Star System Survey

[New History lovers]

OOC: Anyone can get involved in this topic, though I'd prefer to keep it down to two others once those get involved.  The system, I want to be uninhabited, but something like another scout ship, etc.

IC:

The Tenksileb exited the bowels of hyperspace with a small fleet of ships.  Brigadier Makar, the commander of the fleet, immediately ordered, "All stop.  Preliminary scans of the system?"

"Sir, we've completed preliminary scans.  There are eight planets.  Two class M, three class Rs, two J-class, and a single Terran class planetoid."

"Order the fleet to deploy across the system.  I want detailed scans of the entire system as soon as possible."
"Yes, Brigadier."
"And I want the Tenksileb to take point at the Terran class planet.  Order terrestrial labs to prepare for a detailed geographic study of the planet."
"Yes, sir."

The Brigadier stood from his command chair, and stated "I'll be in the Control Room."

He walked quickly and surely out of the bridge and down a stairwell into the interior of the ship, where he arrived at the Control Room.  The Sergeant-on-duty immediately stood, saying "Brigadier, sir!"
"As you were, Sergeant.  Have you derived this system's Astriaporta address."
"Yes, sir."
"Well?"
After the sergeant gave him the address, the Brigadier ordered: "Excellent.  We need to communicate to S'net as soon as possible.  Commence dialing."
"Yes, sir."  The sergeant reached to a microphone that spoke into the Embarkation Room: "All hands, evacuate the Embarkation Room!"

The sergeant began quickly typing on his computer as the Astriaporta began to glow, and it's inner disk, covered with constellations, began to rotate.

"Chevron one, encoded." stated the voice of the Sergeant as the first chevron glowed with decision, as the sergeant continued: "Chevron two, encoded.  Chevron three, encoded.  Chevron four, encoded.  Chevron five, encoded."  The Astriaporta rotated halfway around as the Sergeant said "Chevron six, encoded," and there was a moment of suspense as the last symbol rotated into place....

"Chevron seven....LOCKED."
The seventh chevron locked into place, sealing the Astriaporta, as a brilliant splash of water came out of the ring, which immediately retreated back into the ring as a vertical puddle of water formed, the event horizon of the wormhole.

"Transmitting GDO code, sir..."


OOC: You can break in here.  This is identical to any other wormhole, except it's controlled and for personnel movement, so anyone could detect it if they could detect a standard wormhole.

Oh, and for reference to the Astriaporta, it is for most intents and purposes identical to the device described on Wikipedia, under "Stargate (device)".  Just technical, though.  Historical information is all changed.

[Gulliver]

Akimi looked out upon yet more of the same endless expanse of deep space that he had seen for so long now, and sighed.

For a length of time which he could not even remember properly he had wandered back and forth and up and down and any other direction that he might have forgotten for the moment across the system, looking for something. What that something was he didn't even have any idea of, but apparently it was out there. Or so the Elders had concluded. Following the Wehtraadaake incident, they had taken a sudden and all too keen interest of the worlds and stars that drifted beyond the System. They also had concluded that Akimi, for performing so bravely on Wehtraadaake should be rewarded by, surprise surprise, the immense privilege of leading Vaan's questing explorers forth into the final frontier.

Akimi for his part felt that never having to set foot on another forsaken planet would have been far more satisfying, but the Elders got what the Elders wanted. He had also liked it a whole lot more when Vaan stuck to its business and the rest of the universe stuck to its, but apparently that just wouldn't do anymore.

And so he and the two fellow crew members who had likewise been granted this so called honor had come at last to now drift through space to where they were now. It was another point of unpleasantness, the crew. Akimi was not entirely sure why, but he found he did not like them a terrible lot. As if instinctively sensing a chance to further depress Akimi's mood, Zarcpa walked in.

"What is it?" The weary and dragged out nature of Akimi's voice relayed his current temperment.

"Interesting as it may be," said Zarcpa with ill hid sarcasm in his tone, "It would seem that someone else has gone and popped up in this once empty system."

Akimi gave a minimal display of expression. "Really?"

"Yeap, just like that, up they popped. Wwrohen seems a bit upset by the whole thing, up there in the bridge. Perhaps your steady and commanding presence is in order?"

Akimi desired nothing more than to give Zarcpa a good what for where he stood, but there was no time for that. Grumbling, he sat up. "Fine fine, to the bridge it is then..."

[New History lovers]

"Roger that, APA Command.  Yes, sir.  Right away.  Understood.  Tenksileb out.

The brigadier pushed a button, ending the shortrange transmission through the Astriaporta, before ordering "Shut it down."

The vertical puddle of water shimmered into nothingness as a call came from the bridge...

"Brigadier Makar to the bridge!"

Makar quickly made his way up the stairwell to the bridge, where his first officer reported, "Sir, we have detected a presence in the system.  I don't know why we didn't detect it on entry.  We've got at least one unknown vessel sir, near the nearer J-class planetoid."

The Brigadier raised his eyebrows, "Alien?"

"Probably, sir.  No check on the database."

"Very well, Colonel.  Second Lieutenant Halvar, please start transmitting universal 'hello'.  In all known dialects and the universal translator.

"Yes, Brigadier."

[Gulliver]

"And then they were there?"

Wwrohen nodded. "Yes, that's what happened. Just like Zarcpa said."

Akimi tilted his head back and forth, trying to figure this out. Certainly, it was nice in that things were now interesting. But "May you live in interesting times" was a standard Vaani curse, and with good reason. Interesting was generally a nice way of saying "utterly unpleasant". Wehtraadaake had been interesting. This expedition had also nominally been interesting. There were lots of them it seemed. If things were to get really interesting, that was to say live fire combat, it would be three against who knew how many.

"Orders anytime soon captain?" asked Zarcpa.

"Please, hold your tongue, I'm thinking..."

"Captain?"

"What is it now Wwrohen?"

"I believe that it is... a standard radio transmission...speaking to us I would say."

"Really?" said Zarcpa, overflowing with mocking surprise. Wwrohen's ears drooped at this.

"I'm just doing my job he muttered..."

"Enough!" interjected Akimi, on the verge of exploding in a psychotic rage by this point. "They're talking, what by Sarac are they saying?"

"I..." Wwrohen held the word for as long as he could, before he was forced to admit defeat. "I can't understand..."

"Big help..."

"Shut up Zarcpa," growled Akimi as he pushed Wwrohen aside to take over. If he was going to die, Akimi decided it would be nice to have a bit of conversation prior. Assuming his best "we come in peace" tone of voice, he spoke.

"Mrisa?"

[New History lovers]

"Brigadier, we definitely have something.  It's not in any known language."

"Put me on the universal translator, and begin transmission.

This is Brigadier Johannes Makar, commander of this Kal'tru space fleet.  I know you probably cannot understand me, but if you keep talking, our universal translator should be able to decipher your language to facilitate communication."

He motioned to cut, "Let's hope that they got the message of that."

[Gulliver]

Indecipherable though it was, the transmissions now coming back across the radio and into the ears of the three Vaani had one thing going for it in Akimi's opinion. It seemed to have a hypnotic affect of sorts on the two others, and they, against all expectation, actually shut up as they listened stupefied to the garbled speech.

"I think there was actually one word in there I understood..." Wwrohen cautiously suggested.

"Now there wasn't" stated Zarcpa, instinctively shutting him down. Akimi sighed again. Easy come, easy go. Oh well, time to continue the babbling, even if he didn't have any idea what it would do.

"Um...I quite clearly can't understand any of what you are saying...you probably don't speak any Vaani do you?"

"Of course they don't Akimi, that's a stupid question," said Zarcpa, loud enough for the wry comment to be added to the transmission. Akimi did his best to ignore it, continuing.

"But regardless, I think I can say that we don't want harm, to do or to be dealt."

[New History lovers]

"Sir, transmission coming back...universal translator getting some."

"Play through."

".......clearly......of.......saying.....speak.....you......don't........stupid.......I........say.........want.........or........."

"Commence transmitting," said the Brigadier,

"Unknown ship, we are starting to get a grasp on your language.  Please continue transmitting, so that our computer can fully be able to transmit in your language."

[Gulliver]

"There! See?" Wwrohen cried in self satisfied triumph. "You can't say that you didn't understand that can you? They said something about talking, and of computers." Zarcpa muttered to himself, annoyed to have been outdone by Wwrohen, something which was not supposed to happen in his view of the world.

"Well it wasn't before..."

Akimi rolled his eyes. "Zarcpa, I already told you to shut up. Sarac! What they must think of us after hearing all of this..." With a calming and steadying breath, he resumed his conversation with the whoever it was speaking on the other end of the transmission.

"So...are we getting somewhere now? You actually spoke some fairly decent Vaani, even if the rest of it was nothing I could make any sense of." He considered if there was anything more to say. He decided that there was. "And if you're making any sense of it, I would like to apologize for Zarcpa and Wwrohen."

Zarcpa made a dismissive noise. "I cannot be blamed for Wwrohen's faults. I only say what it is." A momentarily joyful Wwrohen returned to gloom.

"SHUT UP ZARCPA!"

[New History lovers]

"...are...getting...now...actually...some...decent...even...the...of...was...I...make...sense...and...you're...any...of...I...like...apologize...Zarcpa...Wwrohen..."


The Brigadier said "Well, this seems to actually be making some more sense.  Begin transmission:

This is Brigadier Makar of the Tenksileb and the People of the Kal'tru.  We are attempting to transmit this in your language via our translation devices.  We mean you no harm, and we come in peace.  With whom am I speaking?"

[Gulliver]

It was impossible to deny any longer. That last bit had been in been in Vaani, if with a forced and artificial quality. Wwrohen began to get jittery about all of this.

"We've never been anywhere outside of Vaan have we? Then how do they know all of this, how to speak to us? That's...creepy...like they're inside our heads."

"Yeah..." said Zarcpa, in a rare instance of agreement with Wwrohen. The increased quality of the Vaani being transmitted to them now had evidently unnerved him a bit as well. "I think they're asking for your name Akimi. Do you think you should give it to them?"

Akimi shrugged. "I don't see why not." Turning back to the conversation, he said "Do you want my name? My name? Akimi. And yours?"

[New History lovers]

They were now getting everything, and understood it all.

"Akimi...this is Brigadier Makar.  Do not be unnerved if I seem to be speaking your language.  We are using a computer to translate Vaani into our language, and our language into Vaani.  Where are you from, and who do you represent?"

[Gulliver]

"Sheesh," said Zarcpa, scratching at his nose idley. "They sure ask a lot of questions. I say make them answer something for a change."

"Should you really answer all of this Akimi?" said a doubtful Wwrohen. "And perhaps we should be contacting Vaan about this..."

"I think we already have enough to deal with without someone shouting at us on another line thank you very much."

Akimi with visible annoyance motioned the other two to be silent before he resumed talking.

"Well, we're from Vaan, of course, and I guess that would mean that in addition to ourselves we also represent Vaan. And you?"

Wwrohen whimpered slightly. "Now they know where we're from, no running away if they turn out to be something horrid!"

[New History lovers]

"We are of the People of the Kal'tru, from the planet S'net, and we represent the United Nations of the Kal'tru. 

Mr. Akimi, has your kind previously encountered alien races?"

[Gulliver]

"Well," said Akimi, taking into consideration a Wwrohen who seemed distraught about the revelation of any information, "Have you?"

[New History lovers]

"No, Mr. Akimi.  You have the prestigious honor of being the first."