jfschouten
New Member
Prologue
It had everything she needed: life-support, food, water and serenity. Nothing to be heard save the quiet humming of the ship's AI Mainframe that never slept, nothing to be felt except a profound insignificance as they drifted through space, and not a single soul save herself.
The virtual sky above her had turned orange in the last hour. The machines and systems in place to create this environment were relatively new, barely fifteen years old, built in place of some not-so-needed engine space and storage facilities. The ship itself had seen to most of the work and she need only deep-sleep for ten days for the Mainframe to complete the alterations of the ship's interior (the other less-important machines to provide more aesthetic features were still being built: wind and virtual life-form generators, for instance), and after those ten days she had stepped into the old engine-hall to find a beach, a hundred meters of real sea and a small hut on a hill overlooking this unreal example of AI capabilities.
She sat now on the sand, contemplating her next challenge to the great machine. In truth, these environments were just games. Games between her and the Mainframe. She would think up new and exotic environments for the ship to create. She had lost every time so far; the machine made her ideas more than just a piece of environment. In her time on the ship she had seen it create glacial wastelands, dense forests, deserts dryer than the metal that contained it, she had even sat in her hut surrounded by nothing but unending space, nebulas spattered against the black canvas, pockmarked with stars. But no matter how much variety she tried to include in her ideas, the hut was still there, in the same place in the engine-hall, primitive, but comforting.
'Well done, ship.' she said. She looked around and stood up, padding across the sand to her hut, her home, her quiet place.
The inside of the hut was bare, and empty. A stove heated a heady-scented cordial on one wall, and just a table with two chairs sat in the middle. It was a funny concept, the empty chair. She had no use for it, none at all, and the Mainframe had only begun creating this other chair in the last few weeks, since she had made a friend in the vastness of space, a friend she never saw, but knew was there, watching her, comforting her, teaching her the secrets of what the Universe had to offer. He crept up on her sometimes, in her mind, and she knew that this was when she was supposed to listen to him, to be taught, to be told, but never to question.
She sat at the table for a long, long while, staring at the empty chair, all by herself, yet not quite alone. She knew this feeling: it came every once in a while, without warning, without making itself known, without permission. It was a welcome intruder to her constant serenity. She stood, and made her way out of the engine-hall through a hole in a brick wall.
'Hello, Ar.' she thought from inside the life-support unit, bubbles creeping up the tube that wound from her mouth. 'What have you to tell me tonight?'
'All things.' Ar replied. 'All things great, and small.'
AdPATVeh.2745: take a look at this. im sending the files now.
AdPATVeh.1256: what am i looking at here--wait. ah.
AdPATVeh.2745: see?
AdPATVeh.1256: very interesting, lieutenant.
AdPATVeh.2745: shall we inform .Forum?
AdPATVeh.1256: perhaps wait a few days, lieutenant. I want to see exactly what it is we are looking at here before i give .Forum any cause for alarm.
AdPATVeh.2745: very well, fryere. in all honesty, i am disturbed. greatly disturbed.
AdPATVeh.1256: as am i, lieutenant. tell no one of what those files contain--wait. on second thoughts, contact .Forum immediately. i think i've just seen an old acquaintance among the strangers. [files sent]
AdPATVeh.2745: as you wish, fryere. i hope this is not the start of something.
AdPATVeh.1256: you hope wrong, lieutenant. very wrong indeed.
AdPatVEH. 2745: hang on, im detecting RAC units in my immediate vicinity. i shall comm you once they're dealt with. oh, no...
[-END TRANSMISSION ***RECORDS ERASED***-]
1. Forrenze's Recluse
I
Oryon Adolphine-Vyrren was, a while earlier, sat at the command desk of the Adolphine Patrol Vehicle 9963 Titan keeping a painfully tedious and lonely watch on a developing civilization in a distant corner of the 6th Habitation Zone, light-weeks from anywhere, out of everybody's way, kicked under the rug, so to speak. Not that he minded not being missed. He wanted not much to do with the Consortius, nor the Galactic Navy anymore, but it was either that or join the Rogue Anti-Consortius and most likely be killed within a year, sniffed out by .Forum, the ruler, the king, the watchful eye of the galaxy that a lot of people (less so now) thought was under the Consortius' control. But more than ever people had begun to realize the opposite: that they were, as much as they were in denial about the matter, slaves to higher power, a metal power, an artificial power. .Forum ruled this place, not the Consortius, not the Galactic Navy, hell, not even Covert, with their special agents dotted all over the galaxy that .Forum didn't know about (or did know about, but didn't give two *****) had next to no influence over the machine's behaviour or choices.
He had, at long last, finished his three-month shift observing the technological progress of an up-start civilisation the Consortius called 6-HZ-99E1238T7. Of course, to Research and Recconnaisance captains like Oryon, they were known as Kalawiq. This was what they called themselves, and, although probably not aware their progress was being 'doctored' by Consortius, Oryon was pretty sure they wouldn't like being called something that was filed, sorted, numbered and easily referenced so the Consortius could, at some point, suck them in to an econmical system and reap the rewards.
He had received the notification from .Forum a little more than an hour ago, and already had engaged a WarpLink on the Titan, which was currently pulling matter towards it at impossible speeds, and expanding the same matter behind it using its Ununpentium WarpSpace engines, powering towards the more densely populated regions of the galaxy, HabiZones 1-4.
'Crew, this is your captain, another successful and boring three months, well done.' A few of the officers sniggered behind him on the Command Deck. 'Our current destination is Orbital Habitat Forrenze's Recluse and we'll be arriving in just under a minute.'
From here, his crew could catch a lift with any Adolphine Citizen's Services Vehicle, unless they fancied staying on the legendary Recluse for a spell. Oryon certainly did, and there was nothing here that would change his mind.
SourceID: FrzRcls --- NAME AND CLEARANCE CODE, PLEASE.
AdPATVeh.9963: TITAN AdPATVeh.9963, clearance code A351P1.O.A.V.9963
SourceID: FrzRcls --- WELCOME TO FORRENZE'S RECLUSE, MR VYRREN. ENJOY YOUR STAY.
AdPATVeh.9963: thank you. any AdCITSERVehs coming along soon? think some of my crew have other arrangements.
SourceID: FrzRcls --- EVERY SEVEN STANDARD HOURS TO MOST P & OHABITATS IN LOCAL CLUSTERS.
Oryon thanked the Forrenze's Recluse's Mainframe and docked the Titan into the nearest free docking bay, contacting the Vehicle Services Unit and requested a team of Clean-Up droids to the ship.
His room was bright, clean, and airy with a beautiful view of the OHabitat's main plaza and entertainment complexes. In truth, he didn't care much for the vast entertainment facilities that the OHabitat had to offer; all he wanted was some peace and quiet, away from the Galactic Navy, from the bureaucratic nonsense that seemed to run his working life. In recent years he had lost all hope in the Galactic Navy, he hadn't even much respect for that round table of marionettes the species of the Consortius looked to for guidance (though, more often than not, permission): The Council of Covert. Since the announcement of the group's existence over fifty years ago, after a war which was consquently named the Krahkarr Collapse, Covert had been less of a secret organisation of spies and mercenaries and more of a political body that governed, watched and pretended to control five entire species. They watched as each and every individual the Consortius possessed pissed away their lives, be it a century of prosper or a millennium of servitude, and Oryon Adolphine-Vyrren was not the only one that thought this way. Since the end of the Adolphine-Fraedomite Civil War twenty-nine years ago he had watched the Galactic Navy that he served (though not totally loyally) waste its time building, expanding, plotting for wars that would never happen, all for nought.
As an Adolphine, Oryon Vyrren was expected to dedicate his life, limbs and every inch of his blue skinned-hide to the Galactic Navy, who paid him well, and treated him like the **** on their galactic boot. When the war ended, people felt a sobering sense of inertia as the twenty-year conflict between the two factions humanity had left ceased.
The peaceful, perhaps ignorant, Fraedomites finally stopped fighting for their right to live in peace, and the strictly structured, scientifically focused and highly militarized Adolphines decided 'what the hell, we'll just go back to playing with things!', which they did.
After generations of designing and administering 'Stages of Alteration', nearly every Adolphine individual was genetically ******, and...well...blue. Taller, faster, stronger, smarter (along with a host of physical alterations including optical-enhancement and even extra limbs); all this for the fantastic price of a sublimely rich and delicate tapestry of a Wise-Civilisation, the Phlexlings, being burned. An ancient, highly intelligent and once-vast kindgom of peculiarly evolved abtractoid 'storytellers' (called so because of their colossal libraries of ancient historical scripture) now just a full-stop on the saga of the galaxy. Gone. Oryon always felt immensely ashamed of what his half of the Human race had committed. To take advantage of a multi-civilisational alliance and use genetic material that was not theirs, but another species', play around, tweak, alter, corrupt, change and transform it until they finally came up with their as-yet-unfound goal, was despicable in his eyes.
He punched in an order for a hit of Serenitie and a strong drink into a pad on the wall of his bedroom; all this ranting and raving about the past seemed to unease him, yet it was a habit he was incapable of quitting. Always, in the past, he found his dreams still slipping away like...smoke from a Serenitie pipe, like a Civilization's piss in a galactic latrine.
Some hours later, still drowsy and light-headed from the Serenetie, Oryon Adolphine-Vyrren was jolted out of his daze by the automated non-quite-male, not-quite-female voice of the hotel Customer-Information-droid ringing loudly through his room.
'Mr. Vyrren, you have a visitor.'
Oryon blinked and sat up in the soft couch. 'Image, please.' he said, yawning. On the wall opposite an image flickered to life and gave Oryon a view outside his room door. The man staring back at him was seven, maybe seven and a half feet tall. His dark blue skin a trademark of constant genetic alterations, his yellow eyes the result of iris-optimization for clearer-than-day night vision, high-speed-object registeration and minute-movement-recognition from up to two hundred meters, the Adolphine man staring back at him was Hyrten Mora Adolphine-Erranti. His cousin.
It had everything she needed: life-support, food, water and serenity. Nothing to be heard save the quiet humming of the ship's AI Mainframe that never slept, nothing to be felt except a profound insignificance as they drifted through space, and not a single soul save herself.
The virtual sky above her had turned orange in the last hour. The machines and systems in place to create this environment were relatively new, barely fifteen years old, built in place of some not-so-needed engine space and storage facilities. The ship itself had seen to most of the work and she need only deep-sleep for ten days for the Mainframe to complete the alterations of the ship's interior (the other less-important machines to provide more aesthetic features were still being built: wind and virtual life-form generators, for instance), and after those ten days she had stepped into the old engine-hall to find a beach, a hundred meters of real sea and a small hut on a hill overlooking this unreal example of AI capabilities.
She sat now on the sand, contemplating her next challenge to the great machine. In truth, these environments were just games. Games between her and the Mainframe. She would think up new and exotic environments for the ship to create. She had lost every time so far; the machine made her ideas more than just a piece of environment. In her time on the ship she had seen it create glacial wastelands, dense forests, deserts dryer than the metal that contained it, she had even sat in her hut surrounded by nothing but unending space, nebulas spattered against the black canvas, pockmarked with stars. But no matter how much variety she tried to include in her ideas, the hut was still there, in the same place in the engine-hall, primitive, but comforting.
'Well done, ship.' she said. She looked around and stood up, padding across the sand to her hut, her home, her quiet place.
The inside of the hut was bare, and empty. A stove heated a heady-scented cordial on one wall, and just a table with two chairs sat in the middle. It was a funny concept, the empty chair. She had no use for it, none at all, and the Mainframe had only begun creating this other chair in the last few weeks, since she had made a friend in the vastness of space, a friend she never saw, but knew was there, watching her, comforting her, teaching her the secrets of what the Universe had to offer. He crept up on her sometimes, in her mind, and she knew that this was when she was supposed to listen to him, to be taught, to be told, but never to question.
She sat at the table for a long, long while, staring at the empty chair, all by herself, yet not quite alone. She knew this feeling: it came every once in a while, without warning, without making itself known, without permission. It was a welcome intruder to her constant serenity. She stood, and made her way out of the engine-hall through a hole in a brick wall.
'Hello, Ar.' she thought from inside the life-support unit, bubbles creeping up the tube that wound from her mouth. 'What have you to tell me tonight?'
'All things.' Ar replied. 'All things great, and small.'
AdPATVeh.2745: take a look at this. im sending the files now.
AdPATVeh.1256: what am i looking at here--wait. ah.
AdPATVeh.2745: see?
AdPATVeh.1256: very interesting, lieutenant.
AdPATVeh.2745: shall we inform .Forum?
AdPATVeh.1256: perhaps wait a few days, lieutenant. I want to see exactly what it is we are looking at here before i give .Forum any cause for alarm.
AdPATVeh.2745: very well, fryere. in all honesty, i am disturbed. greatly disturbed.
AdPATVeh.1256: as am i, lieutenant. tell no one of what those files contain--wait. on second thoughts, contact .Forum immediately. i think i've just seen an old acquaintance among the strangers. [files sent]
AdPATVeh.2745: as you wish, fryere. i hope this is not the start of something.
AdPATVeh.1256: you hope wrong, lieutenant. very wrong indeed.
AdPatVEH. 2745: hang on, im detecting RAC units in my immediate vicinity. i shall comm you once they're dealt with. oh, no...
[-END TRANSMISSION ***RECORDS ERASED***-]
1. Forrenze's Recluse
I
Oryon Adolphine-Vyrren was, a while earlier, sat at the command desk of the Adolphine Patrol Vehicle 9963 Titan keeping a painfully tedious and lonely watch on a developing civilization in a distant corner of the 6th Habitation Zone, light-weeks from anywhere, out of everybody's way, kicked under the rug, so to speak. Not that he minded not being missed. He wanted not much to do with the Consortius, nor the Galactic Navy anymore, but it was either that or join the Rogue Anti-Consortius and most likely be killed within a year, sniffed out by .Forum, the ruler, the king, the watchful eye of the galaxy that a lot of people (less so now) thought was under the Consortius' control. But more than ever people had begun to realize the opposite: that they were, as much as they were in denial about the matter, slaves to higher power, a metal power, an artificial power. .Forum ruled this place, not the Consortius, not the Galactic Navy, hell, not even Covert, with their special agents dotted all over the galaxy that .Forum didn't know about (or did know about, but didn't give two *****) had next to no influence over the machine's behaviour or choices.
He had, at long last, finished his three-month shift observing the technological progress of an up-start civilisation the Consortius called 6-HZ-99E1238T7. Of course, to Research and Recconnaisance captains like Oryon, they were known as Kalawiq. This was what they called themselves, and, although probably not aware their progress was being 'doctored' by Consortius, Oryon was pretty sure they wouldn't like being called something that was filed, sorted, numbered and easily referenced so the Consortius could, at some point, suck them in to an econmical system and reap the rewards.
He had received the notification from .Forum a little more than an hour ago, and already had engaged a WarpLink on the Titan, which was currently pulling matter towards it at impossible speeds, and expanding the same matter behind it using its Ununpentium WarpSpace engines, powering towards the more densely populated regions of the galaxy, HabiZones 1-4.
'Crew, this is your captain, another successful and boring three months, well done.' A few of the officers sniggered behind him on the Command Deck. 'Our current destination is Orbital Habitat Forrenze's Recluse and we'll be arriving in just under a minute.'
From here, his crew could catch a lift with any Adolphine Citizen's Services Vehicle, unless they fancied staying on the legendary Recluse for a spell. Oryon certainly did, and there was nothing here that would change his mind.
SourceID: FrzRcls --- NAME AND CLEARANCE CODE, PLEASE.
AdPATVeh.9963: TITAN AdPATVeh.9963, clearance code A351P1.O.A.V.9963
SourceID: FrzRcls --- WELCOME TO FORRENZE'S RECLUSE, MR VYRREN. ENJOY YOUR STAY.
AdPATVeh.9963: thank you. any AdCITSERVehs coming along soon? think some of my crew have other arrangements.
SourceID: FrzRcls --- EVERY SEVEN STANDARD HOURS TO MOST P & OHABITATS IN LOCAL CLUSTERS.
Oryon thanked the Forrenze's Recluse's Mainframe and docked the Titan into the nearest free docking bay, contacting the Vehicle Services Unit and requested a team of Clean-Up droids to the ship.
His room was bright, clean, and airy with a beautiful view of the OHabitat's main plaza and entertainment complexes. In truth, he didn't care much for the vast entertainment facilities that the OHabitat had to offer; all he wanted was some peace and quiet, away from the Galactic Navy, from the bureaucratic nonsense that seemed to run his working life. In recent years he had lost all hope in the Galactic Navy, he hadn't even much respect for that round table of marionettes the species of the Consortius looked to for guidance (though, more often than not, permission): The Council of Covert. Since the announcement of the group's existence over fifty years ago, after a war which was consquently named the Krahkarr Collapse, Covert had been less of a secret organisation of spies and mercenaries and more of a political body that governed, watched and pretended to control five entire species. They watched as each and every individual the Consortius possessed pissed away their lives, be it a century of prosper or a millennium of servitude, and Oryon Adolphine-Vyrren was not the only one that thought this way. Since the end of the Adolphine-Fraedomite Civil War twenty-nine years ago he had watched the Galactic Navy that he served (though not totally loyally) waste its time building, expanding, plotting for wars that would never happen, all for nought.
As an Adolphine, Oryon Vyrren was expected to dedicate his life, limbs and every inch of his blue skinned-hide to the Galactic Navy, who paid him well, and treated him like the **** on their galactic boot. When the war ended, people felt a sobering sense of inertia as the twenty-year conflict between the two factions humanity had left ceased.
The peaceful, perhaps ignorant, Fraedomites finally stopped fighting for their right to live in peace, and the strictly structured, scientifically focused and highly militarized Adolphines decided 'what the hell, we'll just go back to playing with things!', which they did.
After generations of designing and administering 'Stages of Alteration', nearly every Adolphine individual was genetically ******, and...well...blue. Taller, faster, stronger, smarter (along with a host of physical alterations including optical-enhancement and even extra limbs); all this for the fantastic price of a sublimely rich and delicate tapestry of a Wise-Civilisation, the Phlexlings, being burned. An ancient, highly intelligent and once-vast kindgom of peculiarly evolved abtractoid 'storytellers' (called so because of their colossal libraries of ancient historical scripture) now just a full-stop on the saga of the galaxy. Gone. Oryon always felt immensely ashamed of what his half of the Human race had committed. To take advantage of a multi-civilisational alliance and use genetic material that was not theirs, but another species', play around, tweak, alter, corrupt, change and transform it until they finally came up with their as-yet-unfound goal, was despicable in his eyes.
He punched in an order for a hit of Serenitie and a strong drink into a pad on the wall of his bedroom; all this ranting and raving about the past seemed to unease him, yet it was a habit he was incapable of quitting. Always, in the past, he found his dreams still slipping away like...smoke from a Serenitie pipe, like a Civilization's piss in a galactic latrine.
Some hours later, still drowsy and light-headed from the Serenetie, Oryon Adolphine-Vyrren was jolted out of his daze by the automated non-quite-male, not-quite-female voice of the hotel Customer-Information-droid ringing loudly through his room.
'Mr. Vyrren, you have a visitor.'
Oryon blinked and sat up in the soft couch. 'Image, please.' he said, yawning. On the wall opposite an image flickered to life and gave Oryon a view outside his room door. The man staring back at him was seven, maybe seven and a half feet tall. His dark blue skin a trademark of constant genetic alterations, his yellow eyes the result of iris-optimization for clearer-than-day night vision, high-speed-object registeration and minute-movement-recognition from up to two hundred meters, the Adolphine man staring back at him was Hyrten Mora Adolphine-Erranti. His cousin.
