KrakowSAM
Satellite Scribe
You know whats coming.
Posts: 23
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Post by KrakowSAM on May 1, 2010 15:08:54 GMT
"Come and see what we have found!"
Two weeks ago the message was sent from a backwater red giant system on the fringes of explored space. It was sent using multiple FTL communication methods and looped every four and a half minutes.
Encoded in the data packet was the same message portrayed graphically and in audio. A further encrypted layer held coordinates. Those who had encountered them before recognised the communication protocols as belonging to an advanced but fickle race of brightly coloured nomads.
"Come and see what we have found!"
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Post by Brandonazz on May 1, 2010 19:57:45 GMT
Aboard the Observational Vessel Reshas, in close orbit of a pulsar.
"There appears to be a high order quantum transmission on repeat broadcast, Primary." The radiometrics analyst glanced toward his superior with his upper eyes. "The pulsar's emissions are causing a great deal of interference, though," he paused, "the information is of very small size. A relay probe would provide us the necessary confabulation."
The Primary spread his arms deferentially. "Please do acquire this."
The analyst silently moved his digits left-to-right and vertically in the release pattern along the appropriate tactile screen. Within minutes, the transmission was being relayed from outside the pulsar's gravity well. The Primary, presented with the possibility to satisfy a curiosity that, it seemed, would not be satisfied without action, could not resist.
Final analyzes were rapidly completely, and the data stored meticulously in the ship's information core. A brilliant white light flashed in space for a moment before the slender space vessel vanished into a quantum tunnel. It was a matter of hours before the detailed star charts of the inner systems were exhausted.
A dark distortion in space rippled along the background of stars where the ships white nose later came into view. A faint red light glinted dully in the distance. No sense in entering a system before a careful analysis. Data began to flow quickly into an array of sensory analysts' terminals.
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KrakowSAM
Satellite Scribe
You know whats coming.
Posts: 23
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Post by KrakowSAM on May 2, 2010 0:01:31 GMT
"A ship has arrived! They are probing the system with many large beams and arrays." squealed the first officer excitedly. Macaclo have a complex system of rank which is dependent on season, situation, but largely whim, and this particular individual was feeling particularly first-officery today.
The captain flushed a satisfied magenta and tapped a few of his pincers on various large shiny buttons on his semi-circular command console. They could easily have been touch screens or holographic interfaces, but the captain liked shiny buttons.
The ship hovering outside the system was not found on their ship's database, so it was probable that it was a species that hadn't encountered the Macaclo before. There was also a small chance the unknown ship had encountered the Macaclo before and then obliterated them before they could transmit their findings to anyone else, but it wasn't really worth worrying about.
"Transmit talking frequencies President of Communications" the Captain ordered.
"/ Hello! We undulate our tendrils gently in anticipation of happy relations with strangers. The design of your ship gives us tingly feelings in our fronds. As a gift, we will transmit all the data we have on noisy atmospheric fighter craft. What would you like to call us?/"
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Flisch
Satellite Scribe
Posts: 35
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Post by Flisch on May 2, 2010 0:30:00 GMT
Rayas rushed to the bridge. "Finally" he thought. His exploration ship hasn't found anything of interest in the last few weeks and the research funding departement was threatening him with stopping the fundings for his enterprises, which faced him with the choice of either paying everything on his own or quitting his job.
He was writing his report to ask for more time, just when he got a message by his communication officer. A new message reached them from unknown originins, written in an unknown language. Right now the communication team runs a language analyzer through the code, hoping to decipher the message. Of course Rayas could have just waited in his cabin, after all he got more important stuff to do, but he was too excited right now to sit still, let alone work on his report.
As he was rushing through the halls he noticed that due to all the haste he forgot about the warm cup of Iarad-juice still in his hands. Without lowering his speed he casually handed his cup to some random person standing next to the bridge door, leaving the maintenance worker in puzzled paralisation.
As Rayas entered the bridge he asked his communication officer from across the bridge: "How's the progress?" "The decoding process has just finished and we're awaiting the result any second now." Before the last words left the officer's mouth the message already appeared on the screen above his head: Come and see what we have found!
A painfully silent minute passed until Rayas raised his voice again. "Were there any coordinates attached to the message?" Before the communication officer could answer, the vice-captain chimed in: "You don't really want to follow a random message that sounds like if it was made by a bunch of children..." Rayas didn't answer. "... do you?" Instead of reacting to his vice-captain, he turned to his communication officer again, but instead his navigator answered his question asked a few moments ago: "No, but we were able to locate the source of the message based on our speed and that of the signal. The origin is far away near the unknown space fringes. I have already made some calculations. We should be able to get there within three days, maybe two if we're lucky with slingshots." "Alright, let's do it." Rayas said, "Nyslan, change our course to... unknown solar system... You know what to do, I guess." He turned around to walk back into his cabin but stopped next to his vice-captain, who still had the expression of baffled disbelief carved in his face. "It's our only chance to keep our jobs. I think it's worth the risk." he said and disappeared through the doors.
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Post by Brandonazz on May 2, 2010 0:43:11 GMT
A number of the observational crew exhaled in relief. They're friendly, or at least not overtly aggressive.
The Primary, however, was more excited than relieved. He hoped one day to obtain the command of a xenodiplomacy vessel, and a pleasant interspecies contact was a surefire way of getting his name mentioned.
A series of images of winged craft with engines attached in various configurations splashed against the data screens. An analyst at the terminal swiveled in his seat and shrugged at his superior. "Data is data, Primary? Perhaps we should send something in return."
The officer gently extended his arm to the communications panel and opened transmission.
"/We warmly accept your compliments. We take much pride in the purpose of this vessel.
As thanks for the information that you've taken the liberty of sending us in good will, we will send blueprints for the aesthetic exterior of this craft. As to your identity, we prefer to run the self-identifications through phoneme matrices to establish the closest possible name allowed by communication differences.
Please, what are you called?/"
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KrakowSAM
Satellite Scribe
You know whats coming.
Posts: 23
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Post by KrakowSAM on May 2, 2010 1:05:17 GMT
The captain shook his sensory bulb and developed faint orange splotches of boredom. Every time they made first contact it was the same thing. Every other race seemed insistent on deriving some bastardised translation from what the Macaclo called themselves. He did the Macaclo equivalent of a shrug and replied.
"/Why would you want to know what we call ourselves? That name has meaning to us only, foolish person! You must name us as you desire, then your choice will be engraved among the others in the chambers of identity! We have the most names of anyone. My favorite is 'Those who devour our envoys'. What will you call us?/"
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Post by Brandonazz on May 2, 2010 1:25:05 GMT
The Primary cringed slightly at the identity another assigned them. It was probably just a misunderstanding, he rationalized, a species that looked like an innocuous freighter of snacks.
"/Perhaps we should call you "Illuminators," he began, "provided that you would be so kind as to reveal to us what it is exactly that you have here invited us to come and see?/"
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DarthGrievi
Satellite Scribe
He's watching...
Posts: 61
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Post by DarthGrievi on May 2, 2010 5:13:47 GMT
"Bloody alien languages..." Ke muttered silently, continuing to half-heartedly tap the glowing keys in front of it as the computer processed the message at a painstakingly slow pace. As per usual, the transmission conformed to no known protocols, though admittedly, the Quroche hardly had an extensive number in their databases, hence the message would have to be decoded from scratch, one of a large number of things Quroche computers hated to do. They could crunch numbers, yes. They could plot trajectories, preform calculations, tell you where X planet would be at Y moment, but give them something requiring more than basic mathematical skills, and they seemed to slow down out of spite.
Unfortunately for the Quroche, they themselves weren't much better at such logistical processes, and were forced to rely on their technology for such matters. It was annoying, yes, but it was far, far better than the alternative; Quroche thought processes beyond reflex, sensory processing, and emotion were notoriously slow compared to other species, causing some to wonder how the hell they had gotten this far.
The tapping of the keys before it was doing nothing other than relaxing Ke and marking the time as it passed...
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haseri
Satellite Scribe
Posts: 18
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Post by haseri on May 2, 2010 10:44:29 GMT
The Oynyena Colony, Changri CommonwealthCathacra's punishment was to take care of the Comm. node. All it meant was to make sure that every time the red button flashed, press the 'report' button, and it would be sent to the correct technician to sort out. If he was going to be punished, he may as well be doing something halfway productive, so the reasoning went. At least it was better than watching the terraforming controls. Nothing happened there, and if something did happen, the Changri watching it would actually be the last to know anything about it. Coming through the Comm. node were mainly messages from captains in exploration vessels, reports regarding planets ripe for colonisation and other weird stuff. It was at the point where Cathacra was mindlessly pushing the button every time he saw the red light when an interesting error message had appeared. 'No Definite Recipient'. **** 3 hours laterAdministrator Kenaanob was at her desk, using the manipulators on her walker to type out the message to a captain somewhere on the fringes of explored space, the closest to the origin of the message. He was too far out for any kind of efficient visual contact, the time delay would be too long, so a message would be all the order the captain got. It was also the administrator's duty to order the captain, being so far from home, she was the closest, most powerful Changri. The package going to the captain contained the entire message, including what information was available about the senders, based on the language the message was sent in. She sent it, content in the knowledge that if it were of some significance, her name would be included in the report, which was always a good thing. **** The Exploration Vessel 'Lance of Vzulamicr'Captain Pasck looked over the message from the administrator and nodded. "Foamanyr, get Navigation to plot a course for this star, and after that, tell me more about the race." "Read it yourself. Or get Thrani to do it." His first officer didn't look back at the captain as she told the Navigational Computer to plot the course for the star, a red giant in the constellation of Yiseanara, a famous one, that made up her eye. "No I can't, I'm busy," Thrani called from down the hall. There were three of them on the ship, one male and two females, all of them infertile. Thrani was a support officer, dedicated to the well being of the small crew, which included medic and cook. "And I find it goes it much better when I hear it from you." Pasck and Foamanyr were married, a new fad amongst infertiles. Nobody was really sure what it meant, as it could not be something to do with breeding. Strangely enough, it started to appear around the same time a modification was invented that made mating more pleasurable, even for infertiles. "They're an alien species we've made contact with, but no formal relations. The ambassador’s report calls them 'infuriatingly capricious'. I also think they must of pissed the guy off somehow." "And why is that?" Foamanyr flicked her tail, similar to shrugging. "When they said we can call them whatever we want, he called them 'Vothl'." Pasck laughed. "Do they know that it means 'animal feed'?" "I doubt it." There was then a ping, signifying the Navigator had finished calculating the route. The Captain confirmed the route, and an artificial wormhole opened in front of the ship, which connected to another system, which would be repeated until the destination was reached.
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KrakowSAM
Satellite Scribe
You know whats coming.
Posts: 23
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Post by KrakowSAM on May 2, 2010 13:08:56 GMT
"/Oh! We like Illuminators very much. But we can not show you what we have found just yet. Not enough guests have arrived yet! To pass the time, would you like Happy Times with us? It is a happy fortune our species are compatible! We can also share food with only minor modifications. It is truly the season of bountiful fungal harvest in shady places and temporary bogland./"
The Captain finished his message to the Seresheth and turned slightly to focus better on the source of a shrill noise. It was the console of the Lord High Sensor Overseer (a title half co-opted from another species and half made up).
"Captain! Another ship arrived and another is in transit from a nearby system. The one here now is in the database, our race met them fifteen pil ago. We called them 'Half-happy', they called us 'Vothl' meaning 'barbarian delicacy'"
"Transmit talking frequencies"
"/Reserved greetings Half-happies, we are glad you came and willing to forgive past transgressions if you give us tribute. Do you have any visual entertainments about primitive ritual arena combats?/"
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Post by Brandonazz on May 2, 2010 15:28:02 GMT
"/That sounds like a delightful idea! We will leave the arrangements up to you./"
The Primary lifted his digits away from the communications panel.
"Propulsion Specialist," he toned in. The named crew member turned slightly to signify his awareness.
"Please bring us to within one half standard astronomical unit of the Illuminators' craft." This couldn't possibly be going any better, he thought. They're perfectly pleasant and couldn't possibly have any intention of starting a conflict after sending out a general transmission. The menagerie of unfamiliar species - his eyes lit up slightly.
Whereas protocol tends to limit exploration vessels to limited individual contact, and not intergalactic forums and bodies or standardized communications networks, this situation could rapidly develop into a prototypical form of those same mass-meetings. If all goes well, it could mean a diplomatic reversal, and the Primary would be at the forefront of the outward facing civilization - all four eyes now wide open to the galaxy.
He calmed down. Careful, one step at a time.
As they approached the vessel, he studied their hull design. How eclectic.
Nearby, the radiometrics analyst detected a phase shift at a nearby point in the system, characteristic of intersolar warpshift technologies. He'd wait to be sure before he informed his superior of another arrival.
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Flisch
Satellite Scribe
Posts: 35
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Post by Flisch on May 2, 2010 21:25:55 GMT
"Captain!" The voice in his head woke him up immediately. Rayas didn't find much sleep the past two days due to the excitement of finally reaching their goal. This is going to determine whether he will have to abandon his ship completely or if he can continue doing what he was always dreaming about: Exploring the last unknown frontiers of space.
The lack of sleep has left its marks though and when Rayas actually fell asleep, he was very fast asleep and sometimes even hard to wake. Not this time though. The communication device implanted to the side of his head transmitted the voice of his vice-captain loud and clear. "Yes, Yeto, what is it?" Rayas asked with half closed eyes. "We are reaching our destination. Sayter says just an hour, tops." After a short break Yeto continued with a less formal voice. "You weren't the same for the last few days. I thought you should have the honor. Plus, I'm actually really tired. Would be great if I could go to bed as soon as possible..." "Okay, Yeto, I'm coming down. Just give me a few minutes." 6 minutes later Rayas entered the bridge and let his visibly exhausted vice captain enjoy his well deserved sleep.
Another 36 minutes later the ship came to a halt. The FTL streams flowing past the windows formed a carpet of small white dots on a black background. They have left subspace and Rayas' navigator confirmed that they reached the target system. "Any signs of other space ships or inhabited planets?" Rayas wanted to know and his communication officer quickly replied. "We count three ships. Judging by the particle traces on the hull two of them just recently arrived. This leaves the third one to be-" "The source of the signal." Rayas finished the sentence.
Rayas thought about how they should react. This was a new race. The Nahurr have never encountered these before and though there was no official protocol for the first encounter with an alien species, Rayas had his own set of rules. To reduce the chance of misunderstandings, Rayas decided to stay in the background. It was obvious that the three ships seemed to be in contact with each other right now and interrupting them could be taken as a rude action - or even worse as a infringement of privacy. Furthermore, the signal's authors felt like inviting the whole galaxy to their discovery party, so chances are high that they would contact Rayas' vessel before being asked to. Rayas leaned back in the captain's chair and waited for his communication officer to utter the obligatory words: 'We get signal.'
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KrakowSAM
Satellite Scribe
You know whats coming.
Posts: 23
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Post by KrakowSAM on May 2, 2010 22:17:46 GMT
"/Hello! Oh my, you are very large!/" said the Macaclo captain, cycling through several garish hues as he saw the Nahur on his view-screen. "/We are waiting to hear from a few more before we show you what we found. In the mean time you can chat with the Builders of Wonderful Spacecraft and the Half-Happies./"
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Post by Josasa on May 2, 2010 22:19:27 GMT
The Ungala arrived out of warp space amidst the small organization of vessels. It was a long and sleek design, separated into several segments, each slightly bulbous and ovaloid. Some thought it looked pretty while others were disgusted by its design. To the Amorusk, it was pure beauty.
It hadn't been long for the Amorusk to respond to the signal. The 'Creep-Lookers' had always been very efficient in locating interesting subjects, even though they were generally disgusting to the Amorusk. Nevertheless, the Amorusk had established some relations with them and were always listening in on traffic transmitted by them because they were quite adept at discovering things that others had missed. This seemed to be the case on this transmission, and so the Ungala had been dispatched several hours after the Creep-Lookers signal had been received.
"Several other vessels located in close proximity," the sensor technician chimed in, after the ship had become accustomed to normal space. "A good majority are of foreign design—the computer is recognizing them."
"Understood," the Captain said, as he scuttled about the bridge. His pincer was waving back and forth in anticipation. "Prep the launch crews and awaken those of the exploratory team. I want them ready to launch as soon as possible. The Creep-Lookers live up to their name," a small shiver ran throughout the captain's entire body, "I want to spend as little time here as possible. But knowing them they probably have it hidden somewhere and will demand some sort of payment..."
"Understood," the communications technician said, as she got to work sending out alerts to the crew. While she was doing this the captain got to work on sending out the reply to the Creep-Lookers message.
//Standard greetings to our long forgotten friends. We have received your message and have come prepared to ponder upon the mysteries that were lucky enough to unfold to you. We Amorusk are truly puzzled by your exploratory prowess and marvel at your wonder, etc.//
"That should be good enough for them," the Captain said as he sent the message off to the Macaclo ship.
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KrakowSAM
Satellite Scribe
You know whats coming.
Posts: 23
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Post by KrakowSAM on May 3, 2010 0:54:15 GMT
"Another ship Captain. Triplefun. I'll play their message."
The captain listened to the Amorusk broadcast and seemed satisfied.
"I think there are enough to begin. If more come we can bring them up to speed. Broadcast to all ships please!"
The captain displayed a veritable kaleidoscope and his tendrils and pincers waved excitedly.
"/Hello everyone! Each ship choose volunteers come to us here. We will make sure incompatible people get the right environment-bubbles and celebration nibbles! We will bring you aboard with the ether-beams. Oh, this is so exciting!/"
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