Our discussion about the 'road-trip' lasted some time, and covered many different subjects. From what to wear (our avatars and their shapes), to the sort of vehicles we would be driving (she would be riding a Leviathan, I would be taking one of my Cuttle-Ships), and what we would do when we got there.
I would be downloading the Internet (starting with YouTube), while our avatars ours descend to the surface and just wander for some time. Until we were bored.
Since we were both capible of hypersonic in-atmosphere flight, this would be... Exciting. Mainly because our wake *might* disturb people on the ground, shatter windows, and alert the local air force to our presence.
Like I said, exciting.
Before any of that, we had to get there though. To do that, we both had different methods of FTL travel, and had such decided to have a race!
Zerg could open wormholes to eight-dimensional space, then back down to a location somewhere else in the universe. While the traversal time could be nearly instant, that required a 'beacon' Zerg at the destination to properly string the resulting abnormalities in space-time.
As such, with the current distance, Sarah would need to 'feel around' for her destination before re-entering the universe, which would take some time. I actually think I can duplicate this, but right now, my still-growing metal planets are fueling the construction of a fairly large number of teleporters. (Not to mention the fact that I had another idea for FTL.)
It would be a race of Zerg Warp against Teleporter-spam! I spun up my engines, the fleets of teleporters activating, and the metal planets spooling up their generators for my rapid movement.
Two minutes later, the last teleporter exited the discontinuous space of a slingshot, appearing north of Sol and unfolding into the standard ring before the middle flared to life. Moments later, a Cuttle-Ship flew out of the teleporter, only to stop dead as the sensors fed me information.
Sol was busy.
Hundreds of vessels, in a great variety of different shapes, were visible. There were tiny tugs, massive stations, and very, very large vessels that I could watch consume asteroids and extrude blocks of elements.
What pulled most of my attention was the massive amount of gamma radiation that was being emitted by the plasma-based thrusters. Just... Antimatter. Everything was powered by antimatter.
With very small magnetic containment systems.
Thinking quickly, I re-oriented my teleporter, simultaneously fabricating a handful of probes. Not just any probes though- lets go for something alien.
A tetrahedron. Specifically, a tetrahedron with corners that had fabricator arms tucked into covered slots, internal gravitational omnithrusters, a nice little sensor suite, and a small shield generator connected directly to the device's power generator.
It was just slightly taller than a Dox, and as it isn't armored (other than the shield, but that is mainly to protect against atmospheric heating when entering an atmosphere). Thus, I dub thee, in honor of the Dox, my Popcorn probes!
Mainly because these things have less armor than the flash-fabricated missiles for anti-fighter turrets, and could be one-shot by my point-defense nodes.
I fabricated a few dozen in batches, letting each batch flicker through the teleporter when it was aimed for an ideal slingshot.
Many, many vessels around the Sol system were going to have an interesting day as my probes scanned everything.
-
There is a misconception that most people before 2087 had regarding space travel. Mainly that getting around in a solar system is just a matter of pointing in the right direction, and turning on the engines.
When you have a lot of space-traffic, and most of it being automated drones, there is stuff to hit. Therefore, a simple solution was devised: Traffic Control.
Just like for airports, Space Traffic Control made sure the number of lethal (and hideously expensive) collisions was minimized, thanks to various telescopes in the hundreds around the system watching for debris, and of course quantum interaction communications so any of the drones or piloted craft could call in interesting material.
Things like asteroids, interesting comets, and meteor showers. Things that could prove a lethal navigational hazard.
"This is Alpha-11719-Hotel-Kansas contacting Polar Tower Actual."
"This is Polar Tower Actual, we read you 11719. What is your issue?"
Asteroids can be seen as something to be mentioned to traffic control, as some do sneak past their current setup. Clouds of debris, that sort of thing, are also cause for alarm.
"Polar Tower, there is a swarm of objects moving irregularly towards your station. Incoming retrograde, mark 4-81-21, 8 degrees offset normal traffic. I am sending you my current position, check within two degrees off horizon."
"Copy Alpha-11719-Hotel-Kansas. Reorienting..."
Of course, Traffic Control had their own Telescopes, one for each Space Traffic Control monitor. These were used for troubleshooting, and occasionally, aiming the impressive battery of missiles that the station was armed with.
Better to be hit by a series of small pieces than a single large chunk, or better yet, knock it out of a path that would hit anything important.
"Alpha-11719-Hotel-Kansas, this is Polar Tower Actual, I'm seeing it, but I have no idea what that is. They do not appear to be decelerating."
"Polar Tower Actual, I just got scanned."
"Please repeat Alpha-11719-Hotel-Kansas? We do not Copy."
And, as a descendent of the ancient Air-traffic control businesses, the Space Traffic Control prided itself on unflinching, unflappable, unpreturbed, and absolutely reassuring operatives being ready and able to deal with any challenge. Space is unforgiving, and they had to stand up to it.
"Polar Tower Actual, I am not shitting you- this thing just scanned me with some green light out of a tiny arm, and then fixed -with that same light- a pockmark on the outer surface of one of my pod's plates! Prepare for incoming!"
"Alpha-11719-Hotel-Kansas, This is Polar Tower Actual. We read you and are taking precautions."
First contact had not been something that the STC had prepared for, but it's operators were smart. Word had been relayed to all of the traffic control stations, as well as ground stations in seconds.
Ground guns, five-hundred meter long sky-facing railguns, each created with a few kilograms of the superconductor Unobtanium, reoriented to track the Swarms of objects being seen all over the system. Well, only the near-earth objects, but similar systems were being activated everywhere in Sol.
Calls of First Contact would do that.
Then the wormhole opened, and the channels began to get filled with expletives as something that could only be described as a 10-kilometer long purple space-whale drifted out of the breach. Several people resigned as soon as they saw the first pictures.
Fun fact- Zerg Leviathans are HOT. Huge segments of their bodies are dedicated to radiating away excess heat from the process of performing a faster-than-light jump as relativity strains slightly over their existence.
Jumping from higher spacial dimensional reference frames to lower ones can cause thermal bleedoff imbalances, as the matter compresses along various axes.
Patches along the flanks were glowing, and the massive rows of spikes along the ventral flank ridges had unfurled, revealing that they were feather-like structures twenty kilometers long and eight wide, thin as tissue but radiating hotter than an oven. The tusks were unfolding too, increasing in surface area as they turned into radiator panels.
Within the Leviathan, a tiny synthetic structure buzzed to life.
The size of a Boom bot, it looked more like a metal flower mounted on a set of symmetrical hexapod legs, and had one complex purpose: to facilitate communication. Specifically, to act as the Queen of Blades' technical solution to talk with me.
As soon as my communication bot finished its three-millisecond boot sequence, I set it to ring.
A couple seconds later, it connected, and I activated the cameras on her end, projecting an image of my face above the petals.
"Yes, I know- I lost." She was grinning. "But this world is so full of life! And light.... Now we're h̶̛u̵n͞g̨͏r̶͟y̨..." A purple nightmare of a tongue peeked out from between her lips, the end flicking into thousands of miniscule tendrils as she licked up a little drool that had slithered down from the corner of her mouth.
Her body some fifty thousand lightyears away twitched, uncurling and bone-like wings longer than moons rustled in the emptiness of space as thousands of mouths opened and closed, eyes blinking once or twice before settling on Earth.
I nodded. "I see that. So.... Want to eat the Earth?"
Sarah visible twitched. "What? No.... Okay, maybe a little just a nibble?"
I couldn't help it- I started laughing, then abruptly stopped at her betrayed and annoyed expression. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked. I remember what it's like to be hungry."
The glowing purple eyes really accentuated the glare-pout hybrid she used on me. "Not like this..."
"No, probably not like you right now." While I was talking, I had been downloading EVERYTHING I could get my hands on from the Internet. YouTube, news sites, everything. I had even woken up several Agents, and had tasked them with looking through everything, and extracting anything interesting. "But I have an idea..."
Immediately I got a series of flags popping up- Aliens. Aliens that were not me or her.
"Sarah, quick question." I displayed several pictures of the world that humanity had found with life on it. "When did humans meet any other species in your timeline? Because they seem to have met some blue monkeys."
She stood up, sashaying over to the images before flicking across the pictures of blue-skinned alien monkeys, horses, and monkeys riding things that were only an extra pair of legs and fire breath away from being dragons. "2259." She pulled up a picture of the moon as seen with it's gas giant behind it. "Much later than now. The Protoss stumbled across humanity in the Koprulu sector... And I have never seen anything like these creatures."
"I have."
Her eyes snapped to my holographic image, a shape not unlike a stylized Ultron face. "Explain."
"They were in a movie during my childhood." I highlighted the blue monkey. "These Na'vi are natives of a moon, Pandora. They were the main allies of the protagonist in a movie called 'Avatar', directed by some guy named James Cameron." I buzzed his name against the data I had collected, and he popped up. "Here he created the Transformers movies... And Michael Bay directed the Hobbit movies. Downloading that."
Kerrigan looked a little confused at the rapid change of topics, but rallied. "Back to these guys-" she 'gripped' the hologram with two fingers, "- I want one."
"Why?"
She smiled, and there was a hint of teeth in it. "They are new. Why wouldn't I want one?"
A bulbous shape slithered out from behind her, and an array of beady eyes peered at the images. The sort of face that nothing could love stared out from the shadows behind the Queen, and a long clawed finger extended as the pupils widened involuntarily. "Want. Need variety. So bored. Much want."
"Dear gods, he sounds like Doge!" I made my symbol laugh as it spun in circles.
That made both Zerg pause. "Confusion?" Muttered the thing.
"Never mind." I made sure to repress the immediate surge of laughter. "So, who's tall, bulbous, and beady-eyed there?"
"Abathur." That was his name! I had forgotten. "What you, metal?"
"I metal mind. You Abathur." I grunted, mimicking his speech pattern for the response before turning back to Sarah. "No problem. Let me build a quick pair of gates, and we can get there in a jiffy." I frowned. "I am not too fond of the indigenous Pandorans, so I have no problems with this."
Swarms of buzzers began pouring out of the teleporter, swirling around to build a second one, this one large enough for the Leviathan and a series of smaller ones that would be bridging the end points of the larger teleporter.
It was at this point that I remembered why I had plugged into the Internet. "Oh, before I forget, do you want to say hello to Earth? I've already scared them with some tiny probes."
Her hair-tendrils began writhing as she smiled. "Sure. Let me put on something a little more appropriate."
"I'll set the mood. Would you like a ride?"
She waved my offer off. "No. I'll come down personally."
-
The UN had not been an impressive institution before the Solar system was colonized. Now, well, it still was not an impressive organization, bereft of power as the member nations were spending their power protecting interplanetary interests.
Not only that, but with the creation of companies that could reach across the stars, the value of having a single organization that dealt with human interests had been argued not to be able to spread power out of the Solar system... Specifically corporations like RDA.
Said cooperation had specialized in finding and mining the very rare deposits of 'Unobtanium', the theorized perfect high-temperature superconductor. Tiny amounts, fractions of a gram, could be used in particle accelerators, fusion reactors, and the fabled Antimatter systems used by Interstellar Vehicles for propulsion. Levitating vehicles, the ground-to-space rail cannons, the more efficient magnetic bottling systems used by lift engines to get to and from space cheaply, insulation panels for re-entry... The RDA had a monopoly over the material, and in turn, all of these industries.
One of the moons around the fabled 'Planet 9' had been an eighty-kilometer-long chunk of the stuff, and getting a tiny fragment of it back to earth had allowed for the creation of the first fusion torch engine. That engine had allowed us to extract more of the stuff, until the entire moon was mined... But then the RDA was too big to stop.
More sources were found, and in twenty years the space age had truly begun.
Now though, the UN was currently discussing and sharing all the information they had about the two new alien species... Except for North Korea, who everyone was ignoring- mainly because they had claimed to have shot down one of the alien ships, and found American pilots in it.
The glowing green light from the ceiling had interrupted proceedings though, even as hundreds of bodyguards and soldiers entered the room to protect their respective charges. Soon there was a hole in the roof, and four of the strange flying tetrahedrons had floated through the hole.
They were escorting an ivory sphere, which shimmered as the procession descended through the circular hole, the surface appearing to be both black and white as people moved slightly around it.
The sphere shivered once, twice, three times before the sides turned golden, and the sides popped open to allow multi jointed arms to uncurl to end in four-fingered graspers. A hidden panel on the front retracted as a nightmare of an eye appeared, flanked by grasping metal fingers/legs(?), while from the bottom a longer and thicker tentacle with a more solid-looking eight-fingered foot(?) settled to the floor.
The floor tentacle retracted, and the delegates suddenly understood the scale. A chair, throne really, was now on the floor, the splinters of the desks on the floor beneath the edges of the flowing, organic-looking seat.
And in that chair, was a being that was imminently threatening. Glowing red eyes, and shining metal all came together to come together in a terrifying entity that, with agonizing slowness, settled in the chair, and held its two-thumbed hands together.
A glowing green light shone from the space between its hands like a captured star for a few moments, and when it had vanished, there was a metal flower in its hands.
Then it spoke, and the sound grated across every surface. Some glass shattered, metal cracked, and in symmetrical places around the room wood randomly caught fire. The more interesting thing though, was that all the screens in the room began to display the same thing:
The Queen of Edges will speak. Attend humanity.
Around the world, hundreds of news channels began broadcasting the same thing as televisions, holographic billboards, and other media began showing the same thing.
A image flickered over the flower, appearing dainty in relation to the monster holding the flower- showing what at first appeared to be human...
Until they realized that the shapely, somewhat angelic form had no nose, and the skin was pulled back a little tight from the sides, and that the segmented, armored tentacles were writhing behind the 'human' face.
The impression was of something trying very, very hard to look human in one way, and just barely making it recognizable as 'trying to human', landing squarely in the uncanny valley.
Then she spoke, and people around the world stopped what they were doing. It sounded like, well, whatever the local language was, overlaid with a chorus of alien sounds in the background. Utterly enrapturing, and fundamentally disturbing.
"Humanity. For eons I have drifted, between the end of light in one time and the beginning in another, and the few times we have met, the lives of all became more interesting.
"I cannot stay for long in this cycle, but my companion has agreed to facilitate your growth once more to the stars.
"Perhaps we will meet again... And when the time comes, it is my hope that humanity will have faced the hungry darkness, to persist once more past the gateways of extinction.
"Look to your southern pole- there will be the lever for which you may move worlds.... And come find your siblings in the stars.
"They await you to help fight against the end of all things."
The hologram shut off as quickly as it appeared.
The metal man stood up as the flower in his hand folded. Then he and the flower began to flake away into dust, crumbling apart as the sphere folded back into its original shape. Then, with a thunderous boom, the sphere and its escorts accelerated straight up and out of the chamber.
At the South Pole outpost, hundreds of the triangular craft were converging, as black, carved obelisks were built from green light before the stunned eyes of the researchers. It would be days before anyone would go near the structures, but once someone did, the world would look on with wonder.
-
Back in orbit, both Sarah and I were laughing like maniacs, even as I piloted my 'chariot' away from the intercepting supersonic aircraft and rendezvousing with some other probes before dissolving into dust.
"Oh, that was perfect!" My glowing avatar jiggled back and forth as I laughed. "'Fight against the end of all things'?! Seriously?"
She picked herself up off the floor as her face relaxed back into her normal appearance. "Well, I wanted it to be something hopeful. I can feel the human worlds from here... And they are not doing well. Humanity needs some hope, something to strive for, something to fight against." Sarah shrugged, and sat down on the throne that grew for her. "And it would be nice to have some part of Humanity remember the Zerg fondly."
"You realize they are never going to stop now." I pointed out, still amused. "Now we get to play the part of ancient gods... Or precursors. They will keep looking for 'ancient artifacts', proof or disproof of our existence now." I made my avatar manifest shoulders briefly for a shrug. "Eh. I'll build a network of teleporters. It's a macro now."
Both of us sat in silence for a time as large teleporter was assembled.
"You know..." I said just as the blue glow flared to life. "I think I would have been fine with you eating the Earth."
"Really?" She looked shocked.
"Yeah. You have no idea how much disturbing porn is in their internet."
I didn't know Zerg Leviathans could laugh, but they can- and it sounds like a pod of whales being ground up by a transformer if they laugh when going through one of my teleporters.
Sarah's laugh was much more pleasant.
Garden worlds look beautiful from space. Garden worlds that are Moons to a gas giant? Gorgeous.
Pandora looked amazing from a few million kilometers away. And, as one of multiple garden worlds in this system, it was like the prime jewel on a priceless tiara- rare, but it is the work that makes raw material valuable. Yet, despite all of this, all I wanted to do was blow it up.
I had a planet with nothing on it that I wanted, and I wanted to explode it. Now. If not sooner.
And I didn't want to have to wait to have that power.
Spoiler: Compressed Time
After my momentary lapse in concentration, I returned my focus to Pandora. Thanks to Progenitor bullshit, I could see the interacting lines of refracted energy that scuttled around the planet in titanic waves. Pulses of interacting light under the surface of all plant matter on this planet, all in ways that reminded me of neurons more than anything else.
Eywa was here, and the Internet confirmed it. Also fetishized it, but I wasn't going to look there. NopeNopeNope. The tendril-things most large lifeforms on Pandora had were way too disturbing for it not to be fetishized.
Sarah began to drool, as I projected a map of the current system, highlighting the three planets with life. "If you want to eat something, I would recommend the one closest to the sun, here."
The second planet sized up, and the continents became more visible as I increased my image resolution.
"It's chalk-full of organic life, in various flavors of fucking disturbing, and no intelligent life that I can pick up." I showed the orbital track. "It is also doomed to fall out of the Goldilocks zone in a few hundred years. The planet is already baking, and the seas are beginning to retreat. So..." I made my projection smirk. "It's lightly toasted."
She rolled her eyes, then concentrated, staring out at the wall of the Leviathan as the glowing tips of her bone-wings began pulsating.
Outside, I could see that the Leviathan was doing some interesting things to space-time, as ripples spread to the higher dimensions before echoing back down to the the location of the larger Zerg.
The Zerg Avatar opened it's bone wings, and, reaching out, began to twist the fabric of reality around its glowing points. It took a few seconds, but the portal opened. A portal large enough to consume a planet appeared in the Alpha Centauri system, and, leading with claws of purple flame, the 'head' of the Zerg Avatar extended out of the hole in reality.
Three-hundred thousand kilometers long, two-hundred-and-eighty kilometers in diameter, and all Zerg. Holy crap. I know she was big, but I would expect that if there were any animals looking up at the portal, they would be able to see her from the surface.
Then the terrible maw opened. Rings of spiraling teeth, visibly-slashing claws, fingers and legs kilometers long... And that wasn't the worst of it! The worst was the scale- the mouth tripled the diameter like a flower opening, so that it was larger than the entire major landmass on this planet.
In the same way that a person has to watch the train crash, I had to watch the massive jaws take bites out of the planet. Teeth the size of Cuttle-Ships slicing into the earth with impossible ease, mountain-sized chunks swallowed by peristalsis facilitated by hundreds of glowing teeth, atmosphere slurped up like some sort of tasty sauce...
Wow. I immediately sent off a train of thought to reproducing this sort of thing through technological means. Eating planets is very imposing.... And nice to watch.
She was eating the planet like someone eating a caramel apple... With the core replaced by more caramel, considering the eighty-three kilometer armored tentacles that were scooping out the core of the planet in country-sized scoops of lava.
The reactions of Sarah as she experienced the consumption of the planet was... Well, I'm just going to say it involves writhing. And moaning.
Who knew Zerg had such an intense reaction to eating things- wait, not, that actually explains a lot. I also pointedly made sure not to look at Abathur, as he was proving that all Zerg shared sensations to some degree.
Anyway, after a few hours, she finished eating the planet, tongues extending to lick up the island-sized remains of what used to be a garden world and purring with satisfaction as she lounged in her leviathan.
I couldn't help but tease her now. "So... Was it good for you too?"
Sarah squeaked and blushed somehow as her main body opened another portal and pulled itself out of the Alpha Centauri system. "How much of that did you see?!"
I manifested a glowing holographic finger with witch to tap my chin. "Huh... I'd say since you began really."
As an inhuman being that embodies the concept of 'machine of war', I have to say the fact that I found that as amusing as I did was conforming. I was keeping my humanity, despite all that has happened... And judging by her blush and attempt to salvage the situation, the Queen of Blades was still Sarah Kerrigan.
-
Colonel Miles Quartich was the head of security on Pandora. That meant, if any weird shit would happen, he would be the first to know.
One of the Na'vi shat in the woods where they could see? He would know about it within hours.
Someone found Thanator tracks? People would wake him up to tell him.
Strange news from Earth? He got it before the white shirts did. Standing order.
As the buzzer to signal 'imminent news' went off, Miles regretted that last one. He knew he always regretted it at first, but his standing order to be notified had saved more lives than caused restless nights for himself- it stayed.
He hauled himself out of bed, and rubbed the side of his head where the scratches from his first near-miss with a Thanator had scarred over. Damn things had nasty bugs under their claws, but no match for concentrated iodine.
Even so, the scar had never really stopped hurting... Although the Thanator didn't appreciate its own work the second time around.
Tasted good though. He allowed a smirk in private, and then scowled as the buzzer sounded again.
Swinging out of his bunk was easy- and necessary, as he had placed the intercom system on the ceiling. Best way to exercise was to do so constantly after all.
Thumbing the 'connect' button, Miles began his crunches. "What is it Tooms?"
"Sir, we just got Pinged."
That almost made him pause. Being Pinged meant only one thing: non-RDA technologically-advanced people were nearby. Someone using radar, or something like it. The RDA didn't bother- they had sats in orbit they used for navigation.
Still, had to be sure. "Our boys?"
"No sir. Too energetic, and too wide-band. It actually knocked out communications for a couple seconds."
More bad news. "Set code to Red, and prepare everything. I want the Dragon on Standby. Get a lazer-link to the next Venture Star, make sure they know what's going on-"
"Sir, incoming from Earth."
That made him stop. "Message?"
"Still buffering." A few more seconds passed. "First contact, at least two species- potentially humanoid, and much more advanced then us. More details following... Along with pictures."
"Right... I'll be out in five." Miles flipped off his bar and turned off the intercom at the same time. Shower, then emergency. The only time he skipped a shower was when the base was literally on fire.
And that only happened once.
-
Exactly five minutes later, with a mug of industrial-strength coffee, Colonel Quartich was reading the transcript from Earth. Quantum-Entanglement messages were expensive as his year's salary at least, so this information was by default important.
The command staff had the speech from the tentatively-named 'Knife' and the entity referred to as the 'Queen of Edges'.
The low-res pictures held their attention while the words had grabbed it. Sense of size of scale was difficult, right up until the eye noticed that there was a illuminated Valkyrie Shuttle silhouette for scale.
It was minuscule, and the muttered swearing rippled around the command deck as people realized exactly how outclassed they were.
Miles sipped his coffee, thinking about their local assets. Papa Dragon had nothing on this thing- even if it had no armaments, the metal vessels were obviously dangerous.
And there were lots of them. The smallest ones, nicknamed D4's by some egghead on earth, were faster than any of the vessels they had on earth. Even if the little things were unarmed, the speeds they were seen moving at both in and out of atmosphere would make the little drones perfect kinetic-kill weapons.
Then there were the larger ships. The two-kilometer monster that had floated out of the first 'Ring' managed to, without any obvious effects, build an even larger ring, which the massive organic thing had passed through half an hour ago.
This was not even taking into account the fact that something had read the Internet. That was not hyperbole- every database had been accessed. Every website scanned. It had caused several sites to lock up as everything was scanned and copied.
Everything the RDA had available to the cloud or mobile access had been seen. Anything on their website had been taken. Everything that had been on any computer connected to the Internet had been copied. Some was still in the process of being copied, and the security personnel were panicking.
Arguments between the members of the senior combat staff began to break out over what to do if they saw these new aliens. Some pushed to just ignore them, others wanted to strike. Of course, the question 'with what' was asked, but rarely answered.
Eventually, Miles finished his coffee and set the mug down. The sound of porcelain clinking as it was set down wasn't loud, but the bridge staff all stopped talking.
"Men, we cannot fight them." He grimaced. "As much as it pains me to say it, they out-gun us. Out number us. And their technology is at the level where they have one form of faster-than-light travel, possibly more. They built a structure more than ten kilometers in diameter in minutes."
That got some eyes widening- not everyone read as much of the briefing before panicking as he had.
"If we meet them, we will be friendly. Play nice." He let got of the cup, and tapped on his sidearm. "Not like we did with the Na'vi. If anything, we are in the position the monkeys were when they met our first landers. We have no idea what they are capible of, and-"
"Sir, I have a broadcast image from the incoming Venture Star." The bridge-bunny sounded on the verge of panicking. "High-fidelity image from the onboard cameras. You should see this sir!"
"Put it on the main projector."
Ten seconds later, as Colonel Miles Quartich watched the planet-sized monster consume one of the garden worlds within the system, he lamented the fact that he needed more coffee. Today was going to be a multiple cup day.
Maybe a few carafes. Fine... More than a few.
-
I do not like elves.
There are many reasons for this- and first to hold the blame is Santa Claus. I mean, have you even heard the lyrics of his song?
'He sees you when you're sleeping/ he knows when you're awake/ he knows when you've been bad or good/ so be good for goodness sake.'
I mean, even as a little kid I found that song creepy. Then there were the fact that he had an army of slave elves to make toys. I mean, who didn't think they would eventually rebel and take out their aggression and newfound power on Santa, his family, and everyone they had been forced to make toys for?
Think about it.
Then I read about the Seele and Unseele courts- both of which are filled with dicks who like to mess around with mortals? Yeah, no... I still had horseshoes on my door and wore a silver necklace alongside a cold iron knife while I was human. Because SCREW that noise with tunneling machine two rpm from exploding.
And then there was the stories of Elves from the Lord of the Rings series, mostly just assholes. The Lords and Ladies from Terry Pratchett's book of the same name, who had a similar relationship to humanity as wasps had to bees... Even more nope-age right there.
So the first time I saw JC's Avatar, I was not impressed. Pocahontas in space with blue elves that all hook up to a massive planetary hivemind or repository of souls (or both) with plugs built into their heads, I was not impressed. Scared, yes. Impressed, not so much.
Looking down from space at Pandora, my spy sats were getting high-resolution images of everything, from the Tree of Souls to individuals on the surface. I saw everything I had hoped to see, and many things I had not hoped to see.
Na'vi embracing under a Soul-Tree. Flying Banshees, their larger red cousin (Greater Leonoptorix), and the titanic jellyfish-like creatures that drifted through the skies of the thick atmosphere and caught unsuspecting fliers (among other things) in their dozens of long tendrils... And the Na'vi. Lots of them.
For a species that doesn't have any major farming operations, there are a LOT of Na'vi on this world. Nomadic Native American tribes had, on average, 1000 members- but they were, in general, also nomadic to some extent as they needed to follow food sources, as well as trade with other tribes.
Somehow, the Na'vi managed to maintain larger populations, that were primarily sedentary, save for their hunters who could (thanks to the Banshees and other 'plug-in' animals such as their horse equivalent) traverse vast distances for their hunts, and foraging.
Foraging! Yes, really!
Some people would say that makes them 'in tune with nature'. Others would say that there is something fishy going on... And I smelled fishyness all over this. The trees were acting as Neurons, the convenient method for the only intelligent species to be able to hook into the network, the fact that the natives haven't developed more advanced technology than SADDLES and the Bow and Arrow, even with metal deposits of the soft metals close to the surface in many places....
Something funny is happening on Pandora, and I really hope it isn't like the movie I remember.
-
Descending through the atmosphere within a protective bubble of her power, Sarah Kerrigan exalted in the feeling of absolute freedom while wreathed in purple flames as she fell. The plasma flames of atmospheric re-entry tickled her mind as they gently tried to interact with her outspread hands, legs, and wings- only to be rebuffed by the purple light.
A flip of a wrist, and slight re-orientation of a wing, and soon she was facing the sky, watching as the blue seeped into the deep black as she fell further and further into the dense atmosphere of this moon... What was it called? Pandorica or something.
Another twist, and the cloud layer slammed up to meet her, abruptly slowing to just-supersonic speeds as the massive increase in air density resisted her passage. It also snuffed the orange glow of plasma wash, so she tucked in her arms and legs to form a more streamlined shape, grinning widely in the turbulence as her wingtips lit brighter and propelled her back up to several times the speed of sound in seconds.
"How's the air taste?" That was relayed through the metal spider-flower on her Leviathan, and so she too heard it.
Another copy of her body, sitting in front of the spider, smiled. "Tastes like there are too many inert gasses in it, but that's fine for flight. Why don't you join me?"
"I already have. Been flying below the tree line."
Something below her buzzed up out of the tree-line, control surfaces looking surprisingly like feathers as John's avatar arrived. The distinctive face of expressive metal rose to meet her as he pulled alongside, escort drones angling around like large metal birds.
He smirked slightly, which she caught in a sideward glance. "Race you to the tree of souls!" The humanoid avatar decoupled from the drone, recessed thrusters flaring to life as he spun away, directing the body with pulses of force that she could see with her zerg-enhanced vision.
Sarah smiled, and then the Queen grinned as her wings flared, reducing her speed and dropping down in the same movement. "Oh no you don't!" She accelerated, hard, and broke through the canopy spinning like a drill as she followed the 'feel' of the planet.
Dodging between branches, surprising animals and the occasional blue-skinned native... Sarah let a loud laugh out even as she twisted to avoid a tree and took the lead from her grinning companion.
Even as part of her reveled in the feeling of exuberance that this activity brought, more of her mind was on the target- the tree of souls. Specifically, what it might bring to the table for the Zerg.
The Zerg were also enjoying the flight, but moreso salivating over the new tastes and knowledge this tree, and the biosphere, would bring. The planet they consumed was for sustenance, as the Cerebrates were all busy trying to rectify what was what from the remains of their meals, and developments would be slow going. They were driven to evolve, and so this might give the first possible opportunity to do so since the new world around them had become available.
A new universe- no, a multitude of new universes would be ripe for the tasting!
Rolling to fit between two tree-trunks, Sarah's hand absently snapped out and grabbed a small thing that had been in mid-lunge as she passed. Almost absently, eyes appeared from under several of her scales, and observed the tiny thing.
Well, 'tiny' considering she had last personally fought Xel'Naga. It was maybe as long as she was tall, and resembled some sort of wolf, if that wolf had blue-black amphibian skin, six legs, and disturbingly flexible teeth, which kept trying to bite at her even as she kept it with her by the scruff of its neck.
Fresh tasted much better than dead after all.
A few more minutes of flying, and she arrived at the tree John had indicated- where he was waiting for her.
The tree was, in appearance similar to an Earth willow, but with a significant amount of bioluminescent patches and ripples she could feel with her magnetic senses. It was also almost as large as an ultralisk, and surrounded by dozens of smaller copies of itself. No other plant, or plant-like animal grew near it- though there were signs of the natives, as several arrows had been stashed in a hollow between several of the major branches on the large tree.
Oh, and it was covered with lights.
"Merry Christmas!" Boomed John's avatar, even as one of his larger ship bodies began to descend towards them. "I mean, it isn't actually Christmas local time, but according to my internal chronometer it is." He gestured to the tree. "So... Presents!"
Sarah rolled her eyes. She knew that functional immortality caused people to become eccentric -even Zerg were no exception to this- but it was... Well, she didn't know what it was.
The amphibian-wolf thing snarled at her, and it's claws scraped off her armored skin. Lifting the creature into the air (which let out an undignified squawk in protest as it scrabbled at nothing) with her psionics, she sashayed up to John, who was grinning uncertainty, and tapped him on the forehead, leaving a dent in the armor. "I accept your gift of this mean, John... But we are celebrating Christmas local time too."
He sighed, grinning. "Oh, good. I had hoped that tradition had survived into your future."
She strode over to the tree. "It didn't- my parents were just old-fashioned." A finger scraped along the bark of the tree, and a thin line of wood peeled away as the forest around the clearing seemed to shudder. Delicately, she plucked the line of bark that had been shaved off, and nibbled at it. "Huh." She swallowed. "Tastes like licorice... And something familiar."
The wolf-thing drifted over, and she looked at it speculatively. It did not appreciate the gaze, and kept snapping at her- right up until the point where the Queen of Blades showed why that was her title.
Her mouth opened, and kept opening. Rather than teeth, blades or claws appeared to unfold as her jaw continued to open. It gave the illusion, from the outside, of several mouths opening all at once, one within the other all the way down, and most of them filled with razor-blades as teeth.
There was a snap, a whimper, and a brief moment where she chewed, and then the wolf-thing was gone.
"You've got a little red on you." John held out a handkerchief, and Sarah, blushing a little, patted the sides of her mouth. Then the seam where she had unfolded to eat the animal, as there was just a bit of blood coming out of one corner of her extended mouth.
After letting her clean the excess blood splatters off her mouth, John gestured to the tree. "Still hungry?"
She grinned inhumanly widely as the tendrils forming psudo-hair extended the writhing nerve connections that all Pandoran animals seemed to possess. "Always."
-
In the pentagonal fortress known to its inhabitants as Hell's Gate, several biologists were staring at footage from one of their observation cameras around a devil's garden for what they were calling Soul Trees (inspired from what the natives called such unique trees).
There was always some debate in the lab about whether or not the tree in question was more a tree, fungus, or animal in nature, because of the anomalous readings they had gotten... But, as the natives (and wildlife) killed anyone who approached the trees, the scientists had been unable to get a sample. The best they could get were cameras looking into the grove- and for each camera they had, three drones had been destroyed.
Now, the scientists were staring, in horrified fascination, as a monster had just eaten a viperwolf in a single bite.
"Doctor Augustine?" One of the techs spoke hesitantly, unwilling to look away from the being currently sashaying towards the Soul Tree.
"Yes? What is it?" The doctor was paying attention to her Avatar's read outs, and nearly dead to the world- though the gentle puffs of cigarette smoke indicated some life. So did the rapidly scrolling screen.
"You're going to want to see this." The tech, still looking at the screen, pulled out a small clear tablet from his pocket, and typed in an emergency number- but refrained from calling. "In fact, we might need to bring the Colonel in on this one."
As if electrocuted, Augustine's head snapped up. "What? Why would...." She trailed off in fascinated horror as the glowing wingtips stabbed into the bark of a Soul Tree- then the image devolved into static.
-
I watched as Sarah, no, the Queen of Blades sank her wingtips into the tree. She looked expectant, and was grinning very widely at first.
Then her expression turned rapturous. "So much... So many minds..." Her eyes began glowing purple. "And they're screaming."
Okay, that was more than a little creepy. Still, Zerg- so par for the course there. "Is that good?"
"They are subordinate." Her voice was twisting, and the glow was changing. "All will be subordinate. NO!!" Her abrupt scream was heralded by purple flames, and the trees failed to burn.
"Usurper!" hissed the other presence, as blue flames began breaching from the rapidly flashing long tendrils of the tree, fighting for control of Sarah's mouth. "Parasite! Consumers of my own! I will flush you and all invaders from this world, for it is MINE!"
The boney appendages that were reminiscent of wings sprouting from Kerrigan's lower back abruptly shattered, forcing the blue flames to die as Sarah pushed herself away from the tree, her eyes flashing between blue and purple as she convulsed.
My avatar caught her before she fell, but whatever she had bitten into disagreed with the Zerg, as my other sensors indicated.
-
Deep in the depths of the Dark Space between Galaxies, the Zerg Avatar writhed in internal war. Growths began appearing, smooth scales the size of islands protruding as the segments of skin broke off, revealing striated muscle. Fluids were uncontrollably mixing, causing detonations and waterfalls of material that even the Zerg found corrosive.
Back on Pandora, Sarah was wreathed in purple flame, the blue light nearly gone from her main avatar- but she was crying. She could feel the legions of Zerg minds throwing themselves at the encroaching wave of blue within her largest body, unable to stop the burning tide of screaming souls.
She had bit off more than she could chew, and they were all paying for it. Thinking over the solutions quickly, Sarah Kerrigan, Queen of Blades and Overmind of the Zerg, asked what the Swarm wanted.
The answer made her tears fall anew- they wanted, no, needed her to live. If she lived, they would too eventually live again. The Swarm would continue, even if only just in her... And thy were running out of time.
Even now, more and more of her main avatar was being corrupted. The massed Queens, Cerebrates, Zerglings, Ultralisks, and all other forms of Zerg that she had safeguarded over the years knew what they needed to do.
Strip away the rotten flesh, and destroy the infection before it culled the Overmind.
-
"Burn it!" Sarah screamed as her flames reached higher.
I looked around. She was disconnected from the tree. "Burn what?"
"Burn the Avatar! Burn it before it spreads!" She was curled up, floating in a halo of purple fire as her boney wings grew back. "We cannot let it spread! Burn the blue while you still can!" Her screams were causing microfractures in the crystalline structures within my avatar- holy crap.
I directed the majority of my attention to my Swarm of Cuttle-ships, and saw that the Zerg Avatar was beginning to fragment. Segments dozens of kilometers long were trying to move away from the main mass, each burning with blue fire as the purple lost more and more ground.
Engaging my engines, dozens of my ships shot towards the Avatar, each engaging their Annihilazers on 'fine' to first slice the main segment of blue flame off the remainder of the body. The next set of shots were again, Annihilazers, but set to as wide a beam effect as my ships could handle.
Swaths of mass were erased from existence. Continents of flesh disappeared under the searing light of fracturing space-time, and in seconds, the Avatar was less than fifty kilometers long... And still over a hundred wide.
Most of its mass was gone. The remainder managed to smother the blue embers that had been left behind, only to begin shriveling as the energy for all that power had to come from somewhere. Fluids, inert and colder than the space around them, were jettisoned, as massive chunks of inert flesh fell off to drift in the void around it.
Eventually, the Zerg Avatar stopped shedding mass, and was now only about twenty kilometers long, and about two wide. I quickly removed the rest of the atomically inert debris, and, using several ships, built a platform for the Avatar to curl around. Generators provided power for kilometers of heating coils, and banks of full spectrum lights shined directly on the leaf-like wings that quickly extended as the Zerg Avatar attempted to warm itself in the darkness.
On Pandora, all I could do is hold Sarah, who was crying for the loss of her Swarm... Well, that, and use the point-defense lasers on my Cuttle-ship to burn this grove to the ground.
The sound of wood exploding into crackling flame would normally be satisfying- but now, it just felt like a hollow consolation.
-
Not all Hive-minds are equal.
This should be obvious, but to many observers, they cannot distinguish differences from the outside. Case in point: the Internet on 20th and 21st century earth.
That Internet, while full of a great deal of (to put a kind spin on it) noise, it was also the greatest repository of human knowledge on the planet. Moreover, it contained reflections not just on subjects, but on the events around the world, thus having a general viewpoint that would change over time.
Keep in mind, this is not a true hive-mind, but rather a hive-database; a collection of knowledge and opinions that form the beginnings of what, in time, could become a true hive-mind with the introduction of AI, neural interfaces, and bridging the hard-wetware gap.
Such a hive-mind would more resemble a leaderless Borg conglomerate than anything else, as there is no single overriding will, rather the whole considers what it should do, and how, then acts. Individuals may be somewhat subsumed into the mass when needed, but on the whole it is more like the ultimate form of democracy than anything else.
The Geth are another great example. Individual Geth are not self-aware, but on-mass they become so. The minimum is a few hundred, but then they have little sense of self and are rather dim. The are a hive-mind by necessity rather than anything else, and being the type of creatures they are (electronic lifeforms), thus gain a significant advantage in their hive-state... With incentive to increase their numbers.
The more Geth networked, the faster and smarter they got. The more Geth, the more self-aware and sense of self they acquired. The more Geth in one place, the more they could do to make this place better to house more Geth, through thought, deed, or construction.
The Geth are a pure hive-mind; without the hive, there is no mind.
The Zerg on the other hand are not so simple. Without an Overmind, they would fight among themselves for the right to lead, as Queens and the Cerebrates held significant sway over segments of the swarm. Their minds were quite literally connected, but through their links the Queen's only used their links to communicate rather than share their thoughts.
The swarm would differentiate, each segment optimizing for their local environment and, in time, cease to be Zerg. Rather, they would be hives, each under a different queen, and eventually be unable to recognize each other as relatives.
In this way, the Overmind of the Zerg was as much a stabilizing element as a directional one. While the Zerg themselves were almost always subordinate to the Overmind (save one or two anomalies), they still had independent minds, and stayed with their own because, well, it was a hive.
All knew what they were for. In the Zerg, there was no existential angst, no questioning whether or not they were needed, or what they were for. No loneliness, for how could one be lonely when all through your life you were surrounded by your siblings and parents, feeling their emotions and thoughts towards you and each other?
The Zerg fought to alleviate hunger, and to protect their own- but they were not just animals any longer. A few million years with a single Overmind had seen to that.
But there are other forms of hive-minds too. Ones that, rather than emerge from the interaction of those within, or enforced within, emerge forcibly. The Reapers are one such entity- formed by shredding thousands upon thousands of minds and bodies until enough neural material is accumulated to form a single 'mind'. Often, the minds of the source species are kept alive, tortured by the fact that they are unable to act, and forced to give information to the 'mind' that drives the body they now inhabit to fight and harvest more of their kin.
These are Harmonious Hive-Minds, and, like the 20th-21st century Internet, are barely minds at all- more expert systems that are able to pull truly titanic amounts of data, and well-programmed. There is often very little sense of self, less creativity, and a distinct lack of proactive action- although they do learn, and depending on their function, will be very aggressive.
And, of course, bridging the gap between 'mind's and minds, there are beings like Eywa. Formed from the shattered remains of millions upon millions of minds, run with the processing and information storage of all plants on a world, and worshiped as a god from the moment it first attempted communication with another mind that was not its own...
Eywa is thought of, and thinks of itself as a goddess- and is in some sense. The Na'vi act upon its instruction, the forests and other animals follow its will- but what could bring about such an entity in the first place?
Morover, how would that constant deference effect a developing mind- and how would the final product be shaped?
-
They screamed. They always screamed. Often in pain, fear, awe, or pleasure, they screamed.
The being known as Eywa floated through the sea of souls, borne upon the ripples of their screams this way and that over the world, flowing from tree to tree with ease as She traversed Her world that was Her Garden.
Then the Outsiders came. They did not bury the dead as her trinkets did, they did not hunt as the creatures did, and they did not touch Her mind like everything did.
And Eywa was curious.
She did not Know of such beings, but was confident that their corpses would tell all like those of her trinkets did. Her buds would not find purchase in the few slain, nor did their ideas or constructs make sense to her mind.
Why would trinkets ever try to change the world of Her making? The idea was not of Her design, and they cared little for Her commands. The Outsiders would not See Her Will as Her trinkets did.
Then the Outsiders began to walk upon Her world in the bodies of Her dead trinkets! Such an opportunity was upon them- but Her trinkets had killed one, and it was empty of anything more than a spark of memory.
Yet that spark gave insight- and so, She instructed that, without Her intervention, no Outsiders would be welcomed anywhere. The beasts would follow Her instruction without question, and killed many Outsiders- even a few controlling their own fleshy trinkets.
With each dead Outsider Trinket, She learned more of how they thought. How they worked. How their bodies worked... And, soon, She would need to connect with a living Outsider driving a trinket-
PAIN
Pain unlike anything She had ever felt appeared. Something was trying to drain Her through a node! Consumer Her! The IMPUDENCE!
Small creatures, each with barely any minds of their own were directed to look at Her node from the surrounding trees- and She saw the purple flames.
Unlike anything She had ever seen, She felt their power... And that of the one trying to feed off of Her.
Eywa surged through the new connection, feeling her Thralls crushing the new entity through their connection to this... Queen.
Such a simple title, but these forces were varied... Not to mention dedicated! Each fulfilled a niche, optimized to one thing, and their overall purpose was... She dug a little deeper, and the woods of Pandora resonated with Her mirth.
The mass of entities was optimized for planetary consumption, and repurposing! She began to encounter resistance- the Queen had rallied her subordinates, and they were fighting back in a billion ways, coordinated as a multidude of fronts upon Her mind, through the construct. For every mind that fell, two more took its place- although they could not stop the flood of Billions that She commanded.
Eventually, the battle ceased- and, through a billion eyes, She saw what was left drifting away before the connection abruptly shut down. She felt a feeling of burning immediately before the connection ceased, but her eyes around that node finally noticed the metal Outsider there- then the shadow that began to descend upon her world.
She considered Her next move as the shadows fell upon Her forests, and She felt that one node destroyed.
After careful deliberation, She felt that was worth it. Now She knew more of the universe, and soon She would spread to every world and star.
All would scream for Her.
-
In the base known as Hell's Gate, deep underground, there was a room. It usually had no atmosphere. It usually was filled with lethal levels of radiation. It had been manufactured as a single construct within one of the stereolithography-based autoassembler plants, and had been buried when the automatic probes built the base before any human ever set foot on the surface.
It was more like a fine watch than a room- most of its functions, almost of them in fact, were dedicated to making the room inhospitable. Wires, carbon nanotube braids specifically, were cycling through dozens of combinations through the room every second it was inactive, each wire aimed in such a way that the beams of refracted radiation from the subcritical-masses of radioactive material did not intersect.
Almost anything inorganic would be diced in seconds. Anything organic would be fried, asphyxiated AND diced almost immediately. There was barely enough room in the 'room' for a mouse when it was active, let alone anything else.
It didn't help that these wires were moving at just-subsonic speeds through complex paths through the space in the room, rendering something even the size of a mouse rapidly, and unexpectedly, cubed.
Then, after years of constant activity, the wires stopped moving. The subcritical masses of radioactive material were separated and pulled into dedicated housings that reflected the excess radiation into the bedrock around the room, while preventing any atmosphere from coming into contact with the material in question.
In a single smooth ripple, the room opened up. Wires retracted into dedicated housings, which sealed, and the floor sealed itself airtight.
Then two doors opened, and air rushed into the room for the first time in years. On one side, Colonel Quartich walked in, carrying a collapsible table, and a chair.
On the other, walked in Doctor Grace Augustine, carrying a chair in addition to several clear tablets.
The colonel frowned as he saw her cigar smoking. "Doctor Augustine..." He drawled, sitting in his newly-structured chair. "You do know that the air in here is limited, right?"
A reflex nearly made the doctor drop all the items in her hands. She scowled, and, putting the tablets down carefully, removed the cigarette from her mouth before stamping it out. "Are you going to lecture me on my health again, Miles, or can we get to the purpose of this meeting?"
Miles Quartich pulled a storage drive out of a pocket, and, after using one hand to flick the table into it's unfurled state, placed it in the center. "Sit down, and plug this in. The data is currently classified by Me, and only maybe a handful people know about it on Pandora."
After a second or so wrestling with the foldable chair, Grace managed to unfold it. Then, after a moment to glance at the spot where she had ground her cigarette into the floor, the doctor placed her tablets on the table. "I too have some information for you, Colonel, and it's not going to be pleasant."
He sighed, and both hands came up to rub his temples. "There are other advanced aliens on Pandora." The fact that his 'peace-loving' counterpart's mouth literally dropped open at his statement almost (but not quite) relieved his headache.
Almost.
"... Yes..." She said slowly, and handed him one of the tablets.
He activated it, and saw a short clip of the two nonhumans in a clearing with one of the native's 'soul trees'. His men called them 'death groves', due to the fact that a) only that specific alien tree seemed to live there, and b) all animals, even the small ones, became murderous when they stepped near the place.
While he was watching the short video, she was plugging the data-stick into her tablet, and was flicking through the messages they had received from Earth. The message, contact with not one, but TWO more advanced civilizations that appeared, hijacked every communications medium on the planet, then just a quickly disappeared... It was absolutely terrifying.
It also explained why their cameras had shut off... Or been shut down.
After going over the data a few times, the doctor groaned aloud. "Why now?!"
"God only knows." Murmured Quartich as he watched and re-watched the clip.
That got her attention. "You're religious?"
He looked straight at her. "Doctor, fifteen hours ago we had only ever found one intelligent race other than humanity. At this point, I'm hedging my bets."
She put the tablet on the table, and leaned on steepled fingers. "So... What happens now?"
"Now?" There was a moment when the Colonel actually looked his age. "Now we prepare for either war with the Na'vi or to be contacted directly by this.... Knife and it's 'Queen of Edges'." He deftly tapped the tablet, and highlighted an image of the Soul Tree. "Considering how badly they reacted to a few unarmed men and women walking into this clearing, do you really think they won't find out about these other aliens showing up?"
"We don't need to fight them!" Shouted Grace. "We can... We can..."
"What? Tell them about this?" Miles snorted. "The blue monkeys don't care about what we have to show them- they barely tried to learn our language after we learned theirs! And that whole 'try to act like the natives' shtick... You remember their expressions when you first tried to set up a school, right? When they saw your avatar body?"
Grace sighed. "How could I forget. So many children died that day." She glared at him. "Because you sent in-"
"A group of my jar heads, yes. To protect you and your team from the predators that live in the forest floor!" Snarled Quartich. "To protect your students, since, you know, they were spending time in a box where Thanators like to prowl! We didn't even fire a shot until those Na'vi drove the damn thing into the clearing, and we tried to drive it off- then they decided to kill most of the children you taught because they were, what was it you said..." He waited for her to remember the conversation in question.
"They were contaminated by the Sky-People, and they needed to be returned to Eywa." Muttered Grace, depressed by the memory. The children had lined up to die... She rallied. "We still need to establish good relations with them."
"Why?" He tapped another still in the video, this time of the metal humanoid. It looked somewhat familiar to the colonel, but he couldn't quite put a finger on it. "These people are more advanced, have fat least one form of faster-than-light travel, and have already established a form of mass-engineering that our own engi's are buzzing about. Hell, even the mechanics are waiting eagerly for information about the 'gift' they left." He took a deep breath, and carefully placed the tablet down before removing his hand in a slow, deliberate movement.
"Grace, we can't establish peace with the natives. There is something wrong with them-" he held his hand up as she was about to interrupt him, "-no, I misspoke. Their culture and ours appear incompatible on many levels. There is nothing they want that we can give them, and nothing they have shown willing to trade for other than trinkets. Yes, I read the transcripts from your avatar conversations, I'm not an idiot." He answered to her unspoken question. "We need to change the way we are approaching the natives."
"Really? No shit." Snapped Grace, still a bit angry having those memories drawn up again. "What would you propose we do?"
The Colonel leaned back in his chair for a few moments, gazing levelly at her, before speaking. "Ignore them."
"What." Grace just... What. "What does that even mean?"
"It means we do not communicate with them unless approached. We arm ourselves to the teeth every time we go out- or at least armor ourselves to the point where we cannot be harmed." He pulled out another data stick, inserting it into the tablet on the table and pulling up some schematics. "Armor for the Avatars. High-explosive and incendiary weaponry- no pure ballistics. I want all of your scientists in armor before the next excursion. No bare skin will be allowed outside these walls- and we will be using the fabrication plants to armor the rest of the compound beyond their current state."
He pulled up a series of plans, and slid the pad across to Grace, who accepted it and looked on in some form of horror. Power armor for the avatars, fully-body scaled exoskeletons for the foot soldiers, environmental containment vehicles for the scientists, among upgrades for the AMP suits and much, much larger guns.
"Stage 3 armaments. Stage 3 gear." Quartich closed his eyes. "All incorporating refined Unobtanium to take advantage of the superconducting properties of the material."
"This is barbaric!" She snapped. "We... We..." She sagged in her chair. "Is there no other option?"
"We need the Unobtanium. You know this." The colonel stood, and in a single movement, folded his chair. "If we can show that we are far beyond the Na'vi- unstoppable, and invulnerable. We will ignore them. They may try to negotiate." He looked her dead in the eyes. "When that day comes, we will all need you and your team. But until then, we need to step up our game." He picked up the tablet, and began to fold the table.
Grace grabbed her tablet before the computer could slide off the table, then sighed in defeat. "We have no real choice, do we." It was barely a question.
The colonel nodded as he set the folded table to one side, and then quickly folded her chair. "We gave the natives a choice. Now we have to deal with the fact that they made a choice."
Two minutes later, the room reset, and systems outside began to drain the air from the room. Within an hour, the room deep under Hells Gate was once again uninhabitable, having fulfilled its function as the most secured room on the planet.
-163832Mr. CloakDec 27, 2017Reader mode Threadmarks VerifyerDec 27, 2017#416Hell's Gate happens before the interaction?2wornchalice8081Dec 27, 2017#417in the movie it tried to say how the navi were the good guys but they arent at all15Mr. CloakOrchestrator of Paradoxical ApocalypsePronounsIDec 27, 2017#418Verifyer said:Hell's Gate happens before the interaction?
Hells Gate is the name of the fortress. The largest one on Pandora.
wornchalice8081 said:in the movie it tried to say how the navi were the good guys but they arent at all
They are not intrinsically bad or good- but they are dependant on their goddess, and do not have a culture that questions Her. They are Her trinkets.171NalanayaDec 27, 2017#419Verifyer said:Hell's Gate happens before the interaction?After. They mentioned the ToS.1Sakuya's ButlerA refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.Dec 27, 2017#420wornchalice8081 said:in the movie it tried to say how the navi were the good guys but they arent at allAyup.
The Na'vi did. Not. WANT. peace, nor trade.
Read up on the backstory to them, and you'll see Earth tried to bend over backwards at first to get them open up and have peace-talks & allow for mining away from Na'vi settlements. Most of these attempts? Slaughtered by the Na'vi and various wild-life.
So rather than fight aggressively, and possibly raise hell back on Earth over 'racist imperialism 2.0' happening, they hunkered down and mostly went reactive only. Yet STILL the Na'vi just wouldn't quit, and had no qualms at all with killing what anyone on Earth would consider a non-combatant (they actually figured it out and deliberately targeted miners in order to draw out guards to hunt them too).
Frankly, the attack on the mother-tree was a looooong time coming, and likely enough, was very likely proportional in the amount of Na'vi killed in a single attack, to the number of human miners and guards killed over the years/decades.
In canon? Jake's assistance in allowing them to make war? Pretty much ensured their partial genocide whenever Earth comes back, and this time, packs the Ortillery. In winning the initial battle, they lost the war.
Here, things just get sped up a bit as you've got a BESRMoW & the Zerg who just fully awokened Pandora's very narcissistic hive-mind, and it now wants all interlopers dead AND at the same time, has suddenly realized via the brief Zerg connection, that there is a whole universe out there to dominate to her/it's will. Unfortunately, for it, it didn't quite get the memo that a BESRMoW can beat the shit out of biology based biotech far easier/faster than biology can beat back.
To mis-quote from Star Trek:
"There can be no peace, as long as the Hive-mind lives."
Each time a Na'vi 'links' to the hive-mind, the hive-mind ALSO gets to subtlety (or not so much) influence the mind of the Na'vi. And while before it was only mildly indifferent/mildly antagonistic towards humanity, now its full-up xenophobic racial supremacist with a desire to conquer/consume off-world.
At this point, even if our two protags just up and left, it would still result in war to the knife between humanity and the Na'vi, nay, ALL non-Pandorian life, and Pandora.