Predator Natural Systems – Ambush Launch.
Current Estimated Time to Arrival: 142:42:31… :30…
“Looks like my system really did fry itself early. I knew something had happened, but since I was in my rack and it went into lockdown almost immediately, I never really got much chance to try and fix it. Although, knowing what I do now, I couldn’t have fixed it in any case,” Rix said, leaning back from the controls.
“It’s… it’s so dark,” remarked Munto stretching the Esperanto’s sensors to the limits to try and find some point of reference.
“That’s how it is. A bit like falling into a black hole. We won’t see anything for another… what is that, 6 days?” Rix glanced at the number again.
“That is a reasonable approximation, yes,” Munto relented.
“Well, sounds like as good a time as any to sit and read some more of that galactic history you downloaded for me,” Rix said, standing from the cockpit seat and moving aft.
“Actually, I was hoping you might take some time to tell me more about Terrans and the TSC. Being cut off from the database and seeing as Terrans are… were… listed as extinct, I know very little about it all,” Munto requested.
“Wouldn’t the database have had everything there is to know about Terrans somewhere in the mix?” Rix asked, walking through the hallways, somehow even faster now that the gravity plates were in place.
“Bandwidth limitations and the database was half-way scrambled. Even if the query knew what it was looking for, it wouldn’t have produced comprehensive results,” Munto said, shrugging the walking frame which had taken up an almost permanent station in the galley.
“Fair enough,” Rix said grabbing a container of liquid and sitting down.
--
The Terran Star Confederacy was a collection of 8 worlds around 7 stars, the associated mining stations, and linked gateways.
It was something of a powerhouse in terms of economics, but was considered to be on the lower end technologically speaking.
The government was a kind of pseudo meritocracy, but tended to be closer to a stratocracy. Rix didn’t have any particular problems with this government style since there were some fairly strong protections in place ostensibly to protect the people from military leaders abusing their positions.
That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t corruption and all of the associated issues that come from a ‘military first’ approach to government and economy, but on the world that Rix was born on, everyone had something. And there was always options.
Munto questioned what those options were. Most often the options were some form of civil service. Only volunteers entered the military and the power hungry often ended up leaving the TSC since the system was set up in such a way as to allow the military access and control, but without the associated ‘benefits’ of having that.
It was rumored that every military lowest ranking lived just as well or better than the High Command. Not because it couldn’t be afforded, but rather to highlight the trade off between power and responsibilities vs creature comforts.
Munto thought this sounded like a naive solution to government, as it would undoubtedly cause those at the top to abuse their powers into order to gain more of the creature comforts. Rix could only shrug, indicating that the TSC was over 150 years old at that point and it had worked so far.
Munto remarked that the planet which Rix had originated from was likely an outlier in that case, rather than the rule.
The Terran Core Collective, by comparison, was very openly a plutocracy, where money and power controlled everything and were very often isolated in individuals and companies. As a result, many of the people born into the TCC were exceptionally poor, but maintained a higher technological standard of living compared with the TSC.
This, as Rix explained it, was more of a byproduct than an intentional result where the ‘owners’ of the TCC wanted certain technological capabilities and those became a kind of standard which spread to a broader portion of the population.
And inventor’s rights were heavily protected in the TCC, provided of course that the inventor was then amenable to selling said rights to the ‘correct’ people.
Rix mentioned that it was probably propaganda, but there was a rumor that open source systems were strictly illegal in the TCC and any invention that tried to go that route would result in a case for debt slavery, a fully active legal ‘tradition’ within the TCC. Supposedly, they’d even punish a whole family if an inventor tried to open source something important enough.
At the time, Terra and the Sol System itself was under the control of the TerraSol Federation, which was comprised of the Disunified Terra, United Mars, the Titan Shipyards, and the Neptunian Outriders.
At one point in time, Terra had unified, but that was long enough ago that Rix didn’t have the full history on what happened. They didn’t talk about it much outside of Sol.
United Mars was something of a remnant from when it was a non-united world and was fighting colony vs colony. Eventually, the colonists aligned and kicked their governments out, settling on a United Mars instead.
The Titan Shipyards were the largest ever constructed, even bigger than the Sirius shipyards, where the TSC got their ships. They were a kind of corporate entity, but they weren’t as… plutocratic as the TCC.
And the Neptunians, well, it was some kind of large ‘cover’ for the colonies, stations, and various miners from Saturn outward. More of a kind of ‘territory’ than an actual government. But it was apparently run with a kind of ‘frontier’ justice system most of the time.
The Flix, who later aligned with the TSF, were a kind of cybernetic-nutty sect that controlled three systems that were more or less off on their own. Children often got their first implants when they were as young as 8 Terran years old and virtually everyone had some kind of implants. As a result, the Flix tended to be on the bleeding edge of technology and were in near constant negotiation for their various technologies by the other ‘star nations’ as Rix put it.
TSC tended to get whatever was left over, but did their best to make up for it, by providing suitably large shipments of raw materials which the Flix were more than happy to accept over the TCC currency and the TSF credits.
The TSC was involved in some warfare and had built up a sizeable military as a result of that and as a result of their governance, including the Cruiser Class vessels, which had been specifically designed to pass through an FTL gate with only the barest of margins.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
But putting aside the major galactic stuff, Rix had grown up on a fairly quiet world of 4 billion Terrans. When Munto questioned the meaning behind this, the average population for a TCC world was on the order of 25 billion, usually more depending on how the plutes were feeling.
Rix had gone to the normal academies and decided to go the civilian route instead of the military. While this meant that he didn’t have as many options in terms of moving up, he was able to work as a freelance contractor for the civil service or even join the civil service if he wanted.
Private business was usually decent within the TSC, most workers bouncing between private business and civil service at various points, needing the benefits of one vs the flexibility of the other. No business was especially powerful. Even the military construction companies were comparatively constrained, limiting the power of the military industrial complex by ensuring much greater scrutiny and tax burdens for any wishing to try their luck at corporatocracy or some similar variant of plutocracy.
The TSC was fairly heavily criticized for its ‘military first’ approach, but the TSC usually shot back with ‘at least everyone is fed, everyone is free, and we are not beholden to others’.
Rix also figured that this was a degree of propaganda, but was content to ignore it since, as far as he could tell between his home system and his home planet, it was true.
And then the Colonial Administration had come looking for volunteers. There was a plan to send the TSC out into the deep beyond to start a new colony.
Rix said that some of the rumor was that the TSC was getting restless and without being able to afford the high price the Flix wanted for terraforming technologies, the TSC’s days were numbered unless they were willing to pivot in how individual worlds were governed.
The TSC wasn’t wholly unamenable to such changes, but the leadership decided that taking to the distant stars and having time to grow into their own would be better than waiting for a slow absorption with the other Terran star-nations.
It was a long-shot and could effectively strand the colonists without a good way to get back.
There was a lot that TSC command and the scientists didn’t know about this jump drive, it being an internal development that was drafted in secret by a private business that had been working on trans-stellar weaponry. It might only be usable in a one way approach. But it offered a chance and that’s what TSC command wanted.
And so the advertisements, the ‘do your part’ posters, and similar had gone out.
Rix had just finished his flight training on a new class of vessel when the announcement had gone out. He’d been working for a mining station, transporting huge cargo shipments between the Oort Cloud inward to the stellar-side refineries.
It’d sounded like more of an adventure than he could expect if he continued to stay with the mining station and with nothing much to lose, he decided to volunteer.
Surprisingly, he’d actually had to get some additional qualifications just in order to be finally accepted, but the Colonial Administration was apparently desperate for pilots on this, so it was all covered by the TSC.
Rix had laughed at being the oldest student in the room by 10 years and had been laughed at by the young pilot trainees for volunteering for what would end up becoming a one-way trip.
Rix knew better. Being a pilot was a fairly lonely existence. A lot of the young pilot trainees still figured they could do planetary drops, make fast money working private in the TSC, even hop the border to go somewhere else for better tech, bigger rewards, and living large. And a number of pilots tended to do just that.
It was worth mentioning that a fair number of people ‘fleeing’ the TCC into the TSC had grown up with those notions as well until the plutes had gotten angry in some mood of theirs.
No, the TSC didn’t have the best tech, the highest rewards, or even provided a particular wealthy standard of living. It was a comparatively quiet and dull existence, with the changes coming slow and the improvements often having military applications for economy of scale.
But Rix had stuck with it, graduating in the middle of the class with all of the extra qualifications he’d needed. None of his fellow graduate pilots had any remarks for him afterwards. He hadn’t minded, but it was a bit annoying that none of them had bothered to even be polite.
And a few months later, he’d started transporting the ships from the Sirius shipyards to the loading docks in his home system, where they could be filled with all of the equipment, templates, food, seeds, and support that the Colonial Administration could dream up with a completely alone colony would need.
He’d chatted with his fellow pilots. They were much like him – looking for an adventure and a bit weary of day to day flying. There were even some he’d come to get along with rather well.
Rix had sat silent for a bit on that count before continuing.
And then the day to depart had come. The ships had been shifted into position for their long run to the outer rim before departing, in case of watching eyes. The colonists, all 37,000 of them, families, singles, people of every background from among the TSC.
Rix had even been surprised how few military were going. Of the 37k people, even allowing for families, the military comprised less than 10%. They were of course still in leadership roles, but their designations associated them with System Defense, Research and Development, and Colonial Administration.
And it wasn’t strictly doctors, engineers, scientists either. There were traditional gardeners, construction workers, artists, chefs, teachers, and others. Every walk of life was represented. Rix could understand the logic though. A truly alone colony would need to have everyone, not just the ‘essentials’ for getting started.
And so they had departed.
Strangely to Rix, there had been no ceremony commending them into the distant stars, no real explanation given to the rest of the TSC where they were going. Just another departure.
Munto prompted for more about Terrans at this point.
According to Rix, Terrans were pretty much Terrans. Capable of surviving on up to 3x galactic standard gravity without augmentations and capable of 4x with.
They’d needed to terraform a few worlds, but it’d been fairly light work compared with Mars.
Mars had needed to have its core restarted in order to protect the planet on a more permanent basis. Most worlds’ cores were functioning just fine and had mostly needed a few generations of slow terraforming – adjusting the atmospheres, creating Terran habitable zones, and even adapting the people slightly to be more tolerant of the local environments.
While this had meant that some Terrans couldn’t live everywhere, it did allow the bulk of humanity to live almost anywhere claimed as Terran space.
Genomic scans were fairly common and even in the TCC, medical care was of the utmost importance.
Terrans still hadn’t gotten the hang of any kind of fully unified system, finding every system to have some set of people determined to take advantage of it. So more often than not, those people sought out those systems where they personally flourished.
Otherwise, Terrans fought, loved, laughed, and were generally social. Every world had its own holidays, its own traditions, its own stories.
Some boasted amusement parks and tourist type destinations, others were simple communities with little more than talent shows and collective food gatherings.
Rix had seen all of this. He’d met thousands of people, seen the different gatherings, eaten all kinds of foods (including a surprising amount of takes on potatoes and cheese). But there had never been a particular place where he felt truly at home.
So he’d kept on flying.
Munto tried explaining the Terran criteria from memory and from their perspective.
Terrans were exceptionally large by galactic standards for full sentients (the description of sentience and the delineations between non, low, mid, and full being left to a later discussion). As a result, Terrans were considerably heavier than most species and boasted the skeletal structure to support it in an equivalently high gravity.
Terrans produced a comparatively abnormal amount of acid and oils. Terrans had an apparent tolerance for a significant amount of toxins and poisonous materials (although Munto wasn’t entirely certain as to the limits without further medical data).
Terrans emitted heat, which put them in the majority, but were capable of tolerating environments significantly outside of the norm depending on their own biological preparations (whereas some species could tolerate only small deviations, even while emitting their own heat).
And perhaps most notably, Terrans were, based on Munto’s experience thus far, fast and difficult to tire.
Rix had laughed at this, but Munto had pointed out that the walking frame frequently needed long duration charges compared to the Terran, who could simply devour a container of food and a container of water and go right back to working on the vessel.
Rix had smiled and considered this.
Eventually, Rix had pulled up an application and placed the scroll on the floor in front of the walking frame and sat opposite.
“That’s enough talk on that for now. It’s time I teach you to play Sirian Chess,” Rix grinned.
It was at this moment that Munto decided that Rix would have to start learning the emotional meaning runes. The walking frame servos couldn’t take much more in the way of trying to replicate the Terran’s body language.