Part 15: Session 8: Filling the Vessel

Colonial Support Initiative

One starport will be dedicated to building eight colony ships; the Hermes class of colony ship shall have one life support system, one colony module, and two ion engines.

Colonial Development Commission

Wilea II shall be named "Coccochimetl," Wilea I shall be named "Hathor," and Kamadeva shall be renamed "Tam Kung." In addition, an embassy shall be built on Wilea II and two advanced market centers shall be built on Kamadeva.

Infrastructure Development Commission

A constructor ship shall be commissioned to create an economic starbase near Earth and Cupid.

Trade and Loan Commission

Espionage spending shall be set to 40%, and spending distribution shall be set to 32% Military, 32% Social, and 36% Research. Additionally, any freighters built shall prioritize Altarian planets.

Xeno Relations Board

If Heavy Gravity Colonization is found to be researched by any other civilization, no expense shall be spared in acquiring it from them.

Scientific Grant Board

The research grant order shall be as follows: Sensors, Heavy Gravity Colonization, Planetary Invasion, Basic Miniaturization, and Advanced Diplomacy.


Say that again.


Fifty four billion, two hundred and eighty three million. Considering our restrictions regarding Earth, that's approximately thirty eight billion citizens, well over twice again what Earth's population was two and a half years ago.


Nope, still don't believe you.


If it helps, much of that is from alien immigration. Altarians are so similar that only cultural differences hamper integration. Some particularly open-mined Drengin have also received citizenship, plus the ever-fecund Torians are finding their place on our planets as well.


What about emigration?


With the rather notable exception of Dr. Gibons, emigration has been negligible.


It's still goddamn incredible. Oh, but we oughta play the First Contact videos before we get started.

*RECORDING BEGINS*


How excellent; humans. My name is Lord Kona, supreme ruler of the Drengin Empire. I have heard much of you from my…comrades in the Korath Clan.


We've heard much about you as well. From the Korath, but also from the Altarians and the Torians.


30,000 years of oppression, right? Now that's a fuckload of time.


Oh, yes. Quite amusing, really. Were you aware that we were one of the first two species to develop stargates? The Arceans were the others. But then they're on the far side of the galaxy from you, so I suppose you don't know much about them. Our first significant transfer through the stargate was an invasion fleet, naturally, but someone let it slip during the decades of transfer, and we were quite sadly repelled. We learned our lesson when it came to the Torians; not a word sent to the receiving stargate until after the invasion succeeded. It took 70,000 years to tow the stargate there ourselves, but I still think it was worth it. After all, it was 30,000 years until the cost of repression exceeded the profit in resources.


70,000 years? Just to attack and subjugate another world? That seems almost pointlessly mean-spirited.


You apparently don't understand. The Drengin civilization has been around for nearly a million years. We were inventing slave disposal units while your species was still inventing rock-sharpening techniques. Our individuals can live for thousands of years, easily. Drengin have been accused of many things, but impatience is not one of them. Still, we'll gladly take a shortcut when presented with one, so give my regards to that Gibons fellow of yours. Our Empire is expanding at quite the rate these days.


And yet we evolved to intelligence, then met and surpassed your technology levels in the time it took you to repress a single alien species. What, I might ask, does that say about your species?


Drengin do not admire squirrels for being better at hiding nuts than ourselves. You may think yourselves our equals, but let me assure you: you are not. And double your guard next time; this was honestly a very boring trip.


What does he…Sergeant Miller, status. Sergeant Miller, respond!

*RECORDING ENDS*

*RECORDING BEGINS*


I am Mormegil, Master of the Paulos. And, on behalf of my species and planet, I wish to say this: Screw you guys!


Excuse me?


Oh yeah, you heard me! You're the dicks who "invented" the hyperdrive, right? That was us! You totally stole our idea!


Until earlier this week, we were unaware that the "Paulos" species existed. How could we steal anything from you?


Oh, and now you're lying to me! I mean, we've been working on the hyperdrive for the past 7,000 years! Then bam, that Gibons dick shows up and gets all the glory. We were seriously like 6 months away from the big breakthrough, I swear!


Ah. I think I understand now.


So you'll totally give us the credit we deserve, then?


As the official representative a' Earth's governments to the galaxy at-large, lemmie give you our official response: "Sucks to be you!"


Aw, dammit!

*RECORDING ENDS*


I liked that Morm guy. Took his punches like a man. Now, let's get started on the first quarter report. Morgan?



Of course. As we determined in the last session, spending was divided more evenly between the three production types, and espionage was given 10% of the weekly income.


And a lucky thing, too.


Right. How about explainin' what all happened, Prav?



Yes, well, let me explain what agents do: first, they can be emplaced in a species government, letting us get information regarding their activities and abilities. Four agents can be placed in any government, where they will gradually give us up to four levels of understanding.



Agents can also be placed on individual planets, where they can shut down one improvement each. Agents can also eliminate enemy agents who are doing this to us, but they are used up in doing so. Race-wide agents can be recovered, but sabotage and counter sabotage agents cannot.



An' just after we got the first guy trained, guess what happened?




Every single race, both major and minor, was affected by this attack, leaving the perpetrators a mystery. Fortunately we were able to eliminate every enemy agent, but not until the middle of the second quarter. We were also unable to extract any information as to who sent them.


You were far too soft on them, Lal.


I beg to differ. Modern technology being what it is, we wouldn't have been able to get anything useful out of them regardless of how low we stooped. Brainwashing and conditioning is just too effective.


On the other hand, our neighbors haven't been nearly as proactive in removing enemy agents, leaving us slightly ahead of our competition.


Sweet. Deidre, how did the improvement building go?




The two Wileas have been renamed. The senators also seemed unaware that Kamadeva didn't need renaming, but I changed it to Tam Kung all the same. Perhaps one of the newer colonies could be given the name.


The newer colonies have perfectly good names.


There's still one you didn't name, though.


I suppose.



Wilea II (now Coccochimetl) unfortunately didn't have any room to spare for an embasy, but Hathor did. Since they are in the same system, I used my discretion and moved the planned building there.



Tam Kung also didn't have enough room for two advanced market centers, but once the soil enhancement is done I can place the second one there.



We have also designed the new Hermes class colony ship. Thanks to the increased military funding, it doesn't take any longer to build than the older, slower version. Earth was designated as the source of the colony ships, since it has both our best shipyard and our biggest supply of overcrowded humans. Four of the eight commissioned colony ships have been finished up to July.



Many planets were colonized in the first quarter. The first was New Israel, our first aquatic planet.


So far as we can tell, water worlds are mostly similar to the more traditional variety; they have continental and oceanic tectonic plates that move around in the same ways. The biggest difference is that they simply have such an abundance of water that all but the tallest of mountains is under the surface. Realizing that there was a grand landscape just a few hundred feet below the ocean has made colonization much easier. As you can see in this image, New Israel is a Class 14 planet, and we will have six unused areas once the soil enhancement finishes.


It's also worth noting that our knowledge of undersea colonizing is still incomplete. New Israel and other harsh climate planets will only have half the military and social production of a normal planet until we research the advanced form. It's still worth marking off our territory before developing it, I should note.



The second new planet I call "Promised." It also had one of those odd magnetic fields, but since I knew how the senate would vote, I made the decision myself.



Promised has a more scattered and eroded continental shelf than New Isreal does. It is also only a Class 11.



New Judea was founded around the Pithra star.


This planet was only just beginning to develop chlorophyllic plant life when we arrived, and its suitability to human life is relatively limited.



Finally, Chiron was founded on the galactic rim. I'm not normally a fan of such names, but something…compelled me to name it such. There we found sapient natives, whom we found hiding underwater in giant domes. I'm not very pleased with the senate's decision, but we have decided to leave them to their ocean depths.



Personally, I'm glad that the senate redeemed itself after the Luna Massacre. Chiron is composed of four continents, one of which has over half the landmass of the planet. The abundant nitrogen makes this a heaven for plant life and the native growing red fungus, but the lack of oxygen means that humans wouldn't be able to walk about without a breathing apparatus. Thankfully, the Korath atmosphere regulators seem to be letting us move about population centers without domes, although I'm afraid what the imbalance may do to the fungal growths. I should add that after the standard template we still have nine places left to build; perhaps an economy capital, given how far it is from everything?


Eh, relax. Them dome people says they wouldn't miss 'em goin', so why should we?


I still don't like it. We should at least keep a few preserves for them.


I should add that our colonists have reported some worm-like creatures behaving aggressively. They evidently have a psionic ability to transmit pain, after which they bore into the victims bodies. Fortunately, the psi dampers we purchased from the dome dwellers work perfectly against these creatures, and the first incident will likely also be the last.


Good, those things give me the creeps. How're the aliens doin', Prav?


There's something else we should mention first.


Oh right, them. You handle this, Deidre.


Very well. Early this year, a senator made a remark which seemed fairly surprising. Looking into his claims, we discovered this:



As the colonists on Semele V explained, the stories about King Arthur and Merlin were real: Merlin was actually an Altarian exile who had stumbled upon Earth by accident-


Why'd they exile him?


Evidently he thought that violence was an acceptable solution in some cases. Anyway, he was cryogenically frozen on a ship that would awaken him if he passed by a habitable planet, which coincidentally happened to be Earth, roughly fifteen centuries ago. There, he brought egalitarian ideals to early England and assisted Arthur's rule.


This is tremendously absurd. Arthur was a mythologized composite of a dozen English rulers perpetuated by French romanticists!


You wanna go tell the folks on Semele how absurd they are fer bein' there? Keep goin' Deidre.


Also, (oh dear) Camelot was real, being Merlin's spaceship. After Arthur was mortally wounded, Merlin froze him and decided to leave, taking a few hundred he deemed "worthy" with him. Traveling at less than light speeds, they have only just reached a planet they've deemed "New Avalon." And thanks to relativity, only a few decades have passed for the passengers. They were rather startled when we discovered them.



Since then, the planet has become quite the pilgrimage site for English and those of their descent. They seem to be having some trouble coming up with a name, though. There's some argument about how "Avalon" is both an old name for the British Isles and a name for the land of the fairies in certain tellings. They would like the Senate to decide on a permanent name.


Arright. Prav, yer up.



Very well. Early in the year, we received word from the Altarians that they had finished building a Social Matrix, which our scientists believe would improve their planet's social and economic production by 25%. Much like our Innovation Complex, it relies on their own peculiar abilities, so we haven't missed out on anything.



The Drengin have passed along that the "Arceans," whom we haven't met, have built a Stellar Forge. This will improve ships built on Arcea by 25%, and their economy by 10%.



The Korath came to us with a polite request for money, but given our deficit economy, I had to turn him down.




I was perfectly willing to trade, however. Getting the Toxic Atmosphere Reductors from them cost a lot of technology, but I believe it was worth it.




In early March, the actual Drengin appeared. In spite of their leader's bluster, they don't seem very advanced on a modern galactic scale. All they had to offer were Drengin-specific advances. Unconventional Warfare adds 5% to our soldiering ability.


In addition, Interstellar Governments improves our diplomacy and Ion Cannons seems to be an offshoot of mass driver technology. It's not very advanced, but we can still trade it off to others.



I then financed our economy by selling some technologies to the minor races.



I've also heard a rumor regarding another minor race that the Korath seem to be bullying. A shame we haven't met them, or I could intervene.


The Paulos we met just at the end of the quarter. Any discussion of them will have to wait for the second report.


Zakrav?



Sensors was finished quickly enough. This will let us mass-produce survey modules, which the Nautilus uses to investigate anomalies. If we were to upgrade the scout design with these, they could be outfitted in the field with them.



Heavy Gravity Colonization was a stated priority, and we finished rapidly enough. A colony ship is currently en route to Caesar I, and we still seem to be the only ones with the ability to land there safely.


Arright, time fer the scoutin' report.


Not so fast. There is something I must mention first.


Oh right, that.



Yes, "that." We were all aware this would happen eventually, and it seems to have been sooner rather than later.



Three Drengin corvettes armed with missile weapons were hijacked on their way to Earth. They quickly destroyed the Alexander, but without a means of threatening the planet surface, they moved on into unknown territory.



In March, they reappeared, destroying a scout who was returning from mapping the galactic rim. They are still out there, waiting for us to drop our guard. As such, I immediately commissioned a Defender for Earth in spite of the colony ship commission.



Yeah, yeah. At least the new Hermes can outrun those things pretty easy. They ain't been too much a' pests yet.



Anyways, off to our right, near the center a' the galaxy, we found where the Yor live.



Sure enough, they still got Iconia. Looks like someone's tradin' with 'em, too.



We also found Toria, sorta up-center on the map. They're smack dab in the middle of a giant star cluster, so no wonder they got so many planets everywhere.



One last thing: we have built the economy starbase near Earth and Cupid. Our planet now has quite the significant production capacity.



Right. Well, that's the first quarter report.