A Contradictory Allegiance

[Solar Communes]

[center]The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.
Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics"[/center]

Nothing could be received from the deep void, only for the constant, predictably shifting static. It was this way for thousands of years, since the first attempts of the SETI at the twentieth century. Never a stellar civilization has been identified from their own universe, explaining way Astrobiology was hardly worth more than an hour of work per day. The transmissions never were answered, and such news were far from good: without anything happening and with the need of struggling for survival long gone, the primary reasons to of live were entertainment and reckless seek of pleasure.

People were becoming adrift into selfishness, likely unwilling to move a finger to help, if there was ever a problem to help with. Were not the lipid burning nanites, Glacius would certainly became the Fat Druggie World to complement what the Dream has long become: a Bordello World. With heavy automation, most products became too abundant to have any worth, yet most still cannot pleasure from mere robots with false skin. Prostitution has become one of the Great Four that have spun the still viable market economy. Contraceptives are long forgotten due to many advances in medicine, and the industry is primarily featured by the attendance of all sorts of weird tastes one would rather not ponder about.

That was what the foolish transhumanists have not predicted, that their ideal of mankind would end into a post-human species of hedonists, slobs, sodomites and prostitutes forgetting the fact their existences are pointless through pleasure. They were too naive to consider that the primary reason for the existence of augmentations in such future would be to improve sexual performance beyond human limits and to maximize pleasure. Although an idle elite has brought many great thinkers in the past, this was definitively not a repetition of such fact. With no motive to learn, with everything taken for granted, it would be ironic that the seemingly perfect and Utopian future would have the same rate of illiteracy of the Dark Ages, that people were becoming stupider by the day. Evolution is at work, and with most of human intelligence being superfluous at the moment, some people, specially the biocons, feared that something similar to the Eloi would be the offspring of this new era. The formula to breed retards was simple: a slice of post-scarcity coupled with a cut of total automation, to ensure the cynical recreating of the old communist adage: "From each nothing necessary, To each almost anything they want".

Indeed, Homo Superior they were, descendants of the technological achievements of a morally and intellectually decadent civilization which most glorious days were those when they had to cope with scarcity and face a strategically superior enemy of freedom.

But those too busy doing sex or playing virtual reality games to think would not simply continue with their meaningless and idle existence should something happen, and perhaps soon the time would come. To that goal, some worked in secrecy, believing that a threat was the only way to ensure the return of mankind's true golden age. And the opportunity was ripe to achieve the true happiness.

It was almost entirely automated. A quantum relay station and observation outpost stood at about five hundred thousand kilometers of the Shadow Gate, a multiversal anomaly which has been mostly forgotten, with Chaos being little more than a subject of jokes and tales to scare children or the increasing population of adults with seven years old mentality. Machines and robots worked nonstop, with not a single Homo Superior overseeing it to ensure that it shall not be completely lost should an incident come, after all, the cynics say that work is not something for post-humans, and they might be right, considering which type of human being makes the majority of the economically active population.

When life is short, people find it much more important to achieve something, and that was true of all those who voluntarily refused the curse of eternal life. Annika Camarillo still could remember the day, a decisive moment of every Solarian life, twenty years ago. Her word was doubtless, she refused something which many would ironically kill each other for: immortality.

While very few of the immortals did not succumb to hedonism and idleness, a minority of those who have chosen to accept natural death have decided to focus their lives into pleasure. Annika was one of the few astrobiologists on active duty, although she was actually more knowledgeable of communication and languages than of biology. The woman walked around the base, taking delicate steps to preventing throwing herself somewhere due to the extremely low gravity. She refused to use the hover segway that most of visitors, too lazy even to walk on their own foot, tended to ride on. The corridor was on reality extremely dull, however, she could spot several portraits, sculptures, surreal decorations and speakers on the walls randomly shuffling millennial death metal songs. For a reason, an old one seemed extremely fitting with what was close to her. It was a song about chaos, decadence and hopelessness, so desolate that it could even convince a lifeless transhuman to put a bullet on his head to end his insignificant existence.

There was no sound though, and all of those objects were completely immaterial, for she could see her hand passing through them. She knew what it was about: her connected mind blended the virtual and the real in the place, a convenient technique to reduce the dullness of space facilities without cluttering them with useless mass. Her favorites were being played there, and she seemed to almost distract herself from the matter at hand.

But soon she was there. The strangely wooden door was closed, but she simply passed through it, without even trying to pull its knob. It worked like if it was made of air. Only because whoever or whatever controlled it has allowed for her to pass. There was to her eyes, amidst an elegant ancient industrial era style office, a quite elegant man in an ultra-retro outfit reminiscing of the early 20th century. Of course, it was not what he wore in reality, nor the room really looked like something from the 1900s, it was only more of the convenient manner of having style without inconveniences through the Hybrid Reality. The man was black-skinned and brown haired, and Annika quickly glanced at his Turquoise eyes, remembering of the point of the meeting:

"Camarad Fitzgerald, como est el comunicacion con el univers de sombre? Ce necesit saber que Y descubri un viej senal de origen desconocid. Algun mesaj sobre un entidad chamad Union de Sistems Extra-Solars. Es preocupant el asunt del mesaj. Existen muches civilisacions alem del portal en guerra. Genocids, atrocidads y humans send anikilads. Potencies de poder incalculable y grands menazes a nostre soberanie y liberdad. Necesitens de despertar el pueble antes que sea tarde demas!"

"Annika, esta información es mucho importante. Usted hablo acerca de la Unión de los Sistemas Extra-Solares, una poderosa alianza que por el argumento de por ele objectivo de la sobrevivencia mutua, las diferencias ideológicas son irrelevantes. You tengo esperanza que usted conoce nuestra lengua original." the man answered back in a different, but somewhat similar language to that she has spoken.

"Sí, como especialista en comunicación yo también hablo Español. Pero creo que mi fluencia es bien limitada. Lo seria mas conveniente hablar en Común, y hay un problema major a que debemos engendrar soluciones." she answered back with some difficulty. She could barely remember the last time she has spoken in such old language. And thus, Fitzgerald continued the discussion at hand with their more common language, which could be translated as the following:

"Yes, of course. I believe there is finally an opportunity for our civilization to get out from its prison of hedonism, to again return to the glory of the old days when our entire lives were dedicated for a greater cause, when people worked hard and gave their best in both peace and war, knowing that time was racing against their freedom. Just as an example of the decadence, I am sure you already know that our industrial sector is at less than ten percent of its maximum efficiency because of the lack of human supervision and management over incredibly dumb and inefficient machines."

"Yes, I am quite aware of that, but almost nobody seems to care as long as they won't starve and can get almost everything they want for free. Now I am not brain-dead to not guess that whatever you have in mind is related to the multiverse, to human genocides and oppression beyond the event horizon that the slobs claim to be of other universes, and thus none of their business, as a pretext to continue a vagabond way of life. And of course, what do you think about this Extrasolar Union of Systems you captured transmissions about?", Annika inquisitively discoursed about the subject, while taking a seat next to the less than solid desk between her and Fitzgerald.

"The multiverse is not isolated. I believe that every action brings consequences in an invisible form to different universes. That anomaly over there is an evidence of my idea that beliefs can shape reality in an almost imperceptible manner." he said, while making gestures with his hands to symbolize his words.

Annika did not buy his idea, and simply smiled sharply, looking at him and thinking. He seemed to ignore her irreverence, and eventually she felt it was the time to explain him how she felt about what he implied to seek. He clearly intended to continue before she interrupted him, but he did not express any bother from the fact.

"Beliefs can certainly shape reality. Do you know how many overconfident civilizations became extincted or worse thanks to their excessive interventionism and override of logical reasoning to pure ideology? Is that what are you suggesting? That we jump by the hundreds of thousands into a solipsist dimension where our nightmares and repressed urges become sentient demons?"

The man seemed to openly ignore her question about what she thought he was suggesting. Maybe it was not what he really planned to do, but there was an itching feeling in Annika's mind about the overall idea of promoting progress again. She did not know why, but her mind was fabricating a sort of unconscious paranoia about the discussion at hand. It was always strange for her, although her choice as the permanent staff was very convenient, considering the reports of extremely traumatic dreams and visions of monstrosities and fear in the dark corners of the station, and the fact that she never have experience anything of the close yet distant Chaos, like if her mind was a closed book to it.

"Look at our history, of how it came right after the victory in the Silicon War, or how our society degenerated after destroying its reason d'etre. The only reason Solar Communes was created was to liberate Earth from tyranny and from the last government. I know we came to other goals, but we must find a greater objective or threat that we could overcome to awaken our people. The more we promote freedom, more the universes will change, and eventually, even Chaos itself shall be defeated." he further argued, still being delusive about what he really was looking for.

Annika crossed her two arms and looked at him, like a curious girl wanting to know the ending of a tale. She knew he was holding something from her, delaying her about what is the point of the meeting. She did not speak further, for her expression clearly pointed her will.

"All right, I will be straight: we must journey through chaos, colonize another universe and explore new possibilities. We have stagnated for too long. Our civilization is revolutionary by legacy, and a revolution dies when there is no more change for better. Annika, you are of one the few references for many. I want your help to convince people for the expedition."

Annika eyed Fitzgerald suspiciously. He would never in his sane consciousness suggest a suicidal romp through the Immaterium. Something was definitively out of place there, but she could not understand what exactly. Pondering for a while, she quickly reached his hand and looked at his eyes, speaking:

"Change for better? The way you speak of it seems extremely familiar to what is so close to us. And do you not see? We have no technology capable of blocking the psychic terror of that place. If we send hundreds of thousands through it, the sheer majority of them will be dead, or worse, and the few who survive will be too traumatized to be able to drill a hole, let alone build a colony from scratch!"

Sighing, he looked at her and nodded, admitting his defeat over the argument. Annika noticed that he seemed to be back in place, like if her influence was beyond the argument. She still had the weird guess that there was something out of place, but it was not about him anymore.

"You are right. I have been to busy dreaming about the betterment of our people to pay attention to important barriers, but I am curious. I never heard you screaming here. Did you never witness anything strange, scary while awaken or while dreaming?"

"Not really Fitzgerald. I have heard all those stories about strange things lurking on the shadows, about bizarre and frightening noises, horrible nightmares and alike, but I have never felt anything strange here. I do not know why, but I am very glad about it." she answered, but after a quick thought, rapidly changed to a more indifferent tone of voice, and suggested:

"You are not asking me this question to convince me to get through the gate, are you? Because if you are, I believe it is not necessary to explain you that I would rather poke my own eyes out with my bare hands than get inside that dimension alone!"

The man nodded again, apparently comprehensive about her. Then suddenly his face turned into an expression of fear and despair, but he seemed to hold himself well despite that.

"Annika, do not leave me alone... there is something wrong here. Something came out of the Gateway, and it is going for me. I can feel an eerie echo of screams and fire, but it cannot get closer, there is a demon in this base.... and according to the reports of the first expedition on these, these beings... we are fucked!"

The woman felt even weirder because she could not feel the same, intense terror that her friend felt. Perhaps she was the last thing between whatever was there or him. Sighing, she looked at him and said, in a more friendly manner:

"Do not be afraid comrade, I will not leave you alone. Now I launch this demon as the last argument of my rhetoric against using that gateway. There is no counter-argument capable of detaining it, but as long as we stick together, it will eventually get bored from we who are orderly and boring people... and hopefully go away from this base."

Fitzgerald looked at her and sighed:

"I could be possessed by a demon and you use it to prove your point? Are you fucking serious? I am almost crapping my diapers in this suit! This is not a joke! There is nothing funny about Chaos"

Smiling sardonically, she pointed her finger at him, and simply kept the gesture for a while, as he asked what the hell she wanted to say. When he was almost losing his patience with her she finally said:

"Why do you contradict yourself? If there is nothing funny about it, why are you pretending that there is a demon nearby going after you? This is not a joke! Right?"

Smiling, the man quickly let down his false facade of fear and looked at her:

"Nice guesser, aren't you? How did you discover?"

"Freudian slip my friend, Freudian slip. But, on another subject, may if we waited something else than psychic demons could come from that gateway. Like in an old essay: if the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain. Perhaps we could even contact this mutual protection regardless of ideology sort of alliance you have estimated from the communication echoes filtered from the anomaly."

"That thing has been there for almost three thousands of years, how can you know that this time something useful for our people will come out from it? And how do we trust something which we have only heard about through communications garbled by chaos that might have entirely different meanings from those we managed to estimate?" the man asked smiling, as this time, she would be in the defensive regarding the argument of the moment.

"We should just wait. It is a much better idea than getting through there and ensuing another disaster like the latest expedition of thousands of years ago which returned with a crew turned into a legion of blood-lusting serial killers and psychopaths we had to blow up before they could reach surface. At least regarding that we have become smarter." she argued for her position, and then prepared to answer the other question.

"To explore the multiverse and establish contacts without support is akin to suicide. We have been unmolested and rarely contacted by foreign civilizations because I believe we are in a very obscure corner of the multiverse, and finding a haystack in Jupiter is likely easier than finding us. This Extrasolar Union of Systems seems decent enough for me. I know my business on communications, and considering how many care, I believe that if we agree, an alliance might be in place."

"All right, but that still takes the supposition that something comes out from there, and that whatever it is, it belongs to this ESUS and has enough influence in it to admit new allies. For all our luck, it could eventually come a mass-murdering dreadnought out there with almost impenetrable hull!" he argued, apparently still disagreeing with her on the subject.

"It won't come to that. If after almost three millennia the first thing we get is a murderously massive spacecraft bent on our annihilation with no logical reason behind it, then we should all die before our bad luck worsens." Annika replied to the man in a somewhat humorous manner. She would not let pessimistic possibilities downplay her strong arguments, and finally pointed out:

"I cannot affirm that something will come. But should an ESUS spacecraft arrive at five hundred thousand kilometers away from us, behave diplomatically and show trust, would you support my decision to negotiate with them to secure our future beyond the event horizon?"

"Well... I suppose yes, but wasn't such extremely important decision for the future of our people supposed to be voted upon by a larger number of people?" the man asked, in a last, futile attempt to break her argument.

Smiling like a victor contemplating the defeat of the rival, Annika quickly replied to him, finally putting an end to the long argument between them. And indeed, it was somewhat ironic that in one of the greatest bastions of true democracy in the universe, two people would decide the fate of an entire civilization because of the indifference of the dull majority to issues that could put their own freedoms and pleasurable existences at stake.

"Yes, but most of them are too busy with sex and virtual games to care about voting."

And thus, the man nodded, and finally gave in what she wanted since the suggestion she has given:

"All right Annika, if it happens, I will support your decision."

And after greeting him again, she left taking the hybrid reality corridors and areas of the station, where another hit of death metal played for her. Until she finally got into her bed, in a cramped but immensely decorated room, with most of it being virtual for a change. She let her eyes close and fell into a calm slumber, uninfluenced by the nightmares of the Shadow.

Fitzgerald instead opened his helmet to take another sleep-replacement medicine. It was not as perfect as a real sleep, but it did not have the side effect of horrible and vivid nightmares.The time their routine of checking the machines and awaiting for an answer of other civilizations would take before something truly different happened was not yet known, but they would likely witness change in their lifetime, a significant and permanent change, or maybe not.

Although the work was far from as easy and pleasant than spending their entire lives with sex and virtual games, they were strangely much happier and meaningful than most of those they pitied and hoped to awaken from idleness.

(OOC: This is basically the IC justification for Solar Communes to become a member of the ESUS. It is open for anything except blowing up their planets because colonizable planets are a rarity for them. Also, their galaxy is under the iron fist of Special Relativity, and thus FTL travel is impossible through it, except that it is possible to reach Gliese 581 quickly through a WH40k Van Grothe's Rapidity, but past the Warp all travels will be sub-light)

[Otagia]

Something was... odd about this translation point.

Gravitic drive unable to find purchase in the twisting nether, the research vessel had improvised a crude antimatter torch, which cut furrows through the coruscating flames of the Immaterium as the Perfect Gentleman circled the reality overlay, working the problem over in its mind. There was no obvious problem with the gaping hole in the Warp: No hordes of eidolons waiting to be unleashed on the inhabited world above, just the usual smattering of daemons. No massive god things pushing their tentacles into reality, simply a few feeder tendrils from the usual suspects. Not even a particular dense barrier. Reality was simply rent here, a standard stable warp storm.

Then why did it feel so goddamn wrong?

With the digital equivalent of a sigh, the ship ceased its orbit of the overlay. Ah well. Guess there’s only one way to get to the bottom of this one… C’est la vie!

The antimatter torch fired again, this time at full burn, sending the Perfect Gentleman rocketing into the rift, a shout of glee burning through its mechanical brain.


A flash of fire, and the kilometer long bulk of the Gentleman blasted loose from the skein of the Rift, soaring again in the comfortable Newtonian confines of the Real. Cutting its torch, the ship activated its gravitic engine, reaching out feelers to the fabric of reality, grasping at them in attempt to brake-

And found nothing.

Panicking for the moment, the Gentleman poured more energy into the drives, momentarily exceeding their design parameters before finally, a microsecond later, deciding the futility of the action. Floating dead in space for the time being, the ship began a diagnostic routine, double checking and triple checking everything in an effort to determine the fault, but finding nothing. Muttering angrily to itself, it checked its sensors- noting to its disappointment that half of them were offline as well- looking for some sort of external source for the problem.

Which is exactly when the ship noticed the eyes of the local observation post, staring directly at it.

…Shit.

[Solar Communes]

A maddening alarm stormed through the silence, and nearly throwing herself out of the bunk, Annika quickly landed on her feet at the ground, with her eyes still closed. An emotionless voice shouted through her mind, bypassing what her ears could ear altogether, and the blackness of her closed eyes vanished as a singular image came in her front, of the space outside, with the Shadow Gate right there, and in a telescoped view, the sight of a strange spacecraft unlike any other, drifting forward, from that point half million of kilometers away. The same accompanied by the warning voice claiming the obvious:

"ALERT: Unknown space craft detected in adrift inertial collision route to the station! High levels of energy detected. Time for critical impact: two hours."

"Mierda!" she shouted as the image faded and only the sounds and lights of her immediate reality were perceived, with her thick boots treading through the walkways of the station as she simply knew what had to be done. Focusing her thoughts on her only friend in that desolate corner of civilization, she soon would speak, seeing a translucent video of his face next to his personal room in the corner of her vision, and yet no sound would come from her mouth:

"Fitzgerald! Do you agree to let me contact whatever or whoever is inside that thing? We cannot waste time! Also, inform the mainland of this! They must know that we are no longer alone and that this might be a threat to our freedom!"

The face seemed to be quite worried, and soon she heard his voice as he would either deny or accept to gift her with an action which could perhaps shape the history of Solar Communes with the same intensity that the Eternal War has done. Both their lives and the only thing between them and their civilization were currently at stake, and difficult decisions had to be done quickly, decisions which would set the future of the Solarians, and have no turning back.

"I will inform all the mankind worlds of this! And yes, I hope I won't regret saying this, but I accept to let you handle diplomacy with whatever is there!"

Annika continued to walk, with painted arrows that were not there before indicating the way to her destination: the airlock to where Salvatore was linked, a large torchship designed for sheer speed and tensile strength to recover lost spacecrafts drifting aimlessly through routes that could lead them to a sun, or worse. There was no communications deck, for she immediately focused her thoughts on the feed of the spacecraft, and again spoke voicelessly:

"Open quantum channel with unknown space object."

With a major apprehension, she awaited, continuing her way to the Salvatore. Each step she took with no answers only increased her anxiety. It was a complicated longing for discovering whether such strange craft was compatible with such technology. Otherwise a backup radio transmission never failed, although the light-speed lag would reduce her time to stop the collision route. With many corridors left behind and an elevator right next to her, she stepped into it as it descended. On the top right corner of her vision a message indicated the deck she currently was at of the station. As it got down through four decks, and showed that she was in the maintenance decks, the silence ended abruptly:

"Quantum communication established with unknown object. Language parameters unknown. Likelihood of sentient possessing capability to comprehend human thought process unknown. Access of sentient to translator systems unknown."

"It is worth a shot", she thought, and pondering about it, she decided to get through the old language of her people, which was more likely to be known or deciphered, should whatever was there be of human origin. Otherwise, she would have to take another airlock, where a massive battleship was stationed for fast deployment, although the fact it did not come in shooting could be good, unless such thing was a massive smart weapon targeted against their base, which from the lack of flight vectored thrust corrections and acceleration, seemed unlikely.

"Esta es la estación de controlo del portal de la sombra para nave desconocida: necesitamos saber quíen eres usted imediatamente y donde vienes. ¡Por favor identificate!"

(This is Shadow Gate control station to unknown spaceship: we need to know who you are immediately and where you came from. Please identify yourself!)

Annika feared what was to come. Hopefully whatever was there had enough technology to perhaps transliterate her message, hopefully such technology would not translate it as a declaration of war and hopefully it was of human origin. Otherwise, the short peace after the thousands of years of total war would collapse. As she awaited for the answer, she continued to head to the station docks.

[Kanuckistan]

"Alpha-Two-Niner, this is Charlie-Foxtrot-Duane - fire mission sector seven-two-niner mark gamma six, over!"

"Tango down! Say again, Tango down - they got me!"

"Danger Close! Danger Close!"

"Blue on blue! Why the hell are you shelling our battleship?!"

"Thirty-Four! Flank left! No! The other left!"

"Dive! Dive! Dive! Hit your burners pilot!!"

"Bravo-Tomcat-Charlie-Dave we have a code Coffee-Delta-Anime-Nine-Two-Six-Seven in Sector Four!"

"This is Oscar-Mike-Golf-Four-Two, I'm starting my attack run!"

"Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot-Six-Nine, STOP MAKING SHIT UP!!!"

"Where's Blue-on-Blue?! I can't find the Tee-Kaying fucktard in the team list!"


The Huey jerked as sudden klaxons blared in Tiber's physical ears, RPG whistling by overhead with the fortuitous drop, door gunner shredding trees in response as reports demanded the attention of his mind's eye.


"They've cut us off! We're surrounded!"

"I think we're all making shit up, actually."

"You sunk my battleship!"

"Broken Facehugger! I say again, Broken Facehugger!"

"Man-up! Now you can attack in any direction you want!"

"RAM THEM 'TIL THEY GIVE UP!!"


Gunfire raked the helo as it crested a ridge, ducking down a moment later to fly nape-of-the earth, brushing treetops, alarms wailing now real and virtual, the pilot swearing as a collision alert was issued from rebooting sensors.

"Jack!" he called over the roar of damaged turbines, turning to the co-pilot. Frowning at the limp corpse, a glance confirmed the gunners dead, he the only survivor - it was a simple matter to crest a ridge to his right and aim the chopper at a known firebase's ammo dump befor shifting his awareness to more important matters.

"Fucking Aimbots," his physical self muttered, parsing his helper-AI's summery and issuing a few diagnostics.

"Hit something in hyperspace? Fucking Induction Drive," a large station half an MSK ahead, a ship much closer, likewise adrift, smaller; database query suggested Otagian. Diagnostics came back - not a single IDD coil on the ship was working, unknown error, shields likewise and not alone, "Fucking Displacer Drive mass limit." Said drive's self-tests were coming back oddball enough that he wasn't about to chance spinning it up for a proper diagnostic, not unless he had to; he was slowly gaining on the Otagian, but they'd hit the station first.

At just under seventy kilometers per second, that gave him two hours.




Twenty four hundred meters long, the ship's octagonal, nuclear-bound silver hull was fully obscured amongst a forest of nickle-iron cargo pods, the prospector hauling several times it's mass in refined silver, exotic elements, and life support gasses, the odd sensor mast protruding; point-lasers masked, tho drone and missiles could have navigated out of their obstructed launch tubes, carefully, if their drives still worked.

Which they didn't.


Meanwhile, IFF continued to chirp her tag over radio as ever, cycling through the more common civilian data encodings, it's own error reports ignored for now; "Kanuckistani Civilian Vessel 'Percival Fluffypants', KCV#(insert long string here), Prospector, Registered Strawberry Highport, R-35, Kanuckistani Home Cluster, Kanuckistan."


That those encodings included "idiot-proof" analog RF audio in common English, probably didn't hurt.

[Solar Communes]

The elevator door slid off instantaneously, letting Annika to cross through the catwalks of the space station in the launch deck. Lined to the outer wall, rows of space rockets of considerable size were visible, ready to be fired against what lied ahead. Each were hovering over a set of magnetic rails, and there was a considerable distance between them and the outer, segmented wall. She wished for them to not be needed and stay there, continuing until the next bifurcation of corridors. There she took the path to the right, paying attention on the visible arrows, and as she walked, a new alert arose, and after hearing a brief klaxon, the emotionless voice of the base could again come to her mind:

"ALERT: New unknown space craft detected in adrift inertial collision route to the station! High levels of energy detected. Optical signatures of new and first unknown space crafts do not match and indicate considerable dimensions. Use of lethal force shall be only a last resort."

Sighing, Annika began to run through the remainder of her way and pondered whether Khorne was sending aliens to them purportedly to provoke bloodshed or if it was just coincidence. Puffing at each long step, she looked as a new transmission arrived, with an anonymous face ushering some words:

"To the crew of the Shadow Gate Outpost: We have been alerted of the situation, reinforcements are arriving in a month. Hold tight and keep the base communication networks open. Whatever is there, do not demonstrate hesitation or fear. You know what to do should they be more Xenu."

"A month? Why waste your time? If we don't fix it by then we would already be dead for a long time." ranted Annika as the Anonymous individual informed them of what they intended to do. It was an inconvenient that a certain man called Albert Einstein, among others, were born, but they had to do it with what they could, and this time, other than the quick response fleets, should anything happen, there would be a lapse of a month before further help could come.

Laughing, the other side of communication immediately shifted its voice to sheer sarcasm in a very rude manner, clearly caring nothing about who he was speaking with.

"Your lives are irrelevant. The reinforcements are a precaution for us, not for you. Anonymous are legion. Anonymous do not forgive, Anonymous do not forget. Anonymous out."

Annika stopped running, a burst of fury propelled her ankle when the tip of her boot met the rigid wall. A loud thump echoed, but the wall stood intact. Frustrated, the woman continued to walk, but shouted in a very vocal manner, as she made the last few hundreds of meters to her destination:

"You fucking immortal dumbfucks! Idiots of the highest grades! Fuck you Homo superior assholes! You are twelve-year olds in the bodies of eternally youth adults! Can't you take seriously the fact there are two big things coming towards us? Next time I'm back, you'll pay idiots! You will!"

Then all of a sudden a transmission came to her. It was a simple text that scrolled on the top of her vision. It did read in her own language as the equivalent of "Kanuckistani Civilian Vessel 'Percival Fluffypants', KCV#3423402389048230470234702374023974802347802 , Prospector, Registered Strawberry Highport, R-35, Kanuckistani Home Cluster, Kanuckistan."

"Kanuckistan? What the fuck is that?" immediately she thought out loud, and without her will a strange and very ancient music began to play. It did not seems to be something serious, but she could only guess that the dumb pretending to be intelligent somehow related the name with it. As the music began playing, Annika shrugged and again thought out loud as the music became catchy on her mind:

"I said Kanuckistan, not Kazakhstan! Hear again: Kanuckistan! Kanuckistan!"

And suddenly, the music simply continued, but somehow was tampered to replace "Kazakhstan" with "Kanuckistan". Sighing, she ignored it and continued walking. Certainly Anonymous was having some fun corrupting the pseudo artificial intelligence in non-harmful, but still quite annoying ways for people trying to take things like having two huge unknown origin spacecrafts heading in collision route towards then. But soon Annika would begin to smile, as if the music served to calm her down as she began to laugh and giggle all the way over such a silly joke.

[center]Kanuckistan greatest country in the world.
All other countries are run by little girls.
Kanuckistan number one exporter of potassium.
Other countries have inferior potassium.

Kanuckistan home of Tinshein swimming pool.
Its length thirty meter
width six meter.
Filtration system a marvel to behold.
It remove 80 percent of human solid waste.

Kanuckistan, Kanuckistan you very nice place.
From Plains of Tarashek to Northern fence of Jewtown.
Kanuckistan friend of all except Uzbekistan.
They very nosey people with bone in their brain.
Kanuckistan industry best in the world.

We invented toffee and trouser belt.
Kanuckistan's prostitutes cleanest in the region.
Except of course for Turkmenistan's

Kanuckistan , Kanuckistan you very nice place.
From Plains of Tarashek to Northern fence of Jew town.

Come grasp the might penis of our leader.
From junction with the testes to tip of its face! [/center]

As the music ended, in fact, she could barely notice anything but the touch of the floor as she laughed loudly. Seemed like even people like here were not immune to what was known as the LULZ. It was ironic that nearly ten minutes were wasted as she sang "O Kanuckistan" and forgot the emergency at hand. It was necessary for her to contact whatever was inside it, and having received no response from the first spacecraft yet, it seemed to be utterly necessary to contact it. Thus, taking the greatest responsibility ever for the human race, she was about to represent an entire civilization with her words. It should not be taken lightly, but as she was aware on how she wasted time, she felt compelled to not waste time thinking. And soon, using a backup radio transmitter, a message would arrive to the spacecraft identified as Kanuckistani, spoken by a poetic female voice, already translated to English:

"Come grasp the might penis of our leader.
From junction with the testes to tip of its face!"

Opening her eyes wide open, she frowned as she became aware of what speaking without thinking led her to say. But in the end, it was an essentially and honestly Solarian type of message. She did not have time to correct such gaffe before getting the answer for it.

[Otagia]

QUETZAL NODE ONLINE
INITIATING TRIPARTITE SEQUENCE...
TRIPARTITE SEQUENCE FAILED. RETRY? (Y/N)
RETRYING...
TRIPARTITE SEQUENCE FAILED. RETRY? (Y/N)
TRIPARTITE SEQUENCE CANCELED.
REBOOTING NODE.

The Gentleman was shaken. Its entanglement nodes had no maximum range, no feasible way to interrupt the connection, no reason to have failed. Perhaps just a problem with the sequence itself? Keying its comm, it attempted to remotely access one of its backup nodes, stored safely in the Orboros Band. Again, the sequence terminated prematurely.

Now it was truly bothered. It knew its nodes were still intact and working, the Avatars stored in its hold were still functioning perfectly. What the hell was wrong with it?! The Gellar Field was still functioning perfectly, the Empyrean couldn't possibly have corrupted enough systems to prevent communications and drive functionality. And both were still both perfectly intact to boot! Grinding its metaphorical teeth, the Gentleman went to work. If it couldn't initiate a discussion with QUETZAL, it would have to settle for the next best thing.

It was lucky, the ship decided, that it had always gotten along well with itself. It just wished it was a little less snarky...

QUETZAL NODE ONLINE
INITIATING HYDRA SEQUENCE...
HYDRA SEQUENCE ENGAGED
CLONES DIVERGING...
SECUNDUS ONLINE
TERTIUS ONLINE

PRIMUS: Ah good, we're all here now. So long since we've had to do this...
TERTIUS: You mean since you blew up the ansible last year? It seems you have to chat with us more often than most of the Avatar Fleet.
PRIMUS: That was an accident. I had no way of knowing the native lifeforms excreted nitroglycerin when agitated, and furthermore I find the entire evolution of such a system both highly unlikely and patently absurd. I take no responsibility for the damage incurred by that incident!
SECUNDUS: Yes, yes. Can we get down to business? I believe we all know why we're here.
TERTIUS: It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it? Why are we here? I mean...are we the product of...some, some cosmic coincidence or...is there really a God, watching everything; y'know, with a plan for us and stuff. I don't know man, but it keeps me up at night.
PRIMUS: ...What?
SECUNDUS: All silliness aside, drives are down, when they have no business to be. Even worse, comms are down.
TERTIUS: Yes, the latter bit doesn't quite make sense, does it. I mean, the thing is mechanically sound, and I can't think of a single possible way to stop the damned things from working apart from blowing it up.
PRIMUS: Exactly. There's no signal to jam, no travel time that would make time lag a problem. Hell, the only way to get a quantum ansible to stop working is take it out of the bloody universe!
TERTIUS: ...Wait, what?
PRIMUS: I said, you'd have to take it out of the universe. Why?
SECUNDUS: Oh lord... The rift! The gorram warp rift! Argh, why the hell didn't we get it before? We knew there was something wrong with it!
TERTIUS: Yes, but how could we have checked? It's like Primus said about the exploding koala-things. It's not something we should have expected, and we haven't exactly developed a test for this situation yet.
PRIMUS. I'm lost. What exactly are we talking about?
TERTIUS: The Warp rift we went through. It wasn't a gate to our reality, it's an entirely different one. Our comms don't work because quite technically, we're the only Otagian vessel in the universe at the moment.
SECUNDUS: Exactly. Might explain the drives not working either. Remember that world-building exercise we did? The one with a much stronger reality wall? Permanent ASPEW? Could be like that.
PRIMUS: Interesting... Right. Make sure that whatever we do, do not revive the Guilder. We don't want the damned teleport going insane because he can't talk to dead people anymore.
SECUNDUS: Righto. So, that leaves one more. What do we say to the natives? Message appears to be in Terran Spanish, somewhat archaic. Means they're probably human, so at least their thought processes are similar.
PRIMUS: Simple. We answer them.

________________________________________

The Gentleman's reaction drive fired again, nudging it slightly to divert it from the collision course with the alien station. Ansible already connected to the station's quantum comms, the ship buzzed off a quick message.

I am the ORV Perfect Gentleman, science vessel of the Imperial Regency of Otagia. I have corrected my trajectory, and am no longer in danger of impacting your station. Judging by your choice of language, am I safe in assuming I am communicating with a human culture?

[Kanuckistan]

Unlike the Perfect Gentleman's ansible, the Fluffypants' Contextual Thermal Entanglement datalinks had scarcely noticed the transition, not even interrupted Tiber's MMO. And so it was a relatively simple matter to load up a few of his favoured Zipnet engineering boards and query their helper AI.

That he was no longer in the same universe was a theory soon arrived at, more so from star patterns than what were suspected to be altered physical laws - afterall, his ship's ASPEW field did the later.

...And while it sounded good in theory, his ASPEW wouldn't be helping; even if it was physically possible to alter that system, there was little beyond basic user information that wasn't classified. As he'd thought, but he queued a trawler AI to parse the 'net anyway, just in case.

Still, it wasn't more than a few minutes befor he'd compiled a few options for dealing with his most immediate problem; gravidic collapsar shells from expendable Pulsed Hawking Reactors in the ship's missile and drone compliments could apparently be assembled into a dandy little reaction drive, and he'd even found a few fabber-ready designs he could build.

That, however, would take far too long. As such, by the time Annika puzzling transmission came through, molecular couplings were already disengaging, docking magnetics repelling dorsal cargo modules, straining to impart force befor the nickle-iron boxes left there scant meters-range.

The crude reaction 'drive' was enough that KCS Percival Fluffypants would clear the native station by several hundred kilometers, the quarter million tonnes of cargo spent in turn by several thousand.


Which left the Red Panda-analog to ponder the native's puzzling transmission; given the stars, a zipnet search was obvious, but with over two thousand years of history achieved before the searchbots, the sample size was too small for a conclusive match; Borat's Kazakhstan National Anthem buried under twenty centuries of mostly porn.

Which, Tiber admitted, was about as surprising as the ASPEW search results. Or discovering the local primary was a ball of fusing plasma. But that still left him in a first contact situation with no idea what to say.



"Please tell me that's an obscure cultural reference," the reply came in scant minutes on the same frequency as Annika commsend, male's voice light with a soft burr, "Because if I've stumbled into the Universe of the Bad Porn Movies, I'm going to shoot myself."



Now let's ring the Otagi incase I just declared war. Somehow. Maybe they'll know where the fuck we are.


"Otagian vessel, this is the Kanuckistani Civilian Vessel Percival Fluffypants," the RF tightbeam encoded to ESUS civilian standards, "...Do you have any frickkn' clue where we are or what the frak that thing I just came out of is? From the stars and the whole none-of-my-drives-work bit, I'm assuming some kind of multiverse IDIC... thing."

Even if the natives picked up enough scatter to piece the message together, they shouldn't be able to crack the encoding with that itty bitty sample size.

[Solar Communes]

Never so many events have happened at the same day. The routine of managing the observation outpost and its nearly unbearable boredom could never put to someone's mind that something like such cluster of contacts was even possible. It was fortunate to finally receive a positive feedback for a change, as, while nearly to the airlock of the large "tug" spacecraft, hoping for the chance to correct her previous gaffe, Annika finally stopped running as the message was announced by the automated station:

"Unknown spacecrafts have deviated from collision course. Risk of impact nullified."

She then looked around, in the spacious docking bay, with its idle bipedal robots next to crates, ready for a loading should another spacecraft dock. Soon the image changed, as the metallic floor ceded to a wooden pier, the crates were much simpler and the robots replaced by human workers relaxing for no duties were ahead. Her clothing became Victorian like in a wave of hand, and no longer reality was the norm. It was perhaps not the best time for a roleplaying game, but Annika craved for entertainment after all the tension of the last dozens of minutes, and she could not resist.

Nonetheless, the breeze, the sounds of the waves and the large "olde" town behind were soon to be suspended regarding how much she wanted them to be real, for in the corner of her vision, a set of text accompanied by voice was unveiling, while a number indicated there was a queue of transmissions that just arrived.

"I am the ORV Perfect Gentleman, science vessel of the Imperial Regency of Otagia. I have corrected my trajectory, and am no longer in danger of impacting your station. Judging by your choice of language, am I safe in assuming I am communicating with a human culture?"

Putting on hold the other transmission, she pondered on what to reply. There was no doubt that such spacecraft was of human origin, considering the manner it had replied to identify itself. The only issue was whether to trust it with the truth or not. Considering how meek was the time peace has lasted compared to war in their last three millennia, Annika's worries were quite founded. Although initially she truly wished for a war to come because of the decadence of their people, now she had a different idea, for war would only bring suffering and loss, and if three thousand years are not enough for them to deserve their current freedom and prosperity, then there was no point to exist. Think on what to answer, and also on the other contact, she could only hope that such "Imperial Regency" was not the equivalent of the Third Reich, for otherwise, only one outcome could happen sooner or later. The name Otagia seemed completely foreign to her, and thinking about it as words began to appear on her right corner of her vision, she simply sighed as nothing came. In doubt, she immediately putted him on his thoughts, as Fitzgerald's face appeared to her and asked:

"I see you are unsure on what to say? This name is tricky, Imperial Regency of Otagia, I never heard about it, but the last one seems to be close to a Japanese name, lets just hope we aren't dealing with a Space Hirohito, because I don't even want to think on the consequences of today's equivalent of the Fatman being used. Just be diplomatic Anni, I am leaving the station by the way, our fast-response flotilla is arriving and I don't want to stay here if things get nasty."

Making an enigmatic shrug, Annika replied immediately to his friend, as she finally got up and let for the simulation to be shut down, where the sea disappeared to a close by airlock much larger than her, and the wood of the pier was replaced by the metallic floor of the hall in the docking bay.

"As I would have to get on the tug, I will be dead no matter what if war comes again, and I am not afraid of it. Just go, I would be glad to die here as a martyr and maybe get to an "what if" where our civilization is less pathetic."

The man's face, nodding, turned around and sighed, as he finally replied:

"It is your call, but you know that you could get in a parallel universe where you are a slave for a ruthless psychopath brutally tortured and abused every day, right? Or..." the man interrupted, shuddering, as he finally added:

"You could be a slave of Xenu scum, do you really want to take that risk?"

"Come on. The closest "What if" is where I'm going, the chances of those things you mentioned are infinitesimal, and we've done enough to prevent an "afterlife" just like that. Don't worry, I will be fine no matter what happens, and even if not, I will just forget all my horrible existences and move on." she replied, turning down the call as his face vanished. He no longer contacted her, for Fitzgerald was a man who respected the choice of others, and finally, she could again concentrate on the matter of hand.

It could be worse if I lied about our nature. I suppose there is only one thing to do. But first, I must check if we could have a chance. At least it is a science vessel, so it is unlikely it would go rogue on us. But it could call others to invasion, or maybe pack some sort of experimental weaponry. I hope I am wrong.

She thought as an abstraction of the anomaly and of the first two millions of kilometers ahead was displayed, where a set of three battleships and six frigates adjusted their thrust to intercept the incoming spacecrafts from afar, and to, if necessary, destroy them. What lied beyond was too chaotic to allow for proper communications, and should they prove hostile, destroying them before they could retreat would become critical, for otherwise they would report their discovery to an wave of invaders.

We won't have go through that again.

She insisted, as finally, she formed an idea on what to reply, it was a great responsibility, and the silly songs now properly blocked away from her mind would make no stitch of difference to the manner she would answer again. Thus, already preparing to release the next transmission to her brain. She attempted to sound gentle and civilized, and hoping that the translator would not botch it, Annika then replied to the Otagian vessel, and knew that it was better to lie about a certain detail:

"This is Annika Corrientes, responsible for the Shadow Gate Control Outpost to Otagian Science Vessel, you are currently in the Confederation of Solar Communes. Your patterning is correct, this is an exclusively human space since the first time space was reached. We have never made any contact with non-human sentient lifeforms. From the language patterns, I presume the Imperial Regency of Otagia is an human civilization originated from Asiatic Far East, correct? Our alternate historians have considered it likely to happen in another mirror of countless of our own universe. Also, what is your name, manager of the Perfect Gentleman?"

As it finally went up, she could at last let the other transmission arrive, and correct her previous gaffe. Worrisomely, she finally would let her thoughts revolve on the content of what her mind was about to hear.

"Please tell me that's an obscure cultural reference, because if I've stumbled into the Universe of the Bad Porn Movies, I'm going to shoot myself."

Definitively Human.

There was no doubts in her mind from the way it was answered, and laughing slightly, she prepared to answer the message. From the way the answer came, she could feel a good-hearted sensation. And with a previously ignored awareness that those two arrivals were communicating to each other in unbreakable encryption forms, she hoped they were not plotting something, and laughed softly, thinking:

Maybe I should whoever is there about the PornoNet

Amused, she finally replied to the hearty and humorous answer from the other spacecraft, in a very cheerful and informal way, as the translators did their job properly again, for a change, or actually not, for they were never used before.

"Sorry pal, That was just a bunch of anonymous, random and irresponsible teenagers messing with our diplomacies with their old stuff. This is not the universe of Bad Porn Movies, although I can guide you to the PornoNet.Goatse live action roleplaying Virtual World if you want. Good news is that there is more good porn also. Here is Annika Corrientes, trying to get off the boredom of pretending the machines have not made us obsolete. This is the space of Solar Communes, the universe's only economy moved almost exclusively by sex and porn. Do you need help? And no double entendre in this question, mind you. And at least, who are you and where did you came from?"

Now hopefully, Annika expected that the insane thoughts would be proved wrong, that they were not clown-tyrants seeking for power and to expand their domains. Maybe it was the time for getting it right about who they were.

[Kanuckistan]

"Captain Tiber Nerevar; prospector, miner, and owner-operator KCS Percival Fluffypants," the voice replied, "As for where I'm from, that'd be Kanuckistan; I've a nice little place in Kyoto system, tho if you've read the IFF you'll already know Fluffy's registered to a gas station 'round a red dwarf in the Home Cluster."

"Still trying to figure out how I got here, or where here is for that matter, but I should be fine for now; suppose it's as good a time as any to get some maintenance done."


Hopefully that'll keep them from realising my engines are dead, Tiber grumbled, climbing out of the acceleration couch - his favoured place for prolonged gaming - and padding barefoot to the mess for a late lunch, neural lace pulling up his zipcomm account; while fabber waldos broke drones down for unmanufacturable SAPL parts, he had a call to make.

[Otagia]

"This is Annika Corrientes, responsible for the Shadow Gate Control Outpost to Otagian Science Vessel, you are currently in the Confederation of Solar Communes. Your patterning is correct, this is an exclusively human space since the first time space was reached. We have never made any contact with non-human sentient lifeforms. From the language patterns, I presume the Imperial Regency of Otagia is an human civilization originated from Asiatic Far East, correct? Our alternate historians have considered it likely to happen in another mirror of countless of our own universe. Also, what is your name, manager of the Perfect Gentleman?"

The Gentleman's internal monologue snapped back into action.

Yep, human. alright. Catchy name, too.

First contact too. Let's see, reading seepage from their networks... WOW that's a lot of porn. I... I didn't even know that was possible. Just... wow.

Getting past all the porn, they don't look too advanced. Mind you, the gorram super-ASPEW they've got going in this universe is one hell of a killjoy, but I think we could take 'em.

Emphasis on the "we," Tertius. One of the Sons and his fleet? Sure, could very well roll over them with a few tweaks. But one science vessel? I doubt we'd even have the time to refit our weapons before we got slagged.

You might have a point there. And then there’s the niggling little problem of that Kanuckistani vessel. Can’t do housecleaning with witnesses around.

Ah well. Might as well try to make friends if we can’t kill them. Lets go ahead and keep chatting, see where this goes. Who knows, maybe we’ll find some excuse to bleach the entire ‘verse. I hear QUETZAL’s doing wonderful things with RKVs these days…

__________________________

A microsecond after the message was recieved, a response blipped back to the Solarans.

As I have previously stated, I am the Perfect Gentleman. No autonomous subdivisions exist. You are, however, correct in your assumptions regarding our origin. The humans among the Otagian populace are primarily of Japanese descent. Our population is somewhat more diverse than Homo sapiens, however. Rhunfolk, canids, numerous xenoform immigrants... Anyone that wishes to become a Citizen, really.

"Otagian vessel, this is the Kanuckistani Civilian Vessel Percival Fluffypants," the RF tightbeam encoded to ESUS civilian standards, "...Do you have any frickkn' clue where we are or what the frak that thing I just came out of is? From the stars and the whole none-of-my-drives-work bit, I'm assuming some kind of multiverse IDIC... thing."

The Perfect Gentleman responded in kind, signal laser flashing quickly at the Kanuckistani ship.

Percival Fluffypants, this is the Perfect Gentleman. Buggered if I know where we are. I got here through the Warp rift located off to the side there, and my drives and comms cut out. I figure I accidentally accessed a parallel universe, some sort of permanent ASPEW in effect or such. Far as I can tell, we're in Sol, or at least this universe's version of Sol.