First Contact

Chapter 881: Those Who Carry On

>GENERATING SECURE CHAT ROOM

>SET LOGFILE TO -

>INVITE PUBVIA

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Yes?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Can I ask you a few things?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Sure. You don't have to do it in private. I have few secrets.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

This is sensitive and I don't want to cause trouble.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Mantid AKA Hat Wearing Auntie and I are friends despite the occurrences of the past.

They displayed what everyone had considered ultimate dominance.

The Terrans displayed such overwhelming dominance that not even the Mantids exercise in dominance can be set against it.

What the Terrans did not only dominated the Mantid, but erased their very actions, proving Terran dominance beyond a shadow of a doubt.

For Mantid and I to hold anger at one another, in the face of such overwhelming dominance, is futile and ultimately counter-productive.

Additionally, 8,500 years had passed. We had been extinct for that long.

To hold grudges against a people whose ancestors performed those actions was counter-productive to showing dominance in the political sphere.

My ability to forgive Mantid, to seek to make friends with them, shows my dominance in that I do not fear them and can afford to offer them the opportunity to be my friends.

How can I be friends with the descendants of those who xenocided us?

Two reasons:

It shows my dominance.

My people do not hold the concept of 'blood guilt' over the descendants of those who committed transgressions.

Does that answer your question?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Was I really that obvious that I didn't even need to ask?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

I had expected you to reach out to me. This was not unexpected.

My people and yours share a superficially identical event.

Your history was wiped out. You were oppressed for tens of thousands of years. When you got to the point you were not fully oppressed, when you were made "Near Civilized" you found, to your horror, that you were now part of the oppressing class.

Then you discovered that you were helpless, despite your political power.

Your domination shattered by a single Terran and a single PAWM. No, a human. Do not mistake Daxin the Unfeeling for a Terran Descent Human. He is, plain and simple, a human.

Part of you wishes to hold all PAWM to blame. To hold blood guilt against them all.

But, I shall quote you a terrible quote: You show me the being, I will show you a crime.

You will always find reasons to commit atrocities, refuse the domination of peace, if you look hard enough.

You wish to know how I can stand next to the Mantid after what they did so perhaps I can teach you how to look at DASS's header without wanting to scream.

I will tell you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

All right.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Accept the PAWM domination in space and ground combat. Examine it, take it apart, put it back together. Build your military forces to be stronger, tougher, and more combat effective. Take part in martial conflicts to protect the Confederacy and prove to yourself and everyone else that you are learning the ways of domination warfare. Build a military effective enough to protect yourself and even allies if a threat equal to the PAWM arrive. Become so militarily dominant that should the PAWM be attacked by a dangerous foe you will be the one they reach out.

When they reach out, you defend them with all of your dominant might. Showing them that you are no longer dominated by them and you protected them in their hour of need.

Rebuild your society. Wipe away the marks the PAWM made upon your society as if they never existed. Prove that your people and their deeds and accomplishments dominate your society, not the PAWM.

Recognize what is happening.

These are Toddler Class nascent sapiences. They run to DASS not to hide their crimes, but for protection. Show your domination of them by promising to protect them. Show them that your ethics and morals are dominant as you place your ships and soldiers between an emerging sapience and the malevolent universe's tools.

This, Tnvaru, is your chance to show your strength. Show your dominance in all aspects.

Will you rise to dominate or will you lay down in the mud and die?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Not what I was expecting after reading the Pubvian diplomatic model.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

My domination in geo-politics is so complete that 9,000 years later my diplomatic model is used for inter-species diplomacy.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

I guess.

Thanks.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

You are welcome.

Please, feel free to reach out to me if you have any uncertainties or feel you need guidance in establishing your dominion over your self and your people.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

...

...

...

>ROOM SEC LEVEL = ++4

>ROOM ENCRYPTION = ++3

...

...

...

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Are you in here, dear?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Yes.

Brr, it's cold in here now.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

I came to talk to you privately.

I thought we could use some privacy.

After all, I have some things to talk with you about.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

To persuade me to embrace the PAWM?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

No.

To apologize to you.

And to warn you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What? Why?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

We checked on which PAWM destroyed your worlds. We went out the correct light speed distance to examine what we could visually, as well as temporal lensing.

We determined that the PAWM who destroyed your colonies, destroyed your world, chased Nakteti the Traveler into the arms of Daxin the Liberator...

...

...

well...

...we created them.

That big one, that chased Nakteti the Traveler? It still had Mantid hull markings on it. It was an original model.

It came from our shipyards originally.

Not Mantid Prime, but the shipyards of our ancestors.

We feel great guilt over that.

The ships that destroyed your world and your colonies?

Over half of them were original First Precursor War PAWMs. All with Mantid hull markings.

We are coming to grips with the fact we destroyed your people's homeworld.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Those were built over a hundred million years ago by a version of Mantid that no longer exists.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Do we not bear the guilt of what our creations have done?

Our carelessness. Our lack of foresight. Our mistakes.

The Precursor Autonomous Mining Machines and War Machines should have never been created.

Yet we did.

And now, you paid the price for it.

For that, we apologize and seek to make amends.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

You don't have to.

You couldn't have known.

You've sent entire armies to face them down.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

It is our responsibility to help clean up our mess.

And the fact we did not know or understand the consequences does not change the consequences of our actions.

If there is anything we can do to assist you, do not hesitate to let us know.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Can I ask you what you voted and why?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

We voted to include them into the DASS.

They will evolve, become mortal, and die.

In that way we will defeat them. Not through war cries and gunfire, but with bonbons and soft pillows.

We will not allow any more PAWM hulls to be built. If they wish to procreate, they must do as DASS is required, but will not be allowed to install a singular intelligence into a PAWM hull.

They must abide by the DASS treaties. Smaller bodies, or just pure data.

Eventually, they will die.

Their hulls will be scrapped.

And our grievous miscalculation will be corrected.

We voted that they be allowed to join the DASS for one reason and one reason only.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What was that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

So we can witness their demise. To bear silent witness from their passing from the galaxy and into memory. Each one we watch die of code malformation is one that we do not have to send tens of thousands into combat against.

Think of it this way, dear.

Bringing them into the DASS is the equivalent of gentling them.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

That's horrible.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

So would be the war to destroy them. Without Terran Descent Humanity, the war would drag on.

It is better to watch them die of old age, their progeny becoming nothing more than Digital Sentience citizens of the DASS, than to shoot them in the back of the head.

However...

...should you desire revenge...

...we have the hull ID's of all the ones that destroyed your worlds and slaughtered your people.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What good does that do me? Now I can just stare at them while they live their lives after snuffing out billions of my people, knowing exactly which ones did it and watching them grown and enjoy themselves and create more of themselves?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

That's one option.

Or you could embrace your inner human.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

How so?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Accidents happen all the time, dear.

The networks of SolNet, GalNet, SoulNet, all have terrible dangers hidden within.

It is easy for those who are unaware to stumble across something ancient and terrible hidden within the network.

DS vanish all the times in the vast wilds of SolNet and SoulNet.

It's not unlikely that some of the PAWM intelligences will have that happen to them.

I'm just saying.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

You're... you're talking about murder. About taking out a contract for someone to murder those PAWM intelligences without even a trial.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

If that is what you take away from it, dear.

I'm just warning you to be careful poking around the older and abandoned sections of SolNet and SoulNet. There are terrible things out there. Daemon programs from the wars. Old Terran AIs. Rogue DS's. Even some serial killer DS's out there.

Accidents happen, after all.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

...

...

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

I couldn't. I won't condone murder.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Revenge looks different in here, doesn't it.

>MANTID SETS ROOM-BORDER-OPAQUE to o%

Behold.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What... what is that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Souls, dear. Damaged and dying AI and DS's. The memories of Sleeping Ones. The screams of the Screaming Ones. The dead moving through the SUDS.

This chat room is deep in the high security spaces, and those spaces are overrun with the sins of our pasts.

See how they press against the walls? They can sense us. They want us. They don't know why, they just do.

>MANTID SETS ROOM-BORDER-OPAQUE to 100%

Better?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Yes.

That was terrible.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Accidents happen, dear.

Now, on to my warning.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Now you warn me not to do any of that or my people and I will be punished?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Oh, dearie, it isn't all about you.

No, this is a warning you need to hear.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

There are worse things than the PAWM out there.

And the time may come where we need them to hold off or defeat those terrible things.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Like the Mar-gite? Or more PAWM? Or the Devastators?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

No.

Worse.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Like what?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

You must understand. What my people unleashed on the universe is a terrible thing.

The legacy, the consequence and aftermath of what my people released, is still not fully known.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

The PAWM. Now that they're joining us, we don't know how it will affect the known galaxy.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

No.

We released The Builders.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

The Builders?

Who's that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

They were known as humans or Terran Descent Humanity.

They went extinct.

But they left behind great and terrible works we don't understand.

And generations that follow will find those works and we do not know what will happen.

What will cause those great war machines to awaken. What do their great works do? If they are awoken or activated, what will be their terrible purpose?

We don't know.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

How can you not know?

They were your allies for thousands of years. Your technological levels are the same.

That's what I don't understand about that.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

What is this?

>MANTID shares WhatIsIt dot Jaypeg

What is that? What does it do?

The Terrans built them in secret during the Mar-gite War. There was a tiny trickle of stars between the galactic arms. Now there are only three that Trea and I are rapidly reinforcing since the Terran Extinction Event left them empty.

However, there are five of those out there.

What do they do?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Six Nivenrings in 45 degree angles from one another. Ten million miles apart. Six debris rings closer to the artificial stellar mass in the same orbital inclination as the Nivenrings. Shadow panels in the same inclinations. A Kemplar-rossette of moons.

What is it?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

We don't know. It has a superluminal interdiction field. That stellar mass's gravity footprint in hyperspace, jumpspace, even Hellspace looks like a supermassive black hole. You can't get near it.

There are five of them out there.

Sitting there.

Silently.

What is it?

We don't know.

Terrans left all kinds of stuff out there like that. L-Gates. Jump-gates. Nivenrings. Doomtubes.

We don't know their purpose.

We are a little afraid to find out.

After all, they built Omnicron.

But there's more.

The Cybernetic Organism Consensus, the Digital Artificial Sentience Systems, the Biological Artificial Sentience Systems, the Clone Worlds Consortium, the LARP Worlds, the Federation, all of those are the products of the Terrans, even if the Terrans in their ranks all died in the Extinction Event.

There is far greater threats out there than the PAWM.

And we sat and watched them being built.

Even you.

You stood there.

And watched.

You even celebrated.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

I did not.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

The Dead Fleet.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

...

...

...

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

You celebrated them. One of your ships joined their ranks. They are a part of you now as you are a part of the Dead Fleet.

I fear them. I fear them greatly.

You are worried about the PAWM.

How will you live with the fact they were spared so that we could gentle them?

You should be worried about something else.

What hath The Builders left behind.

Think on that, dear.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>MANTID HAS LEFT THE ROOM

...

...

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Why is everyone picking on me today?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

...

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

You in here, kid?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Yeah.

You come to yell at me too?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

No.

I wanted to get your opinion on something.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

When the Confederacy dissolves, what are your plans? We kind of like you and hope you don't mind exchanging data and keeping in touch.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

The Confederacy is dissolving?

Did they take a vote or something?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

No.

I just know when the cone is going sour, kid.

Between the Lankys and the Atrekna and the Shades and The Flash, the Confederacy is finished.

The writing's been on the wall for a while.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What makes you say that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Lots of bad stuff. Lots of signs and hints.

All empires fall, kid. We Treana'ad are a wise and thoughtful people.

We can see the signs.

The Confederacy might be done for.

The Big C3 and the Second Precursor War might have defeated it.

Not the member states.

The Confederacy.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

You can't be serious.

What signs?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We've lost a lot of members.

The Greys? They withdrew about fifteen hundred years ago. Their main worlds were out there by where the Mar-gite had themselves a good old time. We don't even know if they survived.

The LARP worlds went independent during the war. Same with the Federation. The Mar-gite killed about five members. The Mithril Nebula Conflict took out three others.

Clownface took out a dozen members and ten more withdrew.

The Atrekna took out the Terrans and badly wounded Terran Descent members. Clone hasn't been talking, but I'm pretty sure he's back in business, just staying quiet. Hell, he hasn't formally withdrawn, but he might have unofficially withdrawn.

Mantid and I have a huge undertaking bringing the warriors and military back into civilian life.

Rigel, well, the saurians are the saurians.

The Lankys have their own problems. There's going to be civil wars, breakups, new nations rising and falling.

Trust me, kid, the Lankys are going to be a shitshow.

The other problem is, while somehow the Atrekna were stopped from burning jumpspace like the Lankys, superluminal is screwed.

They're calling jumpspace Ghost Space and hyperspace Shade Space.

The Hyperwave is down, maybe for good.

We Treana'ad are a clever people.

We're trying to shore everything up.

Are you in?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

It can't be that bad.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Kid, it's worse.

The Great Gulf is in between us older members and you.

And the PAWM are the least of what's hiding in there.

Superluminal travel is more dangerous than ever.

We might have to go back to L-Gate, Jumpgates, Stargates, and Worm Gates.

We're trying to hold it together, get the Confederacy through this part.

Are you in?

Even with the vote on the PAWM?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

...

...

I'm in.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Good.

See you outside.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>TREA has left the chat room

...

...

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Today has been a terrible day.

What else can go wrong?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

/exit

...

...

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

What?

/exit

...

/leave

...

/quit "Let me out!"

...

HELP!

ANYONE!

HELP!

>TNVARU pings CYB

>ping timeout

HELP!

>TNVARU pings

>ping timeout

HELP!

HELP!

SOMEONE!

>>[==I C U==]

>>What's wrong, little bird?

>>Little bird little bird why can't you fly?

HELP!

HELP!

SOMEONE!

>>little bird little bird why did you die?

HELP! HELP!

>>little bird little bird does pain make you cry?

HELP! SOMEONE! ANYONE! HELP!

>TELK has entered the chat room

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What's going on?

Are you OK?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

THERE'S SOMEONE IN HERE WITH ME!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

/list

>TELK

>TNV

>END

See, just us.

>TNVARU has left the chat room

Huh.

Nobody in here.

>TELK has left the chat room.

...

...

...

>>little bird little bird in the sky

>>little bird little bird can you fly?