- 12th of April, 0 BBT
- The Voidsea, Orion League
- Syiro Star System
- Oort Cloud, 0.8 LY from Syiro
The Golauestir, also known as the Golden Water Bear.
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Ah, the Voidsea. That intriguing, pirate-riddled mosaic of nations and polities stuck between the spacetime-warping horrors of the Ventuu Badlands and the potential threat of MAGHAM’s territorial expansion. A volume of space that most coempireal Habships routinely avoided as to not have to go through skirmishes with interstellar pirates, with only some adventuring within its stars for the thrill of such things.
Despite that, the Confluence had still considered it best to contact and establish relations with the few large-enough interstellar polities scattered throughout the Voidsea that, as far as they could ascertain from the collection of data they gathered, wouldn’t be directly aggressive towards them. The situation regarding the Syndicate was rather odd, to say the least, and having it be the Confluence’s only connection to the region was the last thing they wanted. Therefore, the Orion League, a prosperous emergent interstellar polity known for being considerably xenophilic and open-minded, was chosen as the first “target” for the Confluence’s diplomatic establishment within the Voidsea.
This time, however, things would be done differently from the other recent first contacts: since both larger ships and hyperAI ambassadors seemed to harbor negative responses from those contacted in one way or another, this diplomatic expedition would revert to the oldest coeampireal protocols from the Integration Age. As was done for the first contacts with the Usca, Tihumuuh, Xe’qarin and all the other Flowkin, a Terragen, a Silvalian and a Galactyakin would go forth to represent the Confluence in the first contact: one member for each clade family of the Founderkin. Though the acceptance of the people of Orion wasn’t questioned, the diplomat Princes thought it best to play safe, and send three ambassadors of the progenitor species.
Tsoli Litabij, a human AI embodied within a humanoid nanotechnological body, was chosen as a representative for the Terragens for his extensive experience as a mediator for many of the intra-polity conflicts within the Confluence.
Heilige Rhamivend’r, a nearbaseline Kesheia with biotech augmentations, was elected to represent the Galactyakin as the former leader of the first contact with the Trrarrusians two hundred years prior.
Soeletius Candoriaal, a genemodded Silvalian cyborg, was brought forth as representative for the Silvalians thanks to their position as a member of the Coempireal Integration Council.
The three ambassadors would be carried to their destination by the Golauestir, a war-capable Habship considerably smaller than the Battlemoons used in the previous first contacts, being “only” 25 kilometers in lenght. The HyperAI residing within the ship’s computational substrates and acting as its guiding force, known as Shereen, would only accompany the representatives of the Confluence over to the Orion League’s territories: it would not participate in the first contact in any way, only taking direct retaliatory action if the situation somehow escalated. Though this was technically going against the old protocols, as HyperAIs were still involved in the contacts and diplomatic missions of the past, it was decided that from now on they would only play passive roles unless a first contact involved another AI-friendly civ or hyper-intelligent entity.
Truly, it was best to play it safe with the rest of the Sector. Of course, those contacted would be fully informed of the HyperAIs and the inner workings of the Confluence, but those were things best kept for further encounters rather than first appearences.
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The internal O’Neill Cylinder habitat of the Golauestir.
After almost a day spent travelling through the Hyperbrane, the Golauestir used the mass of a particularly large comet as an anchor for re-entering realspace within the Syiro system’s seemingly untouched oort cloud, almost a light year away from its primary. Tachyon scans showed that the closest objects to the ship were large swarms of orbital stations, detection arrays and weapons emplacements fifty thousand astronomical units inwards. Their primary point of interest was Maestro, the capital of the Orion League and the most populous and active planet in the system. But all that would come later.
”Well, here we are then. Kind of a shame that we couldn’t use the regular void bubble drive and get here the long way. It would have been nice to spend some months on the ship and get acquainted with the local culture."
The three diplomats were conversing with one another while resting in a private hall within the ship’s internal structure, with large windows overlooking the landscape of the Golauestir’s internal habitat, rotating down below and far above and all around them. On the opposite side from the windows, close to the large gilded cushions where they were sitting, a series of floating holograms displayed real-time scans and models of the Syiro system and all of the objects within it.
“Yeah, it would have, but I guess these kinds of things can’t really wait so long. Six months aren’t that much, but many things could change before even getting to our destination, and we don’t really want that.”
”A shame indeed."
“Well, at least we’ll probably be able to spend more time here in the League while we carry out our mission. If things remain nice and friendly, that is.”
”Should we be worrying about the swarms of defensive stations around the Heliopause? The last time I was met with something like that during a first contact things were about to escalate pretty quickly, ahah."
“I doubt it. If we clearly state our intentions through the message we’re about to send, we should be perfectly fine. They’re known for taking in all kinds of refugees and aid-seekers, and that doesn’t exactly strike me as particularly jingoistic behaviour.”
“I agree with Soeletius: as long as we immediately get across to them that we aren’t pirates, things ought to be alright.”
“And speaking of doing things immediately” - interjected Shereen, their voice coming from the glowing holograms besides the representatives - “you three should probably get to sending that message. We have already been spotted by the system’s detector arrays.”
“Oh my. Well, off we go then. If you could please send the message to them, that would be great, Shereen.”
“On it. Relaying the pre-recorded message through the tachyon communicators and sending it to all available receptive frequencies in the area.”
VESSELS AND STATIONS OF THE SYRIO SYSTEM, THIS IS THE HABITAT-SHIP GOLAUESTIR, HEREBY SENT TO REPRESENT IN THIS FIRST CONTACT THE CONFLUENCE OF EMPIRES, A VAST AND DIVERSE CIVILIZATION LOCATED RIMWARDS AND SPINWARDS IN SECTOR A1-0 COMPARED TO YOUR CURRENT POSITION IN THE GALAXY. WE HARBOR NO HOSTILE INTENT TOWARDS YOU, AND WE KINDLY ASK TO BE ALLOWED TO TRAVERSE FURTHER WITHIN THIS SYSTEM FOR PROPER DIPLOMATIC TALKS AND AMBASSADORIAL EXCHANGES TO TAKE PLACE IN A LOCATION OF YOUR CHOOSING. IF YOU CAN HEAR US, PLEASE RESPOND.