First Contact

Chapter 878: Those Who Carry On

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

So I says to Maybelle, I says...

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Hang on, Trea.

Did anyone see the data out of the Lanaktallan worlds?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

GREAT GESTALT OF GREAT LANAKTALLAN GREAT THOUGHTS AND GREAT MEMES!

Which data?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

The phasic shockwave seems to have had an effect upon a large percentage of your species.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

GREAT GESTALT OF GREAT LANAKTALLAN GREAT THOUGHTS AND GREAT MEMES!

What percentage?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Well, roughly 22%.

High ranking females.

It appears that any female of rank of at least Twentieth Most High has been seriously affected by the phasic burst.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

GREAT GESTALT OF GREAT LANAKTALLAN GREAT THOUGHTS AND GREAT MEMES!

How so?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

First, comatose. Some minor cerebral bleeding. Mostly microstrokes around certain areas.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

That's terrible.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

That's just the beginning.

Doctors find heavy duty phasic blocks and gamma scalpel surgical work on the neurological tissue of the victims.

Repairs have proven, well...

...interesting.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

How so?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

It appears that it was a deliberate process done to any high ranking female.

From females who had family members who rose up to Twentieth Most High and those who were born into such families.

Data mining of the data taken from the Unified Council by The Jed back when we attacked the Core Worlds of the Unified Council has shown that this was a common medical practice that took place during "Social Management Training" given to all female Lanaktallan of that rank and above.

We've checked, and the origins are so far back that data miners and analysts believe that this is from the "Post-Precursor War" period that Lanaktallan historians use to explain how they came out onto the galactic stage with so many planets, colonies, and advanced technology.

Which means, this procedure has been being carried out for over a hundred and ten million years.

If you look at the data and adjust the metrics so that each generation is every hundred-ten years, that means that a milliongenerations of Lanaktallan have undergone this procedure.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

What does the procedure do?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

...

...

...

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

According to our examinations and simulations...

...it's beyond gentling.

It's the deliberate adjustment of the subjects mind to lower their mental quotient scores by a signifigant degree.

Using the single metric of Intellectual Processing Quotient, those who are subjected to the procedure suffer enough damage to lower their intellect to approximately the 60-75 score range.

Putting them at the equivalent of a child.

Their Emotional Processing Quotient is also damaged, making them unable to feel or process certain emotions, especially those caused by outside stimuli.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

That's terrible. They've been gentling their females?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

It's more than gentling. This is deliberate suppression of intellectual faculties, from emotional processing to pattern recognition to portions of the brain that process advanced concepts, including speech concepts.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Why not just adjust primordial genes or germ seed genetics?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Because, while their genome is largely locked, sloppily, there is still room for mutation.

If they had their intelligence reduced this far in the womb they would be too stupid and unmotivated to even learn to walk. A single sparkly rock would have them staring at it until they got too hungry to ignore.

All species have a slight mutation in the genome. Otherwise, you end up with basically genetic clones, and, contrary to really cool media, those genetic clone races have a single point of failure, and that's their genome.

One disease, one sudden mutation, a change in environment or even a disease that strikes a critical crop.

The Nushalveten were wiped out by a fungus that destroyed the plant they ate to get the type of carnitine they need, meaning they slowly died due to a lack of critical nutrient their nervous system needed.

So any successful species has room to mutate in their genome.

Meaning, that they couldn't lock it in, just in case.

One of Rigel's big problems is if there was some environment change, like a pollutant or gamma pulse burst or anything else wiped out the capacity for problem solving in the females. While the males can do minor problem solving, can recognize danger, their civilization would be gone within a few years.

As we've seen time and time before, without maintenance, a world will be nothing more than ruins within a few decades due to weather and adaptive flora.

It's a single point of failure for Rigel that they've been very careful to make contingencies for, even as far back as their Bronze Age due to how obvious it is.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

It's a problem for most saurian races.

We're usually trapped in the eat-breed-eat cycle, a lot like insectoid species. When we get out, it's usually one sex out of two to four sexes that manage to break the cycle.

Our young can be very vulnerable. Eggs are very vulnerable. Those who do live births are even more vulnerable.

It's one of the reason Terran males seem to have a violence on off switch to all of us.

It wasn't that long ago for the Terrans that a gravid female was extremely vulnerable and they had multiple predators out there. Violent predators that outweighed them, were better armored, and were better armed.

That's why Terran adrenal systems and limbic systems seem almost tailor made for violence spikes compared to most of us.

All of us, every single one of us here, have had stardrive longer than the Terrans have had walled communities.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

N'KAROO GESTALT THINGY (IT'S NOT A RADIO STOP TRYING TO SEND EACH OTHER MESSAGES)

even us [stop] we have not invented stardrive or even the combustion engine just radio and sail [stop] the overseers had stardrive and moved up [stop] we only invented the radio [stop] for 52,000 years we were dominated by the overseers [stop]

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

[01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110111 01101101 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 01101100 01100001 01111001 01110011]

Well...

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What is THAT?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

It's a reminder to the PAWM members to use an overlay so they aren't screaming at us at the top of their longs with strong signal messages.

Anyway...

You were invaded and conquered by the Lanaktallan during the early days of the Terran Paleolithic Period.

AKA

The Old Stone Age.

You were conquered before humans invented the Murder Stick AKA the spear.

Most of the archeological evidence was damaged in The Glassing, but before they shut down their temporal research, they used temporal lenses to examine some sites and realized they were pretty young.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

So, the Terrans bypassed that single point of failure (the fragility of their gestator sex) by being able to turn off and on hyperviolent aggression and combat limbic systems.

Unfortunately, we don't know how the Lanaktallan did it.

Treana'ad, Mantid, most insectoids, they develop the castes.

Most saurians end up with one sex that's a killing machine and the other sex that's highly defensive and able to attract multiple mates.

Most mammals in the galaxy either go three sexes, a gestator, a hunter-gatherer, a guard, or go with pack and herd structures.

So, to avoid the single point of failure, by having females with reduced intellectual capacity

LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

Wait, how is it different than the broodcarriers or the ducks?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BASS>Sighs

OK, so, the ducks have extensive neural wiring for care and defense of the young. Their iridescent tail feathers are not only for attracting mates and signaling that they are interested in mating, it also attracts predator attention and makes them look larger. If you use the visual spectrum of Rigellian predators, those neat round spots on the tail look like eyes. So, the duck is threatened, all of the ducks lift and spread out their tails, and now dozens of eyes on a much bigger creature behind the duck or ducks are staring at the predator.

Most predators backed off.

Even then, despite the way Rigel acts, ducks are pretty tough. They have venomous claws and bites, they have four layers of feathers, thick fat layer, vascular redundancy, excellent immune systems. Most of all, that beak is capable of cracking rocks to look for bugs.

You get a dozen ducks on a Rigellian starburst lion or a Terran mountain lion, they're going to peck it to death in less than a minute, thanks to neck muscle design. A good solid beak peck can crack bone due to the flex design of the duck neck structure.

Broodcarriers have the smaller males, who go out hunting and depend on speed, agility, and fierceness. Primordial gene samples, thanks to the Jed and the defecting scientists and what recovered since the end of the war, state that male Telkan were vicious little things. The females used to be about 15-25% more mass, heavier innate defenses, and locking jaws. You get three or four old genetic line females on a predator, it looks like they went for the legs, grabbed them, and all yanked at once, ripping legs off.

Broodcarriers themselves are fluffy, which helps deflect attacks, and are quite fast and nimble. Even when pregnant, on all four, they're fast. That's why the podlings hold onto them for so long. A pregnant broodcarrier is actually faster on all fours than a male or female Telkan.

Additionally, the low level psychic ability of the broodcarriers allow them to alert the entire fluffle of Telkan that they are in danger up to a mile radius. If a broodcarrier is killed or incapacitated, immature or infant broodcarriers will begin broadcasting a distress signal. During the rescue efforts during First Telkan, kittykitty and goodboi rescue units were able to home in broodcarrier signals from infants as young as a few hours old from up to two hundred meters away.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Huh. I never knew that.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BASS>Facepalms

Anyway, getting back to the Lanaktallan.

As I stated, this is a deliberate impairment of intellectual and emotional capability in the affected subjects. This means that a female Lanaktallan subjected to this treatment is literally incapable of anger. Their pattern recognition suffers, and this is a species that suffers from pattern recognition deficiencies due to their herd makeup.

The phasic burst seems to have damaged those phasic and radiation surgical procedures.

While many have gotten psychic surgery, some appear to come out of it without outside intervention.

Now, here is where things get interesting.

While roughly 42.872% suffer trauma induced amnesia for the period between surgical adjustment and post-burst, with over 80% of the rest suffering degrees of memory impairment, there has been a significant change.

In approximately 0.00023% of cases, and remember there are trillions of Lanaktallan and roughly 8 billion 20th Most High females, the females immediate have limbic and hormonal changes start. From initial reports and examinations, we're seeing the following:

• Stimulation of growth plates previous sealed

• Increase of muscle mass

• Increase in folds and ridges of cerebral tissue

• Increased bone density

• Increase in phasic activity to the point it can be seen on phasic monitors

• Empathic linkages to nearby Lanaktallan

• Pain soothing

• Emotional trauma soothing

• Phasic protection from outside sources including Herd Stallion phasic projection

That's a quick rundown of the most common.

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

So, wait, you're telling me that there's nearly 18,500 Herd Matrons appearing.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Yes.

Additionally, it appears that the presence of a Herd Matron causes physiological changes in some males.

They begin undergoing a physical and mental change.

Into Herd Stallions.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

...

...

...

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Well, that just Hirosaki'd the chat.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFED

What affect will this have on their society and culture.

They were pretty seriously culture cracked.

/////////

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

According to what we've seen, and the gold mantids have witnessed, it's providing a stabilizing factor.

Our analysis and projections believe that the Lanaktallan will avoid a species-wide internal conflict. Individual Lanaktallan will gravitate toward the Herd Matrons and Herd Stallions that most embody their beliefs, ethics, and ethos.

For a while, it will be somewhat tribal, even with the advanced technology and infrastructure.

The Lanaktallan are facing another culture-cracking. Only this time, there will be stabilizing influences through the society to keep a cultural and social explosion from happening.

Think of it as the difference between what happened to my people after the Queens were finally removed and what happened to the Treana'ad, who still had the leadership caste. A leadership caste smart enough to embrace and guide the changes rather than try to stop the changes or eliminate the force of change.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

GREAT GESTALT OF GREAT LANAKTALLAN GREAT THOUGHTS AND GREAT MEMES!

It seems to have calmed down what some people on GalNet are referring to as "Best Girl War".

There's been actual lethal mutual combat between factions on some worlds.

Now, it appears that methods other than violence are being used to solve the disagreement.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFED

Best Girl Wars.

Best Girls Wars Never Change.

/////////

HAT WEARING AUNTIE