YR3 (cont):
Feb 17, Semichi III High Orbit, Aboard Diplomatic Vessel Patroclus:
Teacher Hecuba of Pella, the new leader of the the Kapetyn Diplomatic Mission to the Neighbors, sputtered out a series of low energy pops as he replayed the report. Prior to his appointment to his post, he had focused primarily on the mission work so far completed - the significant progress made in delivering infrastructure to millions. After all - most of the reports had been focused on the situation at the landing drop sites, which had now started to stabilize somewhat. However, hiding behind that thin veneer of progress was a much moldier and more worm eaten truth - the rest of the planet had gone to smeg.
The latest report from the southern plateau, so far untouched by Kapetyn landings, drove home the truth - drone footage of roaming cannibal bands fighting to the last neighbor, with the victors commencing to smoke and preserve the deceased in situ.
For the first time, Hecuba came to fully understand the fatalistic reverberations he had been inundated in since his arrival on the Patroclus the week prior.
OOC: Stability on Shahrewar has hit 1% (minimum).
Feb 27, Gaia High Orbit, Argos Yard
Cronos of Argyroupoli splayed his spines to regard the exuberant youngster before him and shook himself, trying (not very successfully) to clamp down on the hum of mirth alloyed with irony which he could feel seeping out of his every pore. Fortunately, Peisandros of Baris was far too animatedly blatting out his proclamations of the new doctrine of shipyard streamlining and project management to spare much bandwidth for detection of such a subtle undertone. Still, Cronos feel the slight mirth mixed with embarrassment echoed back to him from a few of his other colleagues in the room - who were not so warp deafened, and redoubled his efforts to clamp down.
Cronos was not sure if he should be feeling elated or insulted. For the last two days, Peisandros had been holding seminars on the 'new doctrine' of shipyard management. All of it amounted to little more than common sense, so far as he could tell. However, nothing the youngster was spewing out into the airwaves was outwrite
wrong, which was a bit surprising, coming from an egghead. And, after being at ground zero for the lack in common sense two years ago during the first rush to produce the Aphrodite class, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to go about formalizing some of these supposedly 'common sense' procedures.
March 1, Gaia, Perugian Embassy
Bahraman contemplated on the nature of relativity for perhaps the 10,000th time since his arrival on Gaia, as he bounded across the large pressurized enclosure which constituted his embassy. Although traditional theory dictated that length contraction should only be noticable at near relativistic velocities, he was starting to have his doubts.
The enclosure itself measured well in excess of 100 body lengths to a side, with a ceiling rising too high to touch, even with a full leap in the local (minuscule) gravity. By the standards of a Perugian who had been hot bunking in an underground shelter for the past several years, it was truly gargantuan. It was an edifice which effectively and wordlessly communicated both the largess and the power of the Hedgehogs.
And yet... as he made great bounds across and around the space in an effort to maintain his health (physical and mental), the space seemed to shrink down to smaller than even the living space of Bunker III. While he could still, in theory, go outside here with a similar level of protection as he had back on Shahrewar -- it was just so... different. Even in the worst storm of radioactive dust, Shahrewar had felt... correct somehow, in a way that the murky atmosphere, dull tiny sun, and pitiful gravity of the rift valleys here in the Hedgehog's den never could. Isolated on an alien world in this palatial chamber, he somehow felt more claustrophobic than he ever had back in that delipidated bunker.
As he eased back to a more normal pace and slowly bounced across the space to cool off, his mind once again snapped to his desk, and the reports half formed on his slate. At least the Hedgehogs provided him with many interesting distractions from his solitude - like the most recent matter he had been asked to translate.
March 2, Shahrewar, Bunker III
Abbaseh read the latest report beamed to him from orbit, contemplating briefly the inconvenience of having to trust the Hedgehogs to relay messages for them. But, his mind quickly focused on the matter at hand.
This was... promising. It would seem that the Hedgehogs had come across some rather... interesting phrases in the old tongue, and had asked Bahraman for an interpretation. Bahraman had in turn asked him for his opinion first. After all, with light speed communication provided free of charge, it was fairly trivial to send over a daily report and bury the most important part a third or so in. Fortunately, the Hedgehogs were not much for the subtleties of the Perugian language as of yet, and much could be read between the lines of a sufficiently large wall of text.
It seemed that it was time for Bahraman to take a little... artistic license in his normally dry translations. Now, how to tell Bahraman that, without telling him that, per se...
Perhaps he would have to consult with an authority on the old tongue and relay their translation... yes. Of course, he would neglect to mention that any adult Perugian was perfectly fluent in the few formal phrases of the language which survived.
March 9, between the orbits of Semichi VII & VIII, Persius 001
Deipylus of Naxos sputtered and chirped indignation and vile profanity in tight directed bursts towards anyone and no-one, sweeping the cramped space of what was (for some long forgotten reason) referred to as the Boiler Room with a searchlight beam of indignation and detailed negative assessments of the character of the yardmen at Heraclea. Her digits bled as she hoisted the replacement engine ducts into place, sweltering from the effort - although the ship itself was in freefall with the engines acceleration cut, holding the mass of the ducting steady without allowing it to crash about the cramped cabin was still a straining workout in precision and control. And, if not careful, the mass could still inflict more than adequate damage in freefall, as her digits attested.
Adding to the pressure (both on her mind and of her profanity), she had discovered that this was the only piece of such ducting stocked in ships stores by the yard. Perhaps a suitable replacement part could be printed if some other less vital components were melted down for scrap - perhaps. If this job was botched, it would be a long walk home, and she had no real desire to make the trip on a jury rigged component.
The detailed (and profanity laden) report blat - more of a sirens wail, truly - which she would submit to her captain would find itself reflected and magnified up the chain of command with surprisingly little censorship - only further embellishment by each successive layer of the newly created Kapetyn Survey Command.
The final explosion of indignant radiation which would reach Alphios of Myndus' office in some weeks would cause his entire staff to blanch and lead to a full re-check of the maintenance status of the survey command, as well as the diplomatic and logistics vessels. It would also prompt some belated thought on the amount of engineering and maintenance bay space which should be considered 'adequate' for a long haul survey craft.
OOC Authors Note: Thanks for the prodding to keep this going. I've had a bit of writers block because it felt like the game side of things was limiting my ability to control the pacing of the story side of things, and I am not quite sure how to resolve that. For now I'll just try to power through the first arc, haha. I suspect at some point my work of fiction may decouple completely from my actual game, but that's still quite a ways away
.