[Tinfect]

That had explained why Rirten had bothered to talk with her at all; if she were running the Coalition side of things, she'd have advised Rirten against engaging the Imperium too, though it clearly wouldn't have helped. Strangely, it didn't seem to bother Rirten at all, even not knowing their Imperial history, there should have been a fair bit more apprehension than they were getting off them about all this. Perhaps she was just particularly bad at judging alien responses; maybe he'd been dumping panic pheromones this entire time. She cut that line of thought off immediately; there was nothing there she wanted to think about. "Well, you're not wrong, Rirten. There's a local archive set up in our offices, should be connected to the World Assembly network; see if you can't do some research. We only keep, well, okay, a lot of secrets from Foreigners, but, everything you need to know should be accessible to you. First and Second Class Information."

The news that the Northerner population was so absolutely minuscule would've been laughable, if Rirten had remotely implied that they were kidding. These people were two steps from extinction as it was, if the Jaran had any sense, they'd have instituted an genetic repopulation and child placement project already. She'd have to see if the post-collapse methodology was open to foreign governments. Seretis would be proud, if it didn't mean more paperwork on top of all the justifying he was having to do for Military Oversight.

[Giant Bats]

Ikiti shrugged her wings, a body language gesture that implied dissatisfaction, and was likely unrecognizable to anyone outside of her species and the green mind. She hadn't really expected the Tinfectian to explain in her own words, but it was still a disappointment. However, she could address that later.

"Our population went through a bottleneck of only about a hundred breeding pairs," she said to Rirten, "but with the introduction of farming food for prey animals, and the building of artificial Roosts to house more Tikrr, our uplifters' breeding program has our current population at a few thousand breeding pairs, not counting chicks and juveniles. We each have to prove that we are valuable breeding stock, several times over our lives, to ensure that we, our offspring and their offspring retain the right to live. We know that this, as well as the culling of older, less civilized generations, is for the betterment of our species as a whole. Even most individuals of my generation are too territorially aggressive, too tribal, to be allowed to remain for long. They will join the ancestral spirits willingly, though, knowing that they will live on in their children and all the children to come.

"However, I believe the Rehlan female's evasive answer was in fact a reference to her civilization having wiped out many others intentionally, within their sphere of existence, and being currently at war with some who managed to survive the atrocities of the past," Ikiti continued, the communications AI making her words sound much more polite than the original wording. "If your species and mine didn't have uplifters looking after us, Rirten, her people would likely send warships to loot our tech and destroy us so we couldn't retaliate in the future. Our uplifters would not like her people entering our space, though, and might act to prevent their return. This is not a threat, Rehlan female," she added, aware by now how other species might misunderstand simple statements of fact, just like they did friendly gestures, "but it is a warning. Please heed it."

'Rehlan female' was how the communications AI had finally resolved to translate Ikiti's usage of "the female of the Rehlan Roost", because it had figured out that said human would likely not take kindly to having her family being referred to as a tribe.