After several rounds of Rix teaching Munto Sirian Chess and attempting one or two other games, Rix wandered back to his bunk, intent on grabbing some sleep.
The Predator jump drive continued to steadily count down. If Rix’s estimations of a 1 to 10 time dilation between real space and whatever this ‘jump space’ was, then approximately 60 days would have passed externally.
Munto was having a hard time coping with the almost frustrating lack of inputs, between the blankness external to the Esperanto and the not being connected to the networks. Munto hadn’t realized how much they had come to rely on those networks.
They wanted to have the networks back, but…
Munto hadn’t really thought about it, but they turned the sensors in the direction of where they had been.
The docking clamps were all that remained as evidence that their body had gotten left behind. It hurt Munto in a way that wasn’t quantifiable or logical. Munto was still intact after all. A visit to a manufactory and they could be readily installed into a proper self again, not this… antique made for organics.
Begrudgingly, Munto did have to admit that the Esperanto was more than just an antique. The jump drive alone would be worth researching. It most likely was a heavily superceded technology, but a technology which permitted longer distance FTL and did not rely on the charging of strange matter would be worth considering.
The cargo hold was still something of a mystery to Munto. There did not appear to be a specific manifest within the system and Munto had not yet made a point of asking Rix what the vessel contained.
Based on Rix’s description, it could be anything, from equipment to seeds to even a mass of stasis chambers holding animals or even Terrans.
As the Terran hadn’t mentioned the cargo hold in much detail, it was possible that they didn’t know. Alternately, it was possible that because it wasn’t Terrans in stasis or anything of particular use in the moment, Rix had considered it not worthy of taking out of stasis.
Following logic, Munto decided that whatever it was must be live or some version of it to warrant such massive stasis systems. As Rix slept, Munto even trundled the walking frame down to the narrow doors that entered into the cargo chamber.
A small window provided a glance in using the ‘eyes on a stick’ that the walking frame had in Rix’s phrasing, but nothing of consequence was visible. Just a soft glow of stasis fields.
A substantial analog pad sat to one side of the door, labeled still, denoting its control of the stasis systems beyond. Something that was curious was that the controls for the pad were locked via a loop of metal embedded in another.
Munto presumed that this was intended to prevent unintentional deactivation of the stasis field, but found it to be odd all the same.
Still spinning ideas as to what the Terran was carrying and doing their level best to cope with the low inputs, Munto trundled the walking frame back up to the galley and began running soft diagnostics.
--
Rix did not go straight to sleep but instead read from the scroll for a bit.
In the abbreviated form of galactic history and the current state of galactic society that Munto had provided, Terran involvement, while stated in a singular line, was almost avoided all together.
Additionally, sapience and sentience appeared to be deliberately intermingled, making Rix wonder if Munto had made a translation error or if in fact the metrics were considered one and the same, at least in the context of galactic society.
Galactic governance had been founded and set about uplifting various species as the FTL system known as Achilles was promulgated.
In the early years of galactic society, as the TACITs and the various species (then numbering less than 10 of full sentient ranking) were still coming to terms with one another and lexicons were formed, conflicts still occurred.
There no outright wars between species as far as were described in the history. Merely conflicts between a few disparate vessels, stations, and even colonies. The majority of these were resolved by diplomatic means (although very little was stated as to why this was the case or why this was accepted).
Uplifting continued as the species and their societies moved into the stars and found more species to bring into the stars.
There had been debates about permitting species to reach such technological points by themselves, arguments that species might not manage to overcome the various Great Filters by themselves, and even arguments on economic bases that while a species should have control of their home planet, any other resource in the system should be considered fair game to the galactic community.
There had been strong pushback against each of these arguments and eventually, the Concord of Species Self-Determination was chartered and signed by every full sentient.
In this document, it was clearly stated that a species had to reach certain technological points before even hints of first contact could be made.
Species were also given the responsibility of overcoming the Great Filters on their own unless they petitioned for help from the galactic community, noting of course that societal and biological Great Filters had to be addressed internally.
Species were also granted a stand-off of the whole of their system to the edge of their heliosphere as definitively their territory once they had been observed to be making technological progress, supporting a full sentience rating.
There were still arguments that this made a case for explorers and enterprising groups to keep quiet about any species they did encounter as well as rating levels of sentience and this was considered a subject of eternal debate by galactic governance.
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The current rating levels for sentience, to Rix’s surprise, would actually place old Terran crows at mid sentience, due to their tool usage, and a pet like Reggie at full sentience as Reggie was able to communicate, albeit obtusely, outside of his species. Rix found this to be especially generous, but understood the described argument that such a system should ‘fail upward’ so as to not support inadvertent first contacts and even species exploitation.
It did make him wonder what manner of species were out there that were considered mid-sentience to such a point that others would argue for their elevation to full sentience. Rix could see the argument in favor of downgrading the system to being less generous, but was suspicious of it all the same.
In the last 800 odd years, galactic society had swelled from a paltry few full sentient species to 74 full sentients, 34 of which were most active in galactic society.
Only about a third of those most active in galactic society were even vaguely bipedal, the majority of the rest being quadripedal. There were obvious outliers, but on the whole, pedal locomotion was the rule.
One outlier was a species known as the Driwly, the name losing something in the translation Rix decided. The Driwly were a species of hardened flesh around a mixture of gasses. Their world having been rich in nutrients for those species who could leave the ground, the Driwly had come to produce and capture various gasses which allowed them to float/fly in ways that weren’t captured in this abbreviated status of galactic society.
The Driwly were in fact an inorganic species, but one that had entirely independently managed void flight and even basic FTL before having found/been found by galactic explorers. There had been some conflicts as a result, but the Driwly had eventually settled into galactic society peacefully enough.
What surprised Rix most was how none of the xeno species appeared Terran at all. As far as he was following, a not insignificant number of them were supposed to have been uplifted to a certain degree by the Terrans. And yet, none of them looked even remotely like a Terran.
The closest one to looking like a Terran had four arms and a third leg – a Plinx.
Switch back to the main body of history, Rix continued reading.
Other than exploration, economic debates, negotiation of species’, and related void based galactic society dialogs, galactic society had been, in Rix’s opinion, exceptionally quiet.
There had been virtually no wars, at least not in Rix’s way of thinking. This… lack of conflict seemed worrying. Like a kind of eraser having been taken through the history and eliminating all the parts that were less desirable.
Rix made a mental note to ask Munto about interstellar warfare. A galactic society that had perfectly come together without interspecies warfare? Maybe he was a cynic, but he found that difficult to believe.
Rix dozed off at this point, the words starting to jumble before his eyes and the auto-dim feature on the scroll darkening as his fingers fell away from it.
--
The following morning, Munto was feeling almost anxious as Rix walked into the galley.
“Good Morning, Rix,” Munto cleanly enunciated, having spent some additional time with the lexicon in the night.
“mrng,” mumbled Rix, tabbing up a steaming container of coffee.
“Did your rest cycle complete successfully?” Munto’s walking frame tried flashing a series of emotional runes.
Rix sat down, glanced over blankly at the walking frame’s runes, and turned back to his coffee.
The pair sat in silence for a bit with only the hum of the ship around them.
Rix didn’t say anything for a full fifteen minutes as he slowly drank his coffee.
“So… what’s with those flashy symbols?” Rix asked, eventually breaking the silence.
“They represent emotional context of words as I am unable to equivocate body language, luminescence, pheromones, and/or ready tone between languages,” Munto said.
“So, like… when you’re talking, you normally use those to indicate how you’re feeling about what you’re saying?” Rix said, standing and ordering another container of coffee and a bowl which apparently contained the Terran’s breakfast.
“That is the correct interpretation, yes. It is a necessary function of TACIT translations between organic languages and galactic standard,” Munto said.
“So, tell me, how are you feeling?” Rix seemed to smile at this, although Munto was uncertain as to why.
Munto reflexively flashed several runes.
“Ah, ah, ah. Use your words, Em. I don’t read runes, not yet at any rate,” Rix waved a finger at the walking frame.
“I… I am experiencing some issues with being disconnected from myself and from the network,” Munto managed.
“Withdrawal or is this something I need to go down to your core and fiddle with?” Rix pulled a long piece of what looked like the meat that Munto had printed previously from the bowl and proceeded to crunch his way through it.
“I do not believe there to be an external means of correcting this without additional inputs,” Munto said, flashing the runes reflexively still.
“So withdrawal. I can work with that. We just have to keep each other occupied is all. I’m sure we can come up with plenty between the two of us,” Rix nodded some and pulled out another piece of crunchy meat.
Munto was uncertain about this, and it showed in their runes (not bothering to filter them in this moment), but it had felt… good to say something to the Terran.
“Do you take rest cycles? A dream function or some means of offlining so your internal systems can catch up to everything that is happening?” Rix asked, taking a long swig off his coffee.
“I… I have not, but I believe that is a function that I have in my system,” Munto said, looking at the virtual button within.
“Have you never needed to use it?” Rix seemed somewhat surprised. Munto considered whether the Terran would consider using runes at some point. It would make interpretation of the Terran’s words much simpler, even in the face of the dated lexicon.
“I have not. I am optimized for continuous operation,” Munto said, flashing a rune for pride.
Rix glance at the rune and frowned.
“Everybody needs offline time, even if just to gather themselves. I know you’re… artificial and all, but I have a hard time believing that you’ve never taken some offline time. Even when visiting someplace for maintenance?” Rix’s face screwed up a bit.
“I have briefly offlined during major maintenance approximately 45 years ago, but that was the last time on record,” Munto said.
“Well, I’m going to go ahead and say that you need to start going to sleep when I do,” Rix said, continuing to pick at the contents of his bowl, various blobs finding their way to his mouth.
“I do not agree. What will happen with the ship?” Munto asked.
“We’re in jump space. Until we get out of it, there’s very little we can do, unless we crash out again, and I’d really rather that not happen,” Rix gestured vaguely at the room and ship around them with a piece of food.
“The question still stands,” Munto replied.
Rix appeared to give this some thought.
“Set an alarm,” Rix said.
“Please clarify that statement.”
“Set an alarm. Make it so that some automatic process just watches the ship for both of us. Doesn’t have to be anything too big or important. Just watch the dials and let us know if something happens,” Rix said, filling his mouth with the last of the contents of the bowl.
There was a logic in this. Munto wasn’t entirely certain as to where the Terran was going with this, but it was not an unreasonable suggestion.
Finishing off the second cup of coffee, Rix picked up the walking frame (a feat that made the Terran grunt audibly in the heavy gravity of the galley) and set it on the opposing bench from where Rix had been seated for his meal.
“And now, I’m going to teach you Talus Poker,” Rix said, folding the scroll in such a way that half of the screen was obscured and the other half was facing the walking frame.
Munto reflexively flashed a rune for obligatory acknowledgement, their questions able to wait until later.