by Ivan Kal
As Order of Truth spread, its message appealed to many. It said that all Nel were equal, as they were all children of God. That each was given a beginning by God, but that their path in life was their own. Many who were forced to live under the rule of the families, born into the lower class, joined the Order. And soon the followers of Inatuus realized that they were in danger of losing their power, they started a war. The first true war on Nelus. Before then Nel didn’t war amongst themselves. Sure, there were disputes, small battles, but it never went beyond that. The history remembered that time differently than how it really happened. Every Nel now knew that the Order started the war, in the name of their God. The war that resulted in an unimaginable slaughter. Every Nel child grew up hearing stories about the Order, how they believed that Nel came from heaven, and that even now there were Nel out there trying to reunite with their lost family. But while everyone remembered the Order, no one spoke of it in public. It was their greatest shame. A fanatical cult that started a war that forced Nel to fight each other, taking countless lives, something that to this day was unimaginable. Following the Order of Truth was one of the greatest crimes, and has been for centuries.
The truth that Jusan was taught was slightly different. In the version he learned, it was Inatuus that started the war. Going on a crusade to kill every member of the Order, decades of mindless death and destruction. All so they could keep their power. When the Order realized what was about to happen, they decided that the sphere had to be protected. One of Jusan’s ancestors was chosen for the task. He was forced to change sides, to betray his own people. All to keep the sphere safe. His only task was to make sure that it was safe until the time was right for the people to know the truth. But the time never came. His ancestor became a merchant, gained enough wealth to become important. He passed the sphere to his son, with the same task, who in turn passed it to his son. And so on until finally it came to Jusan. Over the centuries the message changed, as both technology and language advanced enough for its message to be understood. Now Jusan knew that there was never anything religious about the sphere, there was no God. Nel did not have their fate already decided. There was only a race, a being, that was their ancestor. Nothing more. But Jusan knew that it will never be the right time for the sphere’s knowledge to be known. The time of the war was never forgotten, the gravity of so much death, made certain that no one would ever try to change things. No one would risk the repeat of history. Since the war, the families stayed in power. And as times changed, as his people learned about evolution, about the stars, the power of the families shifted from religion to simply wealth. Then religion gave way to science, it being discarded as a thing of a time when they didn’t know better. They met another race, and for the first time in their history things started to change. More power was given to the people. Until the Sowir attacked, and the families saw the chance to yet again take the power to rule in their hands. The sphere would erode that power, and they will never let it happen, not when they already let that power almost slip away. Jusan was a part of the ruling council, he knew that Tavaar would stop at nothing to keep the power in his hands. The war with the Sowir had changed his people. What was once unimaginable, was now just another reality. More than half of the Nel total population died at the hands of the Sowir. Tavaar would be willing to sacrifice a few more if that meant keeping power for himself.
But Jusan made an oath, just like every one of his ancestors did. He was the only surviving member of his family. The rest died in the war. He had no mate or children. The only thing he had was his oath. To protect the orb, and show his people the truth when the time was right. And today the message in the sphere was confirmed. So if his people would not listen to the truth, perhaps the humans would.
Jusan reached out, took the sphere of the pedestal and put it in the pocket of his robe. He turned towards the doors, and then up to his offices. He would need to make calls, get his ship ready, if he is to meet with the humans.
Chapter Nine
March 2171 – Sanctuary
Hyeon Seo-yun, Olympus Minister of Science was not happy.
“Try again.” She said, frustrated.
Mia Hanson, looked like she wanted to argue, but then she turned to one of the scientists at the terminal. “Begin the sequence.”
The man at reached with his hand and touched the screen several times. “Sequence engaged.” He said. Seo-yun looked out the protective glass, and down into the room. A small FTL comm device was in the middle of the room.
“Force field engaged.” The scientist said.
Immediately a greyish field surrounded the device.
“Opening a comm channel in 3… 2… 1… Channel opened!” The scientist yelled out.
The force field held for a second and then started fluctuating.
“Shifting frequency to match the breach!” One of the scientists shouted.
“Damn it!” Seo-yun exclaimed. She could see the field fluctuating down in the testing chamber. And then the fluctuations slowed.
“Field is stabilizing!” Mia said. “The field containment is within the acceptable range, the breach is stable.” Mia turned to Seo-yun smilingly.
Seo-yun shook her head, she almost didn’t believe it. She returned Mia’s smile. She knew how far they came, in so short a time. She firmly believed that there was no limit to what they could achieve.
When Seo-yun didn’t say anything, Mia stepped closer. “Congratulations. We now have two way FTL communications.” Mia said, and then leaned closer and whispered. “Is this really about having live video conversations?”
Seo-yun turned to the rest of the room, “That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we are going to go over every calculation again. We need to make sure this isn’t a fluke.” Her words were met with excited whispering as people started exiting the room. Seo-yun gestured to Mia to follow, and started towards her office.
When they arrived she found her way to the chair behind her table.
“So what’s this really about? We have been putting far too much time and effort into this, and it’s not like we really need it.” Mia asked.
Seo-yun sighed, “You know about the fleet drone program? They are conducting tests right now.”
“Yes, I know.” Mia said.
“Well, one of the most important parts of the program is our FTL comm capability. The drones would be controlled from other ships via FTL comms. And as it was until now, we didn’t have a real two way connection. Each time a new command was sent to the drone computer, it needs to receive it, interpret it, execute, and then formulate and send a response back using its own FTL communicator. Think of it as trying to control a ship using instant messaging. You need to formulate the command send it and wait for it to be executed. If we could manage to keep the FTL breach open for more than a moment, we could control them in real time. And now we can.”
“Okay, I get it now. But did we really need it that much? Isn’t a Fleet Commander in charge of an entire fleet from their ship? Doesn’t the command board do the same thing that the drone teams will do for the drones?” Mia asked.
“Yes and no. The command board allows a commander to send orders. But you forget that the ships he issues orders to, are not unmanned. They have crews and commanders of their own. A Ship Master can act in the time between when he gets orders. And the commands sent through the c-board are not supposed to take direct control over a ship. Fleet Commander sends an order to a Ship Master, and the Ship Master then executes it in whatever manners he or she deems appropriate. For example, a ship received a command to attack an enemy vessel but as it moves to attack, the enemy vessel fires on it. Now the Ship Master will obviously see that attack before the Fleet Commander that issued the order to attack, and will use countermeasures. A drone ship on the other hand will continue under orders to attack, until the one who controls it see the enemy vessel attack, and orders countermeasure. All of that takes time, time that might result in the drones destruction. Basically, there is a lag.” Seo-yun s
aid.
“Ok, I’ll give you that. But can’t we put a computer that would react when something unforeseen happens, an autopilot? Or better yet, why not put Ai’s on the drones?” Mia asked.
“It has been proposed. Putting a computer in charge between the commands has already been tried, and the result wasn’t good. It just slowed everything down. As for an Ai… Well, there are problems with that as well.” Seo-yun said.
“What kind of problems?” Mia asked.
“Luna, can you explain?” Seo-yun asked her personal Ai.
“Of course Seo-yun.” Luna’s voice said from the speaker in the room, “An Ai might be intelligent, but it still doesn’t think like a human would. An Ai can go through data incredibly fast, find patterns and extrapolate from the data it has much quicker than a human could. But for all that we are extremely logical, and lack human ingenuity and imagination. We would rely solely on calculating odds, and would act accordingly. And there is also the fact that we are in a way constrained.”
“Constrained how?” Mia asked.
“An Ai could read everything humanity has ever written about warfare, and still not completely understand it. We are not humans. The more time we spend active the more we “grow” and develop a kind of emotions, but ours are different than those of humans. We would never understand why a General ordered an attack when its chances of success were almost zero. We would move in a logical manner, attacking only when the odds are in our favor. While humans would not. To you it is more than simple math, you are capable of fighting against the odds. And that is something that we can’t mimic.” Luna said.
“And then there is the fact that each time a drone was destroyed, we would lose an Ai. And as each one of them is unique, it will be the same as if they died.” Seo-yun said.
“Oh… Sorry Luna.” Mia said.
“There is no need to apologize.” Luna said.
“What about using conventional light speed communications?”
“Again, there would be lag. Of course the closer a drone is to the command ship the less lag. And then there is the risk that the enemy could jam communication, or something could obscure the line of sight with the drone preventing laser communications. Basically, there is too much that can go wrong. And using those means of control would mean that the drones would be limited, only being able to operate at their full capacity close to the command ships. With the FTL comms we could control them from light years away. You see now why we needed to get this to work?” Seo-yun asked.
“Yes, I will let the our people know how important this is.” Mia said.
“Good. Now go home and rest, tomorrow will be another hard day.”
***
Seo-yun sat in the back of a grav car as her assistant drove them from the research building to the palace. Her new assistant replaced Mia on the job, as she moved on to bigger things. Now being one of the leading researchers on Sanctuary. The new guy – John – was young, in his twenties. He just finished his education and as one of the more promising students was sent to Seo-yun. Being her assistant was much more than being a driver, although it did include that. He would basically work on anything she did, giving his opinion and doing the same job as other researchers on the project did.
As they drove Seo-yun reviewed many reports that filled the queue in her imp. She reached a follow up report on the crystal forest they discovered on the other continent, the one she took Tomas to at what seemed ages ago. The report noted a couple strange readings from the crystals, and she was just about to start reading the readings in question when she was interrupted.
“We’ve arrived minister.” John said.
Seo-yun blinked and the reports cleared from her HUD, she turned and looked out of the window to see them passing the checkpoint at the palace. The guard let them through and then they were inside the walls. John parked, and Seo-yun exited, walking to his side of the grav car.
“Come pick me up tomorrow morning.” Seo-yun said to John, and then went inside the palace.
She walked through the long curved corridor, passing by palace staff. Each one slowed as she passed and acknowledged her with a small dip of their head. She switched to another corridor leading deeper into the building, and then shortly arrived at doors to Tomas’ – and hers – private quarters. She moved in about a month ago, when Tomas asked. They have known each other for a couple of decades now, and knew each other very well. It seemed a natural progression of their relationship.
Seo-yun opened the door and entered the chamber. Inside was warmly decorated, courtesy of Seo-yun. Tomas didn’t care about décor. She passed through the living room and into the bedroom. Peeking inside she found it empty. Then checking on her HUD she saw that it was already past midnight, and Tomas wasn’t asleep. She turned around and went to the doors on the other side of the living room. She entered the small office and found Tomas at the table working.
“It’s late. Why are you not in bed?” She asked as she moved closer.
Tomas raised his head to look at her in confusion. Then his face cleared. “Oh, I didn’t notice the time.” He said.
“You are doing it again. You need sleep.”
“Okay, in a minute. Just let me finish up with this.” Tomas said.
“What are you working on?” Seo-yun asked as she stopped behind Tomas. She put her hands on his shoulders and then leaned down to look at the text floating above the table.
“It’s Lanai Sumia’s proposal for a trade and defense agreement between Nuva and Sanctuary. The people on Nuva have decided that since their government abandoned them, they are free to govern themselves. And we are now their only chance to survive against the Sowir.” Tomas said. He raised his right hand to his shoulder covering Seo-yun’s hand.
“Are you going to accept?” Seo-yun asked.
Tomas sighed. “I don’t know. You remember what I said last year? That we are going to help them, but that I won’t put Sanctuary in danger because of them.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that is a lot harder to do when you meet the people in question.” Tomas said.
“It usually is.”
“I can’t accept this.” Tomas said slowly, “At least not until Adrian sends word from Nelus. I doubt that Nelus would appreciate us having an agreement with Nuva.”
Seo-yun remained quiet, letting him sort through it on his own.
“No, I need to wait. If things at Nelus go ahead, then I might add a condition concerning Nuva, making sure that it is protected. But not now.” Tomas said with conviction. He then turned his head upwards looking at Seo-yun.
“Thank you.” He said with a smile on his face.
“I didn’t do anything.” She responded.
“Of course you didn’t.” He said, grinning, and then reached up pulling her head down to his, until their lips met.
***
Unknown system – OWS Monarch
Fleet Commander Johanna Stern sat in the command chair on the Monarch’s CC. Everyone around her was busy, doing their delegated tasks as they moved deeper into the system. The Second Fleet was now 134 light-years away from Sanctuary, 466 from Earth. They still had about another ten months until they arrived in Sol. They haven’t until now encountered a trans-lane that was longer than 15 light-years, the one that will take them from this system was the first. It being 40 light-years long, with travel time of around a week. The passages through trans-lanes were short, a few days at the most, compared to the hyperspace travel that took months if not years. It was the travel between the trans-stations that was taking up most of their time. Usually they needed to pass through an entire system, or a big chunk of it in order to reach the outgoing station. Their trans-capable ships were scanning for other trans-stations in each system, and to date have detected another seven. Three outgoing and four incoming, spread through six system’s they passed through. All of their locations have been recorded and sent back to Sanctuary, for the scout ships that will soon start mapping out and exploring the immediate nei
ghborhood around Sanctuary.
But the system they just entered was also important because of another thing. The Union ship that passed through this system on its way to Earth all those years ago, recorded a dawning intelligent civilization on the fourth planet from the sun. Planet they were now approaching.
“There is still no sign of any space capable intelligence in the system, Fleet Commander.” Sensor Handler reported.
“Still nothing from the planet?” Johanna asked.
“No signs of radio, laser, or any other kind of noise one would expect from an inhabited planet.”
“Any signs of cities?” Johanna asked.
“No.”
“It could be that they simply haven’t advanced enough to form communities.” Ship Master Andros Venter commented.
“They had more than fifteen thousand years…” Johanna said.
“The Union ship didn’t record their level of their civilization. For all we know they were just entering the stone age when the Union ship passed through.” Andros said, “And we know that most of the civilizations take a long time to advance to the level of a space faring civilization. I mean even we took a long time to exit our stone age. We are unique in the way that it took us relatively little time from that point to now.”
“You might be right.” Johanna said.
Soon The Second Fleet entered the high orbit of the planet. Johanna ordered the viewing screen turned on, and they were rewarded with a greenish gray world above their heads. The CC was silent as each person took time to absorb the amazing sight above them.
“I found something Fleet Commander.” Turiel’s voice sounded from the speakers. Turiel was guiding the sensors, as an Ai could greatly increase a system’s productivity.
“What is it?” Johanna asked.
“I’m sending it to sensor station now.”
Sensor Handler Mark Reddy tapped the screen on his board and a moment later a part of the viewing screen turned black and then they saw the enhanced image of the ground. The screen showed a bird's eye view of what was obviously a kind of village. It was primitive, huts made out of wood, with beings moving about.